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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-07-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter002g.txt
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Black Bullet
6
He didn't bother asking for change as he threw a wad of cash at the cabbie before flying out of the car. It was brighter outside than he'd expected, forcing him to shade his eyes. It was cold, but the eastern sun had already risen. The waves made soothing sounds, something they'd no doubt be doing a thousand years from now.
By comparison, the offshore prison had undergone some major transformations since his last visit yesterday. There was now a tinge of blood to the salty sea breeze. He could feel his body tense up.
As he ran across the long wharf, he began to see a large number of onlookers jostling for position, along with the police officers trying to keep them away. "Hey, no entry—" a guard shouted at Rentaro. He stopped midsentence once Rentaro took his civsec license out and tossed it at him.
The elderly guard looked at it, then made a face at him. "You guys horning in on our territory again? This ain't no Gastrea job."
"But there's a chance an Initiator was involved with this, right? That oughta give me the right to go in."
"Pfft…"
The guard rolled his eyes as he lifted the police tape for Rentaro. "Show me who's in charge of the scene," he asked. The guard motioned for him to follow and started walking.
He took advantage of this invitation to scope out the rather noisy surroundings. This artificial island usually housed nothing but prisoners, guards, and their families; now it was full of forensics guys, local police, even a few special-forces men. In a way, one could describe it as a festival-like atmosphere, although not a very happy one.
Underneath the crape myrtle flowers that blossomed by the outer walls, there were a few red spider lilies strutting their stuff, a bold crimson color as they rocked in the wind. There was no telling where their seeds could've flown in from. Nearby, Rentaro could see blood spatters, human figures outlined in tape on the floor, and a seemingly infinite number of bullet holes.
"That tape… Which side were they on?"
"I dunno."
The scene inside the prison was even uglier than the one outside. On their way in, Rentaro passed by the SAT (Special Assault Team), all decked out in bulletproof gear, assault rifles, light machine guns, and more. Fatigue was written all over their faces; they must not have gotten any sleep since their overnight deployment.
After that, Rentaro passed a guard prodding a handcuffed prisoner down the hall. The prisoner alternated between muttering to himself and cursing at the guard as he stubbornly held his ground for as long as he could.
"Move it!" the guard shouted, running past Rentaro's elderly guide just as they reached the large door that led to the monitor control room. The remains of some barricades were nearby, indicating that combat must've happened here as well.
There was a small crowd in front of the door. Rentaro saluted them, and then the forensics crew, decked out in jumpsuits and identifying armbands, cleared the way for him.
That brought the girl on the floor into view.
"…"
The field of psychology tells us that people use clothing to appeal to others, to adjust how they want to look to the world around them. It was clear that the girl sprawled out at Rentaro's feet wanted people to know that she considered herself a rebel. One could imagine a career in punk rock for her, cameras flashing nonstop as she surfed over a crowd of passionate, screaming fans. She had probably imagined it, too.
Along those lines, her dream had come true. The "camera flashing" part, at least, although the cameras belonged to the police crime-scene unit instead of some entertainment outlet.
The direct cause of death, Rentaro presumed, was shock brought on by the slashing claw wound to her abdomen. The strike had plucked out a great deal of her innards, making sickening red designs on the floor. The wound, which looked like it was administered by a grizzly bear, left much of her stomach cavity open for the world to observe.
She was looking straight at Rentaro now, eyes still full of surprise. Chances were, she didn't have enough time to comprehend what had happened to her before the end came.
"Ritsu Urabe. She's an Initiator, IP Rank number 550."
Rentaro turned around to find a plainclothes police detective in short sleeves addressing him. He had a square jaw, black hair that was graying in spots, and black-framed glasses that gave him an intellectual look, although his thick eyebrows suggested an equally strong will beneath the smarts.
"You running the scene, sir?"
"I'm the one. Yoshitatsu Akutsu, superintendent."
He took a cigarette out of his chest pocket and lit it up.
"Uh, you shouldn't be smoking at a crime scene."
"Ah, lay off. I wouldn't be able to stand this stench unless I masked it with something stronger… Hey, we're done here, right? Let's send 'er on her way!"
He motioned to the crime-scene officials, who had just finished taping up the girl's outlines on the floor. They responded by loading her on a stretcher, putting a white cloth over her, and carrying her off.
There wasn't much of a physical resemblance, but the aura Superintendent Akutsu presented to Rentaro reminded him a lot of Detective Tadashima, his old acquaintance. Probably just as stubborn and in the trenches as Tadashima, too, he thought. And once Rentaro was sure of that, he knew exactly how to deal with him.
"Do you really need to bother with doing up the entire crime scene like this, sir?"
"We gotta make it clear who killed who before anything else. Sentencing gets to be a pain in the ass if you skip that part."
"Oh. Makes sense." Rentaro turned to Akutsu. "Has the riot been stopped?"
Akutsu shut his eyes for a bit, blowing tobacco smoke from both nostrils.
"More or less."
The news all but horrified Rentaro this morning. Last night, a riot had broken out at the offshore prison, leading to the escape of no less than three hundred and eighty inmates. They had taken a hundred and twenty people hostage, including the guards who didn't make it out in time and their families who lived on the Mega-Float; they'd managed to take over the entire island for a period of time. They asked for a ransom and safe passage out of Tokyo Area, and promised to shoot one hostage dead every hour that passed beyond their deadline, although the time they gave was clearly not enough to satisfy their demands.
They followed through with their threat, taking their first victim once the deadline came along, despite the efforts of police negotiators. Eyewitnesses talked to the media about the despair, spreading like a disease across the hostages' faces, when the news went around.
"I'm impressed you got things under control in less than half a day."
"Don't thank me. Save the compliments for our SAT teams on the ground. They swam their way through the minefield, entered through the prison's back entrance, and took control of the prison's monitor control room. There they activated the tear-gas sprays across the entire prison and synced that with their assault from the front door."
Akutsu blew some smoke into the air, deep lines around his eyes.
"We lost a few of the hostages, sadly, but that was the whole reason why speed was so important. Even as it is, we're running into some serious shortages in beds and free prison cells."
"Any SAT casualties?"
"None at all, they said."
Rentaro was astonished. "Talk about some real pros."
Akutsu gave him a look. "Oh, like you're one to talk. You subdued an entire team of SAT officers barehanded back at the Magata Plaza Hotel, didn't you? I mean, that's not even human, man. You know? Some 'Hero of Tokyo Area' you are."
Rentaro had been about to take out his license, but it turned out there was no need for that.
"So you know me?"
"Of course I do. And just in case you didn't know, there's, oh, a thousand guys in police headquarters who'd love to kill you right now. Our HR situation is a complete mess, thanks to you taking down Commissioner Hitsuma and all those other managers. I'm supposed to be a superintendent, but I'm having to do police-chief duties on the side, too. To hell with that shit. I wanna be out on the streets, not behind some creaky old desk."
"Well, keep it up, and I'll make you commissioner before too long."
"Oh, God, anything but that," Akutsu said, grinning as he waved his hands at him.
"So, was there someone named Andrei Litvintsev among the dead or injured prisoners?"
"Nope," the superintendent said, "no one like that. There might be a chance he's still hiding out on the island somewhere, but I sincerely doubt it. According to the prisoners we interrogated, he went out of his cell with a whole group of people and pretty much immediately vanished."
Akutsu flipped open his notebook, bringing it up to his horn rims so that it was practically touching.
"Other prisoners witnessed a single motorboat roaring away from this island. They wired the minefield behind the prison so they could set it off whenever they wanted, but if nothing went boom out there, I'd say our suspects somehow got their hands on the safe route out to sea."
"Well, yeah. The first thing they did was take over the control room and turn off all the security. They definitely did their homework."
Akutsu scratched his head in aggravation. "Damn it. Why does this have to happen just before we're gonna go to war or somethin' with Sendai Area?"
If only he knew how related those two things were.
"Um," a voice said from behind. Rentaro turned around to find a younger officer, looking a bit agitated as he fiddled with the brim of his hat.
"Are you Rentaro Satomi? There's a woman here to see you."
Oh, now what? Rentaro tsked to himself. This isn't the time.
"Tell her I'm busy."
"I told her several times that this was authorized-personnel only, but she refuses to listen to me, and"—the officer hesitated for a moment—"I didn't get a good look at her face because she's got the hood up on her outfit, but she's really beautiful. Like, elegant, or something. So I had a really hard time saying no to her, but…"
Rentaro's temples throbbed. He didn't like where this was going at all. He zoomed around to find someone jumping up and down among the throngs behind the police tape, waving frantically.
"Mr. Satomi! It's me!"
He brought a hand to his face. "Get over here," he shouted, raising the tape and grabbing the girl's hand. A few moments later, they were in a more secluded area on the island, behind the prison itself.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
The girl pulled down her hood, revealing her clear, pale skin and snow-white hair shining keenly in the sunlight. It couldn't have been anyone but the Seitenshi.
"I couldn't allow myself to merely sit alone in your home while you were running about, trying to handle my request. I know I can help you, Mr. Satomi. Besides, my disguise is perfect."
The Seitenshi spun around in place, and the bottom of her skirt lifted into the air as if floating. She was wearing a collared white dress with a white jacket and a pair of white boots to tie the outfit together. Smiling, she lowered the jacket's light hood.
She was, in a word, beautiful.
Any annoyance Rentaro felt at her presence was instantly banished as the beauty, indescribable by mere words, floored him. He realized he had never seen her in anything other than her formal palace dress. As a full-fledged public figure, she wore that outfit every waking hour of her life; it was another way to inform her citizens that she was in their service.
Seeing her do away with that, even for disguise purposes, indicated to Rentaro that something deep within the Seitenshi had changed. He wondered if he was improper to think it.
Realizing she had stunned him into silence, the Seitenshi timidly lowered her head. But her eyes looked up, toward his, as if begging for something.
"Does it…look good on me?"
Rentaro turned his back to her.
"Uh, if you're gonna disguise yourself, try picking one that won't make ten out of ten men passing by try to ask you out."
The Seitenshi blushed, bowing her head even farther.
"Oh, Mr. Satomi, are you…?"
Just before things got even more awkward, three crime-scene handlers arrived from around the corner of the opposite building, chatting with one another. The Seitenshi hurriedly put her hood back on.
Rentaro breathed a sigh of relief. Then he realized she was looking right at the group of chatting men.
"I'm impressed the police force is still functioning as normal. There might be war tomorrow, for all we know. I suppose we owe that to Kikunojo's managerial skills."
Rentaro sized up the group. "Nah," he rebutted. "Disaster experts call it normalcy bias."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-07-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter002i.txt
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Black Bullet
She looked up at him with large, questioning eyes. "Normalcy bias?"
"Yeah. When someone's facing an upcoming disaster, it's hard to make them pull the switch that says 'Hey, this is really bad, we need to do something.' People can be surprisingly lazy like that. Plus, if everyone around you's acting normal and you're the only one freaking out, people find that embarrassing. Even if there's a hot iron right at your feet, a lot of people can't make themselves take action at all."
"I think people were a lot more on edge during the Third Kanto Battle, though…"
"Well, that's because everyone knows that a Monolith falling down spells instant annihilation for all of us. The Gastrea War was only ten years ago, and we've had a handful of Pandemics since then, so everyone in the Area's used to the evacuation drills by now. But the last time people fought against one another in large-scale combat here in Japan was in World War II, back in 1945. Pretty much everyone who experienced that for themselves is dead, so none of us are capable of imagining what'll happen next. They're probably thinking something like, 'Well, maybe it won't be as bad as a Pandemic, at least.'"
The Seitenshi despondently narrowed her eyes. "Oh, but it could wind up so much worse, though…"
Rentaro crossed his arms. "The real problem," he observed, "is over in Sendai Area. Like, things are a lot more urgent for them, because they're seriously in danger of being wiped off the map. I wish I knew what Ino was gonna do next…"
"Hey! Guys!" a man shouted to the trio on the other side, running up to them. "Check out the TV! It's crazy!"
The trio exchanged looks, nodded, and followed the newcomer. Rentaro turned to the woman beside him. She was already gazing at him.
"We should go, too."
They entered the prison, following closely behind the trio as they filed into the cafeteria. There was a single LCD TV attached to one wall of the cavernous chamber, assorted police detectives and crime-scene officials fanned around it in a crowd. They all watched the screen with bated breath, the air tense. Rentaro had to stand on his toes to get a look.
A chill ran down his spine.
The screen showed a gigantic centipedal Gastrea, one that made the bare rock surrounding it look like a miniature set. Its face was reptilian, and its legs, outfitted with scythelike serrated blades, seemed to be nearly infinite in number.
It was Libra, the King of Plagues. But what shocked Rentaro wasn't the sight of Libra itself; it was the translucent viral sacs around its stomach area. They were inflated and taut, like party balloons, and they jiggled around, seemingly ready to release their lethal payload at any moment.
Rentaro wiped sweaty palms on his pants legs.
The scene changed to what was presumably file footage of Ino holding a press conference. The content was nothing if not predictable. The prime minister shook his fist in the air, his speech too loud and anger laden to make out clearly. Among what Rentaro could make out, however: "If Tokyo Area does not withdraw Libra by three a.m. tomorrow, we will launch a simultaneous full-scale attack on both Libra and Tokyo."
The officers around the TV nervously chattered with one another as the screen returned to the news studio, an anchorman warning viewers to stay away from private weapon manufacturers, self-defense force facilities, and other locations likely to be Sendai Area's initial targets. He then moved on to a primer on basic anti-disaster preparations.
Rentaro gingerly turned to his side. The Seitenshi, head under the hood, watched the screen sternly.
"Before I fled the palace, I asked them to send a diplomat over to Sendai Area, but…by the looks of things, I doubt they're making much progress."
She turned toward him.
"Mr. Satomi, did you notice? Prime Minister Ino may have been incensed, but he did not act like an insane man. He sounded rational to me. Despite how bellicose they're being with their speeches, wouldn't it be safe to say that Sendai Area is still hesitating to go through with it? Isn't this their way of telling anyone who noticed that they're willing to wait up until the very last moment?"
Rentaro silently admired her for making that observation. She hadn't become head of a nation out of pure happenstance, after all.
After a while, once the TV news started repeating itself, the Seitenshi shrugged, her face exhausted. "Would it be all right if I rested over there?" she said, pointing to a corner of the cafeteria.
Taking a chair and following her, Rentaro couldn't help but notice that despite the early-morning hour, there was an oddly spicy scent coming from the kitchen.
"I'm sure the cafeteria staff must be making breakfast for all the police who spent the night handling the riot," observed the Seitenshi. "I'll go see if we can get some, too."
She stood up before he could stop her and talked things over with one of the cooks, who bowed deeply to her. "Here you go," she said as she carried two trays back, each with a plate of rice curry. Never in Rentaro's life did he ever imagine the most powerful person in his homeland running waitress duties for him. He wondered what her servants in the palace would think about that as he took in the warm, inviting curry aroma, the spices stimulating his sense of smell in an extremely pleasant fashion.
Although not too enthusiastic about it at first, he picked up a spoonful and brought it to his mouth. Then his eyes shot wide open. It was a perfect harmony—sweet, spicy, and just the right amount of salt. The sensation of the melt-in-your-mouth curry, accompanied by the onions and potatoes in the sauce, made him drown in euphoria. He wasn't even really thinking about food before the plate arrived, but the next thing he knew, he was taking one spoonful after another, trying to get at every grain of rice.
On the other side of the table, though, there was the Seitenshi, spoon in hand, just staring at her own steaming plate.
"What is it?" he asked.
"No, I…I mean, my meals in the palace were managed for an exact balance of vitamins and nutrients down to the last milligram, so…I was just thinking what they'd say if they saw this."
"Lady, you're the head of state. You can eat whatever you want."
The Seitenshi quietly shook her head. "Not quite. I may be head of state, but that does not put me in a ruling position over my people. I speak for the people who selected me, and I have a duty to give them everything I have."
She closed her eyes, bringing a hand to her cheek.
"I am blessed, it is true, to receive a great deal of compliments on my appearance. People, for better or worse, seek beauty from me, and if beauty helps my voice come across more clearly to my people, then I would gladly consider my body, too, to be in their service. That is why I strive for beauty, and if I disrupt my nutritional balance, that could cause my beauty to disappear, breaking the unwritten law between myself and my— Mmph!"
Rentaro used the hand that wasn't shoving a spoonful of curry in her mouth to rub one of his shoulders. Just listening to her go on was making them ache.
The Seitenshi shot to her feet, shaking with surprise. "Wh-what are you doing?! I—I… Not even my own mother ever did something as brazen as—"
"—It's impolite to talk with your mouth full."
It was only then that she realized she hadn't so much as chewed yet. She covered her mouth, blushing, as she swallowed. Now her eyes were filled with a more pleasant sort of surprise.
"…This is good."
"Yeah, isn't it? Isn't that the whole point? If it's good, who cares? As long as you're with me, at least, forget about all that 'head of state' crap. If you can't, then get your ass back in the palace now."
"Y…es. You're right… Thank you, Mr. Satomi."
The Seitenshi gave him a warm, bright smile, so bright that Rentaro couldn't stand to look at it with the naked eye. Something about the pickled relish the curry came with seemed particularly bittersweet to him, now that he was eating it to hide his embarrassment.
The two fell into an amicable if slightly awkward silence after that, opting to concentrate on their meals instead of idle conversation. It was the Seitenshi who finally broke the ice again.
"You've made your rounds around the prison, right, Mr. Satomi?"
"Yeah. Looks like Litvintsev fled on us."
"Did you notice anything else, though?"
Rentaro's spoon halted in midair before reaching his mouth.
"There's one thing that's bothering me, yeah. There was a dead Initiator sprawled out in front of the control room. She was sent out from the IISO on security detail; Rank 550. Done in by that Kochenkova girl, the one you warned me about yesterday."
"Are you sure about that?"
"We're talking about someone who could kill Rank 550 in one strike."
Rentaro recalled the tigerlike claw wound as well as the death mask of surprise on the victim's face. He shook his head. "They got us… They really got us. This Yulia Kochenkova girl—I know she's way more powerful than Enju. I swear, that's one Initiator I could never let her fight…"
"Mr. Satomi, I've been thinking about Litvintsev a little myself, and I've been wondering: Why did he take the risk of calling you over if he knew he was going to escape the very next day?"
"…"
"Because here's my idea. I'm thinking that he wanted to give you a personal message before he left. Something along the lines of…well, 'Catch me if you can,' I suppose."
Bitter, Rentaro crossed his arms, rubbing them with both hands and gritting his teeth. Are you saying you can make the entire world shudder all by yourself? You, a single person? He had to be honest with himself—he didn't want to get involved with that man ever again. Just seeing the full strength of Yulia in action turned him off the idea for good.
If he kept pursuing Litvintsev, he felt instinctively it'd lead to events that he'd likely regret for the rest of his life. This was, after all, the Russian military he was dealing with. Each one of them a trained professional. Cold-blooded pros who wouldn't flinch at murder for the sake of their mission. They lived in a different world.
But, at the same time, he also knew that there was no turning back. If he didn't take action, after all, it would affect the lives of an unimaginably huge number of people.
"This fight isn't over yet, Mr. Satomi. Let's rack our brains and figure out where Litvintsev might be hiding."
Rentaro heaved a sigh and tried to keep his mind serene. "Yeah," he said. "Let's start by thinking about where Litvintsev and his crew could have gone."
The Seitenshi gave him a soft smile. "I'd be glad to help."
It didn't matter to him if this was just a brave show she was putting on. He silently ordered himself to think about the future instead as he sat back in his seat and crossed his arms.
"Okay, so do you have any ideas, even rough ones, of where they're hiding out? They couldn't have fled Tokyo Area that quickly."
"That's what I thought, too. Even if the hull of their motorboat was lined with Varanium, that wouldn't be enough to engage seafaring Gastrea. I would guess they're hiding out in Tokyo Area after getting back on land."
"Could they have taken a plane out of the Area?"
"Tokyo Area's air defenses are on high alert with the whole Sendai Area threat. They wouldn't let a single gnat escape the Area right now. There's a nonzero chance, I suppose, but I think we'd be safe to ignore it."
Rentaro carefully took his thoughts one step further. "You explained to me a couple days ago that Litvintsev's people were using Solomon's Ring and the Scorpion's Neck to take control of Libra."
"Right. Stage Fives can communicate with one another via sound and electrical waves, so they might be stimulating the vocal cords taken from Scorpion's corpse to create those waves. Then they could use the Ring as a translator to exchange messages. To put it another way, they could use the Neck to convince Libra that Scorpion is still alive."
"But how are they getting those signals or whatever all the way to Mount Nasu in Tochigi Prefecture? That's over one hundred and fifty kilometers away as the crow flies. I don't know anything about wave physics or whatever, but can you send an electrical signal that far without it falling apart?"
"The answer to that is right above your head, Mr. Satomi."
Rentaro followed the Seitenshi's pointed finger up to the stained, faded ceiling. A line of tear-gas sprayers was situated directly above. That probably wasn't what she meant, Rentaro figured. But then it finally struck him:
"Oh! A satellite…?"
The Seitenshi nodded approvingly. "Good. That was some fast thinking, Mr. Satomi. Geosynchronous satellites are generally equipped with relay devices called transponders. A site on Earth's surface can send a signal up to one, and the transponder will amplify the signal and send it back to another site. That essentially eliminates any physical wave-strength limitations, and I'm sure that's what Litvintsev and his men are using."
"Well…wait. Hang on." Rentaro raised a hand to stop her as he attempted to collate his disparate thoughts. "Aren't satellites expensive? It's not like everyone's allowed to use them."
"Exactly. As of 2031, most satellite access is restricted to police, civil security, or military usage. Someplace like Shiba Heavy Weapons launching a satellite of their own is the exception to the rule, really. I don't know if your mobile phone can work via satellite access or not, Mr. Satomi, but if it does, you have the right to own that only because of your civsec license."
Rentaro nodded. A satellite phone, which by definition never found itself without service access, was a must for civsecs active in places like the Unexplored Territory. Agents like him had permission to use them, as well as military-grade GPS tracking technology.
"Is satellite bandwidth or whatever still that precious these days?"
"Yes. Geosynchronous satellites have a shelf life of five to fifteen years, so they have to be relaunched on regular occasions. The Gastrea War, however, cost most nations the entirety of their space programs. Sagittarius shot down a lot of them during the War, too…"
"Oh…right," Rentaro said, a sour taste in his mouth.
"So it's fair to say that wherever Litvintsev and his team are hiding, it's got to have a satellite uplink and downlink on premises. That'll narrow our list of candidates pretty quickly."
"An uplink and a downlink? Is that like sending and receiving data from a satellite?"
"Right, right."
"Kind of like uploading and downloading, huh?"
The Seitenshi frowned a little, finger on her chin. "Um, not really, is it?"
Rentaro dropped the topic instead of letting it slow their progress. "So, uh, how many places in Tokyo Area would have that kind of up- and downlink capability?"
"One."
"Huh?" Rentaro asked incredulously. "So that's gotta be the place, right?"
"No," the Seitenshi said as she solemnly shook her head. "Not there."
"What? But—"
"It couldn't possibly be there. That's why nobody in the palace is doing anything about it."
Now there was real force behind her voice. Force that would've made anyone hesitate to press on. If she was that insistent about it, Rentaro reasoned, it must have been safe to remove it from the list.
But—damn it, this was getting annoying. Anything he could've thought up with his feeble knowledge, the Seitenshi already considered a decade ago. I guess this is the end of the road, Rentaro thought. So this is it? I'm doomed to just sit here and watch Litvintsev engineer all-out war between Tokyo and Sendai?
Just as his mind was about to voyage into dark, murky waters, a helping hand arrived from an unlikely source.
"Oof!" uttered an elderly voice as something pushed Rentaro from the side. It was Superintendent Akutsu, sitting down at the table with a plate of curry in hand. The eyes buried in his wrinkled face swiveled over to his.
"Why're you guys helping yourself to the food they made for us, huh?" he growled. "And you've got your girl here, too? What the hell?"
The Seitenshi's chair clattered as she got up, face red as an apple as she struggled to say something.
"I…I…I am not Rentaro's 'girl,' good sir…!"
"Good what?"
She covered her mouth, brought the hood down over her head, and sat back down on the chair with a heavy thud.
"Wh-what do you want, though?" Rentaro asked, striving to get the conversation back on track.
"Could've sworn I heard that voice before…but anyway, you're trying to track down Litvintsev, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
Akutsu narrowed his eyes and let out a chiding laugh.
"Well, you're in luck, 'cause we got a witness here who might just know where he ran off to."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-07-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/copyright.txt
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Black Bullet
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
-Light novel-
BLACK BULLET, Volume 7
SHIDEN KANZAKI
Translation by Kevin Gifford
Cover art by Saki Ukai
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
©SHIDEN KANZAKI 2014
All rights reserved.
Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS
First published in Japan in 2014 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2017 by Yen Press, LLC
-Manga excerpt-
BLACK BULLET, Volume 1
MORINOHON
Original Story: SHIDEN KANZAKI
Character Design: SAKI UKAI
Translation by Nita Lieu
Lettering by Abigail Blackman
©SHIDEN KANZAKI/MORINOHON 2013
All rights reserved.
Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS
First published in Japan in 2013 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2015 by Yen Press, LLC
Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.
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First Yen On Edition: September 2017
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kanzaki, Shiden, author. | Gifford, Kevin, translator. | Ukai, Saki, illustrator.
Title: Black bullet. Volume 7, The bullet that changed the world / Shiden Kanzaki ; illustrations by Saki Ukai ; translation by Kevin Gifford.
Other titles: The bullet that changed the world
Description: New York, NY : Yen On, 2017. | Series: Black bullet ; 7
Identifiers: LCCN 2015046479 | ISBN 9780316304993 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344890 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344906 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344913 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344920 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344944 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316510646 (v. 7 : pbk.)
Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K29 Blac 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046479
ISBNs: 978-0-316-51064-6 (paperback)
978-0-316-44200-8 (ebook)
E3-20170829-JV-PC
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-07-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/preface001.txt
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Black Bullet
PROLOGUE THE KING OF PLAGUES
Liquid poured from the fountain, around the statue of some god or another. It took in some blue from the sky as it fell and wafted the crisp smell of fresh water into the nostrils of passersby as it broke the surface of the collection pool.
It drove the woman in white to bend a knee, remove one of her long gloves, and slowly plunge her hand inside. It felt good; the cold water was comfortable in the midsummer heat. As she knelt, she could see the corroded aluminum of single-yen coins and the rusted copper of ten-yen pieces that had sunk to the bottom.
Letting her mind go as she flicked her wrist around, the woman could feel all the dust and muck from the world around her vanish into thin air. But the serenity didn't last long. She heard heavy footsteps on the stone pavement behind her.
"It is time, Lady Seitenshi."
"Have you figured out where the Neck and Solomon's Ring are yet, Kikunojo?" asked the Seitenshi, the head of government in Tokyo Area, as she turned around.
The chief aide's face didn't move a single muscle. "We are currently searching for it, my lady."
"Have you discussed things with Satomi yet?"
"If I could say so, my lady, I am against entrusting any of that to him in the first place."
The Seitenshi rose and surveyed the large, gray-haired man behind her, just in time to see him finally drop his brows a little. "Would it be overstepping my bounds," she said, "to ask why?"
"My lady, he is merely a civsec officer. You are granting him far too much responsibility."
"You're certain that Andrei Litvintsev and his people have entered Tokyo Area?"
"We are certain, yes."
She let out a sigh. "Not exactly a rosy future, is it?"
"We had best focus on the summit ahead of us first."
"……"
"Less than enthusiastic, my lady?"
The Seitenshi closed her eyes for a moment before slowly opening them.
"Let's get going."
She followed Kikunojo across the stepping stones. They strode through a tree-lined, well-manicured lawn, up to a roaring wall of water. The moment she stood in front of it, the water flow stopped dead, a combination of face-detecting sensors and actuators bringing a corridor into view.
Passing through a damp, square gazebo and an artificial waterfall on the other side, she found herself holding her hat down fast against a brisk side wind. All she could hear was the rustling grass under her feet as she looked up from under her hat, regarding a chalk-white building looming under the clear blue sky.
This was Akasaka Palace, the government's guest house and reception hall for official ceremonies. It had been heavily refurbished after the Gastrea War, but the off-white granite and pondering sense of symmetry remained just as it was in its 1909 opening.
Proceeding past the security guards in black and through the front door, the Seitenshi was met with a room laden with décor just as intricate and gaudy as her own palace. An attendant guided them to the mighty door that opened the way to the White Phoenix Room.
"It's now or never, my lady."
The Seitenshi felt the sweat on her palms through the gloves. She could palpably feel her pulsing heart through her crossed arms.
"…What happens beyond these doors could change the entire future of Tokyo Area, couldn't it?"
Don't let your guard down, she told herself. You're dealing with people incredibly gifted at making others slip up—with the extensive experience required to freely wield that talent, no less.
She took a deep breath and started to open the door. It made more of a heavy thudding sound than she expected, enough to make the conversation beyond skid to a halt as the people inside turned their eyes to her at once. She didn't flinch. That much, at least, she was expecting.
The room, modeled after what the late-era French royal family preferred in the eighteenth century, was thrown into a chest-splitting silence. There was a fresco on the ceiling, the curtains lined with gold fiber. It was uniformly laid out in off-white and golden colors, topped off with a grandiose, 800-kilogram chandelier that shone so brightly, it was hard to look at directly.
The Seitenshi walked up to her appointed desk. Kikunojo pulled out the chair for her as she sat.
"Were you out picking flowers, Lady Seitenshi?"
A jab at her for being a woman, perhaps. It was painfully difficult to retain a cool face against such a malignant joke.
"I apologize for being late, President Saitake. Please continue."
Sougen Saitake, head of Osaka Area and a man whose face eternally evoked that of a lion in midpounce, gave an embarrassed grimace and snorted, as if he was the one being affronted. As he did, the Seitenshi surveyed the collection of elderly men surrounding her, and let out a little sigh at their eminent-looking visages. They were all seated in one room: the leaders of the Osaka, Sendai, Hakata, and Hokkaido Areas.
A historic moment—the first official summit between all five heads of state in the islands of Japan.
It was sort of like a G5 summit that Japan had all to itself. One had to wonder how apt that comparison was, but Tokyo Area's responsibilities as host were still nothing to gloss over.
"Now, can we get back to the Japanese national flag issue, please?"
The voice, accompanied by a rapping on the table, came from what the Seitenshi was pretty sure was the Hakata—
"Which issue is this, Prime Minister Kaihoko?"
There were deep lines drawn across the dark, tanned skin of Masamori Kaihoko, prime minister of the southern-lying Hakata Area. His hair was a salt-and-pepper mix, and his deep-set, heavy eyebrows only added to the physical threat he exuded whenever he spoke.
"Right now," Kaihoko huffily began, "Japan is still using the red-and-white hinomaru as its official flag, but it's been taking a beating in my native Area. People say the red circle resembles the eye of a Gastrea too much. What I'm suggesting is that we change it—change it to anything, really. A yellow circle, a black one, whatever."
"Well, make it a black circle, then," the man sitting next to him said as he nodded amicably. "As a Varanium-producing Area, a black circle would represent what we're all about perfectly."
This was the newly appointed prime minister of the Hokkaido Area to the north. He enjoyed nervously fussing with his monocle whenever he spoke, a rather distinct five-o'clock shadow of a mustache encircling his lips.
The suggestion was not one the Seitenshi was willing to let slide. "Prime Minister Juzouji," she said, "I think we should consider the role of tradition here. There is intense meaning, after all, to the things our ancestors helped protect for us."
"So, you're telling me to ignore the will of my constituency?"
The Seitenshi turned to Kaihoko. "Yes," she began, "I know you're up for election soon, Mr. Kaihoko. But focusing on the day-to-day whims of the people will leave your administration rudderless. A successful government needs to run on guiding principles, lest it run the risk of losing its mandate to lead."
The head of Hakata Area closed his opened jaw tightly, raising an eyebrow in rage.
"Damn it, girl…"
"I'm glad we have an understanding," the Seitenshi calmly replied to the heedless name-calling. Maybe this was working her way. Maybe she had what it took to fend off Kaihoko and Juzouji—these weather-beaten career politicians—after all.
Saitake raised a bony hand, sneering at the others in his room. "Let me weigh in, then," he rasped. "I wanted to ask about the Cassiopeia Project…"
"Yes," the Seitenshi instantly replied. "I would like to see work proceed as quickly as possible on that."
She was expecting this to come up. Cassiopeia involved building a vast underground rail network, using gigantic tunnel-boring machines to link the five Areas together. It was a central part of the Seitenshi's political platform, and it was a project she fervently wanted to see take root, no matter how much political capital it took.
"An underground network"—she spoke clearly as she sized up her peers one by one—"will not only energize the economies of all five of our Areas; it will also serve as a symbol of peace and harmony between us. It will kindle a new, and substantial, light of hope within our people—the hope that mankind is capable of striking back against the Gastrea menace."
"Oh, I don't know about that…"
A shiver ran down the Seitenshi's spine as a subdued voice spoke up for the first time. It came from the prime minister of Sendai Area: His hair was completely white, right down to the eyebrows, and it had receded to the point where it existed only in a pair of tufts around his ears. It made the top of his head shine, like he had oiled it before coming in. The combination of protruding cheekbones and small, beady eyes gave him a gorillalike appearance, and his eyes shone with what seemed like a deep suspicion of everyone and everything around him.
It was enough to make her unconsciously straighten her posture. That took a lot. She was in the same room with Sougen Saitake, a man whom she was fairly certain had tried to kill her not long ago; Masamori Kaihoko, every bit Saitake's equal when it came to extreme beliefs and aggressive politics; and Tsukihiko Juzouji, still a complete question mark when it came to his abilities as head of state. But it was Muramaro Ino, prime minister of Sendai Area, whom the Seitenshi considered to be the eye of this typhoon that the summit was shaping up to be.
"By which I mean," Ino muttered, putting heavy emphasis on each syllable, "that it is simply not realistic. How much time and money do you think that would require? Perhaps you have the financial freedom for it, Lady Seitenshi, but we might all be old and senile by the time they hold the ribbon-cutting ceremony."
It seemed he meant to get a laugh out of the last sentence. But in the heavy-handed atmosphere, it never had a chance.
"Prime Minister Ino, I don't know if you've been following recent advances in tunnel development, but the progress they've been making is simply astonishing. If we could deploy shield machines in Tokyo Area and Sendai Area, we could create a true physical link between the two Areas far more quickly than you'd think."
"Mm, yes," Ino responded leisurely as he scratched his head. Her argument, as she feared, had fallen on deaf ears.
Linking all five Areas together by rail would drastically reduce transport costs. It would also take Hokkaido Area's inexpensive agricultural produce, Osaka Area's heavy-industry manufacturing, and Tokyo Area's world-leading Varanium supply and collate them together into a united front for Japanese trade.
She was sure Sendai Area's farmers and manufacturers were lobbying Ino against the idea. The think tanks that had Ino's ear were similarly interested in protecting their vested interests, no doubt.
In a way, the Seitenshi couldn't help but smile to herself at the irony. As recently as ten years ago, there was just a single nation known as Japan; now, in 2031, it was hard to picture reunification happening anytime soon. But that was what she wanted to see in her lifetime—five Areas returning to one and resurrecting the country of Japan. Right now, however, she suspected that Gastrea weren't necessarily the greatest obstacle after all.
In the end, and no doubt to Ino's great relief, no agreement was made on the Cassiopeia Project. It was delayed again, and the Seitenshi would have to settle for that. The other heads of state agreed it was too early to decide on everything in this meeting, that they needed to bring the proposal back home for deliberation. But if these old men didn't have the discretionary power to act on the idea, who else in their governments would?
It wasn't until the group began to wrap up their discussions, which touched on everything from macroeconomics to energy and climate-change issues, that the taciturn Ino decided to speak up.
"By the way…"
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-07-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/preface001b.txt
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Black Bullet
—Maybe he had picked this exact moment to speak, once everyone had started to soften their stances a little.
"I understand Tokyo Area possesses something called the Inheritance of the Seven Stars."
The Seitenshi's eyelids burst wide open. She exchanged glances with Kikunojo, standing next to her.
"Where did you hear about this 'Inheritance'?"
"Well," Ino said with a gloom-inducing laugh, "I do have something like an information agency at my disposal. It's just idle gossip, I imagine, but according to the chatter that's been related to me, Tokyo Area is allegedly using a mysterious object known as the Inheritance of the Seven Stars as a catalyst to summon a Stage Five Gastrea—a Zodiac. There's no truth to it, is there?"
"I can't answer that," the Seitenshi said curtly.
Ino's eyes glinted with suspicion. "What does that reply mean, I wonder? There's no need for constraint. It would be perfectly fine to laugh it off as the idle gossip that it is."
"I can't answer that."
"Well! So now the leader professing to be the great uniter of the five Areas is hiding things from the rest of us?"
The Seitenshi was at a loss for an answer. She knew this was bad. She was concocting a situation for herself where she was all but inviting her peers to interrogate her.
"I apologize, but this is conflicting with Tokyo Area classified material."
Her voice held none of the calm coolness from before, nor was there even the slightest indication a reply would do anything to soothe the supreme awkwardness of the room. But, mercifully, Ino did not pursue her any further. The summit came to a close—one where they had failed to find a compromise on nearly every topic.
But in the space of just a few days, the discord between the two would trigger events potent enough to change the world.
"Keep your hands moving! Get back to your posts!"
The shouting from the field boss echoed across the cavern, almost physically driving him to take up the grip of the jackhammer and drive the chisel down into the hard rock beneath. He pushed the throttle lever, and the resulting pneumatic action battered the hammer's Varanium chisel into the rock. The overpowering earthen smell in the air, combined with the bone-rattling jackhammer recoil, made him instinctively keep one eye shut.
A dank, humid underground cavern was never an ideal work environment. The man found himself regularly lowering the hammer grip just so he could wipe the sweat from his brow. All around him, under the dim light of a bare bulb, other hammerers, faces dirty with thick, heavy dust, were loading crushed rock into a conveyor. From here, in this pit, it wasn't clear whether it was afternoon or evening.
To Hitoshi Kamisu, it felt like he had taken his life and tossed it right into an antlion pit.
He was inside one of the mines that dotted the Unexplored Territory beyond the Monoliths. Before the Gastrea War broke out in 2021, he was importing and selling cosmetics to people. That evaporated quickly, and in the Gastrea-infested postwar era, where all aircraft were required by law to have civsec-piloted escort planes to protect them from bird- and insect-type Gastrea, the resulting costs no longer made the risk/reward ratio at all feasible.
Back in college, Hitoshi read somewhere—maybe from Darwin, but maybe not—that "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change." Along those lines, Japan in the postwar years, so drastically changed in every way by the Gastrea, was nothing he was capable of adapting to. He had more than enough money in the bank to reestablish himself, but something made him too timid to try much of anything anymore. Instead of taking risks and challenging himself to new heights, he was perfectly happy to cruise along and watch his finances gradually dwindle.
Rock bottom didn't come along until ten or so years later. He was more or less kidnapped by yakuza seeking redress for some financial debts. That was the beginning of Hitoshi Kamisu, Varanium miner. It was simple, brain-dead work, nothing with any discernible future potential to it.
B3F, the assigned floor Hitoshi had descended to in the mine elevator, was both darker and gradually narrower the deeper it went. The iron beams supporting the ceiling were nothing he felt safe counting on. A coworker told him that modern technology had all but eliminated cave-ins, but this operation was an illegal one—unauthorized mining run by a front firm for the yakuza—so there was no telling how much of this "technology" was up to code.
He was shaken out of bed each morning, fed a breakfast that was never particularly good, then forced to work until evening before he collapsed back into his shabby blankets. Anything that could give him the current time, like a watch or cell phone, had been confiscated from him first thing, so it was hard to know for sure, but his body clock told him it was between one and two in the afternoon.
The thing that really exasperated him about this job was how it took a good hundred kilograms of ore to extract a single Troy ounce (around thirty-one grams, apparently) of Varanium. It was his job to hammer through all that ore.
On more than a few occasions, he found himself jerked out of bed after having dreams of Gastrea screaming at him in deep, hoarse cries. Civsecs were handling security duty here 24-7, but the kind of civsecs the yakuza dug up weren't much more than criminals themselves—birds of a feather, and all that. Their job seemed to be less security and more about rounding up miners who went AWOL. And besides, the miners here all had money troubles with the yakuza. They all knew, should a powerful Gastrea come strolling along, the yakuza sure as hell weren't gonna spend any more money rescuing their asses.
"Yo! How many times I gotta tell you? Keep your hands moving!"
Hitoshi grunted to himself and returned to work.
A shuddering boom sent the light bulb flickering as pebbles and dust shook free from the ceiling. Waves of surprise ensued from the miners. Hitoshi thought it was some kind of controlled blasting work, but another faraway boom made dust fall from above again. Cold sweat ran down his arms, his heart racing. He didn't like this.
The sound gradually grew to a rhythm. By the seventh time, the boom was close enough to trigger earthquakelike shaking. Hitoshi fell, his legs going out from under him as his hip painfully struck the floor. It was coming closer. It was almost like—
"Are those some kind of footsteps…?"
The words, muttered to no one in particular, were like a seed of anxiety planting itself in his heart. It sprouted in an instant, with vines of terror entwining his body. Before anyone could even shout "Run!" he was already in action. The field boss was screaming at everyone to return to their posts, but Hitoshi knew his heart wasn't in it. The managers were outnumbered, and they had no motive to fend back the oncoming rush of bodies.
The mine elevator, packed to the gills with people surrounding him, shook as it emitted ominous, shrill creaking sounds, like fingernails on a chalkboard. The hardy miners onboard all cringed, fearful of a ceiling collapse. What was this? What was going on?
Soon, the car made it to ground level. The fence surrounding it was quickly swept away. Hiroshi jumped over to the frame of the nearby hoisting tower, groaning at the sharp light piercing his vision—it must have been afternoon after all.
But the next moment, everything went dark as the sun disappeared. Hitoshi looked up at the sky, unsure of what had happened.
And then he saw it—
It made his sense of scale go haywire. That was the only way to put it. From his post in the hoisting tower, he was looking at a long, thin, rippling pile of muscle. Legs lined both sides of its body, each one bursting with bristles and wartlike growths. This thing was right in front of Hitoshi, and to him, it was a majestic sight—one that seemed to make all descriptions of hugeness obsolete.
The long, vertical body, reminiscent of the Great Wall of China, looked like some kind of ringed worm or leech. Its body was upright, its ground-driven legs divided into segments. The more developed of these legs curved outward like scythes while the bottommost ones dug into the earth. It was a mammoth-level Gastrea, and it was right in the midst of crossing over Hitoshi's hoisting tower. Its stomach portion blocked the sun and scared him out of his wits.
With a mixture of screaming and shouting, the security civsecs fled the scene in all directions, fully abandoning the mine site. And with every step the Gastrea took, Hitoshi's stomach was jostled and torn by the vibration of the boom. It sent plumes of rock dust flying into the air as it smashed through the portable Monoliths lining the site, chopping them to pieces like a karate demonstration.
Then Hitoshi noticed the large number of saclike growths on the bottom half of the Gastrea. They looked like eggs, and something about them triggered a memory.
"Viral sacs? No…no way."
He groaned and took a step back.
The Zodiac Gastrea, king of all Gastreas—
"Libra, the King of Plagues…!"
There was no doubt about it. It was one of the creatures that made the entire world shudder ten years ago.
Two hours later, the news had made its way to the nerve center of Tokyo Area—the Seitenshi's palace in District 1.
The office in the western tower, used by the head of state, was tense. Staffers ran to and fro, confirming sources and trying to figure out a response.
"So, Libra halted its advance at that mine," the Seitenshi stated calmly, elbows on an enormous work desk. "Where is it?"
Kikunojo, face stern as always, waved a hand. The room darkened, revealing a large holopanel map hovering in midair. It showed a large stretch of Unexplored Territory between the Tokyo and Sendai Areas.
"It sits nearby the Mount Nasu range, in what we would've called Tochigi Prefecture ten years ago. We don't have any record of the government awarding mining rights in the area, so it was probably an illegal operation."
The Seitenshi stared intently at the holodisplay as it shone in the darkness.
"…So Libra appeared near the midpoint between Tokyo and Sendai. What's its status?"
"Currently, it has taken up position directly above the mine, coiled like a snake."
"So it's stopped moving?"
Kikunojo shook his head. "That I cannot say."
"What was Libra's ability again…?"
"The ability to take in tens of thousands of viri, fatal exclusively to human beings, and diffuse them into the air. These viri are not only breathable; they can be absorbed through the upper skin layer. You would need the latest in anti-contamination suits to physically block them. The viri Libra produces are also resistant to ultraviolet light and can make it through the Monolith magnetic field. It went through Russia ten years ago and turned that place into a living hell. The streets were filled with people dying of all kinds of bizarre, unheard-of, and agonizing diseases. The stench of the bodies reportedly made it all the way to Beijing."
"Hence 'the King of Plagues,' I suppose. So what about the viral sacs around its stomach?"
"They are active, my lady."
"Get our analysts to figure out when it'll release its viral load."
"Yes, my lady. Although judging by its abilities, I'd say Sendai Area has more to be concerned about than we do."
"How so?"
"It'll catch a ride on the westerly winds."
The Seitenshi brought a startled hand to her lips.
"Ah, have you already noticed? If Libra releases its viral load at its current location…the weather will have an effect on it, but it's all but guaranteed to follow the prevailing winds and make a direct hit on Sendai Area."
"Well, there's practically no chance of defeating a Zodiac with normal weapons. I only hope Sendai doesn't get panicky and start firing missiles at it."
The Seitenshi turned toward a policy secretary next to her.
"Tell Prime Minister Ino that we're counting on him to make the right decisions."
"Reporting, sirs!" Suddenly, another secretary burst through the door, panting.
"What is it?"
"Prime Minister Ino has occupied the Tokyo Area embassy in Sendai Area and is presently holding our ambassador! He's closed off the airports and canceled all flights going to or from Tokyo!"
The Seitenshi felt as though someone had struck her in the face with a hammer. She found herself flying up from her seat.
"What are you…talking about?"
"Sendai Area's claiming that we used our Inheritance of the Seven Stars to summon Libra in order to destroy them. They're asking us repeatedly to withdraw Libra at once. They're reporting it on TV, too. Look!"
The aide breathlessly brought up a command on the holodisplay. He didn't even have to change the channel before Prime Minister Ino appeared, standing behind a lectern and shaking his fist in the air.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Sendai Area! As all of you know, our homeland, which was ravaged in the Gastrea War ten years ago, has restored itself to good health thanks to the efforts of every man, woman, and child in this Area. Those efforts are why the United Nations has recognized us as the sovereign nation that we are. But now, the rights we fought so hard for—the right to sovereignty, and to our continued existence—are under mortal threat."
His eyes, hidden under the drooping flaps on his forehead, suddenly shot open as he rapped at the lectern.
"That threat is none other than Tokyo Area! Our intelligence services have discovered that Tokyo is concealing a new technology that enables them to control Zodiac Gastrea at will."
"That's not true!" shouted the Seitenshi, even though she knew it was pointless. "The Inheritance doesn't have that kind of power!"
"In other words, Sendai Area's life-or-death situation at the hands of Libra is entirely due to the machinations of the Tokyo Area government. No matter what their intentions are, good or bad, it is clear they have crossed a line no government should ever cross. Thus, we have been forced to take retaliatory measures against the Seitenshi administration in Tokyo in order to defuse this Libra threat. What I am asking you for, citizens of Sendai Area, is—"
That was all she could stand. She waved the panel shut and hung her head low, shaking it softly. An all-penetrating silence enveloped the office.
…He was asking for war. All-out war between the Areas. That was what was on her, and everyone else's, mind.
The Seitenshi weakly raised her head, drawing the attention of the rest of her staff. They were patiently awaiting her orders.
She fingered the rosary around her neck. Its solid feel between her fingers was the only solace her heart could reach. She took a deep breath.
"We need to release a statement denying all involvement immediately."
"Will they believe us?"
"The longer we delay, the guiltier we'll look to them. Also, we'll need to send a special envoy over to Sendai in secret."
One of the ministry secretaries gave her a nervous glance. "Would this be a good time to disclose the existence of the Inheritance to the other Areas, do you think?"
"No. Even if we tell all four other Areas about it, I doubt we can expect them to use it in a peaceful manner. And with things as bad as they are now, I doubt Sendai Area would believe much of what we told them. The ideal solution would be to take out Libra with our own forces, but…"
The secretary adjusted his glasses and brought his eyes down upon the documents in front of him.
"…But if we could do that, we would've done it ten years ago, I suppose. Libra's evolved from the DNA of hundreds of thousands of species. Its multi-layered shell can withstand all types of modern weaponry. The only really effective offense we have on hand is nuclear, I think, but…"
"…No," the Seitenshi promptly interrupted. "It might be Unexplored Territory now, but using nuclear weapons in former Japanese territory would violate the New World Treaty."
An analyst entered the room with an "excuse me" and spoke into the ear of a secretary, who then nodded.
"The lab's done with its results. If the viral sacs continue to grow at their current speed, they'll start to be released five days from now. Sendai Area also sent us a final bulletin indicating that they'll attack us if Libra isn't recalled within four days."
"Four days…"
The clock began to tick in the minds of everyone on hand.
"We'll need to start figuring out ways to reconcile with them and eliminate Libra right away. If we don't do something, this hate's just going to cover the entire world."
"Lady Seitenshi…"
Turning around, she saw Kikunojo, his eyes now open after an extended period of being closed. They shone coldly, disturbingly so.
"We must isolate the Sendai Area ambassador in his embassy and prepare a retaliation immediately."
The Seitenshi quietly shook her head.
"We cannot. If hate continues to breed hate, it will lead us all down to hell before long. This whole case might be connected to Solomon's Ring and the Neck, as well…"
"My lady, is there any point in discussing that with things as they are right now?" The gray-haired man's half-shouted question cowed the other staffers into submission. Silence returned once more.
"My lady," Kikunojo continued after a moment, voice clearer, "Sendai Area has taken our innocent ambassador hostage and turned their missiles toward us. This is going to enrage our people, and that's going to turn their minds toward choosing war. If we don't prepare for that, they'll call us cowards and probably force you out of office."
"I don't care. If that's what the people want, I will accept it."
"My lady, who besides you could ever serve as Tokyo Area's icon? Why don't you understand that sometimes it's your job to meekly sit on the throne of power? It is for the long-term good of Tokyo Area."
"I'm afraid that, this time at least, I cannot listen to your advice."
She pushed Kikunojo back and was just about to shout some orders at a secretary when she was stopped by Kikunojo's outstretched arm.
"I'm afraid that's not possible."
He motioned a command to his side. Suddenly, a large man in black busted in and held the Seitenshi's arms in place. For a moment, she couldn't comprehend what had happened.
"…What is the meaning of this?"
"Lady Seitenshi, I need you to spend some time resting in your room."
The meaning behind Kikunojo's severe expression suddenly became clear.
"…So this is a coup?"
Kikunojo furrowed his brows, revealing a sad look for the first time.
"During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, America and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world seven and a half times over. Every one of those was aimed at each other, and at the height of the crisis, the fingers were absolutely on the buttons, my lady. Soviet secretary Khrushchev ultimately accepted US negotiators and kept the world from experiencing full nuclear war. He made the right decision for himself, but it made him weak in the eyes of his own people. It became one of the main reasons why he was deposed not long after. You need to remember, Lady Seitenshi, that sometimes the 'correct' decision needs to be dismissed from your mind. I was tasked by the previous Seitenshi to keep you from being overthrown—it is the sole reason why the decrepit old man you see before you has clung to this position."
"Shame on you! And shame on you for attempting to solve everything through sheer power!"
"No one can measure whether a decision is wise or poor. Not even the history books."
"It'll become clear when you rise from your grave and the angel judges you for heaven or hell."
"So be it. If hell wants me, I'm ready to accept it… Take her away."
"I can walk by myself," snapped the Seitenshi as the guard in black shuffled her along. She looked at Kikunojo for another moment or two before turning around and leaving the office.
The light from the three-pronged candlestick warmly flickered, transforming the darkness-enshrouded hallways into a world of sanity and logic.
She never liked the palace at night. Especially in areas without any people around.
Kiyomi Kase, the sole woman among the small army of governmental aides who called the palace home, nervously paced the hall. The painting of a beautiful woman on the wall, created by some famous artist, seemed alive in the darkness, as if waiting for the observer to turn away from her.
Her duty as an aide had kept her at work for nearly the entire previous week, and the amount of work she had today indicated the palace must be turning upside down. Even now, she could see dazzling light come from the western tower. She doubted it'd ever be shut off tonight.
Compared to that, the Seitenshi's personal chambers on the far edge of the western tower were a sort of fortress of solitude, one that only her personal attendants could ever access.
Kiyomi carried a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and bread. With the Seitenshi under house arrest, the lady was stuck in her rooms, forcing Kiyomi to tend to her meals. But she had yet to show any sign of touching them.
Turning her concerns to getting her mistress to eat something for a change, Kiyomi stood in front of the inner door, placed the candlestick down, and knocked a few times.
"Lady Seitenshi, my apologies for bothering you late at night."
She stared at the door, decorated with vinelike curving lines. Only the silence of rejection gave her any reply. She knocked and called her again. But the act was just as futile.
Kiyomi sighed. But just as she turned around to go, she could feel the wind from the other side of the keyhole. She brought a hand to it and waved it against the hole a few times. She wasn't imagining it.
A bad feeling raced across her mind as she called "Excuse me," stuck the correct key in from her ring, and shot through the door.
There was no sign of anyone inside. The silk curtains fluttered in the air. The right-hand curtain had been removed from the rail—and, oddly enough, was nowhere to be seen.
Taking the candlestick out to the balcony, Kiyomi's doubts were answered. The curtain was tied to the handrail outside, flowing listlessly in the wind. She had cut the curtain into strips, then made a rope out of it, one that extended down from the third floor to the ground.
When Kiyomi realized what this meant, she dropped the candlestick, bringing both hands to her mouth.
"Oh my God…!"
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/appendix001.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
AFTERWORD
Black Bullet is officially being made into an anime! Thanks to all of you for your support!
…Although, to be honest, I'm a bit torn. Should I really be so unreserved in my happiness at this? After all, I devoted myself heart and soul to make this the most exciting piece of text I could. Will my book remain entertaining in other media formats? As I write this, at least, I'm having a little trouble imagining how it'll work out.
However, the anime team members I've met have all been masters of their craft—super passionate about their work, but also coolly analytical of what it takes to make this happen. I'm sure I'll start bragging about this project a lot more as I get to learn about them and the values that drive them more, but already there's no doubt in my mind that I can leave my brainchild safely in their hands.
We have half a year before the TV broadcast begins. Specialists from a wealth of different fields will be coming together, pooling their talents and working hard to make this as high quality a production as they can. Will the Black Bullet anime be worth the [digital] cels it's drawn on? It's up to all of you, the viewers, to watch and judge the results for yourselves.
I hope you'll give the anime as warm a welcome as possible.
My thanks go out once again to Mr. Kurosaki, my editor. Even as the threat of this book slipping loomed larger and louder than ever before, the constant smile he wore as he worked from start to finish made even the deepest cauldron of hell feel like a dip in the ocean by comparison. They also go out to my illustrator Saki Ukai, whose ESP abilities apparently allow him to figure out which way is north at any time. Also thanks to Mr. Kojima, director of the anime project, and everybody under his command, as well as the producers, Mr. Ogura and Mr. Ogasawara. Finally, I want to thank everybody in the editorial team and elsewhere who helped bring this book to life.
Finally, a note to my readers. Not to go sharing my personal life with you, but around three years ago, when I first joined the Dengeki publishing family, I had a conversation with Mr. Kurosaki along the lines of "I'm gonna sell a million copies and get an anime version released!"—a conversation very much along the lines of what the manga Bakuman depicted. I didn't sweat the details too much at the time, and the declaration was made less for me than for Mr. Kurosawa (who had just transferred into that department back then). Still, one of those two goals is now a reality. I really have all of you to thank for keeping me from being a complete liar. Again, thank you.
Regardless of how the anime turns out, however, the novels can't afford to play second fiddle. My focus now is producing a series that'll make people who took in all three versions—novel, manga, anime—think to themselves, They were all good, but the novels are what really hit it out of the park!
Thank you very much for taking this novel in hand. May all the blessings of God rain down upon all my readers.
Shiden Kanzaki
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
BLACK BULLET 6
CHAPTER 03
HOTARU KOURO
1
It was with an overwhelming sense of chagrin that Shigetoku Tadashima, inspector from Magata Station, eyed Atsuro Hitsuma as he opened the interrogation room's door. Tadashima nonetheless gave his direct superior from police HQ a dutiful salute.
"How are things going?" Hitsuma asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger.
"Well," the barrel-chested Tadashima replied, "why don't you see for yourself?"
On the other side of the room's one-way mirror, they could see an elderly man in the interrogation room, answering questions. His face was darkly tanned, and his hair was a salt-and-pepper mix. The puffiness of his face made his eyes appear deeply sunken in their sockets. Tadashima knew through years of detective experience that a person's personality and life experiences were often written on their face, and judging by this man's, he surmised the man had led a tough, hardscrabble life.
"Who's he?" Hitsuma inquired.
"Yuuki Iwama. Fifty-six; taxi driver. An eyewitness said he let a couple who looked like Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro into his cab, so we have him in for questioning at the moment. He swears he doesn't remember taking a fare from anyone like that."
"There's no kind of record on the taxi's computer about where he went, or when?"
"Turns out he didn't have one," Tadashima replied. "It looks like his taxi firm engages in some pretty drastic cost cutting in order to keep their fares the lowest in Tokyo Area."
"What's your gut telling you about him, Inspector?"
"Ah, he's probably got something."
Hitsuma crossed his arms together. "Do you think we can get it out of him?"
"He's just a person of interest at this point. We can't press him too hard. But did you visit the apartment with the body yet?"
"I stopped by for just a bit. It was…a heartbreaking scene." Hitsuma shook his head in an expression of sorrow, but his words rung hollow, like an unpracticed actor reading a script for the first time.
After all, the word heartbreaking tended to be thrown around a lot, in contrived displays of empathy.
Tadashima had been first on the scene. The high-rise apartment complex that Gastrea forensic pathologist Ayame Surumi called home was the picture of hell itself, the survivors breathing wild tales of tire-shaped monsters attacking them. The police had found two of the wheeled machines as they cased the place, both with its innards destroyed. He shook off the thought before his mind could flash back to the grisly sights that remained tattooed to the backs of his eyelids.
"The doctor Rentaro Satomi visited was killed in her bathroom," Tadashima began. "She had been dead for a fairly long period of time, so he couldn't be the guy for that one. Immediately after, those crazy machines started their building-wide rampage—and, once again, Rentaro Satomi started coming to people's rescue.
"What I really don't get, though, is the body in the elevator. We found it in the car after the cable snapped and it fell to the second-level basement. It was so badly dismembered that we haven't been able to get an ID yet, but the body had some kind of electronic parts infused within it. I mean, this is crazy. Why are there all these bodies wherever Rentaro Satomi goes?"
"What do you think, Inspector?"
Tadashima looked up to find Hitsuma gauging him carefully, his face serious. Tadashima felt something cold behind that stare as he tried to assemble his thoughts.
"It's pretty clear to me there's some nonpolice entity pursuing him. What I don't understand is what kind of motive Rentaro Satomi could possibly have. Given that they made contact with Dr. Kakujo posing as the victim's relatives, they must have some kind of mission or goal in mind. They might even be trying to clear their name, for all I know."
"……"
"Do you think it's time," Tadashima continued, deliberately trying to fight off Hitsuma's eerie silence, "that we made this a public investigation?"
"We can't do that," Hitsuma replied, his tone indicative of how ridiculous the idea was to him. "The news already reported that Rentaro Satomi fell off the Magata Plaza Hotel and drowned in the river. If people find out he's been shrugging off police pursuit and skipping around Tokyo Area scot-free this whole time, it's going to be an absolute embarrassment. All we have to do is secretly arrest him and say that we plucked him out of the river earlier."
That's "all" we have to do? Tadashima found himself wondering. Hitsuma, whether he knew of the inspector's doubts or not, turned his eyes to the one-way mirror, taking in the interrogation.
"This would be a lot easier," he whispered in a monotone, "if that cabbie would just tell us what he knows already."
His release from police custody ultimately had to wait until two in the morning.
The moment taxi driver Yuuki Iwama left the front entrance, he was greeted by the sticky summer night air. The high humidity raised his discomfort level off the charts. Brooding over his stressful day, he turned the car's ignition. They said they'd let him know if they needed anything else, but given how they had acted, they'd no doubt be calling his company's office again soon. He was exhausted to the core and not particularly enthusiastic about running a night shift now, so he simply drove home instead.
He texted his wife as he did, figuring there was a chance she was still awake. No answer. To him, it was both a disappointment and a relief. It was easy for him to imagine the torrent of questions she'd unleash once he confessed where he'd been. She may have been the love of his life, but there was no way he could reveal who had climbed into his taxi hours earlier.
Soon, he pulled up to his home, in a quiet neighborhood outside the main city. His eyebrows arched up as he did. The lights were on, and he sensed there was activity inside. He pulled into the driveway to park the car in the garage, wondering what she was doing at this time of night.
Then he noticed that the lawn mower was still out in the yard. That wasn't normal. His wife was so picky about that sort of thing. The moment she spotted so much as a speck of dirt on the kitchen floor, out she came with the dustpan and broom.
The door was unlocked, emitting a soft creak as he pushed down on the lever to open it. The front foyer was littered with shoes and mud tracks, as if something heavy had been dragged through.
It was like…like someone had attacked his wife while she was doing yard work and dragged her inside. Wasn't it? Yuuki cursed his own overactive imagination as he reached back outside and pushed the doorbell. A pair of shrill tones echoed across the house.
There was no response. No, hang on—he could just barely hear something coming from the living room down the hall.
His pulse started to race, his breathing quick and shallow. There was no doubt in his mind that something bad was going on. He grabbed the ceramic flower vase by the front door, spilled out its contents, and held it by the neck to use as a weapon. He didn't bother to remove his shoes as he stepped back in.
As he approached the living room, he realized that the sound was muffled groaning. Once he was at the doorway, Yuuki resolved himself, then jumped into the room.
The sight shocked him.
"Izuho!"
His wife was lying on the living room floor, hands and legs bound with tape, blindfolded and gagged. She looked like the cocoon of a bagworm moth as she groaned.
Yuuki ran to her in a panic, only to find his arms restrained from behind and something sharp and cold pressed against his neck. A knife blade, probably.
"Don't turn around," a low, threatening voice intoned. His body tensed up, sweat running down his forehead.
A home invasion?
"Who—who are you…?"
"I could tell you," the voice replied calmly, "but if I did, there'd be no saving you or this woman."
It was clear from the tone that the owner of the voice was uninterested in further questioning along these lines.
"I want to ask you one thing. Where did you drop off Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro?"
This is no robbery at all. This guy's in pursuit of that freaky civsec pair. Yuuki was too intimidated to make any kind of reaction.
"You have two choices," the voice continued. "Give me the location, or give me the location after I hurt you."
"After you hurt me…?"
"I'll start with the nails. Twenty of them. Not yours—the girl's. Once I'm done with that, I'll take off the fingers next. You can speak up anytime if you feel like talking."
Yuuki let the vase fall out of his hand. It shattered loudly against the floor. He shook his head, not minding the shallow cut the knife made against his neck. Tears poured from his eyes.
"No… Stop. Anything but that."
"Okay. So you know what you have to do, right?"
In his mind, Yuuki brought his hands up to Rentaro's. I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry.
"District 18. Nagatoro City. The illegal-immigrant slum."
"Right."
The knife lowered, and the darkness behind him lessened.
A sharp silence descended as he gingerly looked over his shoulder.
Not a trace of the home invader remained.
The moment Yuuki realized he was safe, he immediately fell to his knees on the floor.
After what seemed like the millionth investigation meeting at Magata Station, Hitsuma was eating a not so palatable catered box lunch when the phone rang. Looking at the name, he stood up, walked to an empty part of a nearby hallway, and answered it.
"Swordtail? Why didn't you go through Nest? Is it that important?"
"I found out where they got off the taxi. It's in Nagatoro City, District 18. The illegal squatter camp."
"Nice work. I'll get an operation together ASAP. Is that all?"
His conversational partner, for some reason, was oddly silent. After a moment, though, he continued, his voice low and emotionless.
"Is it true Hummingbird got killed?"
Hitsuma hesitated for a moment.
"…Yes."
"Well, it figures, what with how she swaggered around all the time. Pfft. Wish she realized how much work this put on me before she went off and died like that."
"You better watch yourself, too. This isn't any normal job."
"No worries."
Hitsuma stared at his phone for a few moments after the call ended. If his next move failed on him again, he'd have no choice but to deploy Swordtail himself. He didn't want to go that far—not for a single target like this—but he nonetheless had zero doubt that the man would make short work of Rentaro Satomi and his accomplice.
He walked back to the office snickering to himself, carefully hiding the smile of joy trying to make its way to his face.
2
Rentaro Satomi, together with Hotaru Kouro, passed through the curtain together. "Thank you!" a voice shouted.
Back at the public bathhouse, all the lights were out. It was dark, shockingly so if your eyes were used to the light, but the stars in the sky helped to light the pathway ahead. His entire body felt comfortably warm as he noticed Hotaru looking at him, cheeks flushed red after the bath.
"That wasn't bad," she said. "I was wondering why you wanted to visit the bathhouse out of nowhere."
"Yeah," he breathlessly replied. "I'm glad it was up to your standards, Princess."
To him, as long as he didn't think about his current circumstances too much, walking under the stars down this path devoid of people was almost…fun. Refreshing.
He checked the time. Two a.m. His shirt had shrunk a bit after he washed it at the laundromat next to the bathhouse, and he tugged at it uncomfortably as he stretched out his torso.
Hotaru's ripped tank top had been stitched back together with a sewing kit. There were still bloodstains on it, but the wash had faded them to the point where you wouldn't notice unless it was pointed out.
It had only been about seven hours since the intense confrontation they'd had with Hummingbird in the apartment. Rentaro couldn't exactly settle down for a nice bath with all the raw wounds on his body, so he had to wait until no other customers were around and be satisfied with rubbing a wet towel against himself to get the sweat and dead skin off.
But he was still in decent enough shape. The gunshot wound in his left leg, caused by a ricocheting bullet during the Hummingbird battle, had been fully taken care of, and the bullet removed. Walking, at least, wouldn't make it any worse. Normally he'd rush right over to a hospital instead of jerry-rigging his own treatment like this, but as a fugitive from the law, the health system had little to offer him right now.
"You never took a bath with Suibara or anything?"
Hotaru flashed a resentful look. "Why do you care? Are you…? Rentaro, did you actually share the bathtub with your own Initiator?"
Rentaro, bewildered, scratched his head awkwardly. "She kept pestering me about it until I said yes… Damn it, I knew other civsec pairs didn't do that. She tricked me!"
Hotaru sighed and gave Rentaro a commiserating nod. "Rentaro, you should really watch how you act in public. You're pretty well-known for stuff like needing a ten-year-old girl to get off, and walking around town at night with a pair of panties on your head, and things like that."
"Things like… Wait, what?"
Hotaru turned aside.
"Hey, why're you averting your eyes like that?"
She remained silent, her countenance uneasy. Rentaro was about to ask another question, a particular and unfathomable fear dawning on him, when someone walked past them.
He had a feeling the person was watching them. Before he knew it, his heart froze over.
Rentaro took out a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and put them on, then slipped a glove over his Super-Varanium artificial hand, shining a dull black in the starlight. He'd purchased a pair of gloves after conferring with Hotaru and deciding he should at least hide his face and hands in public.
Yesterday, Rentaro took the girl along with him to Shidao University Hospital, where Dr. Kakujo pointed them to the apartment of Gastrea pathologist Dr. Surumi. That was where Hummingbird decided to strike at them. He still had no idea how Hummingbird had picked up on their movements, but one plausible theory was that someone had spotted him out on the street and reported it to the authorities.
Another possibility: security cameras. Whenever one of the countless surveillance cams scoping out Tokyo Area spotted a Gastrea, an embedded algorithm would use cues like heat-radiation patterns to identify the type and send alerts to all civsec officers in the vicinity. A few modifications to the software code behind that system, and it'd be entirely possible to have the cameras search for specific faces—or eyeball patterns, for that matter—to identify a person.
In both of those cases, sunglasses would have an immediate defensive effect. But—
"Dahh! I can't take this!"
Rentaro ripped the glasses off. Wearing sunglasses at night wasn't much different from putting on a blindfold. He'd bump into things, making him seem even more suspicious to passing strangers than if the glasses were off. Hotaru didn't care much about this, however: "Being dressed in all black like that makes you suspicious-looking enough already," she'd said curtly when Rentaro had brought it up.
He and Hotaru were on speaking terms again, at least, but Rentaro still had some lingering discomfort about their clash during the Hummingbird battle.
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter001b.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
—"I told you. The only reason I'm working with you is so I could hunt down the enemies after your blood. You've been the best decoy I could ever have hoped for. If you think we've got some kind of partnership going on, let me assure you, it's all in your head. I always hated you, anyway."
—"If you're so hell-bent on saving people's lives, why didn't you save Kihachi's?"
She must have picked up on the current awkwardness between them, too. Whenever she talked, she kept it short. Every time, it seemed to end in an awkward silence. And when that happened, all they heard as they walked down the shuttered shopping area was the sound of their own footsteps. It was hard to say how long the most recent silence lasted before she finally opened her mouth once more.
"You know," she began, "when I brushed you off and went upstairs, everybody up there was already dead. They must've all had parents, and families, and brothers and sisters, too." She shook her head. "I had no idea there are people out there who can…do that. Without a second thought."
The events in that building must have given her something to think about.
"Yeah, so you see, then?" Rentaro said. "Those are the types of guys we're fighting against."
As he thought about whether saying any more would be prudent, he heard the sound of a faraway siren ripping through the silence. The pair immediately looked at each other. Hotaru, at least, responded instantly, looking into the night sky as she focused her hearing to discern where the siren came from.
Gradually, they could hear it echoing closer and closer: the now-familiar sound of a police cruiser.
Rentaro and Hotaru slipped into a narrow alleyway behind a nearby building, breathing silently as they kept themselves hidden. It smelled like oxidized oil.
Before long, two of the dreaded police cars whizzed by the alley. Taking a moment to crane their heads around the corner, checking to make sure the police didn't make a U-turn, the two then stepped back onto the street.
The cars were gone, it seemed. They didn't seem like the typical patrol—they were going too fast for that. Maybe it was some other crime in progress.
"My hideout's in that direction."
Rentaro gulped.
"No way."
The denial seemed to ring hollow as the portent of Hotaru's observation wriggled its way into his brain. If her suggestion was correct, coming directly home after this would be a singularly bad idea. It might just be his current guilt complex writ large, but right now, they couldn't afford to take any chances. All that awaited on the other side of that risk was their arrest, followed by an inescapable guilty verdict.
"Are there any tall buildings around here?"
"No, but… Here, let me go look."
Before Rentaro could say anything, Hotaru's eyes turned a crimson red. The next moment, there was a blast of wind—and she was gone. Looking upward, he spotted her atop one of the arched streetlights that lined the asphalt at regular intervals.
This flustered him. Even if this was a deserted avenue in the middle of the night, there were still cars sporadically passing by. If one of the Cursed Children was spotted in a town like this, there'd be at least one or two people screaming in a panic before long. That would drive more people to come out, and after that, there'd be no more defusing the situation.
Hotaru, whether aware of that or not, pointed forward. "I don't see them yet," she intoned. "Let's get a little closer." Then, with another dartlike leap, she was atop the next streetlight. Rentaro opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again, resigning himself to his fate as he followed along.
This tense march down the street continued for a few moments—until Hotaru suddenly stopped. Rentaro realized what it was immediately. The glass-lined building in front of them was awash in dull, red, flashing lights. Reflections from police cars, no doubt. Not just one or two, either.
Hotaru came back down to Rentaro, heels clicking softly against the pavement.
"I saw them."
"No dice, huh?"
She shook her head. "We better abandon that hideout. It's dangerous here."
Rentaro shivered. He was the one who suggested visiting the bathhouse, growing increasingly sick of the dingy, cramped bathroom at home. It wasn't a decision he brooded over for particularly long before making it. But, by sheer coincidence, that decision had a profound effect on their fates. If they had been at home, they'd absolutely be subject to soul-withering police interrogation right now.
The two backtracked on their previous path. There was no destination in mind. They just had to get out of there.
But both had made the mistake of focusing on the police force behind their backs. Now they could see another police car—reinforcements, maybe—coming toward them. It didn't have its siren on, so by the time they noticed it, it was already disturbingly close.
Ducking into an alley would be all but telling the cops they were suspicious. Rentaro took Hotaru's hand. Hotaru gave a surprised look, but she quickly picked up on his intentions. She gripped his hand tightly.
"Just keep it as natural as you can."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Hotaru nod. The police car in front of them, its exhaust pipe making a soft sound, was no more than twenty meters away. He found himself turning his eyes downward.
The headlights illuminated their bodies from the chest down. The sound of tires scratching against the pavement as the car moved on sounded unnaturally loud to their ears. For some reason, the car was on the shoulder of the road, slowing down as it drove by. Rentaro lowered his head farther down as the car finally passed them.
Is it going?
As the two continued walking, they could hear the sound of the tires stopping on the pavement behind them, followed by a door opening and closing.
Rentaro closed his eyes. God help me.
Taking a lightning-fast look behind him, he could see two police officers walking their way, flashlights in hand.
"Excuse me! Couple over there."
Rentaro pretended not to hear, trying his hardest to keep his pace naturally slow and his legs from shaking. Using a finger, he suggested turning into a nearby alley. They hadn't discussed this at all yet, but their movements were still the picture of elegant efficiency.
"Hotaru!" Rentaro said, the moment they were in the alley and out of police sight. She gave a nod in response, then brought her hands around his shoulders.
"Hang on."
The next moment, he felt an explosive shock wave across his entire body, the g-forces that lifted him up making him feel like his organs were being twisted apart. With Rentaro's body in tow, Hotaru unleashed her full force, leaping against the sides of looming buildings to ascend. Rentaro's eyesight lurched from one direction to another, almost causing him to bite his tongue.
He didn't immediately faint on the spot once they reached the roof because of the supersonic speeds he had already experienced at the hands of his usual Initiator.
Looking down, they spotted the two officers walking around the alley, dismayed at not finding them there. He pulled back, trying not to make a sound, and gauged the situation as a lukewarm wind hit his face. Before long, the cops would radio in this potential sighting of Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro, and the entire block would be crawling with police. They needed to head out ASAP.
"That taxi driver must've blabbed about where we were," Hotaru whined in an uncharacteristically gloomy tone. The thought occurred to Rentaro the moment he realized their hideout was discovered. He had deliberately put it out of mind.
"Even if he did, that's our fault."
If they'd wanted to, they could have either threatened or bribed the driver to keep quiet. But they hadn't. Rentaro trusted him, and so did Hotaru. No matter what happened or didn't happen to them, the responsibility for it all came down upon themselves.
"It's sad, though."
"Yeah."
Their eyes met. Hotaru emitted a lonely smile, eyes sparkling. Rentaro could feel his pulse grow heavy. This was an Initiator, a person who walked the fine line between little girl and grown woman, between human and Gastrea. How could she show off such a…threatening smile?
Rentaro averted his eyes, just to make sure her face didn't enthrall him any more than it already did.
Turning the knob, Rentaro opened the metal door. It creaked loudly in protest.
The cheap flashlight they purchased from a convenience store was proving to be worth even less than the pittance Rentaro paid for it. It took the combination of its feeble beam and Hotaru's phone backlight to fully illuminate the area around them.
The walls were white in the otherwise featureless room, as were the two columns in the middle of the large chamber. The floor, made of marble and feldspar, was even whiter. Rentaro attempted to move a pile of unused stone to sit on, only to be rewarded with a choking fog of white dust. He regretted forgetting to buy an anti-dust mask when he was at the store.
"Koff-koff… Well, this ought to work."
They had checked to make sure this sculpture studio was abandoned before going in. Rentaro closed the rusty shutter of the window, cutting off the moonlight. The room grew even darker, adding to its horror-film atmosphere. The eeriness unnerved him a little, but he resolved to put up with it. If any light from the flashlight made its way outside and someone reported it, they'd have to find yet another place to take shelter for the night.
Rentaro sat down, resting against a column as he propped the flashlight on the floor. Hotaru, seated next to him, gave a frustrated scowl.
"I can't sleep like this. There aren't even any pillows."
"Just be glad we got a roof over us, okay?"
They had naturally considered checking into a hotel, but—after extensive debate—decided against it. The police weren't that stupid. Once they realized Rentaro wouldn't be coming back to their hideout, they'd send people to hit up all the hotels in the region. They might already be disseminating wanted posters to all the front desks in a ten-minute radius. They couldn't just waltz into that flytrap.
"So what're we gonna do now?"
"Well…" Rentaro strung the words together as he stared at the floor. "I'm wondering about that Gastrea corpse with the star marking on it. I know defeated Gastrea get processed after a certain waiting period, so it's got to be in storage somewhere or another. I was thinking we could start there."
Hotaru nodded.
"Um, also…about that assassin we faced, Hummingbird…"
"Yeah, I was thinking about her, too," Rentaro said. "She had the same five-pointed star at the base of her thigh. That, and she had two wings around it, not just one."
Hotaru opened her eyes wide. "She did?"
"Yeah."
"What does that mean, though?"
"I have no idea."
With that being the only hint to go on, they clearly had a need for more intel.
The pair spent a little more time discussing their future activities before their voices trailed off. In the silence, evening cicadas chittered here and there.
Suddenly, Rentaro felt something warm and soft on top of his left hand, which was planted on the floor. Surprised, he looked down to find Hotaru's palm above his.
"I…I killed someone."
Hotaru was small, balled up on the floor, using her left arm to hold her knees tight against her body. Rentaro watched her for a few moments. "Hotaru," he offered softly. "If you were scared to kill someone, that's your sanity giving you a heads-up. You have to make sure you don't forget how that feels. Once you pass that point, you won't be able to hold out against it any longer."
"What happens if I don't get scared anymore?"
"You won't be a person anymore. You'll just be a murderer, a barbarian seeking the thrill of carnage… I dunno. Call it what you will. But it's nothing good."
"All right. Thanks. I'll remember that."
Behind the words, Hotaru looked depressed, clearly left at a loss to break out of this line of thinking. Suddenly, Rentaro realized he was mentally overlapping Hotaru's face with that of another girl he knew. Part of the Satomi family. A ball of energy.
He shook his head, wondering what was wrong with him as he tried to keep his voice cheerful. "Hey, Hotaru, you mind if I ask you a stupid question?"
"What?"
"You called it…'enhanced regenerative skills,' didn't you?—your ability? If someone shot you in the head or whatever, you'd be dead for at least a little while, right?"
"If by 'dead' you mean my pulse would stop, my pupils would dilate, and my heart would stop beating…then sure."
"Um…so is there a heaven, or whatever?"
Hotaru's eyes were as big as saucers for a moment. Then she heaved a weighty sigh and turned her back to him. Rentaro winced.
"Wh-what?"
"Wow. That really was a stupid question. Nobody's ever asked me that one before."
That was the last thing Rentaro expected from her. But after a moment, Hotaru looked at him from the corner of her eye. "Are you religious at all?"
"No."
"Okay. I'll tell you, then. There's not. It's just like passing out. It goes all black and you lose consciousness."
"Why'd you ask if I was religious?"
"Well," Hotaru said with a self-effacing grin, "I figured you'd be disappointed if I said there wasn't any heaven. Besides, even if there was one, I'm sure not getting in. Heaven's for humans, right? That counts me out right there."
3
A light rain had been pattering outside the window since morning as a depressingly overcast sky dominated the scene.
The clerk's sleepy eyes suggested he'd had a late and alcohol-powered night. His puffy face indicated a history of wild partying with next-morning regrets. His lab coat was wrinkled and bent out of shape, and his unkempt hairstyle made him look old beyond his years.
"All right," said the man, introducing himself as Shibata. "So you came here this early in the morning just because you wanted to see Gastrea number 440?"
"Is there a problem with that?"
"No, not really, but… All right. Lemme see your license, please."
"Here."
Hotaru placed her license in the palm of the annoyed man. This piqued his interest for a moment: He eyed Rentaro up and down. It wasn't a written rule, but it was customary for the Promoter to provide his license in situations like these. Rentaro's, of course, was still confiscated by the Seitenshi.
"Um, I…I forgot mine at home."
"Oh. Well, the Initiator's is fine, too. Sign here, please."
Hotaru, keeping her cool perfectly, signed the papers. Then she looked ahead, Rentaro following her gaze.
They peered down the long corridor behind Shibata's shabby-looking desk chair, iron bars preventing their access. Wind echoed from beyond; it must have been getting into the dimly lit hallway from somewhere. The air ahead was chilly, too, no doubt to help preserve the corpses. Hotaru rubbed her arms for warmth.
The two had arrived at this Gastrea cadaver storage site at the crack of dawn. Sumire's university hospital had a storage depot of its own, but compared to this specialized facility, it was pretty low-key.
Shibata thrust a key into the lock and turned it. With a rusty creak, the door opened inward, and he led the pair into the corridor.
The blue LED lighting on the ceiling added to the site's overall creepiness, and the group's footsteps echoed against the hard flooring across the hallway.
Suddenly, Shibata stopped and turned to the pair. "Y'know, why do they bother with those iron bars, anyway?" he asked. "They're already dead by the time they get sent here, aren't they?"
"There've been cases in the past where a Gastrea we thought was dead revived itself, or some offspring in the womb made their way out and caused all kinds of chaos. So that's why."
Just thinking about that frustrated Rentaro. There was never any telling. A pandemic could just start in there, for all he knew.
Soon, Shibata stepped into one of the side rooms. Rentaro and Hotaru followed. The moment they entered, they felt the air grow even colder.
It was a small room, about 150 square feet or so, and its walls were lined from top to bottom with handles. At first glance, it looked like a bank's safe-deposit vault, but each handle opened a cadaver compartment about twice the size of ones at a morgue. And inside one was the Gastrea with the star symbol that had captured Dr. Surumi's attention and ultimately led to her doom.
Rentaro watched expectantly as Shibata searched for the right box, using some notes on a piece of paper for reference. Then he turned around and beckoned to them. Hefting the handle open, he raised a hand to block his face from the intense cold inside, like opening a freezer.
Before them was a rectangular box plenty large enough to comfortably house a human being lying down. Rentaro patiently waited for the cold mist to dissipate, only to reveal—
"Huh?"
There was nothing inside.
"Hmm? Well, that's weird."
Shibata made an almost comical grimace as he thumbed through the documents in his binder. "Oooh, yeah, guess we were just a little bit too late. One of the processing managers came to pick it up about half an hour ago."
"Processing manager?"
Shibata rolled his eyes. "Aren't you guys civsecs? You don't know how Gastrea get processed around here?"
"Is it a problem if I don't?" an agitated Rentaro replied. The clerk winced a bit.
"Okay, so when they find a Gastrea, an alert comes out and whichever civsec neutralizes it first gets the reward, right? If it's a type we've never encountered before, we bring on a pathologist to perform an autopsy and examine its heart and brain and stuff for vulnerabilities. Once that's done, it's stored in here for a period of time. Then, every month, a processing manager comes in, picks up the bodies, and takes them away for cremation. They gotta be really careful with the incineration, too, to make sure no internal viruses survive it."
"Cremated? So they burn all the Gastrea bodies they take out of here?"
"Ninety-nine percent, yeah. Some of 'em get stuffed or used for experimentation or whatever, but that's just the really exceptional cases. Too bad you guys didn't come here sooner, huh?"
"That's…" Rentaro felt his head go hazy. Their one remaining lead had been snapped. If they hit a dead end there, they were completely done for.
"Hmm? Hang on."
Shibata, realizing something, lifted his head from the binder and gave his guests a quizzical look.
"We don't have any Gastrea pickups scheduled today…"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't really know myself. The processing manager comes at a pre-scheduled day once a month to pick up Gastrea cadavers, but I guess he showed up here this morning, too. That's the first time they've ever shown up unannounced, I think. And what's more, the only Gastrea they took was the one you guys are here to examine."
Hotaru and Rentaro exchanged glances. "Hotaru," Rentaro whispered to her, "this 'processing manager' guy…"
"He's probably part of Hummingbird's group. That, or someone close to them. Either way, now we know they're busy trying to hide the evidence."
Which meant, if considered another way, getting a chance to examine the corpse would be problematic for that group. Which, in turn, meant that this star-bearing Gastrea was more valuable to Rentaro and Hotaru than ever before.
"They must know what we're trying to do by now. So they made off with the corpse unannounced, even though they knew other people would notice that. Damn it…"
Hotaru, her memory perhaps jogged by this, turned to Shibata. "Um, Mr. Shibata, does this process manager come in with a truck or something to haul the bodies out?"
"Yeah. A big one. One of those moving-van jobbies."
"And you said he came in about half an hour ago?"
Shibata nodded again.
"Could you maybe call the truck to get it back here?"
Rentaro froze.
"Like, that binder…"
Before he could finish the thought, Hotaru took the binder from Shibata's hands and showed it to Rentaro. The sheaf of papers inside included the form Hotaru signed when they first came in. It was a basic sort of visitor log, including entries for names, times, IDs or civsec-license checks, addresses, phone numbers, and reasons for the visit—a truly classic piece of government paperwork.
Hotaru's finger was pointed at the words "Nagahara Transport" recorded in the log thirty minutes prior. She must have been suggesting they contact the Nagahara Transport driver, presumably still in traffic somewhere, and order him back to the site.
"But do you think the phone number on there's real?" she asked.
"Hey, uh," the incredulous-looking Shibata interrupted, "I don't know what you guys are talking about, but—"
"I think that's probably gonna be the same person from Nagahara that always comes here," Rentaro said, crossing his arms. "Not that I saw him, but if it was some random guy coming in unannounced on a new schedule, I'm pretty sure this guard would've stopped him. But if we make contact with him, how do we get his truck back here?"
"Umm…" He watched as Hotaru dropped her head down. But just as he started to think they'd hit a wall, another thought crossed his mind:
"Well, look, more than anything else, they want to get their hands on that Gastrea with the star, right? If we said that they found another Gastrea corpse with a star on it, that oughta make them come back, don't you think?"
"That's it!" she exclaimed.
The sound of Hotaru's unexpectedly loud reaction bounced off the walls. She blushed and coughed nervously, regretting the outburst.
"…Um, I mean, yeah, that works for me."
Rentaro turned to Shibata. "Could I ask you for some help?"
Shibata winced at having the spear turned in his direction. "What? Why do I have to do that? I don't really like lying to people, and stuff…"
"Well, listen, you probably like your job to be pretty slow-paced, right?"
"Huh? My job? Well…it's a little too boring here sometimes, yeah, but I sure don't like it when it's real busy, either. Why do you ask?"
"If we let that Gastrea get away, thousands of people might die. The morgues are gonna be so full of human cadavers, they'll have to use this site for temporary storage."
Shibata's expression froze. "What…do you mean…?"
"Please. Don't ask me anything. Just help me out a little. We're not gonna be a bother to you."
A few moments of hesitation. Then:
"…All right. I don't really know what's going on, but I'll trust you guys. If y'all are pranking me this early in the morning, though, it sure ain't funny."
Then Shibata briskly sprang into action, the sleepyheaded, bleary stare from earlier now a thing of the past. Reaching for a nearby phone, he picked up the receiver and dialed a number.
"Um, hello? Is this Nagahara Transport?" he began cheerfully. "Hey, thanks for all your hard work! I'm just calling 'cause you guys showed up here earlier to pick up a Gastrea for us…? Right, right, that transport…"
Rentaro left the building, taking Hotaru along with him. The drizzle from earlier was now a barely perceptible sprinkle, albeit one falling almost horizontally in the strong winds. They noticed a trash can tumbling along the street at high speed. The weather report said the rain would die down by the end of the day—but if it was starting up this early in the morning, Rentaro pictured a soggy day ahead.
The two ran across the street to a coffee shop and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. There were almost no customers. They took a table by the window, which afforded them a full view of the Gastrea morgue. Amid the rain-blotted landscape, the gray exterior of the morgue remained still, emitting a uniquely melancholy atmosphere. It was still just nine in the morning. The seconds ticked as they sat, taking in the pitter-patter of the rain as they silently drank their coffee, their boredom driving both to blankly stare outside.
They had done everything they could. Picking up a random Gastrea from the morgue, they had used the photograph they found in Dr. Surumi's apartment as a reference to scrawl a star on its corpse in permanent marker. Compared to the photo, it was pretty clearly an inept imitation. They used a little bodily fluid to blur it a bit, just barely giving it a semblance of likeness.
Now they just had to wait.
"Feels kinda like we're in a detective drama or something, doesn't it?"
"Detective? You're a prisoner. That's too dumb to even bother replying to."
Rentaro's eyebrows twitched, his lips pursing. "I'm not a prisoner! I haven't even received a verdict yet."
"Ahh, same difference."
"God damn it, you…"
"Pfft."
"Pfft!"
The pair turned their backs to each other. As a date, it was a failure. Wondering why his life had to end up like this, Rentaro summoned his composure and decided to have a late breakfast. He wanted something sweet in order to keep his blood-sugar level high, so he opted for a packet of glazed mini donuts.
He was rather robotically reaching for the fourth one, sweet enough to make his teeth feel like they were going to melt, when a truck with the Nagahara Transport logo silently appeared and sidled up next to the morgue.
That was probably the one. It was manned by two people. One of them, in a gray jumpsuit, climbed out and went to the door while the other one stayed in the cab.
Rentaro and Hotaru excused themselves from the coffee shop and cut a wide path around the truck, not bothering with an umbrella. They approached it from the side, taking in the aroma of the exhaust and the sound of the idling engine. They could see the driver in the side mirror, having a smoke and listening to the radio. He didn't seem to have noticed them. Hotaru's face stiffened, but Rentaro raised a hand to stop her. This clearly annoyed her.
"Why not? There's only one of them."
"We don't know if they're the enemy yet. Let's tail them and see what they do."
From behind the truck, they approached a yellow taxi and tapped against the window. The napping driver lifted his hat off his face and sleepily squinted at them. He blinked a few times, half-suspicious of this set of customers, before pushing a button to open the back door for them.
"Where to?"
The moment he stepped inside, Rentaro pointed at the truck ahead.
"That truck's gonna take off soon. I want you to follow it for me."
The driver flashed a surprised look at them. The memory of yesterday's taxi trip ending in disaster resurrected itself in Rentaro's mind. In a near daze, he made up a story to convince the driver. Whatever it was—Rentaro forgot all the details about five seconds after concocting them—it worked well enough that the still-dubious driver gripped the steering wheel and turned his eyes to the truck. The windshield wipers rhythmically swung to and fro, brushing the misty rain off the glass. Other droplets dripped down the windows, merging with one another to form larger, faster spheres.
Nobody said anything.
After a while, a large Gastrea stretcher came out of the building. The processing manager wheeled it out, a large white sheet covering it, and brought it to the truck's container. Surveying his surroundings, he knocked at the door, waiting a certain interval before each knock.
After a moment, another processing manager emerged. This made Rentaro's heart skip a beat. There were more, after all. Why was one stationed inside the container itself? As he thought about this, the two carried the Gastrea off the stretcher. It was too dark to see inside the container, but a brief glint of light made him arch his eyebrows.
"Hotaru, did you see that?"
"See what?"
"…Ah, never mind, then."
Part of him prayed it was just his imagination. If that glint was from what Rentaro thought it was, it proved that this truck's intentions were very sinister indeed.
The engine sprang into action as the truck slowly shuddered to life. The taxi followed behind, keeping a prudent distance. The light rain fell in a powdery drizzle, the mechanical, metronome-like motion of the wipers adding to the sense of emptiness inside the car. Everyone kept their attention forward, breath bated.
The taxi was a stopgap measure, but Rentaro had to admit: This was a gifted driver. Visibility through the windshield wasn't exactly high, but he did a magnificent job of not coming too close while staying in perfect sync with the truck.
Soon, they were entering an expressway—but once they passed the toll, things began to change. The truck suddenly swerved into the right lane, rapidly accelerating. Rentaro hurriedly instructed the driver to speed up, but right when he did, the truck applied the brakes.
He furrowed his brows at this behavior, only to arch them wide at the next instant. Was this the truck driver's way, maybe, of discovering any cars that might be following them? It had to be. They had cast the line, and now they were sure they caught a nibble.
Then, the next moment, the truck accelerated. This time, it wasn't stopping. It whizzed down the road at high speed, snaking its way through traffic as it gradually began to disappear from sight.
"It's getting away! Follow them!" Rentaro said, half rising to his feet. The resulting burst of speed from the taxi sent him right back in his seat. The engine roared, shaking the entire vehicle. The speedometer blew past one hundred kilometers per hour, just barely skirting the speed limit on the expressway. The resulting speed sent them back behind the truck, next to it, and then in front of it. The rain-soaked view and wet pavement were undoubtedly affecting the grip of the tires. Even a single steering mistake could have led to disaster on the road.
"I—I really can't go faster than this!" the driver finally shouted. The engine sounded like an F1 car. But thanks to his hard work, the truck was now firmly back in sight. The taxi's lighter weight gave it the advantage over a fully loaded container truck.
Rentaro instructed the driver to approach the truck's side from the left. They waited until they had an open spot for the move, but suddenly, the truck tried to run them off the road at breakneck speed. They braked just in time to avoid being sandwiched between the truck and the guardrail.
A cold sweat ran down his body. But the real fear for Rentaro came when he saw what was inside the now-open container. Squinting at the sight, he gazed in wonder. The metallic weapon he caught a glimpse of earlier was bolted to the floor of the truck, its ferocious muzzle aimed squarely at them.
It was a Browning M2 heavy machine gun: a supremely powerful, full-auto, .50-caliber rifle that even saw use in anti-tank warfare, although its primary purpose was for downing planes or penetrating armor. In many ways, it wasn't a machine gun so much as a machine cannon. It was not something a Gastrea transport company would just happen to have bumping around inside its trucks.
The enemies working against Rentaro must have fixed on to his intentions by then. They were preparing for anything and everything.
The processing manager in the container pulled the giant machine gun's cocking handle, readying it for fire, and aimed its sights squarely on the taxi.
We're dead, said the sixth sense that worked beneath Rentaro's intellectual mind.
Then the flash, and the gunshots.
The car spun out with a screech, sending Rentaro's viewpoint reeling. He was jostled in his seat, bewildered, and then he saw the taxi spin toward the concrete wall lining the highway. He shut his eyes tight.
"Rentaro!"
Suddenly, there was an impact at his side, followed by the feeling of being pushed into the air. Then, the sound of something shattering.
But there was none of the pain he expected. The wind was rushing against his cheeks, too strongly for his tastes, and the summer rain—still falling down almost sideways—beat against his body. He could hear his school uniform fluttering in the gale.
He opened his eyes a slit and was finally clued in: He was in the air. And like a piece of carry-on baggage, he was hanging off the arm of Hotaru Kouro, who was gritting her teeth above him. At the last possible moment before the collision, she had lifted herself from the car and escaped with Rentaro, too.
"We're falling," she said, interrupting Rentaro before he had a chance to give his thanks. He was suddenly pulled down by gravity, the rain-soaked pavement on the ground approaching at terminal velocity.
But before it could reach them, they rolled together onto the roof of a passing truck, shrugging off the impact and just barely slipping right off the edge before steadying their balance.
The damage to his semicircular canals made Rentaro's head spin to the point of nausea. He tried his hardest to gain a grasp of his situation, raising his head upward.
He had thought they were on top of the enemy's truck for a moment, but they weren't. That truck was overtaking the cars in front of them at high speed in the rain, all but laughing at them as it sped away.
Instinctively, he took a look behind them. "How's the taxi driver?!"
"Look in front of you! You're gonna die!"
Rentaro closed his eyes for three seconds, just enough time to keep him from falling into panic mode. Mentally, he forced himself to switch gears. "Hotaru!" he shouted. "Can you reach that truck by yourself?"
"I can't do that! It's going one hundred and thirty kilometers an hour!"
Being atop a truck of their own, they were forced to scream at each other. The intense rain and strong wind were lowering both of their core temperatures. Their clothing was completely soaked.
Why couldn't Enju be around at a time like this…?
Looking ahead, the enemy truck was still gaining distance on them. The gunfire was gone. The rain was blocking their visibility, as it did for everyone else, and they must've opted to hold their fire. But if they got too close to the truck, that could change.
What do I do?
"Okay, Hotaru. Can you carry me and start jumping to other cars?"
Hotaru gave him a stupefied look for a moment, then—after another moment of thought—nodded lightly and stood up on the container truck's roof.
"I can't go that far at once."
Rentaro stood up with her. He was greeted by torrential rain and a wall of air pressure from in front. It took everything he had to keep from falling off as he wrapped his arms around Hotaru's stomach from behind. She turned halfway back at him—and then, with a steely resolve, jumped. They landed on the roof of a black van up ahead, then leapt over to a sedan passing the van on the right. So it went, one after the other, as they caught up to the enemy truck at breakneck speed.
Rentaro was deeply agitated. The wind and rain were one thing, but if she misgauged a single jump, they would both be battered against the pavement and sustain major damage. But Hotaru's outstandingly nimble moves, all executed at hair's-breadth timing, came at an accuracy that could only be described as transcendent.
Hotaru Kouro had an innate sense for this, just like Enju. A sense that could never be cultivated by any normal person.
"I see it!"
Squinting through the curtains of rain from behind her shoulder, Rentaro could see the red of the van's taillights. But it also meant they were in firing range again. In fact, the person manning the gun—spotting the pair of pursuers he was so sure were out of the picture—expressed clear surprise as he leapt for the gun and swung it around.
The anxiety made Rentaro's blood vessels tense.
"Here it comes!"
An intense barrage of flashes came as the bullets from the Browning tore through the porous concrete in front of their car like a pile of dirt. The holes forced the vehicle to swerve, and left ugly scars on the road.
But Hotaru wasn't out to lose. Even nimbler and more accurately than before, she leapt from vehicle to vehicle. The .50-caliber Browning gunfire, missing them by an instant, instead thudded through the engine block of the previous car, triggering an explosion. With a screamlike screech, it spun out and off the road.
With superhuman skill, Hotaru continued her leapfrog act. The heavy machine gun traced her path in the air, turning her footholds into scrap one by one. The unending torrent made the rain evaporate in midair, with Hotaru and Rentaro threading the needle in between. A bullet brushed by Rentaro's cheek at supersonic speed, making a twing sound as it did—but all he could do was fight off the g-forces tugging at his body, gritting his teeth until they were nearly in pain.
"There's too much fire! I can't get close!"
Finding herself running short on footholds to jump on, Hotaru was rapidly cornered. The rows of cars behind them were a pockmarked hellscape.
Rentaro's mind raced, trying to find a solution—then the sight before him drained the color from his face.
"Hotaru! Tunnel!"
The tunnel through the low hill in front of them was no more than three and a half meters tall. They couldn't execute any flying leaps in there—and once that advantage was taken from them, they were dead.
This is it, thought Rentaro as he shut his eyes tight.
But then, like a bolt of lightning, an idea ran across his brain:
"Hotaru, can you run on the ceiling?"
Hotaru shot him a look, mouth agape. But she must have grasped the question a moment later, because she turned forward again, jaw determined.
"Just three seconds. Make them count."
The rapidly approaching tunnel entrance loomed, looking like the hideous maw of a demon roaring in laughter.
With a loud whoosh, they were in. For just a moment, the curtain of rain lifted, clearing the scene around them. The machine gun swiveled and locked on to them. But Hotaru jumped just a blink in advance.
Immediately afterward came gunshots, followed by an explosive shock wave. But they didn't look back. They didn't have time to.
Ignoring the scene behind her, Hotaru leapt up and landed on the ceiling, running horizontally across it.
"Rentaro!"
Now upside down, Rentaro released his hands from Hotaru's midsection and—as if swinging on a flying trapeze from his feet—took a position inverted from the ceiling. His hands free, he gripped his Beretta handgun and held it up—or down, in this case. The truck was in his sights. He quieted his breathing, closed his eyes—and unleashed his eye. A geometric pattern emerged in its iris, performing calculations at lightning speed. The hems of his clothing flapped impatiently in the wind, all but expressing the panic within Rentaro's own mind.
Look at what you did, you bastards. All those civilian victims.
Seeing Rentaro size him up with the look of an enraged beast, the enemy gunner must have been scared witless. His whole body trembled as he tried his best to turn the gun's muzzle toward him. But it was too late.
Rentaro fired three times. He was aiming next to the gunner—at the rear left tire.
The moment the hole opened in the nitrogen-stuffed tire, it immediately burst, the high inside pressure seeking an escape. The truck lurched, its driver misjudging his steering, then collided against the right-hand tunnel wall. He had applied the brakes, but the force of nearly 120 kilometers an hour against the wall lifted the truck up into the air, sending it to its side and spewing metallic shrapnel on the ground as it bounced and rolled another thirty meters or so. The gunner was thrown clear of the vehicle, striking the ground.
But Rentaro, from his less-than-ideal firing position, was facing some recoil of his own. It was one thing for a lightweight Initiator to run across the ceiling. It was quite another for her to support Rentaro's weight at the same time.
Just as the floaty feeling of being thrown by something flashed back to his mind, he found the asphalt down below rapidly approaching his head.
He balled himself up, taking the impact at the top of a shoulder as he bounced up into the air. Pain seared across his brain as he was sent spinning off by the force.
Ensuring he was no longer in motion, Rentaro shakily pulled his body up, hands on the road as he tried to keep from ejecting the contents of his stomach. With unsteady steps, he ran toward Hotaru, who had fallen from the ceiling in similar fashion.
"Hotaru! Hey, Hotaru!"
He kneeled down and slapped her cheek. She must have fallen headfirst. There she lay on her back, fresh blood dampening the side of her head. She was motionless.
After repeatedly calling for her, Rentaro saw Hotaru's eyelids blink a few times then groggily force themselves open.
"You are so stupid. I can regenerate myself, remember? I'm a lot more solidly built than you are."
Rentaro breathed a sigh of relief.
"That's not the problem," he said, "you idiot."
Because she healed faster than most, she failed to realize that the sight of a wounded child lying on the ground was what concerned Rentaro.
"What about the van?"
He turned around, startled. "I'll check it out," he said, picking up the Beretta on the ground before advancing slowly on the vehicle. It was on its side, now blocking all lanes of the tunnel. The traffic behind it was stopped, the chaos on the other side already clear to his ears.
One of the jumpsuited processing managers was hurt and bleeding from his head. The other two were bruised and dazed but not seriously injured. After a crash as spectacular as that, Rentaro was surprised nobody was killed. Only one was conscious, and just barely, but the injuries would prevent resistance for the moment.
Going around back, he found two Gastrea corpses thrown from the rear of the chilled container.
Finally found you.
There was the Gastrea that he drew the fake pentagram on, and next to it, the Gastrea in the picture he'd found at Dr. Surumi's home.
It was an impressive sight. At nearly six meters long, its extended proboscis made for an eerily eye-catching silhouette. It had wings like an insect, its rib cage exaggerated and basket-shaped. Rentaro couldn't guess what biological elements clashed against one another to create this.
"That's definitely the one Kihachi and I killed a month ago," Hotaru said, clearly put off by the Gastrea at her feet.
This was what started this whole mess in the first place. When Dr. Surumi discovered the star marking on this Gastrea and conducted an autopsy—she found something. And that something erased both her and Suibara. There had to be something on this Gastrea body that linked it to the Black Swan Project, still a total mystery to Rentaro. It had to, or else it'd be the end of the road for him.
Snapping on the nitrile-rubber gloves that he borrowed from the morgue, Rentaro ignored his sense of disgust as he examined the stomach area, the surgical scar easily noticeable across it. When he opened the incision, he was greeted by a sharp, acrid stench that permeated deep into his eyes, battering his mucous membranes and making him turn his face away.
But there was no time to linger. The police must have known by then about the gunfight on the expressway. He needed to wrap this up in around two minutes if he wanted enough time to flee.
So he stuck his arm in. Through the thin layer of rubber, he could feel the slippery flesh around the stomach on his fingertips as he brought the heart into view. It was the whole, translucent organ, like the innards of some giant squid—and the star mark he was seeking was right nearby.
He removed his knife from his waist. Slowly, carefully, he cut out a square of surrounding tissue and put it inside a film case he had along with him. He also took a sample of the epidermis, the outer skin layer, just in case.
The squishy heap and its samples were already decomposing on him. He thought about, and simultaneously dreaded, the idea of ducking into a nearby grocery store for some dry ice. But he still had some other business to handle.
Moving to the driver's side of the truck, he opened the door and grabbed the still-conscious processor by the collar, setting him down on the ground. He had a cut on his cheek, a bloodstain on his jumpsuit at chest level, and a look of sheer animosity in his eyes as he silently glared upward.
"You got nowhere to run," the man warned.
"Where were you going to take this Gastrea?"
The processor did not reply.
"Why did your group try to take the Gastrea away?"
The man was silent.
"What's the Black Swan Project?"
"……"
"Answer me, you asshole!"
The anger was clear in his voice as he lifted a fist into the air. Something grabbed at it.
It was Hotaru, and she was shaking her head.
"It's time."
His temper made him fail to notice, but if he strained his ears a little, he could hear the sirens. Rentaro gave the jumpsuited man another vengeful glare. There was so much he wanted to ask him, but it wasn't like he could kidnap him and run. Damn it.
"Where to next, Rentaro?"
Rentaro brought the film case up to Hotaru and lightly shook his head. "We need access to a facility where we can have this tissue sample analyzed," he said, his voice low. "I dunno if it's something any old lab could help us with, but there's one person I think we can count on."
He took one more half turn toward his prisoner.
"Relay a message to Hitsuma and Dark Stalker for me. Tell 'em I'm gonna get Enju, Tina, and Kisara back."
Then he turned back ahead and fled with Hotaru.
4
Tsurayuki Kimishima tightened his jaw, checking the sturdiness of his stool as he sat down on it. He had been silent for three hours already, his eyes transfixed on the floor.
Suddenly, a pair of hands slapped down on the steel desk in front of him.
"Look, will you just talk already? Huh? How long d'you think you can get away with that?"
The tiny room they were in made the body of the detective, his crew cut making him look the very picture of a high-school gym instructor, seem to loom even larger than normal. The passing shower had grown stronger, making the humidity in the interrogation room intense.
Tsurayuki lifted his face slightly from his jumpsuit, stained with blood and soot. "I'm using my right to remain silent," he steadfastly said. "Get me a lawyer. I'm not saying anything until then."
It was a more than effective way to apply further fuel to the detective's anger.
"What's with that attitude you got? Huh? Do you have any idea what kind of situation you're in right now? That gunfire you and your pals sprayed all over the expressway killed people. Why was there a machine gun mounted on your truck in the first place? Where did you obtain that from? Where were you going to take the Gastrea bodies?"
The detective glared at Tsurayuki, crawling back into his shell of silence. He found himself drawing his lips back in anger—perhaps a perverse smile at the futility of it all.
"All right. Once I'm done raking your ass over the coals, I'm tossing you into lockup. I hope you don't miss the outside world too much, because you ain't gonna be breathing fresh air for a while."
Two soft knocks came from the room's single door.
"Feh," the detective spat out as he stood up and stormed to the door. "Who is it now?"
And then:
"Oh, hello, um…!"
Suddenly the detective seemed intimidated. Tsurayuki looked over, wondering what was up.
"But…," he continued. "But that'd…" Then he fell silent.
Tsurayuki was left alone in the interrogation room for a while, but when the door opened again, someone new stepped inside.
It was a younger man with a long face, adorned by a pair of silver-framed glasses that gave him an air of intelligence. He had to be a detective if he was in there, but who was he? The suspense made Tsurayuki swallow nervously as he looked up.
The man stopped in front of him, then suddenly spread his arms wide.
"I'm here to protect you."
The man before him rolled up his suit and the shirt sleeve underneath. On his upper arm was a five-pointed star, three of the points adorned with ornately designed wings.
A shock ran across Tsurayuki's spine. He shot to his feet and bowed.
"Please pardon me, sir! I wasn't expecting a three-wing in here."
"My name is Atsuro Hitsuma. Don't worry. There's no surveillance in this room."
"How are my friends doing?"
"They're undergoing treatment at a hospital. Under police observation, of course. Tell me what happened."
"Y-yes, sir! I managed to burn the two Gastrea at the last minute before the police could seize them…but they took a tissue sample from it."
"Where do you think they went?"
"They're getting closer to the plan. I'm sure they'll look for someplace where they can analyze that sample. A lab facility as high-level as that…"
Hitsuma steeled his eyes behind his glasses.
"Shiba Heavy Weapons?"
Getting out of the car, Tadashima used his suit jacket as an umbrella, scurrying through the rainstorm toward Magata Station. He ignored those around him as he thundered into the building, his pace quickening as he passed right by the office with the specially assigned investigation team he was supposed to be leading.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter001d.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
Instead, he went straight under a sign reading CRIMINAL AFFAIRS. It was quiet, devoid of detectives at the moment. They were all out pursuing leads in the Rentaro Satomi fugitive case.
Once it became clear to everyone that Rentaro Satomi was alive, the investigation team, previously figuring they'd be disbanded before long, reverted into a hive of activity. Now they had another incident to cover—a messy crime scene covering a fairly hefty stretch of freeway.
Hitsuma was just on his way out of the interrogation room.
"Superintendent Hitsuma! What'd you do with the suspect?"
"He'll be put in custody at the main HQ for the time being, Inspector."
"What?" Tadashima groaned. "Sir, with all due respect, that's complete bullshit! The taxi driver's in critical condition. We've got four people dead, shot by that heavy machine gun. I couldn't even tell you how many casualties there are. It's like a goddamned field hospital right now, where they were taken to. I have no idea what's going on here. For the sake of the victims, at the very least, someone needs to pry open the suspect's mouth with a pair of pliers—and that's my job, sir! Let me through, please!"
"That's a commissioner order, Inspector."
The response came point-blank. It put Tadashima over the edge.
"Superintendent, you know as well as I do that I'm not one to talk when it comes to ignoring orders…but what you're doing right now is textbook interfering with a police investigation! What are you trying to do, deceiving the commissioner like this? Please, sir, I want to be on your side here, but…"
Hitsuma did not answer. He simply looked down at him with a cold, lifeless stare. Looking at those eyes, Tadashima could feel the full depth of the chasm that now yawned out between them. Even if the entire world turned upside down, there would be no changing his mind any longer. That was all too clear now.
Tadashima spun around. "We're done working together. I'm taking action on my own from now on."
"We were told by the investigation headquarters that we are to operate as a two-man team. If you decide to take action on your own volition, I reserve the right to report that to my superiors."
"You're the one acting on your own volition! If you don't like it, feel free to rat on me or punish me or whatever you like."
Tadashima started walking—right out of the police department. He never looked back. Hitsuma, watching him go, made sure he was firmly out of sight before sighing and shaking his head.
"We have to get rid of him now," said a new voice. "Otherwise it's just gonna get worse."
Somewhere along the line, Dark Stalker—Yuga Mitsugi—had sidled up next to him. The operative shot a sharp glance at Tadashima.
Hitsuma shook his head again to stay him. "No. If my partner gets killed, I'd have to personally answer to that. Leave him. We're acting just as shady as he is."
With effort, Yuga relaxed his gaze and shrugged. "So what's the plan then, Mr. Hitsuma? 'Cause this isn't really going too well right now, is it? Like, three of our members arrested for a mass shooting?"
"It won't be a problem," Hitsuma said as his middle finger propped up the bridge of his glasses. "The two unconscious suspects in the hospital are going to go into cardiac arrest. We're planning to have Tsurayuki Kimishima write a note in his cell and hang himself. No leaks, no nothing."
"Not a stone left unturned, huh?"
"Not a one. You make a mistake, you pay for it."
"If you seriously want to eliminate Rentaro Satomi, you need to use me."
"The decision's already been made. He's been assigned to Swordtail. You're on standby."
Yuga gave him a cold, sideways glance, then silently disappeared down a station hallway, sulking.
There was no doubting his skills in battle, Hitsuma thought to himself, but there was something unfathomable about Yuga still; it was hard to read what he was thinking at any given point. In the end, it was easier to control a pure, unadulterated warrior over someone with a few threads dangling loose.
It was eight in the evening. Glancing outside, he saw that the skies, spitting rain since the morning, were finally starting to clear up. It was going to be a humid night.
5
The rain lifted as darkness began to entwine itself around the area, the occasional streetlight sprouting off the ground drawing a spotlight through the black.
Rentaro, Hotaru in tow, peeked up from behind a wall, peering into the open space in front of him—or, rather, a certain section of it.
"Neat, huh?"
"It's like some kind of samurai mansion…"
From over the mud walls that encompassed the property, they could see the roof of a three-story building that looked straight out of a samurai drama. In fact, it seemed like someone had purchased the remains of some shogunate-era manor and moved the entire thing to use as a private residence. It was home to Miori Shiba, daughter of the head of Shiba Heavy Weapons.
Shiba was commonly known as a key supplier of weapons to the police and self-defense force. It was also involved with leading technical research in a wealth of fields, from electronic devices to ballistics calculation and DNA analysis for police investigations. And yet here was this house, going well beyond a penchant for Japanese aesthetics and looking more like a stubborn refusal to face modernity.
It was clear, at least, that Miori's fondness for traditional Japanese styles was not just an odd quirk on her part but a policy upheld by her entire family. And the main question now was how they were going to find Miori in this massive complex and convince her to help them out.
As a fugitive from the law, he doubted he could expect a friendly welcome when he rang the doorbell. Quite the opposite, in fact. Rentaro craned his head up again, tracing the wall's perimeter with his eyes. Then he ducked back down, finding exactly what he was expecting up there.
"People, huh?"
"Yeah. People."
There was a car near the front gate, positioned to be as inconspicuous as possible. It wasn't a black-and-white patrol car—a sight Rentaro was beyond tired of—but he guessed it was probably still the authorities.
If the front gate wasn't happening, it was time to find a weaker spot they could prod.
"I'll go on ahead," Rentaro said. "Could you just take me to the top of this fence?"
"No, I'll go. Why're we trying to convince her, anyway? Let's just kidnap this Miori woman and make her do our bidding."
"Wh-what?" a bewildered Rentaro replied.
Hotaru snorted at him. "I'm just saying, it'd be a lot quicker to break out some firepower and make her bend to our will. That's how it works with the targets I've beaten up until now, anyway."
"Yeah, right. You think I'd ever let someone as unstable as you near Miori?"
"…Look, I don't know what kind of idea you've got about me, but I'm just trying to handle this in the best way possible, using the best means possible. And if my way's the most efficient, then what's the problem?"
Rentaro wanted to bury his face in his hands.
"Look, there's no guarantee Miori would listen to you, but she'll listen to me, okay?"
"Glad to see you're so confident about that. How about a little friendly competition, then?"
"What in the world are you—?"
Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed his body, and he was seized by a violent acceleration as the ground fell out from under him.
When his feet felt terra firma again, they were on top of the fence.
"Get down."
He followed Hotaru's lead, falling to his hands and knees without having any idea what he was doing. He could hear the clacking of ceramics underneath him, the dampened kawara roof tiles rubbing against his stomach.
Up there, they could see the wide entirety of the Shiba residence in one fell swoop. The sight made Rentaro temporarily forget his mission with an appreciative sigh.
Below him, stone garden lanterns lit darkened pathways at regular intervals, leading to a square gazebo. The gazebo was perched atop an island in the middle of a large pond that dominated the central area of the property. Traditional washbasins were located here and there along the walkways, too, and a number of buildings dotted the paths, adding spice to the view wherever he looked.
The Shiba family was living in the midst of an imperial Japanese garden. But it was more than just simple beauty. Surveillance cameras were whirring left and right at strategic locations throughout, and Rentaro could see a security officer or two patrolling the premises.
"Let's see which one of us can find Miori first. If I do, I'll make her do our bidding my way. It's the same thing in the end, right?"
Hotaru stood up on the fence before Rentaro could stop her, then soundlessly dashed across the tiled surface.
Rentaro was both stunned and disgusted. He knew this alliance—between a girl burning for revenge and a civsec stupid enough to fall into the trap he was in—was on thin ice from the start. It was a team of convenience for both sides, and every now and then, it was bleedingly obvious that they lived in completely different worlds. As long as revenge was all she lived for, he supposed she wouldn't even bother taking notice of how many good intentions and would-be ideas she'd trample over along the way.
What a menace I've teamed up with, Rentaro thought. There was no way he could leave Miori in her hands.
Not, of course, that he had any idea where Miori was. He sized up the property once more, his mind at an impasse. It was 8 p.m. Common sense indicated to him that the family was either at the dinner table or enjoying an evening bath. It chagrined him to think of it, but Hotaru—zooming right for the main building—very likely had the right idea.
Come to think of it, Miori had confided in him once that the intensity of her schedule—school, practice, the private after-school learning center her parents made her go to—was seriously getting on her nerves. It had been a rare moment for her usual free-wheeling self to complain like that, and it stuck in his mind because of it.
She had confessed to having a home tutor, as well as private instruction in the traditional arts of folk dance, the koto harp, and archery. Miori's parents seemed intent on meticulously quashing any time the girl could possibly have to herself. The stress must have made her drop her guard around him—that one time, at least.
…Archery?
A thought occurred to Rentaro as he scanned the property. Soon, he found what he was looking for: a dilapidated structure, really nothing but a horse barn compared to the splendor of the main residence. A bit beyond it, he could see a pair of targets lined up, the little kasumi-mato used in Japanese archery. They were too far away to be distinctly visible.
He considered this for a moment, then nodded to himself. There were about eight meters between the fence top and the ground, but leaping off the steeply sloped roof that topped the mud-stone perimeter fence would take no small bit of courage. He sidled down and sat on the edge, legs dangling.
Then all of a sudden, one of the wet tiles came loose underneath him. Rentaro swung out for a handhold but missed the structure entirely. He scrambled to hang on but felt a sudden sense of weightlessness instead.
The dark of the ground came upon him too quickly to incite fear. He planted down on the dirt, a shock wave crossing his spine and going all the way to the top of his head. Still, just barely managing to stay on his feet, he instantly found a darker shadow hurtling toward him from above. Rentaro threw his hands above his head just in time to catch it.
Even though the roof tile that fell with him had the grace not to shatter and reveal his position, the experience was still greatly embarrassing. It really would be pitiful if he was discovered in such a pathetic state.
Just then, a nearby animal's snarl hit his ears, and Rentaro froze.
It was the third piece of the security puzzle, after the cameras and the guards.
Cursing himself for not noticing it when he was still safe, Rentaro wiped the sweat from his brow and turned toward the sound.
Their eyes met, revealing to Rentaro a pile of reddish-brown muscle giving him a supremely masculine glare despite the difference in species. Its head was wedge-shaped, its ears cropped but still bolt upright in the air.
The watchdog of Shiba Acres gave another ill-foreboding growl.
A Doberman pinscher.
…That part of the complex wasn't very traditional.
Security would be there soon. No time to waste. His adversary kept its rear end bent, ready to pounce if an attack appeared imminent. Then with a growl, it lunged, aiming straight for Rentaro's neck. It was exactly what he expected, which made both dodging it and landing a chop against the base of the dog's throat not terribly difficult.
Rentaro dragged the limp Doberman to the nearby woods, where he hid, too. Right on cue, a security guard ran up to the scene. Rentaro held his breath, assessing the guard from the dark, tall grass. A flashlight beam whizzed past him, the brightness making him blink. The guard restlessly shook his head and, after a moment, sighed. "Right," he said to nobody, maybe embarrassed about getting worked up over a false alarm, as he disappeared from view.
Rentaro let out a broad sigh of relief, then proceeded along, keeping himself hidden among the lines of pine trees as he took a wide turn around the pond and toward the archery range.
The canola oil burning in the stone lanterns emitted a bittersweet aroma, the flame flickering in the wind and slightly altering the shape of Rentaro's shadow as it let out a thin sort of warmth. Perhaps the residents were holding some kind of party inside, because the wind brushing his cheek brought with it the sound of cheering and old-style Japanese court music.
Finishing his arc around the pond, he poked his head up from behind a stone, finally able to take in the range ahead.
With a light thunk, an arrow buried itself in one of the targets in the distance.
Someone was there.
Clearing away the rain-glistened reeds before him, Rentaro bent down and carefully approached the range from the rear. There was another whoosh in the air, followed by the sound of something thudding into something else. His eyes, now used to the darkness, clearly saw a girl on the other side, the white of her archery uniform visible in the night.
She had a chest protector on, her bow drawn as she stayed alert. It was a very elegant pose, and the sweat glistening on her face made it all the more alluring to him.
But her expression through the dimly lit air was less than content. It was like she was practicing her skills in order to shake off some nagging doubt in her mind.
"Staying pretty active in this heat, huh?"
"Who's that?!"
He raised his hands into the air to show his innocence. There was no artificial lighting in the range, despite the late hour. Her eyes must have been just as used to the dark as his.
She gave a look of surprise, followed by a gasp.
"My dear Satomi? Are you the real thing…?"
"Do I look like a fake?"
Rentaro expected this to be followed up by her usual silliness. Probably along the lines of At this time of night? Were you trying to sneak in my room for a little hanky-panky? Oh, such an honor, or the like. But with another whoosh, something thudded just past his side.
Rentaro stopped; looking aside, he saw the shaft of a duralumin arrow vibrating in the air, practically in front of his nose.
"They said you were dead," Miori whispered, shaking as her hands clutched the bowstring. "You have no idea how worried I was."
Shocked, Rentaro felt deadly ashamed of his lackluster self-introduction. As far as the TV news was concerned, he had either drowned or bled to death near the Magata Plaza Hotel. That would explain the look of confused discontent he had seen on her face all the way across the archery range a moment earlier.
"I'm sorry I made you worry."
There was a twinge of pain in Miori's downturned eyes.
"Satomi… Satomi dear, did you really…really…kill him?"
"No!" he replied instinctively, only to draw back and weakly shake his head. "I don't know if you'll believe me or not, but I've been framed. Will you give me some time to explain myself…please?"
Miori nodded silently, beckoning him to continue. So Rentaro gave a quick summary of everything that had happened to him thus far—the bizarre request from a familiar client; the client's subsequent assassination; his arrest and escape; the girl he was working with now; and the mysterious Black Swan Project they were trying to blow the door open on.
By the time he was done, a look of supreme relief was clear on Miori's face.
"Guess you never had it in you to kill in the first place, hmm?"
Rentaro stuck his hands in his pockets and pouted. "What'd you think?"
"Hey, did you hear, though, my sweet Satomi? I heard a rumor saying Kisara's gonna get married soon."
A wave of pain, similar to a strike against his head with a hammer, coursed through Rentaro.
Kisara? Marrying?
"To whom?"
"Uh, someone named Hitsuma from the police."
Him—
The rage was enough to practically add a red tint to his eyesight. The possibility should have been obvious to him long ago. He had thought his foe sent Enju to the IISO, Tina to jail, and the Tendo Civil Security Agency into de facto oblivion because he feared the strength of their Initiators. He was wrong.
"I keep on calling and texting Kisara, but she won't respond to anything I give her. You know what's up with that, Satomi?"
The distressing mental image of Hitsuma ravaging Kisara flickered into his brain. It nauseated him. He hung his head, eyes closed tightly as his fists began to shake.
Kisara…
I want to see them. Everything else can wait. I want to rescue Enju, and Tina, and hold them in my arms. I want to rescue Kisara, and apologize for all the horrible things I said to her. Then everything could be normal again—
"I…"
"…Oh, were you busy?"
Hotaru chose this moment to speak up from her perch atop the roof over the bow stations. Working her way to the ground, she sidled up to Miori.
"Who's this?" Miori asked her.
"Hotaru Kouro. I'm with this guy. We kind of have a few common goals." Then she looked at Rentaro, as if that was all the explanation she felt she owed the girl whose property she was on. "The archery range, huh? You got me there."
"Heh. Yep. I found her first. So hands off."
Hotaru raised her hands up, eyes closed in surrender, and shrugged.
"Um, so what's this about?" Miori asked Rentaro. "Is this the girl you said you were working with?"
He thought for a moment before responding. "Miori… Thanks for telling me about Kisara's marriage. But I can't go see her yet."
He fished around in his pocket for something that felt smooth and cold in his hand, and showed it to Miori. The film case was packed with dry ice, ventilation holes on the top of the cap.
"There's tissue from a certain Gastrea inside this case. It's almost certainly linked to this whole frame job. I need access to a lab where we can analyze it."
Gripping the steering wheel of the black Mercedes-Benz, Rentaro adjusted his position in the seat beneath the belt and tensed his body. It had been a while. Trying to remember everything he learned at driving school, he checked the signs around him and pushed down on the accelerator. The car awkwardly lurched forward.
Given how this was his first shot at driving a vehicle as relentlessly fancy as this, he couldn't be blamed for a few butterflies.
"A civsec license lets you drive pretty much anything, hmm?" Miori bouncily observed from the passenger seat.
"Don't talk to me. If I hit something, it's gonna be your fault."
"Promoters can drive anything except tanks and fighter jets," Hotaru added from the rear, her head the only part visible from the front seat. "If you're an Initiator, though, all that license gets you is anti-corrosion drugs. It's pretty useless."
"Sounds pretty nice. Maybe I should score one of those."
Rentaro took time from intensely focusing on the road up ahead to snort at Miori. "It doesn't come that quick, you know."
Miori, who had taken a moment to change into a kimono before leaving, opened up her hand fan and covered her mouth as she fanned her face. "I just figured, anything you have, I should have, too. See what I mean, Satomi dearest?"
"Ugh."
"I think the fact that someone on Rentaro's level can score a license so easily says a lot about the whole system, too," Hotaru added.
"Are you guys trying to start a fight with me?"
"Oh, turn right, here."
Rentaro half swerved at Miori's command, barely making the turn.
"So where're we going, anyway?" he asked a moment later.
"Shiba Heavy Weapons HQ."
The light turned red ahead. The car quietly decelerated. Rentaro found himself checking the rearview mirror to make sure nobody was following them. When they took the Mercedes out of the property, they asked Miori's normal chauffeur to take out the limousine she used for commuting to school as a lure for the detective parked out front. He had taken the bait—the Mercedes had made it out of the premises without a hitch—but now was no time to let their guard down.
A digital clock stood out clearly against the neon blur of the cityscape before them. It was approaching 10 p.m.
Before long, they spotted a building just a little bit taller than the rest of the glowing, dazzling edifices around it. He expected it to be mostly abandoned at this time of night but was surprised to find a few windows still shining bright. At least a few employees were burning the midnight oil.
"Twenty-four hours a day, there's always somebody here," Miori humble-bragged, guessing at Rentaro's thoughts.
"Shiba Heavy Weapons takes up all the floors here?"
"Uh-huh."
"Boy, you must be raking it in."
He meant to chide her with that, but Miori just brought a kimono sleeve up to her mouth and gave him a graceful titter. "We do," she said. "Our weapons make us a lot of profit, and—sad to say—they'll probably continue to do so for a while to come. It's a dangerous world out there."
"It doesn't bug you at all?" he asked. "Making weapons meant for killing people, and stuff?"
"Well, we sell bulletproof gear and armored vehicles for dealing with that, too, so…"
"Making the problem, then selling the solution, huh?" Rentaro muttered. Or he would have, had he not quashed the sentiment right before it tried to escape his lips. He was hardly one to talk. He was armed at nearly all times, theoretically so he could engage Gastrea at a moment's notice, and he even had explosive charges installed within his body. Whether he resented Shiba Heavy Weapons or not, he was practically the culmination of their labor.
The car entered the parking lot, rolling up to what looked like a security checkpoint. The guard glared at first, suspicious of these late-night visitors, but when he saw Miori's smiling face emerge from beneath the tinted glass, things changed quickly. "Oh, pardon me, ma'am!" he said, standing at attention. "You can go on ahead."
As they pressed on to Shiba premises, Rentaro realized that his mouth had gone slightly agape. In front of the entrance, there was a team of security guards that—between their Shiba-labeled, full-body combat gear and the assault rifles in their hands—looked like they belonged to some special-forces team. Maybe a paramilitary force, even. And judging by the way they patrolled in tandem, Rentaro observed, they were clearly well-trained.
"Odd how the security's a lot tighter here than at your house."
Miori gave off a bewitching smile, as if Rentaro had just complimented her. "I told you, it's a dangerous world out there. If anything ever happens, they're trained to suppress Gastrea in place of the police or civsecs. It's all Shiba equipment from head to toe, too, so it makes for good advertising."
"Huh," Rentaro said as he steered the car past them. Now that he was closer, he could see that what he thought were bulletproof vests were actually state-of-the-art Shiba combat exoskeletons, protecting body joints while boosting overall muscular strength about 80 percent. They were among the best of their kind, posting astonishing anti–shock wave and anti-penetration results in testing.
Rentaro had seen them in a catalog once, then briskly closed it shut when he saw how many zeroes were in the prices. But as he heard it, being part of the Shiba Heavy Weapons family would pretty much grant him the keys to the vault when it came to access. It made him a tad jealous.
Miori gauged his response, her eyes slitted and curious.
"Y'know, Satomi dear, do you think you could beat those guys if you really felt like it?"
Rentaro silently shook his head. Being attacked by a squad of well-trained, heavily armed troopers like these… He wouldn't last long.
Now the car approached the entrance to the main building. Miori got out, sporting all the grace of an actress at the Oscars. Rentaro, similarly sporting his gloves and sunglasses, followed suit, as did Hotaru.
The lobby entrance was completely glass-lined, and the security guards inside quickened Rentaro's pulse. Miori may have agreed to help him, but that didn't mean everyone at Shiba from the mailroom on up was his friend now. The guard quizzically sized up Rentaro and his party, which made Rentaro's heart beat even faster.
"Good evening, Miori. What brings you here this late?"
"Oh, you know, this and that. Do y'know if anyone's left in the analysis lab down on the third basement floor?"
The man at the front desk took a moment to check his display-mounted glasses. "No," he replied, "they're all gone for the night."
"Okay, well, we'll be down there for just a sec. These are my friends. Thanks!"
With a delicate wave of her hand, she pressed on. Rentaro and Hotaru solemnly followed, feeling eyes on their backs as they boarded the elevator and pushed the B3 button. As the doors closed, Rentaro heaved a stress-relieving sigh and removed his disguise gear.
"You think they recognized me?"
"I dunno," Miori sneered playfully, "but I don't think sunglasses at night ever give off too friendly a vibe, you know?"
Hotaru looked up. "Your family doesn't say anything about you visiting the office late-night, Miori?"
"Ooh, you called me by my first name and everything," Miori sarcastically replied before putting her fist against her chest. "Nothing to worry about there, though. I get into all kinds of naughty stuff. One time, I came here at like two in the morning and took out blueprints for guns and stuff."
With a beep, the elevator opened. Ahead was total darkness. It was a bit humid, suggesting the central air was off. The echoing of their footsteps told Rentaro that the ceiling was pretty high.
"Anyway," Miori said as she ran a pass through a nearby magnetic reader, "welcome, my dear Satomi."
Suddenly, the room was flooded with bright light, forcing Rentaro to shield his eyes and squint. Lights activated one by one across the floor, and only when they were all on did Rentaro realize the sheer enormity of the place. It looked every bit like an experimental laboratory, complete with rooms walled by reinforced see-through glass. Beakers, flasks, and a motley array of other lab tools lined the visible desks. Rentaro recognized what the centrifuges looked like, at least, but there was no telling what the giant plastic box one row down was. A DNA sequencer, maybe?
Miori had shown Rentaro around her company's gun manufacturing facility once—a very factorylike atmosphere. This, on the other hand, looked clean, refined, and—for lack of a better term—like the future.
"Can I have the sample you need analyzed, please?"
"You're gonna do it? Can you do that?"
She responded by taking another fan out from her kimono, this one iron-ribbed. Spreading it wide, she batted it at herself proudly.
"Well, ask a silly question! There's no machine in this entire building I can't use."
Rentaro, honestly astonished, took the film case with the Gastrea tissue sample out of his pocket and tossed it to Miori.
"Thanks."
"You got it," Miori replied with an endearing wink before turning her back to them and padding away in her sandals. Watching her go, Rentaro whispered another Thanks to her in his mind.
6
"What?!"
The blanket flew off his body as he rose, causing some of the other detectives to give him questioning stares. Inspector Shigetoku Tadashima paid them no mind as he pressed his phone against his ear. On the other end of the line, he could hear Yoshikawa, one of his detectives, blabber into the phone, his obvious excitement causing his tongue to trip over itself.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter001f.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
"I said Miori Shiba, daughter of the president of Shiba Heavy Weapons, has gone missing. I was staking out the front gate, and the limousine she always uses came out the exit. I tailed it. It stopped in front of Magata High School, where she goes for class. So I waited for a while, but no Miori came out. I took a peek into the limo's interior, and that's when I realized someone pulled the wool over my eyes. Then I—"
Tadashima ended the call before his coworker could finish, grabbed his jacket from the desk corner it was slumped over, and leapt out of the station's nap room, putting his jacket on as he stormed down the hall.
It had to be Rentaro Satomi. But what was he doing, taking the president's daughter with him? Unless they knew why, searching the city would be fruitless…
"Hey, wait a minute, please!"
Turning toward the strained voice behind him, he found a square-shouldered female officer approaching him, standing tall as she inserted herself between Tadashima and the exit ahead.
"How long have you gone without any sleep, sir? You should really take a longer break first."
"The suspect's not gonna wait until I'm done napping!"
"You're going to wreck your health! You aren't that young anymore."
"If this is all it takes to wreck my health, I'm not cut out to be a detective, anyway!"
He tried to push off the officer, already taken aback by his threatening tone, when something occurred to him. He took a closer look at her face.
"Hey, Shiba Heavy Weapons helps the force out a lot, too, right?"
The inspector's sudden question further surprised the newcomer. "Y-yes," she managed to reply, rubbing her chin as she thought it over. "They supply us with weaponry; they take on some of the criminal-science work for us…ballistics analysis, blood testing, DNA… That's all part of their work—"
"That's it!"
"Huh?"
"Great. Good job, Officer! The Shiba Heavy Weapons HQ building. Get me as much backup as we got available. I'm going on ahead."
Tadashima provided as much appreciation as he could for the glassy-eyed officer, then spun in place and flew out of Magata Station.
Rentaro Satomi and his gang, for whatever reason, had their sights on a truck loaded with Gastrea. Whatever they picked up from that, they had to be analyzing it somewhere. Which made the theory that they were running around with some kind of concrete goal in mind seem even more plausible for him now.
Tadashima turned the key in his vehicle, then pushed down as hard as he could on the accelerator.
Test fluid flowed through a lab-room flask as Miori expertly operated the analysis machine. Watching off to the side, Rentaro realized his amateur knowledge gave him no clue how far along in the process she was. He didn't have much else to do, so he headed for the stairway, figuring he might as well gain an understanding of the building's setup while he was there.
Checking the position of the emergency exits, he opened the metal door and started climbing the dimly lit stairwell. The rhythmic tapping of his soles against the flat stone helped energize his thought process.
He had already been targeted once by Hummingbird. The hideout they took such great pains to keep safe was now discovered. The enemy, whoever it was, was damn talented at sniffing him out. For all he knew, their gnarled hands were circling themselves around his neck at this very minute—
This is stupid.
Shaking off his paranoid delusions, he examined the plate on the wall and realized he was on the first floor. He decided to turn around, not wanting to run into those security guards again—and just as he did, he stopped at what sounded like an explosion.
A gunshot. A sound familiar enough to understand immediately.
Cold metal hit his ear as he placed it against the emergency-exit door. Another gunshot from the other side. This time, he could tell it was a small-caliber, high-speed round. That pretty much IDed the culprit. An assault rifle.
The gunshots continued off and on, followed by the sound of glass shattering. Then the sounds of scuffling, interspersed with screaming. Then, complete silence.
His palms coated with sweat, Rentaro slowly, soundlessly, cracked open the door. The thick stench of blood through it made his body shiver. Summoning up his resolve, he opened it all the way—only to groan at what he saw.
"What the hell…?"
The first thing Rentaro could see was a security soldier slumped on the ground, as if taking a quick siesta. But some manner of bladed weapon had cut a deep gash in his neck, the initial spray from which was now exhibited in all its horrific glory on a nearby modern-art canvas.
The lobby's chairs and desks were upturned. There was evidence of corpses being dragged around, as well as spent casings and the like. That, and a wide selection of dead security, the number of which would've taken a conscious effort to count. Some had their necks snapped by force, their legs bent in unnatural directions. Others had one or more limbs amputated.
The lights had been knocked out on this floor, except for a night-light on a lone counter, creating a sort of spotlight effect on the front-desk attendant.
His back was turned to Rentaro. Looking closer, there was a puddle of dark liquid at his feet, as if he had just had an accident.
Rentaro sidled around, Beretta in hand, toward the chair. The man was staring straight up, his neck slashed from ear to ear. His wide-open eyes were frozen for all time in a gaze of terror.
He checked for a pulse. No dice.
"Good God…"
Something like twenty security guards, and they were annihilated?
Rentaro's throat was dry. He tried to swallow his nerves, trying to keep his head on straight. Then he heard another scream from afar, mixed in with rifle fire. Looking toward the front lawn spread out across the Shiba Heavy Weapons entrance, he saw a lone surviving guard swinging his rifle around, firing blindly. Shell shock, no doubt.
"Hey!"
The guard took notice, unfortunately.
"Eeeyaaahh!!" he shouted as he turned the gun on him. Rentaro ducked under the front desk and covered his ears.
He didn't have to wait long. The glass covering the entrance shattered, as did the lone light fixture still illuminating the lobby. The darkness grew thicker.
"Hold your fire! I'm friendly!"
He risked waving his hand above the desk. Nothing. Then he looked up. The shooter, finally coming to his senses, ran up to him.
"H-help! Help me!"
"What happened?"
The guard had both hands latched on to his headgear, clearly in pain.
"I don't know! I looked at my buddy and he was hanging in midair. His, his head was stabbed. There was blood spraying everywhere. And then I just… I have no idea."
"What the hell's that mean…?!" Rentaro shouted.
"Don't ask me, man! That's what I wanna know!"
Sensing that panic was about to set in again, Rentaro put both hands on the guard's shoulders to calm him. In his clutches, the guard explained that he found one of his coworkers run through with a knife and with a broken neck in a spot where nobody else was in sight—as if killed by an invisible man.
It was extremely hard for anyone sane to believe. If it weren't for the grisly scene laid out before them—the sheer scope of it—Rentaro would have doubted the guard's current mental state.
This was that group again. The one pursuing him. They had released their grim reaper yet another time.
Rentaro had already taken care of Hummingbird, the killer of Kenji Houbara. Which meant there were two left…
He already knew the sniper Dark Stalker, aka Yuga Mitsugi, had murdered Giichi Ebihara. This assassin still had something up his sleeve, he sensed—but was he the type who could break people's necks with his bare hands?
Meanwhile, the killer of Saya Takamura was still at large. Was that person the one behind this?
"I'm gonna get Miori out of this building. That's the rear entrance back there, right?"
The guard made a face like he just realized the existence of the rear gate for the first time. He made a break for it.
"Whoa! Wait a sec!"
"Get outta here!" the guard shouted behind his back as he ran. "I can't spend another minute in this hellhole!"
Then something Rentaro found hard to believe happened.
As he ran, from out of thin air, a large knife stabbed through the guard's exoskeleton and right out the other side. There was a sort of shhkk sound, and then his body was lifted off the ground.
"Ga…aaa…!"
Rentaro stood bolt upright as he witnessed the otherworldly spectacle. What on…?
There was nothing but utterly empty space where the knife had come from. It was like the weapon had leapt up and plunged itself into his chest on its own volition. Did a ghost stab him or something?
"You…monster…!"
The guard writhed violently in midair, kicking at his adversary. Then Rentaro spotted it: a sort of waving of the air, a bit like the noise seen in a poor digital TV signal. The air flickered, and he could see human-shaped visual garbage flicker in and out of sight.
He was there. Someone had stabbed him after all. A pretty large someone, at that.
Could this be—?
Rentaro could think of only one property of physics that could explain this unexplainable sight—and one type of equipment that could make it possible.
"Optical camo…?"
Whispering it to himself didn't make it any easier to believe.
The ability to bend the light around an object, making it melt into the background. The classic "invisible person," but something that still went beyond the framework of modern science.
And did this invisible giant lie in ambush there, waiting for his poor victim to run blindly for the rear exit? This was the man who destroyed all this military tech, the pride of Shiba Heavy Weapons?
The guard, still aloft, vomited a round of dark blood, then stopped moving. Tossing the body aside, the invisible man—Rentaro sensed—turned his eyes toward him. Murderous intent radiated from the space.
Rentaro's breathing grew short and shallow. It was too dangerous to stay there. Using the toe of his shoe, he kicked a rifle on the floor up into his hands, flipping the switch to full-auto mode and firing. It spat out an impressive amount of flash as it sprayed bullets across the wall of a nearby hallway with an ear-piercing roar.
But it was out of ammo in two seconds. Time to run.
Rentaro threw down the weapon and went back down the way he came, half running, half lunging for the stairwell. At the bottom, he tackled the B3 door open.
Hotaru and Miori, looking at a piece of paper, turned to him.
"Satomi, we've got the analysis results."
"The enemy's here," he panted. "It's bad."
Hotaru narrowed her eyes. "Where?"
"I don't know. But we can't stay here." Rentaro turned. "Miori, that VR training space is still two floors down from here, right? I need to use it."
"A VR training space?"
"Yeah," he replied to Hotaru's doubtful query. "This, ah, enormous cube-shaped space that we use as a battle simulator. We'll take the guy on in there."
It was a curt explanation, but one good enough for Hotaru. She nodded. He turned toward Miori again.
"The enemy's after all three of us. You go to some other room and run the simulator for me. Shut off the door completely so no one can get in."
"All right. I just explained the results to Hotaru. She'll give you the story once we're clear."
"Got it."
Rentaro pushed the elevator button, and then set his hand on a gracefully hesitant Miori's shoulder.
"I really hope you don't have to die, Satomi dear," she said in reply.
"Already happened once, apparently. Don't really feel like having it happen again."
He nodded at her, conveying his resolve and thanks at the same time. The door closed.
"Let's go, Hotaru."
With new determination, Rentaro began to run. Taking three steps at a time as he tore downstairs, he checked the nameplate by the fifth underground floor's entrance and jumped inside.
Beyond the doorway was a locker room with two Shiba-branded assault rifles. Rentaro grabbed them both and tossed one to Hotaru. Next, he pushed open a nearby door that had a card reader mounted to one side.
Although he was expecting it, the brightness made him raise up his arm in self-defense.
It was a clear white space, so white that it was hard to tell the walls from the floor. It was completely empty, not a speck of dust at their feet. It was surreal, like nothing of this world—and, to someone experiencing it for the first time, a jaw-dropping experience.
Hotaru gingerly took a step forward. The result was enough to convince her the floor was really there, but stupefaction was still written all over her face. Rentaro beckoned her over.
As they walked across the vast cavern, the white began to twist and turn before them. Rentaro felt a sharp sense of dizziness for an instant, then the view around him changed 180 degrees.
It was now dark, humid, and musty. Rentaro could smell dust, and no light came in through the windows, which were framed by bare wood. The scent of rust and decomposing forest matter indicated this "building" had been abandoned for a while.
They were inside a dark, high-ceilinged space. Some kind of storage facility.
"Wh-what's this?" a wary Hotaru asked.
"The name of the stage is 'the warehouse,'" Rentaro replied as calmly as possible. "That's the cool part about VR battle training. You can change the entire combat environment at the push of a button."
Presumably this stage was Miori's decision.
"This is…virtual?" Hotaru asked as she curiously poked at a nearby storage crate. Beside her, Rentaro took a penlight out from his hip pocket and swung it around. Large piles of square crates sprung out from the darkness, carelessly layered in haphazard stacks or piles, all covered in a fine coating of dust.
The space seemed resentful of being awoken from its slumber; the only environmental lighting was slight and came from the opposite wall, a surprisingly long distance away. The chamber itself was about as large as a decent-size factory.
Rentaro placed his rifle on top of a nearby crate, deploying its bipod for stability as he aimed at the door they had arrived through. He peered into the dot sight as he gave Hotaru a quick rundown of how to operate the rifle.
"All right. So the enemy's gonna open this door and run through. He's using optical camo, so expect him to be invisible. Once it opens, start firing, whether you see anything or not."
"Gotcha."
Through the gunsight, Rentaro could see a pale red dot in the center of his view, jiggling to and fro in response to his pinpoint adjustments.
After a few moments, there was a faint clanging sound. The door was being pushed from the other side.
Rentaro's pulse raced. He sharpened the corners of his eyes, put his finger on the trigger, and pushed down enough to eliminate the play on it. The door opened enough to be slightly ajar.
"Hotaru!"
Full-auto fire ensued. The door was instantly pockmarked with holes, the blinding flash and concussive noise continuing on for what felt like eons. Eternity didn't last long, however, because the ammo was soon exhausted. A small moment of silence, and then a figure fell forward, onto the warehouse floor, the now unhinged door doing little to break his fall.
Rentaro gave a hand signal to his partner, took out his handgun, and approached. Gradually, he could see a silhouette via the glare behind him—a fully visible one. Either he'd turned off his optical camo or it was destroyed in the barrage.
Rentaro went up to the body, giving it a slight nudge with his foot. No response. Taking that as a cue, Rentaro crouched down and turned the body over. Then he froze.
"It's not the guy, Hotaru," Rentaro shouted behind him. "We've still got an active hostile!"
The man, presumably in his early thirties and dressed in nothing but a shirt and his boxers, was the security guard who lost his life just a moment ago. The enemy threw the corpse through the door to attract their fire.
"—I've been looking for you, 'New Humanity.' My name is Swordtail."
The voice came from behind.
Rentaro turned around just in time to see a knife, floating in the air, descending rapidly upon him.
"Shi—"
Rentaro immediately pictured it—the knife piercing deep into his chest cavity and skewering his heart. But before it became reality, there was a gunshot. It tinged against the knife, sending it across the floor.
Support fire from Hotaru. Rentaro crouched down as she continued the salvo without any rest, firing blindly with both hands.
The bullets carved the warehouse's walls, but they were just a moment too late. The enemy's ghostly form had vanished again.
Hotaru grabbed on to Rentaro. Before he could ask why, he felt another powerful acceleration, as if being blown away by an explosion. The girl, reasoning it was too dangerous to remain there, had leapt upward.
"How the hell're we gonna beat that?!"
"I'm trying to think of something, all right?!"
The two landed in the central area of the warehouse, Rentaro on Hotaru's back.
"You murdered Saya Takamura, didn't you?!" he shouted into the unfathomable darkness.
"Hohh," a voice echoed across the expansive warehouse space, its position impossible to detect. "You've dug yourself in that deep and you're still breathing, huh? No wonder the group's running itself ragged trying to find you."
As he spoke, Rentaro's mind raced for a potential solution. His enemy was invisible, and yet his knife wasn't. His invisibility was the result of some kind of cloak or vest, perhaps, but whenever he attacked, maybe that meant his weapon had to be exposed for that one moment before the strike.
And it wasn't like the camo could nullify his footsteps or sense of presence. If the enemy didn't have any close-quarters weaponry besides that knife, Rentaro could always use his five senses to figure out where he was. If there was a handgun or something on his person, though, that complicated things.
But who is this Swordtail guy, anyway…?
"Lemme guess what you're thinking right now. It's something like How's he able to camouflage his entire body? Right?"
Rentaro's mouth snapped shut.
"You know how Dark Stalker has a copy of Sumire Muroto's 21-Form Varanium Artificial Eye. Hummingbird had an upgraded clone of Ain Rand's Shenfield tech. Meanwhile, I'm installed with something called the 'Marriott injection,' something originally meant for mechanized infantry. My nanomaterial-infused skin can bend the light around it at will. It's the most powerful skill a robot soldier can have, and Arthur Zanuck made it practical for real-life use."
"Wha—?!"
Arthur Zanuck… He'd heard that name before. One of the so-called Four Sages alongside Sumire. So Swordtail was another one of their skill mimickers… But what did that mean? Whoever was behind the New World Creation Project, what were they trying to—?
Amid the mazelike piles of metal containers strewn all over the place, Rentaro turned his attention left and right, guard ever on the ready. Nobody seemed to be nearby. The sound drained itself from the shabby warehouse, and he felt completely alone. Every cell of his skin was attuned like radar, ready to pick up so much as a pin dropping.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
"Nice try."
The human hand that came out of the darkness set a gun to rest comfortably against Rentaro's temple.
Rentaro reacted. Just before the trigger was pulled, he brushed the gun away and darted his head to the side. There was a loud crack from the gun, then a rush of heat as the bullet grazed his temple.
Rentaro dropped to the floor, executed a forward roll, then got right back on his feet. He drew his gun on the enemy, but he was already gone.
"Don't you know about me? You would if you'd done your research."
A half-pitying, half-chiding voice sounded off, this time in point-blank range of his ears. Rentaro was taken by surprise—it was exactly like before, except this time the point of the gun was right at his back.
"You can try as many times as you want. But you can't win."
But there, faster than the naked eye could see, Hotaru plowed in.
"Nrh!"
Turning around, Rentaro found that Hotaru had deftly made her way to the giant man's hand, using her entire body to squeeze the gun out of it. The optical camo flickered out—perhaps not as effective when grappling with a foe like this—revealing an eerily large man in a coat. Rentaro could hear his muscles creaking, screaming for help, all the way from his vantage point.
"God damn—"
But their enemy was still up to the task. His muscles grated one another as he jerked his wrist back, not caring if he dislocated it or not, and shook Hotaru off. Hotaru slammed against the ground back-first. Swordtail drew his gun on her.
By the time Rentaro thought Oh crap, his body was already running, all but slamming into her. As he did, two gunshots overlapped each other. Pain wrenched his back. He gritted his teeth.
Hotaru, held down on the ground, opened her eyes wide in surprise, her eyes shaking. "Rentaro…! What are you—?"
The blood dripping out the back of his school uniform fell upon Hotaru's face. She shook it off in disbelief and screamed.
"You're so stupid! I can regenerate myself at will! You didn't have to—"
"—Shut up!"
Hotaru instantly fell silent.
"I really don't like that attitude of yours."
"Stop it! You're gonna die!"
Swordtail fired another flurry of bullets. They all struck home on his back.
"Gaaaaaahh!!"
Hotaru shook her head back and forth again. "Stop! Please, just stop!" she barely managed to whisper, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
"At least let me protect my partner this time!"
"It's over, kid," came a voice from behind. There was no way to instantly react to it. The end was near. Rentaro's body tightened, anticipating the heat from the bullets coming the next instant.
Then he was tossed aside without warning.
Gunshots. Blood sprayed from Hotaru's left breast, right on the heart. For a moment, Rentaro didn't realize what had happened.
But Hotaru was dead. The moment he realized it, rage seared him from head to toe.
"You piece of—"
He couldn't afford to have the enemy go invisible again. He got up, spewing blood, and with all his might, planted his feet on the ground and calmed himself. A cartridge spat itself out of his leg, spinning, and propelled his foot upward.
Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 14—
"Inzen Genmeika!"
The midlevel kick, launched from a low, near-crouching position, found its mark. It hit cleanly on the chest area of the giant, a look of shock burned onto his face.
The force seemed to blow the air in all directions, the propulsion from Rentaro's leg sending the man flying like so many dead leaves in autumn. He collided with a stack of crates in the center of the room, kicking up plumes of dust as the collapsing pile tumbled over his body.
"Gnh!"
Rentaro's response was to vomit a thick splatter of blood across the floor. Firing a cartridge with open wounds on his body succeeded in ravaging all his injuries. But he could still move. And if his Tendo Martial Arts skills—further powered up by the jet turbine–like cartridges in his leg—found their target, it would be the same as being struck by a semitruck at full speed. In fact, it was a miracle his adversary's limbs didn't get blown off.
As he smelled something pungent among the dust, Rentaro used his free hand to cover his mouth so he didn't breathe it in. A moment later, he spotted Swordtail's brown coat. He was lying facedown, surrounded by a carpet of wood splinters, and his coat was the only part visible.
Rentaro went up to his enemy's feet and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger on his Beretta twice. If the man was playing possum, well, now he wasn't.
The bullets shredded the coat, sending fabric fibers flying, but there was no blood.
Something was off. Rentaro nudged at the coat with his fingertips, then decided to simply rip it off.
Before he could even consciously acknowledge surprise, his body had already planted itself against a nearby crate. Gingerly daring another look at the coat, he saw a pile of vaguely body-shaped splinters under it, and nothing else. No body.
Rentaro felt something to his left. He pulled his chin back, his body falling in reverse, and a fist the size of a boulder thundered past his head. He was now out of position, and he had no way of evading the foe as he advanced upon him at astounding speed. He, and his combat boot.
"Gah!"
"That wasn't a bad idea," a monotonous voice said from across the dark warehouse. By the time Rentaro's bleary vision focused itself again, he realized Swordtail was standing no more than a meter away from him.
The man was damaged. The cuffs of his pants were frayed, and he was bleeding. Breathing, for him, required heaving his shoulders up and down. Without the coat, he could see that the man, his hulking body shaped something like an inverted triangle, was wearing a black tank top.
"But you just had to go around thinking I was on the same level as somebody like Hummingbird."
Swordtail aimed his handgun at Rentaro's head. A bottomless abyss awaited within it.
"You lose."
"And that arrogance just made you lose."
No one was more surprised than Swordtail to see a figure perched on top of him, as if he was giving her a piggyback ride.
"You… Why are you…?!"
Hotaru had both feet laced around the bucking Swordtail's head, using her free hands to draw her twin pistols from behind her back.
"I hope you taste even a tenth of the suffering Kihachi did."
The next moment, a continual cycle of explosions and muzzle flashes swarmed the area. Fresh, warm blood fell upon Rentaro's face.
"Aaaahhhhh!"
With a beastlike roar as he desperately tried to peel Hotaru off, Swordtail found himself the target of a merciless pair of .45-caliber handguns as they thudded their payloads into him at point-blank range.
The otherworldly sight didn't last long. Soon the slide stops popped up on both weapons, indicating they had exhausted their ammo. Hotaru leapt out of the way.
"Ngh…ahh…!"
Swordtail fell to his knees, then face-first onto the ground with a mighty, earth-shaking foom.
"Rentaro!" Hotaru shouted as she all but threw herself at him, embracing his head. He couldn't feel the sensation, which wasn't exactly encouraging, but Rentaro weakly nodded nonetheless. The chill from the blood loss was making his eyes heavy. Hotaru shook him as hard as she could.
"We need to get out of here and get you treated!"
He got back on his feet, Hotaru lending him a shoulder, and forced his knees to not buckle. He was cold. He'd lost too much blood; he felt like he'd freeze to death before anything else.
Rentaro took a side glance at Swordtail—only to have the sight shoot a jolt of reenergizing surprise into him.
The huge man was gone without a trace. In his place were bloodstains, with a trail of droplets following out of the room.
"Hotaru… He ran on us…"
"How?! How could he have moved after that?"
"I don't know…but looks like he did."
Anyone involved in either the New Humanity or the New World Creation Projects were people with strength beyond all reason. Applying Varanium to human bones and organs had the terrifying power to turn mortal wounds into not-so-mortal ones.
"We gotta go after him… We can't let him leave with the info we have."
Swordtail, also known as Jugo Katake, slammed a fist against the wall as he entered the shower room, all but ripping the curtain off the pole as he stormed into a booth. He used the knob to set the temperature to 36 degrees Celsius—suitable for washing blood spatter off his body—and immersed his head in the lukewarm water.
It couldn't be. It couldn't. Not this, Jugo whispered to himself as he struggled to take hold over his consciousness.
His powerful carbon-nanotube muscles, combined with a spinal column made of self-repairing Varanium alloy, had stopped all the bullets. His blood vessels had constricted themselves to prevent excessive blood loss. The organic transistors implanted in his body had monitored all medical statistics relevant to keeping him alive, making adjustments as necessary.
And yet the flurry of handgun fire Jugo took at point-blank range wasn't anything he could ignore. Especially given how physical brawn was such a key part of his battle strategy.
The blood now washed off his body, he checked to make sure his optical camo still worked as usual, then flew out of the shower and began his escape. On the elevator he went, jumping over the dead security guards still decorating the first-floor lobby, and soon he was outside, greeted by the murky, humid night air.
He couldn't shake the frustration that bubbled up. He was supposed to be the brightest star of the New World Creation Project. So how did an obsolete pre-war model leave him in the dust like that?
What part of me could possibly be inferior to him?
"Well, someone just got put through the wringer."
"Who—?"
He was in the central courtyard of the Shiba Heavy Weapons building when a figure emerged from under one of the poplar trees that dotted the well-kept lawn. Jugo winced in disbelief once the moonlight fully exposed the boy.
"Dark Stalker?!"
He wanted to know what the kid was doing there, but he resisted the urge to ask. This was too good an opportunity to let pass.
"Perfect. Report to Hitsuma through Nest for me. I landed a lethal blow on Hotaru Kouro, but she came back to life. Whatever her Gastrea factor is, it gives her an incredible amount of vitality."
"Yeah? Thanks for the report."
The carefree, inattentive tone of voice made Jugo wonder if he even realized how vital this was. He swung an arm out, frustrated.
"What're you doing?! The enemy's coming! Let me go!"
"Afraid I can't agree to that."
"What?"
"I know it's kind of a summary judgment, but I need to execute you right here. You screw up, you die."
For a moment, Jugo stared blankly, unsure what Dark Stalker had just said.
"What kind of joke is that?"
"Sorry, but it's not any kind of joke at all. You lost, and as a result, the group told me they don't want anything to do with you."
"I haven't lost at all yet!"
"You're the only one who thinks that, you know."
Hold on… Is he really going to…?
"W-wait a minute. Just give me another chance."
"Don't need to." Yuga brushed his hair back, the spite practically radiating from his face. "Is it that hard to believe? That you might wind up being the executed instead of the executioner sometime?"
There was no way he could. Jugo had given everything to the group. Why would they treat him like this? "…And you think I'm just gonna let myself get killed?" he demanded.
Yuga shrugged. "Well, that's what I'm here for, anyway."
Swordtail lowered his body into a battle stance. "That's insane! You're the one who deserves to die. Go ahead. Ask Mr. Hitsuma anytime you want. The group isn't gonna just dump me like that!"
The pain from before was gone now. All the adrenaline his body generated had pushed his ability to sense discomfort deep into his subconscious. He checked his legs, and other parts, too. His organs and respiratory system were damaged, but less than half of Jugo's body was organic, anyway. Everything else was the fruit of modern bioelectronics, a far cry from anything in nature's creation.
He lowered his breathing—and with it, his body temperature. Glaring into his adversary's eyes, he took off, activating his optical camo to make his body a mirage in the wind.
He had heard about Yuga's cybernetic eyes. But this was exactly the kind of match he wanted—a fighter given a skill so advanced that he couldn't help but be bound by it in his tactics.
Jugo made no sound as he sidled around his foe, attempting to get closer. Dark Stalker was still looking at Jugo's position from a moment ago; taking out his auxiliary knife, Jugo approached from the right-hand side like a predator stalking its prey—and then slashed forward at full speed. To someone like him, a veteran of undercover assassination, this was his killer move. By the time his target realized he was under attack, his head would already have been separated from his torso.
Immediately afterward, Dark Stalker's head would arc through the air. He could picture it already.
But what he didn't anticipate was his foe's right hand flying up, his head still pointed forward.
He saw the hand brush against the blade of his knife. Then he heard the crunch of crumpled steel. Jugo's vision shook, as if he was being electrocuted, and his optical camo peeled right off.
He leapt back reflexively, struggling to regain equilibrium. When he did, Jugo saw his stainless-steel knife in his hand, crushed from the tip of the blade to the handle.
Jugo shuddered as the bladeless handle fell from his hands, unable to believe the sight.
"That's…crazy…!"
"What is? The fact that you had no idea what you were getting into when you attacked me? Or the fact that lame optical camo of yours was neutralized at the single wave of a hand?"
Dark Stalker smirked and shrugged his shoulders at his adversary, now shocked into submission. "I like that Marriott injection and all the other stuff you use for that invisibility trick of yours," he said, arms open wide, "but none of that mattered after I got you in my sight. The processors in both of my eyes spotted the way you flexed your muscles and calculated your strategic approach—even the position you'd show up at. It's almost like they predict the future for me. All I have to do is keep myself from yawning while you telegraph your punches from a mile away."
"But… But how did you pulverize my knife just by touching it?!" Jugo yelled, looking down at the cracked, shattered pieces of metal on the ground. Come to think of it, he did hear about Dark Stalker being equipped with some kind of experimental armament. "S-some kind of ultrasonic wave device?"
As Jugo finished shouting the question, Yuga was upon him, a lethal palm placed upon his heart.
"Well done. I think you should taste it for yourself, though. Isn't modern technology amazing? It takes the concepts of physical strength, the idealism of martial arts, and turns it all on its head."
Then, without any time to curse his regrets, Jugo experienced the vibrating waves from Yuga's death-dealing palm destroy the very connections between his skin and muscle cells.
"This is my second power. It's called Vairo-orchestration."
The pain was intense for Jugo—like his organs were being put through a blender. His heart was quickly pulverized, no time provided to even conceptualize any last words as his consciousness faded into darkness.
There was a splurt, something no simple palm strike could ever produce, as Swordtail coughed up enough blood to form a puddle around his feet. He tottered dangerously, eyes staring in disbelief at Rentaro—before he fell like a tree to the ground. There was no getting back up this time.
Rentaro had made his way out of the Shiba Heavy Weapons building just in time to witness a sight he never expected—two New World Creation Project veterans attempting to kill each other. He couldn't imagine what brought this chain of events about, but either way, Swordtail had just fallen with a single hit.
Yuga's victory couldn't have been more complete. It was barely even a match. A scar in the shape of his hand remained on Swordtail's chest as the man lay dead on his back. The strike must've had the effect of necrotizing the local tissue. Even the palm's prints were clearly discernible.
It was the same skill that Rentaro had luckily escaped at the Plaza Hotel. If there was an ace up Yuga's sleeve, that had to be it. Rentaro felt a cold twinge, like someone had slipped an ice cube down the back of his shirt. He steeled himself, fists balled up tight, and began to walk up to Yuga. They were face-to-face again, not ten meters away from each other in the Shiba courtyard.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter001h.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
"Yuga…Mitsugi…" came the resentful, whispered words from Rentaro's mouth. Ever since they'd first met—ever since Mitsugi had shot him out of the skies above the hotel—he could never forget that name. Nor could he forget the fact that both were doomed to fight each other again someday.
"We finally meet," came the joyful reply as Yuga put his arms out wide in a gesture of welcome. "Not quite when I was expecting it, though. I didn't think Swordtail would do that bad of a number on you."
"This doesn't hurt at all."
Rentaro was wobbly, his vision bleary at best. But at least the blood coming out of his mouth was close enough to the color of his uniform that it didn't stand out too much.
Yuga's lips loosened into a piteous smile. "Well, if you've gotten to see Swordtail in battle for yourself, I guess you realize who you're dealing with in New World now, don't you?"
"The New World Creation Project is a second-generation team of mechanized soldiers, in the style of the New Humanity Creation Project program," Rentaro stated. "The eyes you use to fight with were copied from plans developed by Dr. Sumire Muroto, one of the Four Sages. Hummingbird's thought-activation interface was borrowed from research conducted by Ain Rand. Swordtail's skills were copied from Arthur Zanuck. Dr. Muroto told me that developing artificial eyes or limbs required knowledge across so many different fields that most researchers can't even understand the basic concepts that drive them. And if you think about it, it must take one hell of a genius to not only copy that stuff, but to upgrade it, too. In fact, I can think of only one person."
Yuga arched his eyebrows in curiosity.
"Let's hear it."
Rentaro looked down at Yuga, jaw still jutted forward.
"The person beating the war drum for your dirty project is the last of the Four Sages—Albrecht Grünewald."
Yuga, in apparent agreement, lifted his hands high into the air. "Well done! And the name of our group is the Five Wings Syndicate! Happy to make your acquaintance!"
"The Five Wings…?"
"Take a look at this."
Yuga rolled up the right sleeve of his school uniform, showing off his triceps. What Rentaro saw tattooed there made him gasp.
"The pentagram…and the wings…"
He had seen it several times by then, but Yuga's star mark had four ornately designed wings drawn around it. Two wings, however, appeared to have been erased in some fashion. Apparently doing so wasn't easy, since they had been crudely scratched out, like a kindergartener's scribble-scrabble with a crayon over a coloring-book page.
Yuga smiled as Rentaro looked on. "Yeah, I kinda had two wings plucked off me. Now I can't fly anymore. I fell back to earth."
"…I've seen that in a few places now. All on things associated with the Five Wings Syndicate, I guess. Is the number of wings some kind of ranking system?"
"Well, if you know that much, I can cut right to the chase, I guess. You're right. Five wings indicate one of the group's core leaders. It goes down to four, three, and two wings after that. One wing marks you as either a follower or a slave—or maybe house pet, I guess. If you feel like frisking Swordtail's body over there, there's probably a two-wing mark on him somewhere."
Rentaro could feel the fog lift from his mind little by little. He decided to prod their discussion just a bit further along.
"When I visited Dr. Ayame Surumi's apartment, I got a call from someone disguising his voice and warning me about Hummingbird. That was you, right?"
A gust of wind flew around them, lifting Rentaro's, Yuga's, and a watching Hotaru's hair up. There was a rustle as the surrounding trees swayed gently.
"That wasn't me, no."
"The hell it wasn't. Why? Why did you take action to help me?"
Yuga responded with silence for a few moments before sighing, apparently opting to give up the charade.
"Satomi, has the beauty of the world around you ever made you want to cry?"
"What?"
"I was born blind in both eyes."
Rentaro was thrown by this. He was starting to lose track of the subject.
"My mother fell ill while she was pregnant with me, and that's kind of what happened. One hundred percent blind. It never particularly bothered me at the time. You can't miss what you never had in the first place, and stuff. But you know how cruel other kids can be. By the time I made it to elementary school, they picked on me all the time. It really made me angry. But it was Professor Grünewald who saved me, along with his second-generation mechanized-soldier plan. That was already under development in secret by the time I showed up. And as you've probably noticed, my '21-Form' allows me to see even when I don't have it activated, unlike your eye."
Yuga shook his head a little, then turned directly toward Rentaro. The color of his eyes was gone, replaced with a dangerous-looking glare that felt sharp enough to cut with.
"Once I joined their ranks, the beauty of a springtime day honestly made me cry. So did the summer sun, beating down on my eyes. The colors of autumn did it to me all over again, and so did the whiteness of winter. I felt like I couldn't possibly ask for anything else, and that I needed to give the Professor everything that I possibly could in return. That's why I built myself up. I mean, I was absorbed heart and soul in the training they gave me. That's what earned me four wings in the end. I was the Professor's prodigal son. He gave me VIP treatment. And then…"
All the tension Yuga had built up fell off a self-chiding cliff with the and then.
"I messed it up just once, and that cost me two wings. The Professor branded me a failure, and now I'm up to my neck in this dirty assassin business. You wanted to know why I'd do anything to help you, yeah? Don't make me laugh. I didn't do that for your sake or anything. I just couldn't stand the concept of some tin soldier like Hummingbird or Swordtail doing you in. That's all."
He steeled his resentful eyes at Rentaro, denying him the chance to offer any semblance of compassion.
"The Professor promised me that if I beat you, he'd give me my wings back. Once I do, I can go back to serving him again."
Rentaro had never met Grünewald. But if he was the type of academic to personally brand Yuga a failure, and then dangle the chance of rehabilitation in front of him if he killed Rentaro…then he hadn't seen much to respect about the man yet. Ain Rand, Tina's mentor, was the same way. Something told him the three other Sages didn't care much about virtue or common decency, unlike Sumire.
"And you think Grünewald's justified in this? In forcing you to commit first-degree murder?"
"It's not a matter of whether the Professor's justified or not. All that matters is whether I believe in him or not."
Yuga turned his back then, only to shoot him a sidelong glance.
"I will await you at the site of the final battle. We can conclude it there."
With that, without taking another look back, Yuga left the scene. Soon, he was gone from Shiba Heavy Weapons property. Rentaro stared intently at him the whole time, convinced he'd turn around at any moment. But after a while, when he'd disappeared and hadn't returned, Rentaro let out a deep sigh.
In the process, he realized his vision was lurching sideways a little. Hotaru stopped him before it went fully vertical, but the damage was done. Yuga must have realized, Rentaro thought ruefully, the state of total exhaustion I'm in.
"We better head back to the hideout, Rentaro."
From some indistinct corner of the city, the familiar sound of sirens blared. It sounded like it was headed straight for them.
Hotaru scowled. "That's a lot of 'em, judging by the sound."
"Ah, the Knights of the Round Table. Just a little too late, once again."
Hotaru flashed him a look. "If you got enough energy to spout stupid crap like that, you'll be okay if I'm a little rough getting us out, right?"
"A little rough?"
Hotaru turned her head almost straight up. Rentaro followed her eyes. They were pointed at the roof of the main building.
"They'll track us down if we keep running. I wanna jump away from there."
The door opened with a crisp electronic beep. Rentaro braced a shaky arm against the elevator wall as he exited, Hotaru propping him up. They were greeted by a howl and a gust of surging wind. Turning his head, he could see the red, yellow, and blue neon flash down below, just past the helipad. The lights from the swarm of police cars at the bottom. Another familiar sight.
The hand around Rentaro's shoulder was warm. Worth his trust. Far more than usual, at least.
"Let's go. Grab on to me."
He tried to thank her. He couldn't quite manage it, his pallid, zombielike lips and semifrozen skin no longer listening to his instructions.
But—
"Freeze! Do anything funny, and I'll shoot!"
Rentaro and Hotaru stopped at the sound of a handgun's cylinder rotating behind them.
"Lemme see your hands. Walk slowly back toward my voice. Slowly!"
Rentaro raised his hands, not wanting to rile the gunman, and turned around. There he saw a police detective, a stern look on his face as he readied his pistol in both hands.
"Inspector Tadashima…"
Hotaru lowered her stance, readying for battle. Rentaro raised a hand to stop her, then took a step forward.
The humid night wind blew fiercely across the space between Rentaro and Shigetoku Tadashima, making their clothes flap violently in the air.
"Are you people half-bird or something? Every damn time I see you, you're on the roof of some high-rise. You gotta be nuts."
Rentaro tried moving his jaw. It seemed to work well enough to speak.
"Let us go, Inspector."
"No! I'm here in the name of the law. And it's my duty to uphold it. The law is the only beacon of order this world has. We'd be in total darkness without it. What would we call a world without order? It wouldn't be a civilization. It'd be chaos."
"So you're gonna just neglect justice?"
"Oh, you think you're in the right here? Look, what's going on behind the scenes with you? What do you know?"
"I told you a hundred times in the interrogation room."
"Oh, so all the delusional bullshit you gave me in extreme detail in your testimony is true? Don't give me that crap!"
"The group I'm fighting is spreading chaos. They're destroying that order you were talking about. And now you're helping it grow. Saying 'I didn't know' isn't gonna help you. It's your fault you're so clueless. I'm outta here."
"You think I'm gonna say you can go?"
"Atsuro Hitsuma's an enemy spy. He's infiltrated the police department."
"He is not!" Tadashima shook his head in obvious mental distress and turned away. "That's…not true…!"
"Okay. Shoot me, then."
Hotaru shot Rentaro a surprised look. "Rentaro, wait a…!"
"Don't move, Hotaru. I want to handle things properly with this guy."
Tadashima turned back, and Rentaro addressed him:
"If you think you're right, then shoot me. If you arrest me, you know they'll find me guilty. I might die in prison, for all I know. That's how far the enemy's sunk its teeth in you."
"Don't be stupid. We're the police. We're duty-bound to protect the accused."
"That won't help," Rentaro insisted. "That's how this enemy works."
Tadashima's lips pursed.
"So I'm guessing by your reaction that you know Atsuro Hitsuma, huh? If you've been with him before, did you notice anything weird about him?"
The detective froze. The proverbial cat had gotten his tongue. He tried to conceal his expression, but the effort shamed him.
"Right. So you have noticed something, but he's your boss, so you have to suck up to him instead?"
Tadashima was silent.
Rentaro closed his eyes and shook his head. "So shoot me. You'll get a certificate of honor out of it, won't you?"
"I—I…"
Tadashima's body began to shake, his index finger wrapped around the gun apparently frozen in place. His face was covered in greasy sweat.
"If you ain't shooting, we're leaving."
Rentaro motioned an order at Hotaru, hung on to her shoulder, then fell forward.
"Whoa! Hey!"
Tadashima hurriedly peered down the side of the roof. But the boy in black had already melted into the night, gone without a trace.
"Argh!!"
Driven by anger bubbling over, Tadashima pointed his gun to the sky and fired three times. The three shots echoed through the air, catching rides on the gusting wind. They did nothing to quell the anger aimed at himself. He tossed the gun to the side, then fell to his knees, not caring about the pain as he batted a fist against the roof several times.
"Why?! Why couldn't I shoot him?!"
He had to shoot him. He had to prove that the law, such as it was, supported him. He had to prove he was Shigetoku Tadashima, and that the brunt of his will could only be expressed by killing the hated criminal that reared its ugly head before him.
But he failed.
Something in him doubted whether Rentaro was a criminal. The odd obsession with secrecy Hitsuma brought into the investigation had made him arch his eyebrows one too many times.
That meant defeat. The law, the concept he worshiped to the point of believing there was never any way to cheat one's way out of it, had lost. Shigetoku Tadashima's "law" had been brought to its knees by the immature, childish "justice" that civsec just had to bring into the picture.
"Inspector! What are you doing up here?!"
He turned around to find Yoshikawa, white as a sheet, running up to him. He must have heard the gunshots. Tadashima quickly felt his thoughts start to cool down. Wiping the dust from his pants, he stood up and walked past his underling.
"I'm leaving this investigation for a little bit. I found something that I have to look into. Superintendent Hitsuma's probably gonna be here in a bit. Take your orders from him."
"I-Inspector? Inspector, what's going on? Inspector!"
He could feel the voice pulling at him from behind. But Tadashima ducked his head down low, never turning around, and left the scene.
He had to do it. He had to resolve these doubts in his mind. He had finally realized that he was no longer able to perform the basic duties of a police officer.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter002.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
BLACK BULLET 6
CHAPTER 04
THE STARLESS NIGHT
1
He was in a dream.
There stood the Happy Building, soaked in the colors of twilight. Up the stairs he went, going through the door with the TENDO CIVIL SECURITY AGENCY plate on it. Enju's clothes were strewn all over the sofa, the sink on the other side of the curtain filled with dirty dishes.
The visitor sofa was always Tina's favorite. Her nocturnal schedule meant she slept there a lot, balled up like a cat. He peered over at the sofa, but there was no trace of her—just a somewhat worn-down pillow, suggesting it held her weight not long ago. There was a just barely started workbook of math drills on the nearby desk, along with a small pile of eraser shavings.
There was the sound of running water. Lifting the curtain to the cooking area, he found the sink was full of water from the neglected tap. It was already dampening Rentaro's socks.
It seemed so lived in, but nobody was there. Like the Mary Celeste of maritime lore. But Rentaro, for some reason, knew that.
They were gone. Kisara was gone. Enju and Tina were dead. Killed. Those days would never return. This office was an empty shell, as though someone had shot footage of the Tendo Civil Security Agency in happier days, spliced the beginning and end together, and put it on permanent loop. It was just a video image supported by his memories, and now someone had edited the entire cast of characters out.
It was indescribably sad. Besieged by regret, Rentaro fell to his knees on the spot, grasping his head and wailing his laments. A groan like a frog run over by a car emanated from his throat. It's all my fault. Because I couldn't save any of them.
Suddenly, he heard someone calling his name. A girl. She was pleading for him. He shook his head and searched for the voice. Where did it come from? Where was he hearing it from? It was neither Kisara's, nor Tina's, nor Enju's voice.
Right. That voice was—
The string of his dream was cut off, his consciousness gradually rising from the mud. His back was resting against something tough and unyielding, his body heavy. Sweat covered his clothing, and he was intensely thirsty.
But the voice was still calling him. With great effort, Rentaro blinked a few times and opened his eyes.
"What…? Shut up, man…"
The blurry world began to form images in his mind. Jolting his body into action, he realized it was Hotaru calling him. Her lips were pulled sharply back, her eyes red. A shock coursed across him.
"If you're alive, at least answer me!"
"Where am I…?"
Hotaru wiped her eyes with a sleeve. "The sculpture studio. Our hideout."
He finally recognized the familiar sight of the ceiling above him. Turning his head, Rentaro felt a jag of pain. Oh, right. I took a bunch of bullets to the back.
Nursing his neck, he looked down at his own body. His coat and shirt were off, and he was bandaged from below his armpits down to his stomach. It made him look like an enforcer from some yakuza flick.
He was, at least, alive.
Hotaru was back to her usual self to some extent, it seemed. She snorted at him, chin thrust haughtily into the air.
"I extracted the bullets. I think I got all of them, but no guarantees," she said.
It was then that multiple blobs of metal, a pair of tweezers, and a pile of bloody cotton strips next to him entered Rentaro's line of view.
"I'm impressed you could do that," he muttered.
"I had to do it on myself once."
That attracted his attention. He turned to her. "You've been shot that many times?"
"Yeah. Something wrong with that?"
"Nothing wrong, but…" He thought a bit about how far to pursue this, but before he could decide, he noticed the puffy bags around Hotaru's eyes.
"Have you been sleeping at all?"
Hotaru covered her eyes with her hands, apparently ashamed of the rings on her face. Then she suddenly turned defiant, puffing out her chest.
"No, all right? I couldn't, thanks to a certain idiot I got my ass teamed with. You better make up for this."
Rentaro snickered. It was just such an innocent display.
"Look… Um, why do you ask?" Hotaru shifted again. Now her voice was small, almost nonexistent. "You got hurt so bad, trying to cover me…Why do you have to do all these stupid things? I told you, I wanted to keep this strictly business. I use you; you use me. If you die, I don't take a look back. If the opposite happens, leave me on the sidewalk."
"Yeah, I remember," Rentaro lightly replied, trying to keep the subject from getting too heavy. Hotaru drooped her head and peevishly turned her back to him.
"You are so stupid."
A weird silence commenced. Neither were talking—and yet, the silence wasn't altogether uncomfortable, either. Rentaro didn't mind it, at least. But they couldn't afford to keep this going forever. They still had a mountain of issues to think about.
He gestured outside with a hand.
"It's pretty hot in here. Wanna go out for a bit?"
The moon was out.
A river flowed not far from the abandoned sculpture studio, swollen with the rain that fell from morning to late afternoon. The sound of the dark water bustling by them brought a refreshing coolness to their ears.
Rentaro and Hotaru were walking side by side along the embankment. Despite the late hour, they were still passed by the occasional old man walking his dog, or the would-be weekend warrior panting from a jog.
They had been walking downstream for a little while by the time Hotaru flashed Rentaro an exasperated look.
"Look, aren't you in pain at all? 'Cause you're sure impressing me. I guess your New Humanity Creation Project surgery lets you control your pain, huh?"
"Yeah, more or less," Rentaro lied. Pain seemed to ooze out of every pore in his body. To be honest, Hotaru would probably have to serve as his caretaker for a while to come. That wasn't something he could bargain with her about yet.
He could still remember the dream he had, albeit vaguely. He was on his knees, wailing in an empty Tendo Civil Security Agency bereft of Kisara, Tina, or Enju. That couldn't be just a dream. It was a very real problem, one that would be reality if he couldn't rescue any of them. And his brain was presenting that very likely scenario to him in dream form.
Which meant, by then, that they couldn't afford to waste another moment.
"Here, Rentaro."
Hotaru took something out of a breast pocket. Rentaro thought it was a fallen leaf or something at first, until he realized that it was in fact a rather oddly shaped key. The handle was made to look like a leaf from a maple tree, right down to special chemicals used to simulate the corrosion of the fall colors. It was an intricate piece of art.
"What's this?"
"Something Swordtail had."
Rentaro's eyebrows arched high. He gave it another close look.
"His phone was destroyed in the fight with Dark Stalker. This was about the only clue I could find on him."
Rentaro brought a hand to his chin in thought. "What's it for, you think…?"
"I have no idea." Hotaru sighed dejectedly, shaking her head. They debated the issue fruitlessly for a few moments before putting the topic to the side for the time being.
Next, Hotaru took a piece of paper out of her pocket.
"And this, too."
Rentaro took it, opened it up, and was shocked once more. It was Miori's analysis results from the Gastrea tissue sample. He stared at it, virtually boring a hole in it with his eyes. It was lined with rows and rows of unfamiliar-sounding chemical compound names. Just trying to read it gave him a headache.
"How're you supposed to read this?"
"I don't know any of the details, either. But Miori said this is what we should pay attention to."
She pointed at a corner of the sheet. Rentaro felt yet another jolt.
0.1 milligrams of trifdraphizin detected in Gastrea tissue.
A heavy shadow crossed over Rentaro and Hotaru. It was a train, roaring by at high speed across an overpass. It left nothing but silence behind.
"Trifdraphizin…?"
Hotaru's eyes fixed upon him. "You know that?"
Rentaro nodded, watching the stare of her blue-gray eyes from above her slender neck. "Hotaru, how much do you know about the Gastrea War?"
She shrugged, like it was the last question she expected. "Well, I'm part of the Innocent Generation, so the war's all just a secondhand story to me."
Rentaro closed his eyes and gingerly filed through his memories of the war.
It was a time of heady research, conducted at a breakneck pace in order to deal with all the Gastrea getting infected by the virus. Every sense of morals, or ethics, people had was hurled out the window. It was a wink and a nod on a global geopolitical level. People did pretty much anything you could think of—cluster bombing, chemical warfare, minefield laying, genetic engineering, human experimentation, you name it. The New World Creation Project was another spawn from that dark era.
"Does trifdraphizin have to do with that?"
Rentaro nodded. "Trifdraphizin was first reported on as this miracle drug that could suppress the propagation of the Gastrea Virus. There was this huge fanfare in the news when the announcement came out. It wound up never making it on the market. The effect was only temporary, and once an animal built up enough tolerance to it, it wouldn't work anymore. Still, there was one industry that still had a lot of expectations for it."
"Another one?"
"If you used it on people or Gastrea, they found that one side effect was that it induced a state of virtual hypnosis in them. There was a time for a while when black-market dealers would smuggle it out of the warehouse and sell it on the street as a date-rape drug."
The glories of academic research had a way of winding up like that. Finding uses far beyond anything their creators ever imagined. A bunch of mold eventually led to the discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic. It saved millions of lives. Meanwhile, despite being created with noble aims, trifdraphizin found its real home in the underworld, dirtying the name of everyone involved with it.
The AGV test drug was like that, the "Anti-Gastrea Virus" compound Rentaro used to save himself after his encounter with Kagetane Hiruko caused half his stomach to get blown apart. It started as a failure, Sumire's doomed attempt to halt the spread of the Gastrea Virus, but later was used for other purposes.
"But why was that detected in the Gastrea tissue?"
"I don't know… Ever since it was banned from public distribution following that whole controversy, it's gotten a lot harder to receive approval to purchase any. I totally forgot about it, too. It hasn't shown up in the news in a while."
"Right, but you said it could hypnotize people, Rentaro? Does that apply to Gastrea, too?"
"Yep. It works on both. Of course, the Gastrea Virus eliminates and neutralizes just about anything that enters its host's bloodstream, so if you wanted long-term control over one, you'd need to have a hell of a lot of the stuff."
"Like, up to the point where it shows up in tissue analysis?"
Rentaro paused.
"Hang on. You really think so? What would the Five Wings Syndicate do with a bunch of hypnotized Gastrea? Or is that the Black Swan Project, or what?"
Hotaru silently shook her head. The main problem with this theory was the question of how Five Wings could get the huge supply of trifdraphizin this conspiracy would require. They would need connections for even a small amount. Underground connections. There was no way they could hide that kind of operation.
"Underground, huh?" he muttered to himself.
"You know someone, don't you?"
There was a sharp light in Hotaru's eyes.
2
Rentaro spent the next morning and afternoon recuperating. It was already nearly dark again by the time he set off. His destination: District 31 of Tokyo Area, part of the Outer Districts. It took several train transfers to get there.
By that time, in the year 2031, most of the Outer Districts were either abandoned or already down to rubble with no plans to renovate. However, the area that hosted Old Shinagawa Ward, Old Koto Ward, and Old Minato Ward was still relatively unscathed in comparison to some, being protected by the Monoliths that surrounded Tokyo Bay. As such, he knew it would make a good meeting point. Especially when the only people there would be local residents.
But he couldn't afford to rest easy. The person he was about to meet was part of the city's dark underbelly. He knew how easy it was to have a dead body "taken care of" in the Outer Districts, if it came to that. He'd prefer if it didn't.
Based on the address he was given, he anticipated a lengthy walk from the rail station to the meeting point. He wasn't expecting a march all the way to the edge of the Monoliths. At least the jet-black towers were still clear as day in the blackness. He certainly would not be getting lost.
Pushing his way through the crumbling infrastructure, eerie shadows flitting all around him, he finally heard the roar of the sea, accompanied by its telltale scent. Scrambling up a particularly large pile of rubble and surveying the landscape, he looked down at the mirrorlike black surface shining in the moonlight, the ripples in the water refracting the light this way and that. His heart lifted a bit at the rhythmical sound of the waves' advance and retreat. Then he spotted the far edge of the mammoth-size Monolith, sucking the very darkness into itself.
Climbing down and heading toward the oceanside wharf, he could see a line of elongated, semicircular warehouses lining the water. Comparing the signs to the number written on the scrap of paper in his hand, Rentaro eventually stopped in front of a storehouse, one notably larger than the rest.
Once upon a time, it was no doubt a seafood processing facility; there was no telling how much fresh fish and shellfish it handled in the past. The numbers painted on the wall were faded, almost succumbing to the constant barrage of salt-water air, but he could still tell he was in the right place.
Rentaro checked the time. Midnight. Nobody was there.
"So this is the sea…"
Wholly ignoring Rentaro's concern, Hotaru wandered toward the shoreline, a look of awe on her face.
"You've never seen it before?"
Hotaru looked up at him and nodded. "Can I go look?"
"Why do you need my permission?" Rentaro chuckled.
Under the blessed Monolith magnetic field, she could even go for a swim if she wanted, as long as she didn't wander too far offshore. However, given the seafaring Gastrea lurking somewhere under the surface in 2031-era Earth, seaside fun in the sun was usually seen as something reserved for the truly eccentric. The fishing industry was basically destroyed, and even missile-bearing ships with Varanium-lined bottoms could never be truly carefree on the high seas. Tokyo Area was now entirely reliant on shoreline spawning farms for their seafood, sending prices through the roof. So it goes, Rentaro supposed.
Forgetting about Rentaro for the time being, Hotaru ran to the shore. Then she stepped back a bit, surprised at the cold water and positively shocked at the sensation on the tip of her tongue after tasting it.
"Look, Rentaro! It's all salty!"
"Yeah, no shit!"
Her look of curious astonishment was as pure as it was childlike. It shared something in common with Enju, and it forced Rentaro to recall how at odds he had been with her, too, when they first met.
"Are you okay, though? The Monolith's right nearby."
Initiator or not, she still had the Gastrea Virus coursing through her veins. Depending on her corrosion rate, that could have assorted effects on her.
"I'm fine," she replied. "My rate's still in the high teens."
"Oh. Well, there's one difference between you and Enju."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing," Rentaro said as he glared at the sea, his thoughts turning elsewhere.
I swear I'll get you back, Enju.
Then he turned around, hearing the thump of feet against dirt behind him. A man was there, cool and composed as he walked forward. He was neither very young nor very old; in fact, it was hard to guess his age. He was in a completely white suit, and while his dull, sallow skin suggested he was well on in years, his eyes were quick, young, and penetrating. Rentaro's civsec instinct told him he was not to be trusted.
"You the guy Abe told me about?"
Rentaro kept his response to a silent nod.
Before they went there, Rentaro and Hotaru had paid a visit to Kofu Finance, the yakuza-linked loansharking outfit located in the Happy Building's fourth-floor office space. There, they had a little meeting. All of Rentaro's personal and business contacts were no doubt being marked by the cops at this point, but he doubted even they'd guess he had a yakuza friend or two. As it happened, he was right.
Shouki Abe, one of the mobsters he was familiar with, usually joked around with him whenever they met. But this time, he had acted oddly nervous. After some chitchat, he had borrowed a lighter, lit a cigarette, and seemed to noticeably calm down. "I was just surprised, Rentaro," he had admitted. "Your face has changed a lot."
It probably had. In order to avoid the facial-recognition cameras, Rentaro no longer let himself be caught in daylight without sunglasses. He had no time to shave, except for the bare minimum. Nor did he have time for a proper meal lately. Maybe it was showing in his hollowed-out cheeks.
Rentaro, dwelling on this, shook his head. That probably wasn't what Abe had meant, anyway. This Rentaro—formerly the pursuer, now the pursued, waiting for his chance to turn the tables on his enemy—probably was different. At least, it was to the point that it overwhelmed Abe at first glance, even though he was a man who had no doubt seen a thing or two in his line of work.
And to think that just a bit ago, I was being hailed as the hero of Tokyo Area.
It all seemed tremendously ironic. But he had pushed the thought away long enough to ask Abe about the recent market for trifdraphizin. The gangster had sourly explained it all to him. To sum up, the retail price for trifdraphizin was rising because of a lack of supply going around the market. Apparently some mystery group was buying it all up.
Abe had closed by promising to connect him to a courier better versed in the market than he. "Rentaro," he had said, "let me just tell you one more thing. I know we don't act like it sometimes, but there's a code of justice we all live by in here. Me, personally? I'm one hundred percent against the drug trade, period. Most of our people are just messing around with numbers on computers these days—insider trading, that sort of thing—but I think that beats drug dealing any day. That's the whole reason I'm here—I didn't wanna deal, so they demoted me to loansharking duty. So I'll help you, okay? But don't think that this makes you buddy-buddy with the Kofukai Group or anything. If you start messing around with our sources of income, I think you know how some of us are gonna react to that, you know what I mean?"
Rentaro ruminated over this previous conversation with Abe as he stared down the courier in front of him. The man, for his part, was focusing on the inky deep-black waters beyond the tetrapods scattered in the wharf, taking an occasional sideways glance in Rentaro's direction.
"So, what's the savior of Tokyo Area want to know?"
Rentaro ignored the verbal jab, giving the courier a cold gaze. "Who's going around buying up all the trifdraphizin on the market?"
"I can't really go around divulging information about my clients, now can I? Trust means everything in this business."
Rentaro was already fed up with this. Even someone like him—who preferred to let his guns do the talking instead of negotiate—could tell: This was Abe's way of sticking out his palm and asking for it to be greased.
"All right. Let's cut the crap. How much do you want?"
The man let out a raspy, vulgar laugh. "Well, if it's information you're looking for, this is about the going rate."
He had three fingers lifted up. What a rip-off. You goddamned hyena.
"I'll give you twice that. But it's gotta wait."
"You gotta be joking with me."
"I don't have it on me right now. Once I solve this case, I'll pay you double."
"Why do I have to believe an empty promise like that?"
"Hey, you can't collect from a dead man, right? So that way, I don't have to worry about you feeding me a line of BS intel. Besides, apparently I'm famous enough that even you know what I look like, so it's not like I can run from you for long."
"What if I say no?"
"Then only one of us is getting out of here in one piece. And lemme just say, I'm not exactly planning to die in a place like this."
The sea breeze beat against Rentaro's uniform and the courier's suit.
"I want triple."
Rentaro nodded. They had a deal.
"Okay. Talk to me."
The man removed a pack of cigarettes from his suit pocket and lit one of the sticks. The breeze blew the smoke toward the warehouse building.
"So actually, I don't really know much about the client, either. They send a negotiator over to work with me, but I don't go nosin' around in his business much. That's how it works, you know? It pays good enough, too."
"Come on," Rentaro interrupted, the irritation clear in his voice. The man raised a hand to stop him.
"Hang on. Lemme finish. Every time he makes a deposit, I deliver the trifdraphizin to a set location. It's kind of a weird one."
"A weird location?"
"Here in the Outer Districts, near one of the Monoliths, there's a path down under a manhole that looks pretty much like a coal mine. I open the manhole, climb down the ladder, drop off the stuff, and beat it. But I'm guessing that's their hideout."
Rentaro could feel a lightning-flash of inspiration erupt in his mind.
"Hotaru."
The chestnut-haired girl next to him nodded deeply, holding in the excitement just as much as he was.
"We're finally on to something. That's gotta be a Five Wings Syndicate hideout, probably."
When Rentaro asked where it was, the man pointed out a spot in the Outer Districts that was almost exactly opposite theirs, the entirety of the city in between. It would take a while to get there. But they were ready.
Rentaro turned and began to walk off. "Whoa," a voice said. "What're you gonna do over there?"
"I thought you didn't go nosing around in client business."
"Well, judging by how much stuff they're ordering, the group you're pursuing probably has a lot of people working for it. I don't see anything besides handguns on you guys, but you sure you're ready to take on a group that big with just that?"
"What're you trying to tell us?"
The courier, diverging from his previous macho demeanor, shrugged.
"Oh, I'm just saying—if you die, I can't collect, you know? So I figure I could stand to up the ante a little bit. Follow me."
The man ventured into the truck loading dock of the nearby seafood plant, ducked into the management office, and went up into the building.
Rentaro and Hotaru exchanged glances.
"What do you think?" Rentaro asked.
"It's dicey, but I have to admit: We're short on resources. Let's try him."
So they followed along, about ten paces behind the courier as he navigated the hallways with a flashlight, not bothering to acknowledge them.
For an Outer Districts ruin, the processing plant was deteriorating in a remarkably orderly manner. Rentaro had seen dozens of abandoned buildings like this. He could sniff out the difference between a ruin that hadn't seen human activity in years, and a ruin simply made to look that way. His instincts told him this was the latter kind. Most useful buildings would have been long scavenged by the Outer District's denizens by then. This wasn't.
Going upstairs, the man stopped in front of a door, then held the flashlight with his teeth as he turned a crank. An airtight door for what was probably a freezer room opened up with a clang. The familiar scent of metal and machine oil flew out.
Taking a look inside made Rentaro sigh. It was, in a word, an arsenal. The walls were lined with countless numbers of handguns, hand grenades, assault rifles, and rocket launchers. They were all brand-new.
Rentaro shot a dumbfounded look at the courier. He shrugged again.
"Take whatever you like."
"Are you sure?"
The courier snickered nervously. "Lemme set something straight, though. I don't care about you. I care about you surviving long enough to pay me. Try not to confuse the two, all right?"
Rentaro nodded his thanks, then focused back on the arsenal. He brushed his hand against a nearby wooden crate. It felt moist. Using a nearby crowbar on the floor, he pried open the top of the box. There, encased in dried straw packaging and oiled paper, was a large cache of KRISS vector short-barrel machine guns.
"Ooh, here's a sniper rifle."
He turned around to find Hotaru grasping the large gun, arms trembling.
"An M24…"
It was the US Army's preferred choice of sniper rifle, a customized version of the Remington M700 they purchased in mass quantities. It was equipped with a Leupold 10x fixed-power scope. That made it the so-called A3 model, a heavily reworked version of the original. Must have been sold off by the military. Amazing to see it here of all places, Rentaro thought. But hang on a minute—
"You're gonna have to zero that. Otherwise you're not gonna hit the broad side of a barn."
"Oh? You know about these?"
"Ah," Rentaro replied, "we had a specialist over at the office. Can you handle that?"
"I'm still a student," Hotaru said, "but yeah. I'll zero this at one hundred meters. You want this?"
"Nah. I don't carry anything heavier than a handgun. Otherwise I'll just be a drag in hand-to-hand combat."
"Oh," Hotaru said, not particularly put off as she crossed her arms. "Well, if we can get some explosives over there, at least, that'll be perfect."
"Explosives?"
Hotaru stuck her hand into another crate and spread a set of rectangular hunks of clay—plastic explosives—on the floor. There were enough to practically start a war. Certainly more than enough to engage any enemy Rentaro could imagine.
By the time they were done casing the place, discussing their strategy, making their choices, and stepping outside of the building, the night sky was already starting to lighten. Day was breaking over the placid Pacific. Rentaro took a deep breath, then exhaled.
The duel was fast approaching.
3
"Oh. Swordtail was defeated as well…?"
"Yes. It was absolutely deplorable."
In a break room inside the Central Control Development Organization—the so-called "black building"—Hitsuma looked out the window toward the city, back turned to his conversational partner.
Yuga Mitsugi, watching his still-turned back, found himself confused. "I thought you'd be angrier than that," he said.
"I am," came the reply. "But before I gnash my teeth about it like a spoiled child, I wanted to think about how we're going to get Rentaro Satomi's head."
Yuga was impressed, although he decided not to mention this. Hitsuma was not the most satisfying boss he had ever worked with, but even he had matured a bit throughout this ordeal.
"I suppose one reason is that we looked down on Hotaru Kouro's powers. I couldn't pinpoint what kind of Gastrea factor she had, but the way Swordtail described it, she literally came back from the dead. That, or her ability allows her to fake death, somehow, to throw her enemy off guard."
"How do we deal with that?"
It's about time you saw things my way, thought Yuga as he removed a rifle round from his pocket and rolled it across the table with a finger. The tip was black, the rest of the body a shiny brass. To Hitsuma, it looked like just another Varanium-tipped bullet. He turned around and scowled.
"That's your big strategy? Hummingbird had a Varanium knife; Swordtail had Varanium-tipped ammo. Look what that got them—"
"Hang on a moment, Mr. Hitsuma," Yuga said, raising a hand to interrupt. "The tip of this bullet contains enriched Varanium—metal that was melted down and concentrated. Upon impact, the Varanium inside bursts and spreads across the target's body. It's enough to kill any Gastrea up to Stage Three, as well as Initiators. It was a pain in the ass procuring these, lemme tell you."
"Stage Three?"
"You're familiar with that system, right? Targets you can kill with a normal Varanium weapon are classified as Stage One, and that covers most Gastrea and Initiators. If the target doesn't fall into that field, then we go up to Stage Two and beyond. With Stage Two, the Varanium keeps them from regenerating their bodies. You can still kill them if you decapitate or dismember them, or if you set them on fire. Stage Three, though, those guys can grow back arms and stuff. It's like being wounded causes their bodies' cells to call out to one another."
"Call out…?" Hitsuma said, eyebrows pressed farther down. Yuga grinned internally. It was exactly the response he'd expected.
"And Stage Four's even crazier. It can regenerate itself even if most of its organs are toasted. To kill them, you have to blow them to dust. That's the only way. That's the stage Aldebaran was at. Then, with Stage Five, you can put them in deep freeze, in a vacuum, toss 'em into molten lava running at two thousand degrees…but as long as the environment's right, they'll regenerate. Like, from the molecular level on up. Right now, in the year 2031, there's no physical way to kill them."
Hitsuma brushed a hand aside, fed up with the subject. "All right, all right," he said, eyes swiveled askance at Yuga from his handsome face. "I'm not here to listen to a bunch of gossip. So you're saying that bullet's good enough to kill Hotaru Kouro?"
"It's already in the bag, sir. At most, Hotaru would be Stage Two. No matter how good she is at regeneration, Stage Three's got to be the max."
"Hmm. Well. I would like to leave them to you…but I think we won't need those bullets you've gathered after all."
"What do you mean?"
"We might find Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro's hideout before long. We triangulated their general region based on their escape routes from the expressway shoot-out and the Shiba Heavy Weapons attack. I'm having my people sweep the streets."
Oh. Was that all?
"Even if you find them, sir," Yuga said as he shrugged and put his hands in the air, "no regular officer's gonna have a chance against them."
"Yes," Hitsuma agreed. "So I'm sending in civsecs."
Yuga found himself unconsciously narrowing his eyes. "…Civsecs?"
Hitsuma poured a paper cup of coffee from a nearby pot and offered it to Yuga. The assassin waved it away.
"I thought you weren't using them?"
He already had to cover up the total failure of the police to capture Rentaro at the Magata Plaza Hotel, despite the swarms of uniformed personnel on-site. That cover-up should have prevented him from enlisting civsecs or any other public service for this case.
"We can't be that picky any longer…in so many words."
"Who did you send over?"
Hitsuma paused to take a dramatic sip of coffee.
"A group perfect for the job, is who. They've already been briefed and are en route to the site. Sadly, you haven't been activated."
Yuga deliberated in silence for a moment. Then he quietly shook his head.
"I will be on standby for Rentaro Satomi at the time and place we discussed."
"Why would you do that?" a perplexed Hitsuma asked.
"…You've never traded blows with an opponent before, Mr. Hitsuma. I think this might be working on a dimension beyond your understanding. He's going to be there. I know he will."
At this, Hitsuma crossed his arms. Then he emptied the rest of the cup down his throat, apparently abandoning the effort, and tossed it in the bin. There was a plip as the cup joined the mountain of its kin down below.
"…You can do what you like."
Yuga nodded lightly. Hitsuma nodded back.
"Well, then…"
"Yeah."
That was all the good-byes they needed.
With a salute, Yuga left the break room and, by himself, took the first step to his final battle.
4
The jet-black sky rumbled its displeasure in semiregular intervals as it unfurled heavy, sharp rain upon the world. The sound of water slowly running along the gutter on its way down sounded like the steady current of a swampy river, uniting with the drip-drip-drip of rain wriggling its way through a roof leak and onto the floor, forming a watery ensemble.
Rentaro took in the sound as he lay down in the sculpture studio. It was humid, but the temperature had gone down a fair chunk. In Rentaro's mind, it certainly was more comfortable than the unrelenting heat he had to deal with over the past few days. Adjusting his position at all would send another billow of stone powder into the air, landing on him like dust, so he tried to remain as still as possible.
Lying there, unmoving, on the studio's bare floor, in total darkness with the windows shut, made him feel like a dead man. If he lay flat on his back and rested his hands on his stomach—it was like practicing for his stint in a coffin.
He had promised Hotaru that he would spend all day recuperating.
Part of him wanted to get up and rip the lid off the Black Swan Project right this second. The spirit was all too willing, incredibly willing, but the flesh could no longer keep up. Consuming the calories he needed had made the thoughts he knew all too well rev back into motion, but not his body yet. Still, he couldn't stop them. It was proving hard to forcibly shut down his thought process.
He marveled at it.
Part of the path to satori, the stage of enlightenment that was the ultimate goal of any Buddhist practitioner, involved training oneself to cast off all worthless thoughts from the mind.
He thought about that. But he also thought about Enju, who was bound to be paired with another Promoter sooner or later. As a civsec himself, he knew how difficult it would be to dissolve a pairing once it was set in stone. And once a Promoter was fully aware of the power within Enju, he'd never even think about letting her go.
It was hard to believe he hadn't seen her once since that last awkward conversation in the city jail. He wanted to see her with all his heart.
She had to feel constricted by now; she must have taken the media at face value, including the news that Rentaro was dead. The entire rest of the story had been shut away, for all he knew.
How is Tina doing, though? Even if she was made to go up on the stand and get convicted of something, it wouldn't happen that quickly. But between the judge, the prosecutor, her attorney, and even the jurors, it was hard to be optimistic. Being among the Cursed Children was hard to make up for.
If any semblance of human rights had been granted to Tina, then she was likely sitting in a corner of some jail cell, hands around her knees. A lifetime of being used and abused by corrupt adults… Rentaro couldn't stand having his friends put to public shame any longer. He wanted to protect her from all the hardships life had handed her.
Then Rentaro realized he was deliberately trying not to think about Kisara.
No. I haven't thought about anything. She was due to marry Hitsuma, and I've completely frozen all thought about her, postponing any conclusion for some unknown time in the future.
Things had gotten so bad for him because he had foolishly believed Hitsuma was a decent person. Because he left Kisara in his hands.
Then he felt the inner edges of his eyes grow warm. The tears accumulating on the outer edges crossed his cheeks.
I was wrong about everything.
How was he going to bow his head and say to her, Cancel the marriage and go back home? How, after he sent her away from the visitation room with all that vitriol? After he trampled all over her dignity?
There was a noise downstairs. Flustered, Rentaro wiped the tears from his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
After a moment, the nearby hinges creaked. Without turning his head, he could tell from the breathing that it was Hotaru.
"Rentaro, are you asleep?"
"…No, I'm up."
He carefully sat up as Hotaru shook the rain from her chestnut-colored hair and wringed out the hem of her tank top. He could see Hotaru's thin, bare, taut stomach. Her chest, drawn in the drape of the fabric over it, was visible through her undergarments.
Then, realizing she was being watched, Hotaru squatted down on the floor, hugging herself as she gave Rentaro a razor-sharp glare.
"Did you see me?"
Rentaro scratched the hair on the back of his head.
"Don't be stupid. Why would seeing a naked kid make me happy?"
Hotaru let out a long, deep groan. It was followed by a short sigh as she shook her head. "Take off your clothes. I need to change your bandages and wipe your body down."
She didn't bother to listen for a response before nimbly reaching behind him and removing his button-down shirt, stepping up to the noble task of wiping down his back.
Rentaro let her, feeling the cold, wet cloth against his skin.
Tomorrow was probably going to be the final battle, but he couldn't get the words to come out.
Somewhere along the line, Hotaru's attitude toward him had brightened considerably. The disdainful hostility of their first encounter was far gone now.
"You're wounded from head to toe."
"Ah, that's gotta be from the Third Kanto Battle. This is from the Seitenshi sniper, and I think Kagetane Hiruko put this one on me."
He pointed each one out like a general marking armies on a map. None were easy victories for him. The memories of each one were etched into his mind.
Then, unexpectedly, he felt something soft and slightly warm pressed against his back. It made him arch his spine.
It took him a while to realize it was Hotaru's cheek. "I'm sorry, Rentaro. I had the wrong idea about you."
Silence arrived out of nowhere.
Being together with her, even for this short time, taught him that behind all that curt bluntness was a little girl, one just as delicate as any other.
This can't go on…
Stealing a look at her from the side of his eyes, Rentaro made a decision in his heart.
"It's fine. Let's go to sleep."
He flicked the switch on the flashlight before she could respond. Then he lay back and used his crossed arms as a pillow. He could feel Hotaru looking at him for a moment, as if trying to say something, but then he heard the rustling of her clothes as she laid herself against the floor beside him.
Squinting into the darkness, Rentaro could just barely make out the white of the ceiling above them. His body was dead tired, but there was no way he could sleep now.
There was no telling how long he gazed upward. By the time the arms under his head went numb, he heard Hotaru turning over in her sleep.
It was just about time. He quietly got up.
Reaching into his back pocket, he took out a pen and notepad he had surreptitiously bought at the convenience store along with the flashlight. He ripped out a page, then—as well as he could in the darkness—wrote a note. He doubted his penmanship was much to brag about in this state, but he left it by Hotaru's side, quietly got to his feet, and tried to be as silent as possible with his footsteps.
Then he found himself illuminated. He raised a hand to cover his eyes.
"…Where are you going?"
Hotaru's voice was frigid.
"……"
There was nothing Rentaro could say. He silently returned Hotaru's gaze. Noticing the paper next to her, she picked it up and scanned it.
"…What's this about?" she said, sharpening her eyes and lowering the temperature of her voice even further. She usually spoke in an emotionless monotone, but now Rentaro could physically feel the anger. That was how in tune he was with her by this point.
"It's just like I wrote it. We're done, Hotaru. I wrote the whole procedure down. You go to the police and tell them I coerced you into cooperating with me. I don't know how far our enemy's infected the police, but you see Inspector Tadashima's name on there? He's at Magata Station. You can trust him."
"Stop screwing with me!"
"I'm not screwing with you."
"Are you running away from me?"
"I'm telling you to run away from me!"
He paused for a beat, breathing hard.
"…Hotaru, we're just barely still at the point where you can turn back. Honestly, one step away from it… Listen, I'm glad you believed me when I said I didn't kill him. I really am. Our enemy's so huge, it's got the police wrapped around its finger. Tomorrow's fight is gonna be so, so much worse than today's. And if you're with me for it, you're really gonna lose your life this time."
He tried to drum up some intimidation, some coercion in his voice. But Hotaru's response was beyond anything he could have anticipated.
"So you're just going to go away? Like Kihachi did?"
"What?"
Hotaru's face was despondent, her eyes blurred with tears.
"Kihachi did the same thing. He got all cold and distant with me one day. He started hiding lots of things. We kept working solo… I'd ask him, and he wouldn't say anything. My birthday was coming up, and I begged him to at least spend that with me, and it turned into this huge argument… When I woke up the next morning, there was a note by my bedside. He said he was gonna get everything squared away before my birthday. And it was right after that. When the police called and told me Kihachi was dead."
"That…"
It was an unimaginable thing to experience. Rentaro hesitated to give her some kind of halfhearted consolation.
"I still dream about what I should have done back then: That I was just pretending to sleep all along. That I followed Kihachi and shielded him from getting shot. That he kills the guy, and I apologize to him because I never had the chance the night before. That he holds me, and then he says in my ear, 'We're always gonna be together.'"
Hotaru shook her fists weakly.
"And then I wake up right there, every time. I'm in this bed that's too big for me, and it makes me grit my teeth every time. I swore that I'd protect my partner this time. Please, Rentaro! I want to come with you! I need to know! What happened to Kihachi? Why did he have to come back home like that? If I can't get revenge by being with you, I have to at least take a step toward my own future! Please, Rentaro!"
Their eyes locked and time seemed to stand still. Rentaro closed his own, then took a deep breath through his nostrils.
"All right, Hotaru. The hole that opened up in your heart after Suibara died… Let's fill it in together."
Hotaru's face grew brighter as she understood. She opened her mouth to speak but only ended up biting her lip. She hung her head low and muttered a simple "Thanks" instead.
It was almost as if she were crying tears of joy as she extended her right hand.
"I'm glad I got paired with you, Rentaro."
This must be the girl that exists deep down within her. Kinda cute when she smiles. Rentaro clasped his hand to hers. Her hand was unbelievably strong and steady for such a little girl, pulsating with warmth.
"So when's your birthday, anyway? Is it that close?"
"Oh yeah…" Hotaru took out her cell phone.
"We're right on time," she said as she showed the backlit screen to Rentaro. The time was twelve a.m.—midnight. She flashed a mischievous smile. "My birthday's today now. I'm ten years old."
This was going too fast. Rentaro searched his mind for some sort of congratulatory message he could give her; he had never quite gotten used to that kind of thing. So he scratched his head instead.
But then, a malicious intent made itself known behind them. Rentaro turned around, hand already at the grip of his Beretta. Hotaru noticed a moment later, eyes turning crimson as she released her own powers.
"Rentaro, are you there?" she whispered.
"…Yeah," he muttered back.
The sensation came from behind the door to the studio. Several sensations, in fact. But they didn't come through the door. They stood there, perhaps struggling with something themselves. Maybe they lost interest; maybe they decided to call for reinforcements. He didn't like it, but either way, holing up in the studio was no longer a good idea.
"Let's go. Follow me."
Signaling to his temporary partner, Rentaro readied his Beretta and tiptoed away.
The space they were squatting in was two stories high. It was far enough into the suburbs that the sound of battle wouldn't be an immediate cause for someone to phone the authorities. The rainstorm that rankled Rentaro's mind a few moments ago would help mute whatever happened as well.
Rentaro tiptoed behind a support column and went down the bare-concrete stairway. Taking a position adjacent to the front door, he dared a quick glance.
There were three figures, all standing there getting soaked by the rain. He strained to make them out through the beam of his MagLite, but when he finally did, his mind went blank. Before he knew it, he had forgotten about hiding, and exposed his body to the air.
"You guys… Why…?"
The three figures illuminated by the MagLite included a single tall man and two girls. The man wore a field jacket and a pair of amber sunglasses. The girl next to him was dressed fully in black, with a choker collar. The third, by comparison, was standing quietly, a girl in an armorlike exoskeleton.
Instinctively, Rentaro took a step beyond the building. The heavy rain immediately weighed down his clothes. He didn't even notice.
Because he knew each one of them.
They had walked the line between life and death together; battle comrades who constantly covered for one another. They were each worth an entire battle squadron by themselves.
"I was certainly not expecting to run into you again so soon."
The dignified voice belonged to Asaka Mibu, the girl in old-style armor. She took a step forward, her eternally closed eyes opened just a slit as she judged him with scorn. She was a warrior, one he had fought side by side with in the battle against Aldebaran. What was she doing here? She was unpaired… The IISO should have been taking care of her.
Asaka gave Rentaro another cold look, perhaps sensing his doubt.
"Thanks to the police pressuring the IISO, I am free from their control for the time being. I am ordered to dispatch a fiendish former civsec fleeing from the law after he committed cold-hearted murder."
The tachi sword she used to wield had now been replaced with a unique type of twin-bladed sword. A relic of her former Promoter, no doubt. She had it unsheathed and readied.
"I was looking forward to the day we would meet each other," she said. "But apparently the stars were not on our side after all. Prepare to die!"
Tamaki Katagiri, as if taking over for Asaka, similarly spat on the ground in Rentaro's direction: "The cops sent us a job. Not only did you kill a guy and run away, you bastard, but you were involved in the Shiba massacre, and that highway shoot-out, too! I saw the evidence!"
Rentaro was speechless. If the police were involved, Hitsuma was very likely pulling the strings. There was no telling what kind of contrived evidence he showed them, but something about the atmosphere indicated he wasn't talking his way out of this.
At the critical moment of the Third Kanto Battle, they had been laughing and crying with one another in turns. They had a friendship. And now Hitsuma had wrecked even that. Rentaro's murderous rage at the thought of that man thickened.
But another part of his mind was quickly analyzing the difference in battle position between the two sides, and it was driving him to despair. He had been their adjuvant leader. He knew full well what they were capable of.
"Rentaro, are these guys your…?"
Hotaru appeared next to him, a look of anxiety on her face. Rentaro gave her a firm nod. There's nothing to worry about. Just fight with me for now.
Asaka and Tamaki were livid; the trust they had built with Rentaro in the struggle against Aldebaran lay ruined. But there was one in the group that was not among their ranks. One with a conflicted look on her face.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" he asked.
It was Yuzuki Katagiri, her twin braids holding strong as she whisked her head back and forth. "Look at you. You're a filthy mess…! There's no way you can beat us! Please, just turn yourself in! I don't want to fight!"
"Don't taunt the prey. Catch it," Rentaro threw back.
"Huh?" Yuzuki asked.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter002b.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
"I'm saying, enough with this farce. I'm not giving up."
Across the way, Asaka's and Tamaki's expressions clouded; a look of disappointment crossed their eyes. Yuzuki, meanwhile, looked desperate as she took a step forward. "You…"
Rentaro raised his arms straight in front of him. His cybernetic one was out in all its glory.
Rentaro then deployed his mechanical eye. The pupil began to spin, creating a wave of geometric patterns.
"Come to think of it, I don't think I ever gave you my full intro," he said as he took the Tendo Martial Arts Water and Sky Stance and sized up his foes. "Give me a chance to before we start: I am Rentaro Satomi, of the Ground Self-Defense Force's Eastern Force; 787th Mechanization Special Unit, of the New Humanity Creation Project. I am ready to begin when you are."
"Ah…"
Yuzuki, still trembling, covered her face with one hand, looked up for a moment, then shielded it again. There was no fathoming the thoughts going through her head.
"Give it up, Yuzuki!" came the rebuke from her brother. That alone was enough to firm her resolve. The next time she raised her head, her face was hostile and unwelcoming.
The civsec group split off, going to the sides to surround Rentaro and Hotaru. A single signal was all it would take to set off the battle.
Rentaro knew he had no chance in an extended fight. If he wanted one, he had to strike first. In the back of his mind, all the memories of their time spent fighting and laughing together bubbled up from the void. Then, under the rain- and mud-soaked pant leg that concealed it, a cartridge in his leg propelled him forward.
5
Sometime before Rentaro thrust himself into battle…
The rain was coming down in buckets, but it still wasn't enough to wash away the smell of alcohol that permeated the entire street.
The red and green streetlights cast their clouded illumination through the rain. He had bumped umbrellas, or nearly bumped them, with several staggering drunks on the walk. The touts attempting to lure him into nightclubs and bars, their tenacity going well beyond what city regulation allowed, were starting to irk him. If he had his policeman's uniform on, that would have snapped all these intoxicated people out of their drunken stupor. As a plainclothes inspector, however, he wasn't given the chance to unfold the old hat and blue pants all too often.
Holding the umbrella between his neck and shoulder, Shigetoku Tadashima unfurled a full-size road map—a rarity these days—and searched for his destination. Once he successfully spotted it, he turned his face up and took a look at the building across from him through the pounding rain.
"…This is it?"
He wasn't entirely sure he was correct, but then he saw TENDO CIVIL SECURITY AGENCY in block lettering on the third floor.
What a pile this is, he couldn't help but think. This man that people hailed as the savior of Tokyo Area, running an office in the shabby outskirts of town—someplace where even a strip club would hesitate to set up shop. He doubted the person he was looking for would be in at this time of night, but given that her home address turned up nothing, this was the only lead he had.
Folding up his umbrella and batting the handle against the ground to shake off water, he climbed up to the third floor. There was a frosted glass door, TENDO CIVIL SECURITY AGENCY stamped on the nearby wall panel. He rang the bell. Then he did it twice more. No response.
He was just about to turn back toward the stairwell when his eyes detected movement somewhere beyond the frosted glass. "Excuse me?" he called out, tapping on the door again. "I'm visiting from Magata Station."
His patience was rewarded. After another moment or two, he heard a click, then was greeted by a young woman in black.
"Um, what time do you think it is right—?"
The banter cut off. A look of vague recognition emerged on the woman's face.
"Inspector…Tadashima, right?"
Tadashima saluted in response. "I apologize for calling on you late at night," he began, following standard procedure. "Would you mind if I took up a little bit of your time? I wanted to ask you about the Rentaro Satomi case."
Kisara seemed to ponder this for a moment. Then she stepped back and opened the door fully, inviting him in. Taking a closer look, Tadashima realized she was in a black negligee. He must have woken her up after all. It was basic—no frills or lace or whatnot—but it wasn't the kind of thing even a grown woman would wear around a stranger.
She didn't seem to care, however, as she walked with an unsteady gait toward the kitchen. Her blank, glassy eyes had a dangerous fragility to them—just one touch seemed enough to make them shatter—but they also held a passive sort of beauty that didn't resist one's gaze. She is beautiful, Tadashima thought. He could understand why Rentaro got so passionate about her. But something bothered him.
He had run into her several times during investigations from the Hiruko terror attack forward, but the Kisara he remembered was always standing up to her full height, arms crossed and acting miffed about something or other. The haughty girl of his memory wasn't the one who had just greeted him. He wondered if he'd misremembered something.
Then, in the dark room that smelled of mold, he noticed another thing that didn't quite match the scene: a headless mannequin next to the office desk in a pure white wedding dress. A top-of-the-line one. The price could've easily broken ten million yen.
"I'm getting married."
Startled, he turned around to find Kisara emerging from the kitchen with some teacups on a tray.
"…I apologize for asking, but how old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"Ah… Well, no problem from a legal perspective, anyway. What are you going to do about school, though?"
"I'm dropping out," came the flat, stiffened reply. Her half-averted eyes were pointed at Tadashima's feet, as if she had resigned herself to the whole affair. Tadashima's instincts warned him against pursuing this any further, but his detective's curiosity won out.
"When's the big day?"
"Um, it's tomorrow. Hitsuma…I mean, my fiancé, got everything together at breakneck speed. He insisted."
Tadashima couldn't believe his ears.
"Hitsuma? You said Hitsuma just now, right?"
"Yes…"
"You don't mean Superintendent Atsuro Hitsuma from the department by any chance, do you?"
"Do…you know him?"
"Do I know him? Well…"
Now Tadashima was on the verge of forgetting what he had come there for. Hitsuma never even gave the slightest hint that he was about to become a wedded man—and it was tomorrow? That fast? With a sixteen-year-old?
Is Mr. Hitsuma hiding this marriage from the public? But why?
Kisara stood up, opened a drawer in her ebony office desk, and returned. There was a gold pocket watch in her hand. Opening the cover, the watch face glittered like the Milky Way, jewels festooned across it. It took only one glance to see how exquisite the timepiece was.
"When it was settled between myself and Mr. Hitsuma…he gave this to me. It's nice, you know? Not having to worry…about money, and things."
There was not even a faint echo of happiness in her voice. It seemed like she was talking to herself more than Tadashima, attempting to shoo some lingering regret out of her mind. Tadashima wasn't sure how to respond, so he took a teacup to his lips, tried a sip—and winced.
"Um…I'm sorry for being rude and all, but you made this tea with water, right?"
"Huh?" For a moment, the spark of reason returned to Kisara's filmy eyes, her cheeks blushing. "Oh, no, I messed it up again… Oh, and I greeted a guest wearing nothing but this…! I'm so stupid."
Without warning, her face twisted. She brought both hands to it. "I hate it."
"What?"
She finally broke, Tadashima thought as her body began to tremble.
"I hate it… Really, I…I don't want to get married to Mr. Hitsuma. I—I want to see Satomi. Satomi… He… Why did he have to die?"
Now the story behind this unnerving scene made sense.
Hitsuma, for reasons he couldn't surmise, was hiding Rentaro's continued existence from Kisara. She saw what had happened at the Plaza Hotel, and from that, she thought he was dead. And no one had told her otherwise.
This was starting to make him incredibly furious. Yes, he knew it hadn't been reported in the news. The reputation of the police department was at stake. He was enough of a lifer in the force to put up with those sorts of politics. But she was practically family to the guy. Shouldn't Hitsuma have at least told her the truth, as long as she promised to keep it under wraps? And now he was forcing his hand in marriage on a woman who barely qualified as an adult? What was he thinking?
Tadashima opened his mouth. The truth had to come out—
But the logical side of his mind stopped him. Doing this, it screamed, would be an act of open rebellion against Atsuro Hitsuma. Tadashi Hitsuma, his father and main backer in the force, was the commissioner of the whole police department. The big boss. If he did anything to draw his attention, Tadashima could be drummed out of there the very next day.
But if he shut his mouth now, he was sure he'd regret it for ages to come.
What you're doing is wrong, Mr. Hitsuma.
Tadashima placed both elbows on the glass top of the reception-room desk, took a deep breath, and exhaled.
"President Tendo, I want you to listen carefully to me. The police have been hiding it in order to cover up their mistakes, but Rentaro Satomi is still alive."
A crash echoed across the room. Kisara froze, the teacup falling helplessly out of her hand.
—Then, as if waiting for that exact moment, they heard a much gentler sound from somewhere. A familiar melody, the pure sound of musical iron keys being plucked by a mechanism. It was a music box.
He didn't have to search long for it.
"Why is that…?"
Tadashima stared at it, sitting there on the desk, then searched out the wall clock. It was exactly midnight.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter003.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
BLACK BULLET 6
CHAPTER 05
PURGATORY STRIDER
1
Rentaro's life-and-death battle, playing out over dirty mud puddles, was turning into a desperate nightmare.
Having faced off with them once in the past, he was fully aware of the Varanium chainsaw wrapped around the gauntlet worn by Tamaki Katagiri, as well as the "territories" his sister Yuzuki could make with her invisible wires. What threw him off his game the most, however, were the immensely powerful slashes unleashed by the tiny body of Asaka Mibu. Her "twin sword" had a single handle, from which extended two blades, one in each direction. It was a bizarre sight, and one about the length of a typical spear—but the blades, which spun in the air as Asaka twisted her hips in a sort of lethal dance, let her land two blows with a single swipe. He had to be careful around it. The shock waves that fanned out whenever she beat the blades against the ground were akin to a localized tremor as well, enough so to force him to brace himself.
Yuzuki and Tamaki always chose that moment to lunge upon him, too. The chainsaw screamed each time it whizzed past his ear.
He and Hotaru had tried launching a tandem barrage to at least get Asaka out of the picture. It was met with a flurry of sparks and zinging noises as she deflected it, spinning her weapon like a propeller. It floored him to see it in action.
Come to think of it, her IP Rank was 275, wasn't it? Following Tina and Kohina, she was the third highest-ranked Initiator Rentaro had ever met in his life. There was no way he could treat her lightly.
Meanwhile, he was starting to get a read on her innate ability as well. Whatever her Gastrea factor was, it was geared for power—power further enhanced by her armored exoskeleton. The kick Rentaro uncoiled with all his spinal strength was stopped by the shock-absorbent fibers woven into the armor, barely damaging her at all.
His main means of survival in this battle were the one-shot finishers he could unleash by discharging his leg cartridges. But his foes knew about that. And whenever he set himself up to let one off, they would promptly take their distance from him.
This time, there was no relying on Hotaru's miraculous regeneration skills. If Hotaru left the battlefield for even a moment, it'd be three-on-one, which meant Rentaro would be dead. She must have known this. She was keeping a safe distance from the enemy at all times, putting herself mainly in a backup-fire role. But if you ignored her regeneration, Hotaru's basic skills were a far cry from both Asaka's and Yuzuki's.
There was no conceivable path of victory. It was a situation where anyone would've immediately assumed the end was near. But Rentaro's confrontational tenacity made Tamaki and his team honestly gaze in wonderment.
"Why?!" screamed Yuzuki, who should have had a decisive advantage but instead found herself brushing away her rain-soaked hair in wonderment. Rentaro had used his cybernetic eye to dodge Asaka's three-slash twin-sword strike by a hair's breadth, all while using his artificial leg and arm to deflect Tamaki's chainsaw knuckle and Yuzuki's kick. He now planted that leg on the ground. It sank in a little as he gritted his teeth.
"Ohhhhh!"
He thrust it down with all his might as the Katagiris wavered. At the same time, he triggered a cartridge. It kicked downward, allowing him to stomp on the earth with enough force to compress the dirt underneath. His leg gouged a hole in the muddy ground, and the next moment, the earth shuddered.
Asaka realized what he was doing soon enough to step away. Yuzuki and Tamaki did not. They fell to the ground, kicking up mud. Without a second thought, Rentaro dashed forward for a follow-up. If he didn't beat Asaka, there would never be any victory for him.
By the time she lifted her twin sword high and sent it zooming down, she and Rentaro were a good twenty meters away from each other. He thought she had misjudged his advance by a fairly wide margin, but a chill suddenly ran up his spine. In an instant, he tilted his trajectory to the side.
It was just in time to hear a horrendous shredding sound that made his back feel cold with terror. The earth Rentaro had stood on just a moment ago was cleanly cut in two.
It unnerved him. That slash had some serious distance to it. And unlike Kisara's, it had made a clean slice through ground like it was made of butter.
The second strike that came at him was parallel to the ground. Rentaro ducked under it; a moment later, another shredding sound erupted behind his back. He turned around without stopping, only to find the second floor of the sculpture studio crumbling behind him, belching soot and smoke as it did.
He ran, gritting down hard on his teeth until he cried out in pain. Asaka was getting closer and closer. Once he was within range of her sword, the blades began to spin like a tornado, forming ever-changing arcs in the air as they carved the earth under his feet.
Rentaro's eye made calculations at blazing speed. He desperately struggled to read the blades, dodging the second strike, feinting, and making a wide leap to the right. Asaka flashed a look of surprise.
Now!
He tried to unleash an all-or-nothing cartridge from his leg—but then he lost his balance, as if pulled up by some unseen hand.
Rentaro checked behind him. His eyes opened wide.
"Oh, shi—"
There was a spider's web, a shining rainbow as it stood illuminated by the arched streetlight. It was being pulled by Yuzuki, hatred clouding her face as she remained on the ground. Rentaro had been caught in it when he stopped her kick with his right arm.
But there was no time to gnash his teeth about it. Asaka's twin blades were on their way, ready to skewer him.
Rentaro closed his eyes. I didn't make it.
There was a loud, shrill vween as the blades flew.
And continued to fly…away.
No one was more surprised to see this than Asaka herself.
A bullet had flown in from somewhere, making a clean hit on the extended blade. It shot sparks into the air as it knocked the weapon clear from her hands. And that wasn't all. Another bullet, launched at almost the same time, tore through the spider web as well, its heat loosening the strands.
The accuracy of both shots was incredible.
"Rentaro!"
Before Hotaru's voice could even reach his ears, he started moving. Rentaro dove toward Asaka's chest. The light around him swerved and spun—light that came from the explosion set off by his leg cartridge.
Asaka's expression, which he saw just a glance of, resembled a child lost in an amusement park. She was at a total loss.
Ten minutes later, Rentaro stood amidst the mud and grime, letting the rain plink down upon him.
Two people were strewn around him. There was Asaka Mibu, lying facedown in a mud puddle like a worn-out paper bag detached from her shattered exoskeleton. On the other side was Yuzuki Katagiri, lying on her back.
"Nnhh… Shit… This is crazy."
Rentaro turned toward the coughing voice. Tamaki was leaning hard against the wall, wiping blood from his mouth.
It was just as he'd hoped. Once Asaka was down, Tamaki's and Yuzuki's weaknesses were fully exposed to the world. They were well aware of the instantaneous force his cartridges gave him—but Rentaro was just as aware of their tactics.
Both were geared for close-quarters combat. Tamaki and his pistol could handle mid-range ops as well, but the Magnum he used, while powerful, had serious recoil issues and couldn't store many bullets at once. It was almost entirely meant for Gastrea engagement. Compared to Rentaro's Beretta, which relied on strength in numbers ammo-wise, it would be wholly useless in a shoot-out.
If Rentaro and Hotaru went full-fire on Tamaki, Yuzuki would naturally have to fly in to protect him. Then it'd be a matter of wearing her out. It didn't take a military genius to come up with that plan. And it went without saying that Tamaki going at it solo had no chance at all.
Tamaki lifted his head. Rentaro could see, through the amber frames, that his eyes were full of murderous hatred for the traitor before him. Rentaro eyed him coldly.
"Eat it!"
Then he buried his fist in his stomach.
Tamaki groaned, whispered "God damn it" to himself, set his head down, and fell unconscious. Rentaro looked at him for a few moments, then closed his eyes and stood quietly in the sprinkling rain.
"Rentaro…"
He turned around to find Hotaru looking up at him, hands crossed against her chest in concern. He shook his head and passed by her side.
"Let's go. It's too dangerous here."
He still had work to do. If he could reveal the Black Swan Project to the world, all this effort would be worth it—no matter how much hatred and how many muttered curses he had to take along the way.
2
Using his hand to shade his eyes, Rentaro looked up. The rising sun from the east was half-blocked by the enormous wall in front of him, but already the heat it cast out was beating against his skin.
NO. 0013 was stenciled on the bottom of the wall. It was a Monolith, an edifice of black chrome. Rentaro and Hotaru had spent the night traveling to it, taking the long way to evade detection.
Turning around, he surveyed the ruined buildings and piles of rubble. They extended out as far as his eyes could see. Around them, tilted electric poles provided weak support for wires that snaked out in all directions, like a giant game of cat's cradle. The only fortunate thing about the sight was that it was still far too early for the Outer Districts' denizens to be out and about.
"This is it?"
"Yes. I'm sure of it."
Hotaru's reply came in her usual suppressed tone, although Rentaro could sense a hint of excitement.
"The courier said there should be a manhole somewhere here. Let's look for it."
The ground beneath them was lined with aluminum cans and piles of colorful, dew-covered plastic garbage. Rentaro hardly wanted to touch any of it, so he kicked it away instead. It was oddly warm, as if decomposing. Yet it was a seemingly endless pile of materials, mortar, rusty nails… Finding actual soil proved to be difficult.
Just when they began to wonder if the courier fed them a line after all, Rentaro spotted a brand-new manhole cover amid the junk. He called Hotaru over and showed it to her. "That's gotta be it," she immediately replied.
"How do you know?"
She used a foot to point out the area next to the cover. There was a tiny star mark with wings, small enough that it was easily overlooked. He could feel his blood vessels tense in response.
Allowing Hotaru to hoist off the cover and toss it aside, Rentaro felt a cold wind run up his spine, along with the tingling smell of some kind of filth. Pointing his light downward, he saw a rusted-out pipe and corridors leading left and right.
The two threw their weapons-laden traveling bag and aluminum case inside, quieted the voices in their minds telling them to stay back, and took the rusted ladder one step at a time. Rentaro took the lead, although he wasn't enthusiastic about it. Leaving the sun above them like this made it feel as though they were pacing right into the maw of some enormous monster.
It was, of course, dark inside. The only light they had to work with was the MagLite's small circle. There was an ever-present whistling groan, like the wailing of the dead. Just the wind crossing some kind of hollow crevice, Rentaro told himself.
Hotaru flashed the light down one side, then the other.
"So we got the Monolith on one side and the way we came from on the other. Which way?"
"Which way would you go?"
"The way we came."
"Okay. Let's take the Monolith direction."
Hotaru gave him a kick in the shin. It actually hurt a fair bit. "You are so stupid!" she said, cheeks puffed up.
Rentaro gave an apologetic chuckle. "Well, let's just try going toward the Monolith first, okay? If it's a dead end, we'll go back the other way."
She nodded after a moment, not seriously offended after all.
The slushy liquid around their feet gave an odd, swampy shlorp with every step they took. The echoing grew louder the closer they came to the Monolith, making the waves of worry crash loud against their minds.
The path curved gradually at one point, but was otherwise basically a straight shot. After about one hundred meters, Rentaro and Hotaru stopped.
"Dead end…huh?"
A large wall about a meter across stood before them.
They hadn't been counting every step, but chances were that they were now directly underneath the Monolith. That would explain why the wall was black chrome, shining brightly in the flashlight's beam. It must have been to block the Gastrea.
"Guess you chose wrong, huh?"
"Um, I think it's too early to say that."
"Rentaro?"
Hotaru, already on her way back, turned around. Rentaro ran a hand against the smooth, cold surface of the Varanium wall. His fingers came across a depression.
He instructed Hotaru, standing beside him, to touch it. Surprise ran across her face. There was a hole in the Varanium, not even two centimeters across.
"Remember that loud whistle we heard? I knew the wind had to be coming in through somewhere. But look—"
Rentaro fell silent and pointed the light straight ahead.
"Doesn't this look like a keyhole to you?"
The quizzical Hotaru brought a shocked hand to her mouth, then hurriedly fumbled in her jacket.
"I got it."
She took out the key with the maple leaf—the one Swordtail had owned. The one whose home they had no clues about. The mystery.
Rentaro took a step back as Hotaru inserted the key and twisted it. There was an ever-so-slight click, and then it silently opened, beckoning them in.
"Holy…!"
A domed space, about the size of a small home, had been dug into the earth. Stationed inside of it was something that looked like a train. A bit of a small one—and a bit too large to be a microbus—but close enough.
"A light-rail line…? Why's there one here?"
They walked through the door, only to find the ceiling was higher up than they expected. They could see the tracks the train car was on now, extending deeper into a tunnel. They tried shining the light down the way, only to be greeted with total darkness. It must have been a light-rail station.
"I guessed right…"
"Uh-huh."
It seemed safe to guess that the Five Wings Syndicate was perched on the other side of the tunnel. Considering they were right under the Monolith, boarding this car would take them into the Unexplored Territory.
These guys had cornered the market on trifdraphizin, the same drug Rentaro and Hotaru had found in that Gastrea. They had killed Kihachi Suibara, Ayame Surumi, Kenji Houbara, Saya Takamura, and Giichi Ebihara. And those were only the names Rentaro knew. He understood full well they were just the tip of the iceberg.
What had those victims known? Why did they have to be murdered? What was the Black Swan Project—this menace that consumed the blood of so many people, this presence that must have been straight ahead?
Carefully, the two approached the rail car, all but expecting a trap as they boarded. It was…a train car. Eerily so, right down to the seating and the leather straps dangling from the ceiling. There wasn't a spot of dust inside, and it felt like the car had seen use fairly recently.
Rentaro turned to the driver's seat, wondering how the thing worked. He was rewarded with a set of instructions placed right on the instrument panel. After a quick once-over, he was convinced driving it was within his grasp. The key was already in the ignition; he twisted it, the engine revved to life, and the headlights—far brighter than the MagLite he was working with—cut through the darkness. Then he placed his hands on the cold, metallic master-control handle and gradually pushed it up. With a shudder, the speedometer began to ratchet upward, the handles on the ceiling swaying back and forth.
Bringing the handle up to gear P5, Rentaro watched as the car switched to running on momentum, maintaining a steady fifty kilometers an hour. Turning behind him, he saw Hotaru glued to a window, staring at the tunnel's inside. "I think the tunnel walls are made of Varanium," she said.
Rentaro focused on the tunnel to confirm it for himself. "I see. They must've used a shield to dig this hole."
"A shield?"
"A tunneling shield. You know, one of those big borers with a cutter bit on the end of it. These days, you have machines that bore the tunnel while laying down wall segments behind it, reinforcing it so it doesn't collapse. They probably used Varanium segments on this."
"That's pretty amazing," Hotaru blithely replied. But Rentaro sensed she had something else to say. He had a pretty good idea what it was, too. The Five Wings Syndicate used a tunneling shield to dig this pathway; they clearly maintained it well; they had laid rails across it; and now they had a working train system. Any way you sliced it, this was a huge job.
There was a proposal making the rounds called the Cassiopeia Project that would link all five Areas in Japan via underground trains. But not only was that a huge engineering challenge; it was also being heavily lobbied against by assorted vested-interest groups, balking at the idea of cheaper goods or produce from other Areas flooding the market. To say the least, it would be a long time coming. But an entity like the Five Wings Syndicate taking the initiative and building something like this? How large a group was this, anyway?
As they drove on in silence, Rentaro heard the sound of wheels grating against track as the car shifted slightly. He kept his hand on the control handle, peering into a darkness so black not even the headlights could penetrate it. Then he heard a clank behind him. He twirled around, only to find Hotaru opening up their luggage and preparing for battle.
"Rentaro," she said as she pulled the cocking handle back on a KRISS vector machine gun and squinted at the chamber, "I was thinking—we probably shouldn't help each other out in battle after all. If I get taken down, just keep on fighting, okay? I'll try to do the same thing."
Her tone was blunt, just like it was when they first met. Rentaro opened his mouth to object, but before he could, he asked himself why she was acting like this now, of all times. Maybe she was thinking that something could happen to her in the not-too-distant future, depending on what was waiting up ahead.
Spotting a stop sign marked in red, Rentaro hurriedly turned the handle toward the brake section. He lurched forward, then rocked back when the car finally stopped.
"We're here."
At the exit was a simple concrete floor with a rust-colored door on the other side. Above it was a lit-up green sign, a bit like Japan's standard emergency-exit signs, except this one read BIOCHEMISTRY LABORATORY #3.
"A laboratory?" Rentaro said. "Here?"
"Where do you think we are on the map right now?"
"Well, we've been going fifty kilometers an hour for twenty or so minutes, so simple math says we've traveled around sixteen kilometers."
They were certainly well into Unexplored Territory, beyond the protection of the Monoliths. Was this some kind of underground lab, then? If they had any facilities on the surface, how did they keep them safe from Gastrea attack?
Rentaro wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, put a hand on the doorknob, and took a glance at Hotaru.
"Let's go in."
He opened the door and walked through.
It was dim. The ceiling lights that connected to the outside corridor shone a light blue like will-o'-the-wisps, reflecting off the silvery gray walls and floor. It reminded Rentaro of a hospital after lights-out. Nobody was around, although he could hear the hum of some kind of machine operating. It smelled like medicine, too. The floor was immaculate; someone had clearly cleaned it recently.
Going through a set of double doors, Rentaro found himself in a locker room. On one wall, he found what looked like an attendance sheet. On it were plates with names like Firebird, Huckebein, and Squid Octopus—no real names at all. All the movable tags were turned around, indicating that no one was currently on duty.
But he doubted they were all on vacation. In fact, chances were the Five Wings Syndicate had abandoned the lab because they were fearful of Rentaro's advance.
That hunch was all but confirmed when he entered the adjacent business office. It was littered with piles of cross-shredded paper and ash—presumably they started burning paper when the shredding didn't go fast enough. Apparently paper was still being used as a trusted data format around there.
Five Wings must have known by then that Rentaro defeated Hummingbird and Swordtail, he reasoned. They must have figured this site was his ultimate destination, so they'd vacated. And if that reasoning was right, there was nothing there for Rentaro to discover.
And yet, opposing his logic was the feeling that something was nearby. Like someone was holding his breath in the darkness, constantly staring at him.
The elevator they came across next seemed to be powered, but for some reason, both Rentaro and Hotaru instinctively resisted boarding the eerily bright car. From the button panel, they learned that the facility had one aboveground floor and two basement stories. They decided to take the stairs down to the bottommost floor.
There, they found a sterilization room apparently meant for disinfecting people. Protective clothing hung from hooks on the wall, but Rentaro wasn't too interested in following procedure at the moment. Opening up the bulkhead door on the other side, he discovered that it led to another, even thicker door, the surface of which resembled space station materials. It opened on cue after the door they just went through closed.
The room beyond opened up into a fairly wide hallway where, in the darkness, they saw something odd ahead.
"Are these…cages?"
Rectangular cages, built into the corridor walls, lined both sides of the path. They continued down the hallway as far as they could see, but what struck the pair as particularly odd was their size. These were nothing like the tabletop cages to house lab rats or rabbits. They were far bigger, and they could faintly hear the sound of breathing coming from them. Something was there. And not just one or two things.
Rentaro could feel them staring at him with bated breath.
He took a step forward, only to feel something pulling him back by his shirt. He turned to find Hotaru shaking her head at him. He knew painfully well why she was doing that, but he also knew there was no going back now.
"Lemme go see what it is," Rentaro said as he began to softly walk down the hallway, seized by regret that felt like leaving his planet for another. He tried looking into a cage, but in the darkness he couldn't make out what was huddled in the far corner.
With shaky hands, he illuminated the nearest cage with his MagLite. A creature with blood-red eyes immediately reacted by shrieking and making a mad dash for the cage wall. It slammed itself against it repeatedly, emitting ear-piercing screams as its razor-sharp teeth chewed at the bars.
A panicked Hotaru responded by spraying fire from her short-barrel machine gun.
"Screeeeee!!"
The creature, emitting a noise like a mouse being strangled to death, fell back to the other side of the cage. This was followed by an eerily loud scream, as if the walls had just exploded. The creatures in the other cages, excited by the gunfire, were now copying their dead companion's act, screaming and bashing themselves against the cage bars.
"Let's move!"
Rentaro didn't bother to wait for Hotaru's reaction as he grabbed her hand and dashed down the hallway. He hit the door at the end with his shoulder, as if attempting to batter it open. He turned around, breathing heavily.
"Was that…really…?"
"Yeah."
He waited for his pulse to slow, then gingerly approached a cage and lit it up again. Bodies shone in the light, thanks to the viscous slime covering their skin. They smelled like rotting flesh, spitting something sticky at him as they screamed at the top of their lungs, as if casting a curse upon him.
"Are these Gastrea?"
"Look at that…"
Rentaro pointed his light not at the Gastrea, but at the cage. Hotaru's body tensed up, as if she had been shot.
"Varanium cages…? You're kidding me. Why…?"
All Gastrea had a natural fear of Varanium, to the point where locking them in a room lined with the metal on all sides would make them grow weak and die. The laboratory had probably been abandoned for at least a few days, but these creatures would have been in the cages for longer than that. Even a Stage Four Gastrea would have been half-dead by now. So why were they still alive?
All Rentaro could do was file the question away for later as he continued on.
Inside of a small room meant for handling dangerous P4-level biohazards, they found an octopuslike monster, its tentacles twisted and bony. It shrieked at them, too, repeatedly slamming itself against a glass window.
A door with the sign OPERATING ROOM led to what looked like a crime scene. Looking at the state of the thing on the operating table, Rentaro immediately shut the door. This room, at least, was skippable for him.
It seemed clear that this lab was being used for assorted types of Gastrea experimentation. The researchers must have been in such a hurry to evacuate that they didn't even take the time to euthanize their test subjects. Yet, despite all the dreadful scenery he had seen so far, Rentaro was still nagged by the feeling that he still hadn't reached the main section. He needed to know about the Black Swan Project, and there had to be something there that'd bring him to the root of it.
After taking a full tour of the facility, they concluded their journey in front of a door a fair bit larger than the others. According to the map on a wall they happened upon, it opened to a large space, about the size of a concert hall. A plate on the side read CULTIVATION ROOM.
"Let's go in," Rentaro said as he fiddled with the control panel to the side of the door. Inside was another bulkhead door; it whirred open with a hydraulic psshh, and with it, Rentaro felt a blast of cold air hit him from below.
Once the air cleared, it came into view: a room full of large, jellylike masses. Akin to yellow bags that someone had inflated into a ball, they squirmed around like a baby in the womb. A mesh of blood vessels ran across their surfaces, densely crisscrossing over one another, as they hung ponderously from the domed ceiling.
Each one was just large enough to house a grown human. The bags were thin and transparent, and inside were what appeared to be a large number of half-man, half-fish creatures, as well as a large beetle with a thick, warty carapace, a ropelike creature that looked like something in between a snake and a roundworm, and assorted other living things.
As crowded as the room was with them, the yellow bags looked a bit like gigantic muscat grapes, hanging in bunches from the ceiling—each one with a Gastrea inside. Like purple wisteria trees laden with grapes.
"She had to burn the vineyard."
Even though they had never met, the voice of Dr. Surumi rang softly in Rentaro's mind.
"This…," Hotaru whispered. "This is crazy. It can't be real."
"Well…believe it."
Hotaru must have known it by then; she was just pretending not to. For some reason, her professed disbelief made Rentaro furious.
"They're raising them! They're raising Gastrea in here! And not just any Gastrea, either…"
He knew letting his anger out on Hotaru wasn't constructive at all. But the pure, unadorned horror seizing him made it impossible to control.
"The Gastrea they care for in here get put into those cages we saw once they reach maturity. These aren't normal Gastrea… They're making them so they're immune to Varanium. That's why being in a Varanium cage doesn't kill them. God… So this was it the whole time?"
Sumire had said it herself: "Swans, you know, are supposed to be all white in color, but then they found a population of black swans in Australia. It turned the world of ornithology upside down back in the day. The entire world ran on this assumption that swans were supposed to be white, so nobody was ever able to predict that black swans would ever be a thing, too.
"So the 'black swan theory' is where you build long-term predictions while bound by your current state of comprehension, but thereby fail to account for unpredictable events even after they happen…
"If you've had ten years straight of bountiful harvests, you'd never imagine that a flood would ravage your farmland tomorrow, right?"
No, you wouldn't. A strain of Varanium-immune Gastrea? Who would ever guess? And if the virus ever got out and their numbers started multiplying, the human race would immediately lose all their safe zones. Every nation, every human being would meet their maker. The Gastrea conquest of planet Earth would be complete.
This was the Black Swan Project. What an ugly, horrible, disgusting thing. And most of all, Rentaro couldn't believe this was all the work of mankind.
"But what's the Five Wings Syndicate going to do with these…?"
Rentaro shook his head. "If they had enough of these Varanium-resistant Gastrea, they could deliberately set off a pandemic anytime they liked…"
"They can't! There's no way you can domesticate Gastrea like that. They're never going to listen to them. They've already tried implanting electrodes in their minds, and it didn't work. Even if all the Gastrea in there were released right now, they'd just scatter off in a million different directions."
"The trifdraphizin."
Hotaru's eyebrows arched.
"That's the one puzzle we still haven't solved. Why is the Five Wings Syndicate so desperate for trifdraphizin that they're willing to risk blowing their cover to buy up the black-market supply? That drug puts its victims in a deep hypnotic state. Maybe they're putting the Gastrea they're raising here in a catatonic state and—I don't know how—but maybe conditioning them into attacking or going toward Tokyo Area? You know, like how they condition soldiers to immediately pull the trigger when a target appears."
Conditioning was the way people trained animals to perform certain tasks—instilling a conditioned reflex that made them perform the action on command. If you stuck a mouse in a maze and conditioned it with cheese to memorize the correct path, it would eventually run through the entire thing without hesitation—without cheese—simply because it was conditioned to run the maze. And after a soldier was conditioned in boot camp to open fire the moment he saw a target, he'd be able to pull the trigger independent of his own will, improving the chances of killing his enemy. Army commanders loved it, but it had a side effect: post-traumatic stress disorder. Making soldiers kill people they didn't want to kill. Committing these murders permanently altered their mental state, and there was no limit to the mental fallout and subsequent health bills.
All of it showed that conditioning worked, even on high-level animals like humans. Gastrea couldn't be any different.
"But… But even if it's theoretically possible, what are the chances of it working without a hitch?"
"That's why they're conducting this whole experiment. To see."
Rentaro looked up at the dome. The muscat grapes on the vines distracted him too much to notice that the dome, about two hundred meters in diameter, had a tangled mesh of pipes and wires snaking down from the center, like a tall, straight tree trunk. The dome was, in a way, a vast, computerized tree, the pipes keeping the grapevines alive.
"I'm sure Five Wings releases the Gastrea grown here all the time as an experiment. To see whether they can get into Tokyo Area or not, you know? And they put that star-and-wing mark on them so they can tell them apart from other Gastrea. Then they have crews pick them up. I'm sure the Gastrea you and Suibara killed was Varanium-resistant, too. Normally, it would've been whisked away before it ever made it to Dr. Surumi's operating table—but she found out. She knew too much. So they eliminated her."
This is what you wanted to tell me. Isn't it, Suibara?
Rentaro heard a sob behind him. He found Hotaru down on her knees, face buried in her hands.
"Why…?" she wailed, shaking her head back and forth. "Why did Kihachi have to die for this…? Just being with Kihachi made me so happy, and then…this happened…!"
It was true; Hotaru was just as much a victim of the Black Swan Project as the others. And she might have more company soon. If Black Swan ever got out, Tokyo Area would be crushed. Suibara tried to blow the whistle on them. He knew how dangerous it'd be for him, but he tried anyway.
If we crack under pressure now, the thing Suibara lost his life trying to reveal will be lost in the darkness again. The Five Wings Syndicate will just continue their experiments somewhere else.
Rentaro couldn't bear to let that happen. He shook his head lightly and looked up at the giant tree in front of him.
"You know what, Hotaru? I was wrong. I thought that if I came back with some evidence, that'd be enough to clear my name. But this is on a whole other level now. We can't let a single Gastrea get out of this facility. We have to kill them all right here."
"How?"
Rentaro turned his head toward the center of the cultivation room. Hallways fanned out from the large pipe in the center. They were fairly basic in structure, the floors made out of steel mesh that looked like it was recycled from the construction phase. Rentaro picked the nearest one and walked toward the trunk, his soles clanking against the metal, and Hotaru following. Looking down, he saw that the catwalk spanned above a mass of wires—the "roots" of the tree, so to speak.
White fog steamed around, dissipating into a thick, milky mist. The chill they felt must have come from the evaporating liquid nitrogen, or whatever this was. Something told him that falling on those cords could be hazardous to their health.
Upon reaching the center of the dome, he and Hotaru checked out the assorted machinery accessible to them. It seemed to control operations around the vineyard. Destroying it might kill off the Gastrea gestating inside.
It made Rentaro marvel at his enemy all over again. The Five Wings Syndicate had the resources to build this massive facility. What kind of scale were they built on? And how far had they sunk their talons into Tokyo Area by now?
It was lucky they had stayed constantly on guard this time, expecting the enemy at any moment. It paid off when, all of a sudden, they felt a menacing presence behind their backs.
On went the cybernetic arm. The extractor installed inside grabbed a cartridge. The ejector kicked it away from his body.
Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 13—
"—Rokuro Kabuto!"
The swirling motion he added to his fist as it whizzed through the air collided against something advancing upon him from Hotaru's side. For a moment, a shock wave crossed the room, like the air itself had been deconstructed. With a loud boom, the object—a rifle round—was deflected into oblivion.
Rentaro turned in the bullet's direction. Hotaru, taking another moment or two to realize she had been targeted, swiveled her head around, searching fruitlessly.
"Welcome, Satomi. I figured you'd be coming."
A shadowy figure trudged its way across the corridor. He had a broad nose and an ice-cold stare, but above the boy's popped uniform collar, a twisted smile was painted on his face. He brought the sniper rifle lingering over the mist back to his side, stuck both hands in his pockets, and walked toward Rentaro.
"Yuga Mitsugi," muttered Rentaro, voice filled to the brim with disgust. There was no sense of surprise. Sooner or later, he knew the guy would show up. And he knew that, so long as he failed to take him down in battle, there would be no victory against the Five Wings Syndicate.
"Hotaru," Rentaro said, eyes still fixed upon Yuga, "I need you to do me a favor. Take all the plastic explosives in the bag and plant them around the main parts of the lab. I'll join you once I beat this guy."
"But I wanna—"
"Please. I need to settle things with him personally."
Hotaru frowned at the interruption.
"…Good luck, Rentaro. Please don't die."
With that, she mentally shook off her concerns, picked up her traveling bag, and headed for the main door. Rentaro followed her from the corner of his eye until she disappeared, then turned back to the presence in front of him.
Silence reigned for a few moments, accompanied by the mist billowing around them. Except for all the machines humming, it almost looked like they were standing on a rope bridge deep in some uncharted mountain valley.
"I've got you, Yuga Mitsugi," Rentaro rumbled in a low voice. "I know what you're doing. I'm gonna blow the whistle."
"I'm gonna have to give you a 'no' on that."
"What is Five Wings after? Are you gonna sell the Varanium-resistant Gastrea to some third-world terrorist or something?"
"Sell them? Why would we do something like that? We're gonna use them."
Rentaro had trouble understanding this for a moment. The logical part of his brain refused to accept it.
"Use…them?"
"Exactly." Yuga broadly extended his arms and began to breezily pace in a circle around his adversary. "The mission of the Five Wings Syndicate is world hegemony. World dominance. I don't know how it was before the war, but the Five Areas of Japan comprise one of the richest countries in the world. We're a major Varanium exporter, and we're a world leader when it comes to technology. By themselves, the rest of the world's nations are helpless. Like badgers hunkered down in their badger holes. We need to step up in their place, maintain world order, and exterminate the Gastrea on a worldwide level. But in order to achieve that, we need to bring the world under our administration. To make sure everyone's marching to the beat of the same drum. Our drum."
Rentaro narrowed his eyes.
"But it's tragic, though, isn't it?" Yuga continued. "All the different races, religions; all the conflicting ideologies in the world. Too many nations that would never listen to our call to action. If we want to keep everyone on the same wavelength, first we have to clear out the countries that aren't reasonable. That's what the Varanium-resistant Gastrea are for."
"Clear out…? How is that different from taking over the world?"
"It's completely different. We're trying to provide proper guidance to the world. That's what it takes to create a Gastrea-free planet. And as part of that effort, we need to step up. The US used to be called the 'world police' a long time ago—well, now it's our turn. We have to take their place and make the troublemaker nations of the world submit to us. After all, it's truly a pity, but mankind—the supposed ruler of all things in the world, that most social of animals—is simply unable to create a form of government without an elite ruling class. As supposedly intelligent as we all are, we're still so blindly obedient to authority. It's just like a colony of ants. That's why we need to teach people who the queen ant is around here. The Five Wings Syndicate, you know… It transcends borders. It transcends political affiliations. It's a group of people distressed by the destruction of their native lands, working under the same flag to make the world a better place."
"Are you being serious at all?"
"I'll tell you that, at the very least, the people above me truly think this. That's why the vanguard force of this group is the New World Creation Project. Not New Humanity."
With a blaze of speed, Rentaro drew his gun and fired at Yuga's feet. The bullet ripped through the sole. The barrel, as hot as his own anger, pounded against the side of his arm.
"Don't give me that shit. Is that what Suibara had to die for? That? You made Hotaru break down in tears for that bullshit?"
Yuga shrugged his shoulders in a not-my-problem gesture.
"I'm sick of all this talking. We're never not going to be in conflict with each other… Now I know that all too well!"
Rentaro's left eye, and both of Yuga's, activated simultaneously. The preliminary calculations were underway.
"Today's going to be a great day," Yuga hissed. "Let's get started. The New Humanity Creation Project, or the New World Creation Project—which is the truly legitimate evolution of mankind?"
The final battle between Rentaro and Yuga was underway.
It was heralded by a particularly large burst of billowing mist, hiding both figures within. It cut off Rentaro's ability to harness his cybernetic eye—but his foe was in the same boat. He pushed off the ground and, at astonishing speed, covered ten meters in a single instant. Next came Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 5—Kohaku Tensei—and despite not using a cartridge, his fist zoomed across the air at subsonic speed, blowing away the white mist. But it was Rentaro whose eyes burst open in surprise afterward. The enemy he sought was not there.
The next moment, an intense pain raced across his temple. He blacked out for half a moment.
"Ngh!"
Looking back, he saw that Yuga was somehow by his side now, about to unleash a kick. In his right hand, he gripped a large knife—really more of a short sword. The path it took for his follow-up attack seemed to leave white-hot afterimages, like a flash of lightning. The CPU in Rentaro's eye raced to gauge this threat. It found an escape route just in time. He turned his head back to dodge, wound his elbow up, tensed his arm, and aimed a knee kick to Yuga's face. It was blocked just before it made impact.
His enemy's face was right in front of him now, twisted with hate. It seemed to Rentaro like that face was sunken into his head. Then stars went off in his mind. By the time he realized he had been the victim of a head butt, he was spewing blood from his nose and taking several unbalanced steps backward. His vision lurched. The blood plinked against the metal catwalk, like crimson flowers on a meadow.
When he looked back up, Rentaro had lost Yuga in the heavy mist again. He almost fell into a panic, just barely retaining his wits.
I can't track him with my eyes.
I am my gun, and my gun is me: The unity of man and machine, so expertly honed in the VR training Rentaro undertook to defeat Tina, was attuned not only to his own gun, but to the sound of the trigger bar scraping against his enemy's frame, the firing hammer going down through the sear.
Just as he dove to the right, a flash erupted from the fog. The scream of gunpowder deafened his ears.
"Wha…?!"
Somehow, despite both sides being robbed of their artificial-eye skills, Rentaro dodged the bullet. The surprise was obvious in Yuga's yelp. Rentaro was instantly there. By the time Yuga adjusted his aim, Rentaro's fist was already speeding within range. Both hands were free; both feet were planted on the ground.
"Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 15—"
A cartridge made an ominous ka-chack as it tumbled out. Rentaro's Super-Varanium fist propelled itself at unthinkable energy levels as it tore at Yuga from below. It broke the sound barrier and, like a wrecking ball, blew the mist away. In a panic, Yuga crossed both arms in self-defense. It was pointless.
"Unebiko Ryu—! You're outta here!"
The uppercut, curving from below toward Yuga's chin, smashed through his left arm. It sent his body a good ten meters away.
But he wasn't done. Launching a leg cartridge to thrust him forward, Rentaro closed in for a second attack. Drawing a semicircle in the air with his body, he rose up to Yuga's midair position and launched another leg cartridge. The casing arced in the air, tracing a gold-tinged path behind him.
Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 16: Inzen Kokutenfu.
"Raaaaah!"
The flying roundhouse kick buried itself into the still-midair Yuga's stomach, this time sending his body downward. He crashed against the bare steel of the catwalk with a loud clanging sound, bouncing several times from the force of the impact before putting a dent in the anti-fall railing.
How's that?!
To a normal human, the first uppercut would have been enough to crush every bone in their body. No matter how mechanized his body was—
"Huh?!"
Rentaro found his eyes opening wide in shock once more. Yuga stirred, hoisting himself up via the dented railing. He had nothing to say, his tousled hair covering one eye. The other one, its iris spinning rapidly, glared at him.
"I'll kill you."
"…You got me at the hotel," Rentaro replied. "Now we're even."
"I can't lose to the Tendo style a second time!"
…A second time?
As he shouted, Yuga took two survival knives from his belt, gripping one in each hand as he screamed at the heavens.
Rentaro's instinct told him not to approach, so he unholstered his gun, aimed, and fired a barrage of shots. The recoil from the nine-millimeter rocked his arm.
He realized the mistake he had made when he saw Yuga twist and turn his body to dodge them. Of course. He was fighting a foe with eye enhancements just like his. If he kept relying only on what he could see with his eyes, the predictive AI was going to read his bullets' trajectory every time.
The sheer speed at which Yuga then rushed toward him, body kept low to the ground, was clear from the mist he kicked up around him. Rentaro aimed his Beretta again.
But Yuga interrupted him with the throw of a knife. It stuck into the Beretta, confusing his eyeball's measurements and making him accidentally pull the trigger. The muzzle flash erupted toward nothing in particular.
The remaining knife was at Yuga's hip, shining dully in the mist as it rocketed toward Rentaro. Realizing it was too late to dodge it, he lowered his body, preparing to deflect the blade with his Super-Varanium right arm.
His entire body seemed to creak at the moment of impact, his soles sliding against the steel floor. The heat generated by the friction left the smell of something burning in the air, and the sound of metal screeching against metal greeted his ears. The blade danced by in the air, mere centimeters from his nose.
By a hair's breadth, he had stopped his opponent's bull charge. Yuga's hate-twisted face was directly in front of his. He could feel his breathing.
But once again, Rentaro misjudged Yuga Mitsugi's threat. Yuga only had a knife in his right hand. In his left he held a small, round object that he brought toward Rentaro, as if offering it to him.
Rentaro groaned, like an icy hand had a grip on his heart. He recognized that object.
An HG-86 mini-grenade.
The detonation pin and lever were already off. At this range, both were squarely in the kill zone.
A suicide strike?!
Rentaro's body reacted to the fear seizing his body. With a free elbow, he knocked the grenade away. It flew off the catwalk and fell down below, then exploded with a body-wrenching shock wave.
Yuga's left hand was now free. It struck hard against Rentaro's stomach, left wide open by his uplifted elbow. Belatedly, Rentaro realized what Yuga was doing.
Oh damn. His palm strike can—
One look at Yuga's upturned lips was enough to freeze his spine.
"Vairo-orchestration! Prepare to be shattered!"
The next instant, a withering pain beyond all imagination tore through his body.
"Gyaaaaahhhh!"
His vision was jarred. The pain made it feel like his body was being blown apart.
Without even realizing what he was doing, he flailed his feet and managed to wrest himself free. His vision was still lurching back and forth, and the pain made him fall to his knees. Rentaro looked at his wound. His guts felt loose in his body, and the amount of bleeding damage was unlike anything he had seen before. He felt a blob of something distasteful well up in his esophagus, and then blood bubbled out of his mouth, along with bits of lung that had been vibrated off. It was jet-black in color, and now it stained the floor an even more ominous shade.
His eye blurred, his body screaming out in pain. It urged him not to move—but, gritting his teeth in desperation, he looked up at Yuga. He, too, was gravely wounded. It was a wonder he could still stand. And why wouldn't it be? He had taken the full brunt of not one, but two cartridge strikes. That he was alive at all was a miracle.
"We were created ten years ago to defend the world during the Gastrea War! Don't you see how pointless fighting each other is?!" Rentaro shrieked.
Yuga swept an arm horizontally in front of him. "I believe in Professor Grünewald! That's the path I've chosen!"
"I never got used to this machine body. I had to get my limbs replaced every time I grew a bit more. It was a constant barrage of pain."
"Me too."
"I thought it was gonna kill me, once or twice."
"Me too."
"It's not too late, all right?! I don't want to kill you!"
"You're making no sense!" came Yuga's reply. "Why aren't you trying to join the ruling side? We're the chosen ones! If there's any problem with us, it's only that we can't transcend entropy—we can't make a machine that doesn't break down! Sumire Muroto made you into just as devastating a killing machine as I am! We were built to create destruction and chaos. We're practically brothers! You…and I!"
"Shut up! I'm not like you at all! Dr. Muroto gave me this arm so I could connect with people!"
"That's a pack of lies!"
"You asshole…!" Rentaro shouted as he stood up, shedding droplets of blood. His lungs shuddered in pain with every breath. White mist continued to billow out from the cords and devices around him—but all he could hear now was the beating of his own heart.
Yuga lowered his stance, preparing for action as he took his unique crossed-arms defensive tactic again. Rentaro joined him, but he chose to take the Tendo Martial Arts Water and Sky Stance instead. There was nothing defensive about it. No escape for his foe.
The cybernetic parts of each young man were operating faster than they ever had before—perhaps for the last time. Sparks of light entered their vision.
The staredown made both sides hold their breath. It was a picture of concentration in its ultimate form. Once it was released, it was over. The fists of both opponents were clenched, ready to take the life of their respective foe.
What wound up breaking the tranquility was the voice of a girl from behind the door: Hotaru.
"Rentaro!"
That was the signal. Without even a second of hesitation, Rentaro stomped his foot on the floor and set off three cartridges at the same time. He closed in on Yuga at supersonic speed, faster than a jet engine. Then he burned through one on his arm, the smell of burnt gunpowder penetrating his nostrils.
His fist unleashed itself. Yuga's own was approaching his eyes.
Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 8: Homura Kasen.
Cartridge thrust clashed with ultravibration—two of the world's most advanced technologies colliding, immediately clearing all the mist out of the room with the shock waves. Their footholds collapsed under them, the main computer emitting sparks in the background.
"Haaaaaaaaaaah!"
"Grrrrrraaaaahhhh!"
Fist collided with open palm, vying for superiority. Rentaro's opponent was in such a bad mess that Rentaro had no idea how his ultravibration device still worked. But work it did. Thunder coursed across his artificial arm, cracking his Super-Varanium fist.
Releasing a guttural, beastlike roar, Rentaro activated all his remaining cartridges at the same time.
"Unnnnn-liiiiiimited…burrrrrrrsssst!!"
There was an unprecedented clash of energy, to a level that not even experiments with a particle accelerator could hope to achieve. Then, like nothing ever heard before, there was the sound of machinery cracking to pieces.
Rentaro felt something tugging at him, as if trying to wrench his head from his neck. He was shot backward by the destructive blast, like two magnets repelling each other. The force sent his body against the floor a few times before he finally crashed into the tree trunk of pipes in the center of the dome. He gritted his teeth hard enough to lose one or two—but Rentaro still leapt back to his feet.
Yet he couldn't find the enemy he was pursuing. He picked up his Beretta handgun, plucking the knife out from where it was stuck.
Risking a peek down into the guts of the catwalk, he realized why there was no answer to his attack. Amidst the fog produced by the evaporating hyper-chilled liquid nitrogen, he saw Yuga plastered against a pipe, his clothes frozen to it. He was motionless. Rentaro wordlessly pointed the Beretta at him. Yuga glared back, the hatred congealing over his eyesight. His eyes rejected all sympathy.
Convincing him with words would never work now.
So Rentaro instead nudged his handgun to the side and shot a bullet through the tank next to him.
Immediately, a clear, all-freezing liquid, chilled down to negative 196 degrees Celsius, descended upon Yuga's body, emitting dense, thick clouds of evaporation.
"Gaaahhh!"
Rentaro averted his eyes. If he had any mercy to give, it lay in how the massive clouds of mist kept the decisive moment from being viewed.
There was the crackling of rapidly freezing matter. Then silence.
A strong, cool breeze rustled across his hair. The world was a bloom of grayish white once more.
"Rentaro…"
Hotaru clearly had something to ask. But instead of letting her continue, Rentaro walked past her.
"It's over," he said. "Let's go."
The moment they climbed the stairs from the second-floor basement to the single aboveground story, they were each forced to put a hand over their own forehead, to protect their eyes from the burning sunlight.
They hadn't realized it, since they had spent the past several hours belowground, but it was already well into daylight outdoors. Going out the facility's back door, they found themselves on top of a small hill, in the middle of a basin dug into a conical valley.
"I guess that's how they keep the Gastrea from getting in here," Rentaro said as he shaded his eyes. In front of them was a line of tall, deep-black stone Monoliths. There was hardly any room between them to go through.
"Portable Monoliths…? Is that how they claimed the land?"
Each one was about two meters in width and 3.25 meters in height. A set of mini-Monoliths, through and through, as if manufactured for a Tokyo Area–themed mini golf course. Size made all the difference in effectiveness, so these Monoliths would likely repel Stage One creatures and not much else. Against a Stage Two, they'd act as a mild deterrent; anything tougher, and the best you could hope for was a good running start.
They were familiar enough to Rentaro. Varanium mining operations in the Unexplored Territory always deployed sets of these, usually accompanied by civsec bodyguards. Maybe that was Swordtail's and Hummingbird's day job around there.
"What'd you do with the explosives?"
"I placed them on the load-bearing columns across the building. We can set all of them off at the same time. I took a bunch of pictures of the facility, too, so we're good to go evidence-wise."
"Okay. Let's move back a bit and set it off. We'll have to watch to make sure the whole thing collapses."
"Hang on. If we blow it up now, we won't be able to take the train back."
Rentaro gently shook his head. "Their plan was probably to have Yuga ambush and kill me in the lab. We just turned the tables on them. I guess New World can monitor their assassins' vital signs somehow, so the enemy already knows he's dead by now. There's no guarantee they won't blow the tunnel while we're running that train down it. We can't afford to let up for a single moment until we hand over the evidence and bring Five Wings to public light."
Hotaru eyed the Monoliths nervously—the real ones, off in the far distance.
"Can we make it back okay?"
"The Monoliths' magnetic field reaches out five kilometers past the border. We're around sixteen kilos from there now, so once we walk eleven, we're in the clear. Even if we run into any Gastrea on the way, they're gonna be Stage One, Two at most. Strength-wise, we've got nothing to worry about. The sun's gonna set on the way, but I think we can manage."
He couldn't tell how much of the bravado in his voice made it across to Hotaru. But she seemed to accept it well enough. She looked up to him, an optimistic smile on her face.
"All right. But let's bury those Gastrea alive first."
Rentaro nodded lightly.
They marched past the line of mini-Monoliths, standing proudly as they sucked up the intense daylight sun, and climbed up the valley. Once they reached a position where they had a full view of the lab, Hotaru took out the wireless switch to activate the explosives and removed the plastic cover on the button. Rentaro tensed himself up with anticipation as he looked down at the lab.
"Rentaro."
Hotaru's voice had an odd sort of wistfulness to it. It seemed rather out of place. Turning to her, Rentaro found her slightly flush around the cheeks, an affable smile on her face.
"Thanks."
"Thanks for what?"
"For everything up to now."
Rentaro's eyes darted away. He scratched his head, unable to reply to this unfamiliar appreciation on Hotaru's part.
"Kind of too early to thank me, isn't it? It's gonna be hilarious if those explosives turn out to be a dud."
Hotaru brought a hand to her eyes, chuckling as she shook her head a bit. "Rentaro, I…I know maybe you don't want to hear this from me, but…"
Maybe it was an Initiator's sixth sense sounding a warning to her.
Looking at the lab, Hotaru's eyes shot wide open. She ran back up to Rentaro. Unable to comprehend this, Rentaro found himself thrown into the air. He couldn't recover in time, hitting his head against a stone on the ground as stars filled his eyes.
"…Ow!" Rentaro shouted. "What're you—?"
Rentaro managed to make it this far before he ran out of words.
"I'm glad you're…okay, Rentaro."
Hotaru dimly smiled as she stood there. She waddled forward with unsteady steps, trying her best to stay on her feet. A trail of blood ran from the edge of her lips.
Looking down, Rentaro saw that her abdominal area—the light pink in her tank top—was now stained a deep red.
This was the point at which the second sniper bullet probably came along.
It ripped Hotaru's chest area open. Warm blood spattered on Rentaro's face. She immediately lost her balance, falling to her knees, head down, before collapsing on top of Rentaro.
His eyes remained open in disbelief as he broke the shattered girl's fall.
"Hotaru?"
3
He had just shot down his target, but there was no particularly deep sense of victory.
Yuga's hand pulled back the bolt handle. It ejected the empty cartridge and sent the next round into the chamber. It was a procedure he could conduct as naturally as his own breathing.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter003b.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
"…Checkmate."
The low, hushed voice was bereft of warmth, enough to make any onlooker's blood run cold. It sounded more like a groan wafting in from the underworld.
As it should be, for he would be visiting there soon.
Yuga took his attention away from the window for just a moment, staring at his own legs. Everything below the thighs was gone.
But, for two reasons, there was only a slight trickle of blood. One, Yuga's legs were already half-machine, bolstered by carbon nanotubes and enhanced artificial musculature, and there was a litany of fail-safes installed that would constrict blood vessels and shut off the flow of blood for him. Two—and this was the simpler one—by the time Yuga managed to amputate his own legs, everything from the thighs down was already frozen solid.
The shower of liquid nitrogen over his body felt so hot as it flowed across his nervous system. It nearly drove him insane before killing him. Just before it could, he managed to shut down his pain receptors and perform the amputation in more or less cruise-control mode. He had to hand it to himself. He was one hell of a war machine.
Now that the worst was behind him, Yuga had crawled out of the Gastrea cultivation room, lifted himself up step-by-step across the ramp, recovered his sniper rifle, and made his way to a first-floor window. It was sheer, unrelenting force of will that drove him, and nothing else.
Hotaru Kouro was no longer on his mind. She didn't register with the solidified ball of obsessive hatred within him. No part of his body wanted anything more than to dispatch his enemy. He was a physical manifestation of murderous intent.
The gunshots were like the cheering of well-wishers in his ears. The recoil was like a hand rocking his cradle. The smell of spent gunpowder was the sweet scent of a gourmet meal.
Still half-dead, he'd used his silencer to break the glass of the lab window, rested the barrel on the sill, and shot the enemy on top of the hill with his rifle—all in a single, fluid motion.
The bullets were filled with concentrated Varanium, modified to stay embedded within the victim's body.
His next shot had missed. By then Rentaro had dragged Hotaru's body behind the hill, but he had dropped the activation switch she was carrying on the slope. If he wanted it back, he would have to run back into range.
But Yuga had no reason to be optimistic. His frozen bottom half would unfreeze soon enough. The blood oozing from his legs' capillary tubes would render his mechanical blood flow–restriction abilities moot. He might die from blood loss.
No. He couldn't have that happen. Right now, Yuga was a sniper. Even if all the blood spurted out of his body, the moment Rentaro entered his line of vision, he would pull the trigger back like the perfect sniper he was. And once he saw his opponent fall dead, he would probably expire right then.
A sniper never sleeps until their target is completely dead.
Both of his cybernetic eyes rotated at high speed, making their preliminary calculations.
"It's not over! It's not over yet. Come on! Get over here, Rentaro Satomi…!"
What little warmth Hotaru had left in her arms began to ebb. Her perforated, blood-filled lungs breathed in shallow mouthfuls of the final air they'd taste, like a broken pair of bellows. It was something wholly different from the period of cataleptic regeneration she normally fell into.
Part of him asked himself why. Another grew to accept it.
There were all the omens. Why did Yuga go and fire the first shot inside the lab's vineyard at Hotaru? Swordtail must have told him all about Hotaru's regenerative abilities before he died. He knew that, but he still wasted his time on a seemingly pointless shot.
The most probable reason was that Yuga was taking an anti-Hotaru approach to the fight, and that was what the shot had been. Yuga was so intent on facing off against Rentaro that he used that first shot to get rid of any outside elements as soon as possible. That was the only valid explanation.
In other words, he had a way all along to kill her for good—
Rentaro closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. He knew what he had to do.
"Rentaro, am I…?"
Hotaru's eyes were open but groggy. Her lips were purple and shaky, but apart from that, it was like she had just woken up from a dream. He gripped her hand and looked straight into her eyes.
"It's nothing serious. You're gonna recover from it. You'll be fine."
Hotaru let out a relieved sigh. Apparently she was already beyond the point where she felt pain. Her expression was calm.
Slowly, she raised a shaking hand. Following her fingertip, he saw it was pointed at her M24 sniper rifle, scope mounted. He realized what she meant.
"I… No." He retreated. "I can't."
Hotaru smiled. "Please. Just do it. If you don't, the Gastrea are gonna…be sent all over Tokyo Area. If they do that…"
Hotaru, you have no idea how poorly trained I am at sniping. I really could just…never. I had my enemy one hundred meters in front of me on Tokyo Tower, and I missed twice. Meanwhile, my enemy can headshot a man riding a Shinkansen train from 1,200 meters away. We could hold this face-off a thousand times, and the outcome would be obvious. Every single time.
But the girl's earnest eyes were still filled with the light of trust.
Rentaro closed his eyes, then opened them.
"All right."
Rentaro picked up the sniper rifle again, taking it by the handle and removing the safety.
"I promise I'll kill him and blow up the lab. There's nothing to worry about."
"But…"
Rentaro gently cut her off.
"This is the 'savior of Tokyo Area' you're talking to. Don't you believe me?"
Hotaru's face grew more serene. She haltingly shook her head.
"The, the next time I wake up… I think I can be nicer to you next time, Rentaro."
"Yeah."
"I think…I'll have more courage than I used to. And when I do, there's something I want to tell you."
"Uh-huh."
The tears at the far edges of Hotaru's eyes fell out in a thin line.
"I finally managed to protect my partner. Now I don't have to have that dream bother me anymore. I'm not afraid of dying any longer. It doesn't hurt anymore."
Rentaro hung his head down, shaking his head silently.
"Thank you, Rentaro," she continued. "You helped bury the loneliness for me. You taught me the meaning to my life."
She turned her eyes toward the wide-open blue sky and squinted.
Her outstretched hand soon lost its strength and fell.
She never moved again.
"Thanks, Hotaru."
There were no tears. He knew full well what had to be done.
"Thanks for believing in me. Thanks for fighting with me."
If he had the time to let his eyes get clouded with tears, he had the time to defeat his enemy. He had the dreams and hopes of far too many people on his back to do anything else.
He opened the flip-up cover as Tina's advice from a bygone day echoed in his mind:
"You can't kill another person unless your own soul dies, too."
No. You're wrong, Tina. That's how a monster does it.
The path to justice is fraught with danger. It's too easy, too sweet and tempting, to let it turn you into a monster. But I can't beat him that way.
Rentaro stood up, revealing himself on the top of the hill—easily within enemy range.
Bringing his right hand up to the front stand, he stabilized the position of his gun and placed the glass-fiber stock on his left shoulder. His eye peered into the scope.
"I'm saying you need to find a reason for yourself. One that'll make it seem worth taking another person's life."
Because I want to protect. Protect Tina, protect Kisara, protect Enju. I want to save as many people as I can. With my own two hands.
And if this is what it takes—
His heart calmed itself. All was clear and serene now.
He took a breath and gradually let it out.
His eye activated.
Rentaro's line of sight expanded as his formerly closed left eye began to function. A richly colored, almost spicy taste ran across his mouth. The nano-core processor began to operate at superspeed, the iris spinning in a dazzling array of geometric patterns.
"Time to end this for good…Yuga Mitsugi."
Rentaro's presence in his line of sight, of course, registered as an image in Yuga's electronic retinas. Yet, at first, Yuga thought it was some kind of mistake.
"Standing up…and shooting with his left eye?"
Unlike firing from a kneeling or prone position, remaining on your feet made it extremely difficult to keep the gun steady, boosting the difficulty of landing a hit from far away to astronomical levels. If hand shake resulted in even a millimeter's worth of difference, there would be no way to recover from as little as two hundred meters out. And since he was using his artificial eye to aim, that meant he had to be using his left hand to pull the trigger—his nondominant hand.
It looked like suicide to Yuga—from a common-sense standpoint, that was. But then, the war pyre in his mind burned brighter than ever. Rentaro was there, on the same stage as he was. It made his chest burn.
All right, then. What I have to do doesn't change. One shot is all it takes.
His eyes revved up even faster, throwing off an intense heat. It was Yuga's first experience with "overclocking" his own hardware. Time passed slowly as both of his eye sockets burned. The eyes completed their ballistics and landform calculations. He rested his finger on the trigger of his DSR rifle.
Not lagging behind a single moment, his opponent fired simultaneously.
There was a crack. The recoil kicked against his shoulder.
Then came the shrill sound of glass breaking. The figure in the scope fell to his knees and disappeared behind the hill.
Yuga didn't remove his eye from the scope. But he could tell that Rentaro's bullet had gone through the window next to his. He had gauged it wrong. He operated the handle and loaded the next round.
It was a hit. But he still twisted his body a moment before. It wasn't lethal.
"Nhh…graaahh!"
Rentaro dropped his rifle. It kicked up some dust as he fell to his knees.
The sniper bullet had dug into the side of his stomach, delivering a second blow to the Vairo-orchestration wound. Blood seeped between the fingers of both hands as he tried to block the wound, now dripping into the grass. The greasy sweat running down his face disappeared into the dry earth.
Half-crazed from the pain, he pulled his jaw back and thrust his forehead against the ground. Then another time, then another. The skin on his forehead broke open, spitting blood.
His breathing was raw and animal-like in the gaps between his gritted teeth. Spittle flew out of his mouth.
Just stay down. Next time you bring your face up, it's gonna be gone.
Shut up. I have to do this. For Hotaru. For Suibara. For everyone who's had to die so far.
Rentaro's sixth sense told him Yuga's eyes were heating up. He could feel his own speed toward oblivion as well. It was like coevolution—two animals affected by each other as they evolved over time.
100x, 200x, 300x—it kept ratcheting up. He felt like his eye was catching on fire.
He raised his head and gently shook it. The world was bending around him, like a video dropping frames. Time seemed to go faster and faster.
The air grew viscous, the sun losing its shine and going ever further toward darkness. It felt like being dragged alive to the bottom of the sea; the sound around him grew low, heavy, and monotone, losing all meaning.
Rentaro crawled forward to keep from falling into range, scrambling to pick up his sniper rifle again. He operated the handle, ejected the cartridge, and loaded in the next one.
Still on his knees, he steadied the gun barrel on the hill and looked into the scope. He aimed.
The enemy was quicker this time, too. He had a hunch, and nothing but a hunch. But that was why he pulled the trigger and rolled.
A sniper shot ripped through Rentaro's former location. The dirt it kicked up hit him in the face. He readied himself again, face covered in dirt and mud, and gritted his teeth while he peered into the scope.
This time, he could not fall back. He could not get scared. The speed of his thoughts now extended past 1500x. Still faster, faster. His body felt so much slower in comparison, desperately trying to respond to his thoughts. It frustrated him.
Now past 1900x. His eyeball felt like it would scream, or evaporate into thin air at any moment. Sparks ran across it as it wore itself out.
—Then Rentaro's world went into whiteout. Sound, life; all the pressures upon him vanished.
For a moment, before he realized what had happened, he thought he'd been hit and died. But that wasn't it. He was definitely conscious. The effects of the adrenaline made it so that he was temporarily numb, but the gunshot wound in his stomach was definitely still there.
He brought his left hand up to his face, opening and closing his fist a few times. He looked around. It was a bright, pure shade of white. The battle simulator in the Shiba Heavy Weapons basement was like this—an otherworldly shade of white.
But this wasn't the VR room. Wait. This is—
"…The terminal horizon?"
"There's a limiter circuit in your eye that ensures its processing speed doesn't go above a certain level."
Sumire's cynical voice echoed in his memory.
"…you'd see too much. It probably feels like time's slowing down for you as your eye calculates the enemy's range and future position, but it can still go a lot further than that. We transplanted a version of your eye without a limiter into several patients, but none of them ever came back.
"…a second of real time slows down to what feels like two thousand to you. That's the terminal horizon. All the patients who crossed that never came back. Their brains were completely fried."
So this was the "horizon" all those patients saw, then? Or am I looking through the eyes of God at the moment?
Those trivialities didn't matter. His enemy was seeking him.
A figure bathed in light appeared about ten meters in front of him. It gradually formed itself into Yuga. He was in sniper position at a hill in the middle of a conical valley, so he should have had his gun pointed downward—but there he was, staring right at him. They were over two hundred meters away from each other, but now he was so close, he could see the expression on his face.
Yuga was glaring at him, dour and concentrated. But Rentaro had the impression that his focus wasn't quite on where he was kneeling.
But that didn't matter. He planted the M24 against his shoulder. Yuga, a beat later, took his own stance.
He squeezed the trigger.
I won.
Just as he thought that, he heard the roar of a collision like never before. Sparks flew into his line of sight.
It was a scene no regular person could have ever comprehended. But Yuga, with his overclocked eyes feeding information to his overclocked brain, could.
"No…"
With a sonic boom, two faster-than-sound shots surged through the air. Their positions were millimeter-perfect. They collided in front of his face, sending the shot he knew was destined to kill Rentaro away from its target.
"Bullet to bullet…?"
This was nothing anyone could do on purpose. The entire philosophy Yuga brought to his sniper duties screamed it to him: No one could trigger this on purpose.
His eyes remained wide open in shock. But his hands kept going, moving like they were a different creature. Release the empty cartridge. Load in a new round. Take aim. Apply ballistics correction with his eyes, and fire.
Another sharp sound. His opponent didn't fall, and neither did he. All that remained was the echoing sound of the gunshots.
Yuga's entire body shook. It…it wasn't a coincidence. He was pulling off the superhuman feat of stopping his bullets in midair with his own gunshots. How could that possibly ever work? I have two cybernetic eyes. The Professor told me himself—I am the most gifted user of these eyes the world has ever known.
"…That's bullshit. That's bullshit!!"
Compared to the enraged Yuga, Rentaro was in a state of transcendent bliss.
If both sides' abilities granted them perfect accuracy with each shot, the common-sense rules of sniper combat—shoot, then run away—no longer applied. There was no longer any reason to use them.
The moment Rentaro pulled the trigger, his breathing didn't even stop. He was firing without bothering to adjust for the difference in height and zeroing range between them. But he was hitting.
His eye, directly connected to his mind, took over full control of his muscular system, including the motor area of his brain. Rentaro's entire body was transformed into a self-sufficient sniper system.
Yuga had aimed at him several times. His opponent hadn't even pulled the trigger yet, but Rentaro could already see the bullet's arc in the air.
Rentaro tilted his head slightly to dodge the projected trajectory, then fired. A rough, curt blast erupted from his muzzle, the bullet crashing through the rifling and into the air at supersonic speed. Yuga's bullet whizzed near his ear, scraping him.
The sonic boom cut by Rentaro's cheek. Blood flew.
He twisted the handle back to eject the cartridge. The empty shell flew through the air as he loaded another Lapua Magnum round.
Yuga, through Rentaro's scope, held his mouth open, eyes like saucers. He could see his tongue fly up to the roof of his mouth to form the Nnn sound, then his lips rounding themselves into an O.
It's over, Yuga Mitsugi.
He pulled the trigger. The firing pin struck the bottom of the cartridge through the sear and bolt. The sound of a gunshot. The kick of the rifle against his shoulder.
Yuga made no response to the death-dealing bolt coming his way. Right up to the bitter end, his face belied his attempt to deny everything in his mind.
4
Crushing pebbles under the soles of his shoes, Rentaro came in from behind the pile of chalk construction material. The facility was silent.
Opening the door, Rentaro cut across the C-shaped corridor and walked straight ahead. After a while, he stopped. "Yo."
"Hey."
Yuga lay flat against the floor, arms and leg stubs splayed across it. His DSR sniper rifle had slid across the room, abandoning its master for the last time.
"How did the battle turn out? Why…? Why did I…?"
He used his barely functioning head to look at the blasted-open mess that was his torso. "Ahh…," he groaned, a mix of astonishment and resignation apparent in his breath.
Rentaro had trouble figuring out what to say. This was the man who killed Hotaru. He should have been cursing him. All the hate in the world wasn't enough for him.
But at the same time, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was that man. Lying down there was a cybernetic-eye user, someone who had to undergo torturous limb upgrades at regular intervals. Someone shunned by his peers.
"If we didn't have to meet like this, maybe we coulda been friends, huh?"
Yuga closed his eyes, in a comfortable state of repose. "That's a pretty pointless what-if… But I wouldn't have minded it."
"Were you in that white space, too?"
"White space…? No. What are you talking about?"
"…Never mind."
"Both of my eyes," Yuga continued, guessing at the portent of Rentaro's question, "made it up to 1800x. I heard that my eyes could use all my emotions as fuel. They'd rev up and go down, depending. Anger, sadness, hatred, cursing, hope, happiness… But I guess my hatred and feelings of inferiority weren't enough to outclass your emotions. What did you use to go faster than me?"
"I cared about other people."
"Well…that's out of my ballpark," Yuga chuckled derisively to himself, whispering the words into the air. "No wonder I couldn't beat you. That last shot… I couldn't even see your hands between ejection and reloading. That's how fast it was."
"…So that's how your eyes saw it."
Rentaro decided to change the subject.
"Yuga, what's the Five Wings Syndicate?"
"It's an international, cross-political movement. We're everywhere. There's no guarantee the people you trust aren't part of it, either…heh-heh."
"…You mentioned how the wings around the pentagram on your arm indicated your rank. You had four of those wings, and they took two away from you. What'd you do?"
Yuga emptily chuckled again. "Nothing," he wheezed. "Like I told you, I was Professor Grünewald's favorite son up to that point. I got to work by his side. But there was a single confrontation—a single one—and I lost it. They took the wings away, and I was no longer the Professor's favorite."
"You lost it? You?"
"Yes. To another Tendo user."
"Wha…?"
"Remember? 'I can't lose to the Tendo style…again'? I wanted to beat you because…well, okay, there was probably some personal emotion there."
"…What kind of Tendo skill? Sword drawing? Aikido? Divinity? There're a lot of different types."
"The same as yours."
"Martial Arts? You're kidding me…"
Had anyone else taken on the successor role? He couldn't think of anyone.
"It took just twelve seconds," Yuga said with an ironic smile. "I don't even know how he got close to me. I looked up, and there he was, in point-blank range. Within the first three seconds, he knocked my artificial right arm off and broke my leg. It was all him from that point forward. His martial arts were a lot like yours, too…or not. His were a lot more…sinister."
"What's his name?" Rentaro confronted Yuga on the floor. "I need to know his name! Who was the guy that defeated you?"
Then he noticed the sweat glistening on his forehead. His body must have been near its limit. And Yuga had more pressing business than to answer his question.
"Satomi," he began, "have you ever seen a line of the dead?"
"Huh?"
"Before, before the Professor performed the, mechanization work on me… I told you, I was blind, right? But even though I couldn't see, I could, this one time…I saw…it. Right after, the war, the people…who were turned into, into Gastrea… They were listed as, as missing, remember? I saw it. Even through my eyelids. They weren't alive, or…or dead. A line of people, wandering through purgatory. Satomi… Heaven is so, so far away, but hell… I think, I think if I threw a stone right now, I'd hit…it."
His lips curled upward in a final self-chiding smile.
"This… This is war. Ours, and yours. The Gastrea War is… It's not, not over at…"
That was all. Yuga spat out a mouthful of blood, and softly opened his eyes, as if it was his duty to do so. He stopped moving. It was the moment Five Wings Syndicate assassin Dark Stalker left the world of the living—and with him came Yuga Mitsugi, the man who may just have been Rentaro's friend.
5
"Fuck! Fuck!"
Hitsuma slammed the pedal to the metal, cursing to himself every kilometer of the way. It was all over. Everything. He—Rentaro Satomi—had ruined it all.
Not long ago, Dark Stalker's vital signs had flatlined. It was clear now. Not even he could have taken on Rentaro. Dark Stalker—the man who swaggered his way into every fight he ever had, then sauntered his way back out without so much as breaking a sweat. The idea of him being shot seemed like some kind of tasteless joke.
He couldn't help but look back at all the oversights, all the possible fail-safes he ignored. Throwing him in a cell and turning his fate over to the judge seemed like the best option at the time. Now, though, it was clear that wasn't enough. If only he had poisoned the boy's meals inside jail—even if his comrades thought that was overstepping his bounds—this entire disaster could've been avoided.
Now Hitsuma had just received word from Nest to stand by and await further instructions from Five Wings. If he was stripped of his wings and expelled from the syndicate—that was the best fate he could hope for, really. But inside, he felt he had to brace himself for the idea that someone could put a bullet in his head at any moment without warning.
But even now, there was one sort of revenge Hitsuma could still exact against Rentaro. He was in a tuxedo, pushing his convertible as fast as it could go down the expressway. Eventually settling down at an intersection in a quiet suburban district, he could see the roof of the ceremonial hall, a citywide hotspot for marriages and receptions.
Despite the breakneck pace of the arrangements, he still managed to get the date he asked for. It was going to be a Western-style ceremony, and yet his fiancée's family insisted upon holding it on the most auspicious day possible in the old-style Japanese lunar calendar. He was highly dubious at first, but it was a Tendo tradition—and he still had the clarity of mind to keep at least one ear open to their requests.
In just a bit more time, Hitsuma would be married. Married to a girl Rentaro had feelings for. The wild beast that lurked in Hitsuma's psyche sneered in abject derision.
I'm going to defile her. Trample over her. Just imagining the rage with which he planned to go at her seemed to charge something up in his heart of hearts.
Checking his watch, he cursed himself once more. He needed to hurry. He was already a few minutes late. His foot was heavy on the accelerator again.
Leaving his convertible to the valet, he strode into the pompously magnificent church edifice, looking up at the cross at its very apex as he opened both front doors with both hands. The air felt secluded, a little stuffy, the only light from burning candles. They lined the walls atop metal stands; but after racing around in broad daylight, it seemed intensely dark to Hitsuma.
The space was lined with stone columns, two side aisles intersecting the main one in the middle to form another cross. Down the middle was a red carpet, and beyond it, above the altar, deep azure light streamed in through a stained-glass window. And at the altar itself—
"Oooh…!"
Hitsuma stared in astonishment. The tens of millions of yen he spent flattering her was now completely forgotten. There she was, the veil covering her black silken hair, the white gloves on her hands. The soft chiffon skirt draped over her sides. She was a maiden of pure white, one more beautiful than anyone thought possible, and she was standing with her back turned to him.
The priest had yet to arrive, it seemed, so instead of awaiting further instructions, he forgot himself and walked forward, past the long wooden pews. Once he was close enough, he reached out with a hand, aiming for her slender shoulder.
"I'm so glad you're here, Kisara. Are you ready? Once the priest shows up, we can hold the ceremony all by ourselves."
His hand touched her shoulder.
—Only to be slapped back. A long, metallic black tube zeroed in on the bridge of Hitsuma's nose. The black-haired bride narrowed her gaze at him.
"Sorry, but I'm not marrying you, Mr. Hitsuma… Or maybe it's better to call you Atsuro Hitsuma, top manager at the Five Wings Syndicate?"
"Wha…?! Kisara, what are you talking about? The Five Wings…what? I have no idea what that is—"
"—Maybe you've kept the game going for this long, Superintendent," said another voice in the distance, "but it's just about time to pay the piper."
Hitsuma whirled around. Near one of the side aisles, the door to the priest's office opened. Out of it stepped a barrel-chested inspector. Even the old-fashioned revolver he was carrying seemed like some kind of joke.
"Inspector Tadashima…"
"Sorry, sir, but you're not gonna see any priest here today. I'm taking over for him. And instead of some Western-style wedding vows, I'm gonna be advising you, USA-style, of your Miranda rights. Hope you know a good lawyer."
"Wh-what are you two people talking about? I mean, what kind of evidence could you possibly—?"
"We've got plenty of evidence."
Kisara lifted up her left arm, the long silken glove still on it. She took a chip out from inside.
"The memory card… Where did you…?!"
The stammered reaction amounted to a de facto confession. Hitsuma didn't even care anymore. All he could do was stand there, hyperventilating.
"It was in here," Kisara said as she took out a pocket watch. The light reflected off it in a dazzling array of colors. It was the very one Hitsuma had given her during their marriage negotiations.
"You, you're kidding me! There's no way it could be in there. I took the whole thing apart!"
"Yeah," Kisara replied as she rapped a knuckle on the watch face, "it was pretty tough to spot. This watch has a pretty unique mechanism inside of it. I tried messing with it, too, but even I couldn't figure it out until the appointed hour came along."
"The appointed hour…?"
"Kihachi Suibara was supposed to give this watch to Hotaru Kouro for her birthday. That's today, by the way—August 22. And when the clock struck midnight, the mechanism played a music-box melody and sprang into action. And guess what we found inside?"
"Superintendent Hitsuma, sir," Tadashima continued, police notebook in hand, "I decided to go over everything we know about Rentaro Satomi from the ground up. The suspect testified in interrogation several times that Suibara claimed someone stole his evidence, so he wanted to be referred to Lady Seitenshi to inform her of his story directly. I checked on that, and I found three 1-1-0 emergency calls from Kihachi, summoning the police to his home. The place had been ransacked every time, to the point that the answering officers couldn't determine if it was robbery or simple vandalism.
"Looking back, it was probably meant more as a warning, wasn't it? A warning not to wade further in if you want to keep breathing. So, not to persecute our own force about this, but all they did was take down a statement and leave each time. I know we're all busy on the force, but it's a bad habit we all have—as long as nobody's bleeding, we're not exactly proactive with property crimes. It must've been during one of those break-ins that Hotaru's birthday present was stolen."
The salvos of evidence fired at Hitsuma made it hard for him to breathe at all.
"So… The card…?"
"Yep," Kisara said. "We looked at it all. I'm pretty sure the police are checking in on the Five Wings officers under you right now. Sure weren't expecting the police commissioner himself to be in on it, though."
The barrel of the revolver in Tadashima's hand was quivering with rage. He was practically crushing the handle with his death grip.
"That, and we know all about the so-called 'Black Swan Project,' too. At first, sir, I was just shocked—but now… Now, I have nothing but anger for you. I can't believe you even considered transforming Gastrea into biological weapons…!"
Kisara whisked her head back and forth. "Why…? Why, Mr. Hitsuma? When we met five years ago, you were the most honest, ethical person I had ever met. When did this happen to you?"
Everything had fallen to pieces. When it finally dawned on him, he found it extremely odd that his instinctive reaction was neither anger nor resignation to his fate.
"Well, this saves me the trouble of inviting you."
"Inviting me?"
Hitsuma, cool and collected, spread his arms out wide and took a step forward. Tadashima's gun shook again. A look of trepidation crossed Kisara's face.
"Did you think I joined the Five Wings Syndicate because my father made me? Well, sadly, I didn't. I joined out of my own free will. I don't know if it's in the memory card Suibara took or not, but the aim of the Syndicate is to rid the world of Gastrea for good."
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
"But the way you're trying to do that is absolutely evil!"
"Why is that? We are talking about a group with a united will. A will, and a drive to press that will forward. It's the simplest thing in the world."
"And can't you hear the screams of the weak you're trampling over with your 'united will'?"
Hitsuma shrugged it off, opening his arms to Kisara again. "Oh, so you're treating me like a subhuman now?" he proclaimed. "That's a little mean, isn't it? The Five Wings Syndicate investigated the whole affair with Kazumitsu Tendo. And you, too—maybe you're denying it, but deep down in your heart, doesn't our ideology resonate with you? Or is the monster you're keeping inside your heart see an even more sinister path for the future of mankind?"
Kisara shuddered, the color draining from her face.
"That's enough, Superintendent!"
"Maybe it seems like the Varanium supply's gonna last forever to you," Hitsuma continued, ignoring Tadashima's intimidation. "But it's not. Someday, it's all gonna dry out. You've probably seen pundits go on about it in the news a hundred times by now. And Varanium is used for more than just the Monoliths. Civsecs use it for their weapons and ammo, too. Whoever controls the Varanium controls the planet—and that's not an exaggeration, either.
"Even if we collected together all the estimated Varanium ore deposits in the world, there's nowhere near enough to protect every nation. And who do you think's going to be trampled over first? It's the weak! The weak you think you're defending against us! But the sooner we can take action now, the more human lives we can save. In fact, if the human race keeps going the way it is now—an endless quagmire of war, consumption, wasted resources—it's entirely possible that the Gastrea will wipe us out.
"You're an intelligent woman—I know you've got it in you to understand. What we need right now is to take the first step, secure victory, and keep the war as short as humanly possible. It'll all contribute to the public good, in the end. Kisara… You have what it takes to join us."
Kisara's eyes opened wide with surprise.
"President Tendo! Don't listen to him!"
Hitsuma took out the automatic handgun he had on his person and fired.
A spurt of blood flew out from Tadashima's shirt, and horrified surprise crossed his face.
Quickly turning around, Hitsuma switched to flight mode, running down the aisle. Gunfire erupted behind him, bullets digging into the floor near his feet. He used a shoulder to bash the front door open and flew out. The bright blue sky made him wince for a moment, but soon he was inside a back alley, kicking up rain puddles as he ran with all his soul.
The whole plan was a failure. He needed to come up with a new one. For now, the first priority was lying low and reformulating his strategy. Once things settled down a bit, he could contact Kisara again and try enticing her a little more. There was no need to panic. In fact, he was cooking up a few ingenious ideas already.
Then a car burst into the alley in front of him, brakes screeching. It stopped right in the middle of the street—it was after him.
The smoked-glass window whirred down, revealing the face of a young man wearing a hunting cap.
"Hello there, Mr. Hitsuma."
Hitsuma watched him, again overcome by surprise.
"Are you…Nest?"
It was the first time they had met in person. He was, after all, just a contact agent. The man who referred Hummingbird, Swordtail, and Dark Stalker to Hitsuma, as well as handled material transport for him.
Regaining his bearings, Hitsuma started waving his arms side to side.
"The op's a failure! I need to at least get my father and myself to Osaka Area, all right? We're both gonna need fake passports, like, now!"
The urgency was clear in Hitsuma's voice. Nest kept on smiling.
"That's a nice bow tie you got on."
"Uh?" Hitsuma's jaw dropped as he looked down at his chest. It was a plain black one, like on every other tux in this city.
This wasn't funny. "What are you…?!"
There was a muffled gunshot, and Hitsuma's body shook.
He fell to his knees. His chest was warm. The burst of color running through his shirt was a dark red.
Nest had a pistol with a silencer attached.
"We decided to dismantle the Black Swan Project. As a result, we're being asked to eliminate all evidence linking it to Five Wings."
"No… If I'm not around, the administration's going to fall apart—"
An orange flash burst from the silencer. It was the last thing Hitsuma ever saw.
Once he fired all the bullets in his gun, Nest tossed it in the backseat and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands.
"You make a mistake, you pay for it. Farewell, my good Superintendent."
The engine revved to life as the car reversed at full speed. Another second, and Nest was gone.
All that remained was the corpse sprawled out in the wet, dingy alley.
6
Half-dead, half-alive, Rentaro wasn't able to gaze at the Monoliths in their full, up-close size until fairly well into the following night. His gait was halting, unsteady, every step met with searing pain.
It had been a long while since his battle with Yuga met its end, the blessed adrenaline his body produced in response to it a thing of the past. All that remained was an intense, all-encompassing ache.
Along the way, he encountered three Stage One Gastrea. He discovered all three first, using his few remaining leg cartridges to end the battles in half a second. And that was that.
The summer wind blew pleasantly against his skin, pallid with blood loss. He closed his eyes and sucked as much of its scent into his nostrils as possible.
He had seen it for himself—the Gastrea cultivation facility collapsing in a heap of rubble. He had tried his best to hurry back to the Monoliths, but was stymied by the urge to carry Hotaru's body back. It made him turn back at least once. But it just wasn't possible. Not in his state.
So he buried her next to the portable Monoliths instead. If possible, he wanted to get her body out of that grave as soon as possible. To someplace more suitable for her—next to Suibara.
For now, at least, the Monoliths loomed large before him.
Just beyond the border between "here" and "there," he spotted a herd of red flashing lights. He squinted. He had no idea how they had sniffed him out, but it looked like Rentaro had a police welcoming party waiting for him.
He let out a sigh. The photos from inside the facility were saved on Hotaru's mobile phone, yes. But explaining it all would take so much more time.
But Rentaro's outlook was completely mistaken.
"Rentaro!"
"Big Brother!"
A blonde girl and another one with a pair of pigtails were running toward him. He gazed at them in wonderment, his limbs quaking. It had been a dream of his for so long, he seriously thought it was all a hallucination for a moment. But when he realized it wasn't, Rentaro started running, forgetting all about his injuries.
They half hugged, half collided into one another, spinning around as they fell on the grass. They were warm; they were soft; they were dreamlike—they were Enju and Tina.
"Enju! Tina!"
He tried to stop them, but he couldn't. His face twisted, and before he knew it, the tears were surging out.
They joined shoulders, beholding one another. Tina and Enju were just as moved by this reunion, both sniffling a little and Tina wiping her eyes at regular intervals. They repeated one another's names over and over again like crazed parrots. One more time, they held one another close. Strongly. Just to make sure they never separated again.
Then, all at once, Rentaro asked a barrage of questions. Were they free? The answer, excitedly given between the two: Yes. Enju was suddenly released from the Promoter matching process, Tina just as suddenly released from jail, and the police even gave them a ride there.
Another question sprang to his mind. "Speaking of which, guys, we're pretty much right by the Monoliths. Are you guys okay being here, with the Gastrea Virus and all?"
"Oh," Enju replied quizzically. Then her eyebrows shot up, both hands to her mouth as her ponytails seemed to visibly droop.
"Ngh, I—I don't feel too good… I think I'm gonna throw up."
"I'm not too hot myself."
"Stupid."
Rentaro grinned wryly to himself as he tousled their hair. They had even forgotten about that for his sake.
"Come on," he said, giving both a shove on the back. "Let's get home. 'Cause, seriously, if you hang out here much longer, you'll—"
He lost his train of thought when he saw what was ahead of him. It was an August bride in white. The veil was gone, revealing a head of long, straight, black hair that waved in the wind.
"Kisara…"
She didn't try to meet his gaze. Instead she just stood there, eyes focused on a point somewhere to his right.
"Open up."
"Huh?"
"Open up your arms."
"Oh."
Rentaro did so. Kisara, still focused on the ground, fell into them, embracing his chest. Her gloved hands wrapped themselves behind his back. It unnerved him slightly.
"Wh-whoa, Kisara—"
"You're so stupid."
He couldn't gauge her expression, given that her face was buried in his torso. She rubbed her nose against it as she shook her head. A slight, ever-so-slight, shudder crossed over from her body to his.
"So, um…?" he asked.
"Yes?"
"Is it all over now?"
Rentaro felt the girl nodding in his arms. He looked up at the starless night sky and sighed.
"Oh."
Kisara was there. Enju and Tina were released. The crimes he stood accused of had all been dismissed by Kisara, apparently.
But what about her and Hitsuma? Why was she in a wedding dress? Rentaro thought for a moment, then wisely decided those questions could wait.
They stayed in that position for a while—it was hard to say how long—until Rentaro grabbed her hands and suggested they return home.
The Monoliths were right in front of them as they held each other's hands. He had been gone for so long that they were both eager to make up for lost time.
Thus the four crossed the imaginary finish line together, walking back to Tokyo Area as a group of free people.
The police officers watched blankly from their cars. After the wild goose chase Rentaro sent them on, there he was—a successful escapee, a civsec who just restored his good name right in front of them. Nobody would be getting police commendations for this case.
Rentaro found Tadashima's face among the watchers. He had a sling on—reportedly he had suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder. Something about his face was even more formal and solemn than usual. He gave Rentaro a silent salute.
"Clear the way, people! The savior of Tokyo Area's coming through!"
A quiet frenzy erupted among the officers, infecting them one by one until all saluted the civsec team. Every face held a sincere look of reverence.
Suddenly, Rentaro heard the sound of a music box playing—it was from the pocket watch in Kisara's hand. There was something oddly familiar about it, but he couldn't remember the tune's name.
Despite the lack of ticker tape and cheering, it was the best welcome-home parade he could have asked for.
Thus, with the smell of summer still in the chilly wind, the police-escorted official ceremony for the reopening of the Tendo Civil Security Agency came to a close.
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/copyright.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
Copyright
BLACK BULLET, Volume 6
SHIDEN KANZAKI
Translation by Kevin Gifford
Cover art by Saki Ukai
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
BLACK BULLET, Volume 6
© SHIDEN KANZAKI 2013
All rights reserved.
Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS
First published in Japan in 2013 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2017 by Yen Press, LLC
Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kanzaki, Shiden, author. | Gifford, Kevin, translator. | Ukai, Saki, illustrator.
Title: Black bullet. Volume 6, Purgatory strider / Shiden Kanzaki ; illustrations by Saki Ukai ; translation by Kevin Gifford.
Other titles: Purgatory strider
Description: New York, NY : Yen On, 2017. | Series: Black bullet ; 6
Identifiers: LCCN 2015046479 | ISBN 9780316304993 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344890 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344906 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344913 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344920 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316344944 (v. 6 : pbk.)
Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K29 Blac 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046479
ISBNs: 978-0-316-34494-4 (paperback) 978-0-316-34501-9 (ebook)
E3-20170826-JV-PC
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/epilogue.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
BLACK BULLET 6
Epilogue
SOULS UNITED, SOULS DIVIDED
Rentaro turned the handle on the faucet, filling the wooden bucket with water. He was surprised at how cold the droplets splashing out of the bucket were.
He turned his head ninety degrees upward. The sun was at its highest point in the sky. A passing airplane roared above, engines drawing a straight line across the blue.
The cemetery he stood in was located fairly close to the Outer Districts. It was surrounded by forested land, making for a loud chorus of cicadas that was less than restful. It sounded like the forest itself was yelling at them, in fact.
Holding the heavy bucket in one hand, he walked along the vast area of graves, divided into neat squares like a go board. Before long, he was by one of the small plots, three women behind him. They must have sensed the solemnity of the situation, for not only Tina and Kisara, but even Enju, whose energy was the defining feature of her personality, was refraining from bouncing off the walls for the time being.
The representatives of the Tendo Civil Security Agency stood before a set of gravestones, filled the water basins on them, and added bunches of flowers—bellflowers and other purple-colored varieties chief among them.
Each one took a ladle to the water, splashed it over the stones, and prayed.
"Sorry we're late in coming," Rentaro said, eyes fixed on the two stones in front of him. "Suibara… Hotaru."
Not much more needed to be said. This was the end of what was already turning out to be a fairly long conclusion.
The news was still covering Rentaro's story. In the end, an investigation exposed some thirty members of the police department, including the commissioner, involved in the conspiracy to frame Rentaro for Kihachi Suibara's murder. The cops were still poking around the wasps' nest, so to speak, looking into each co-conspirator's history to see what else they could charge them with.
Nearly all faced disciplinary measures. Most had court dates. What happened after that was for a judge to decide.
And, of course, the news didn't speak a word about the experimentation on Varanium-resistant Gastrea Rentaro had discovered. Nor anything about the Five Wings Syndicate attempting to cultivate them.
Losing Yuga and Hitsuma was a setback for Five Wings, no doubt about that, but it was far from a permanent resolution. They had already cleared the lab of any research data before Rentaro showed up, and besides, most of the conspirators they arrested were pretty low-ranking members of the force or affiliated groups. Hitsuma and his father would have known the juicy details—and both were dead, killed under mysterious circumstances. Rentaro had nothing left to pursue.
Not long after, Rentaro had paid a visit to Tamaki, Yuzuki, and Asaka at the hospital where they were recuperating. It had been something of a shock when he opened the door to their room and found Asaka and Tamaki kowtowing to him on the floor in apology. Both had broken bones, he had heard, and yet there was Asaka providing a textbook example of groveling as it was practiced in the courts of ancient China. Tamaki, on the other hand, had put his ass far too high in the air, presenting another suggestion entirely.
"We are deeply regretful that we let ourselves fall for the malicious designs of that evil force."
"A man never makes excuses. Come on, Rentaro. Just shut up and punch me in the face!"
Yuzuki, meanwhile, rested her body against one of the room's walls, seething. "Didn't I tell you?" she said. "Didn't I tell you that police officer was acting funny? I mean, like…really?"
This was how Rentaro had found himself in one of the most awkward moments of the year so far without so much as opening his mouth. He had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
As he laughed, he'd nervously rubbed the surface of his cybernetic left eye. He hadn't seen the "terminal horizon" since his battle against Yuga—not much need to accelerate past 2000x in daily life—but his competency with a sniper rifle did improve noticeably afterward.
If anything had really changed with him, it was in the attitude he brought to his job. He now felt a certain responsibility for the deaths he had caused, directly or not. He was ready to deal with that. But that was about it.
"We should offer this, too…"
Kisara gingerly placed her pocket watch on the space between the two graves. The sentence YOU ARE ALWAYS IN MY HEART had been stamped under the cover. Suibara probably hadn't meant it when he had that stamped on, but now it felt like proof that he expected to die at any moment. It made Kisara's heart tighten a little, thinking about it.
Suibara and Hotaru risked their lives to keep Tokyo Area safe. And keep it safe they did. If it wasn't for their courageous deeds, crushing the Five Wings Syndicate's ambitions would have been impossible.
Rentaro lightly shook his head, clearing his mind.
"Let's go home."
Kisara grumbled about the fairly paltry reparations the police were willing to offer for this miscarriage of justice. Enju sprang around, attempting to burn off some energy she had built up waiting around at the IISO facility. Tina, for her part, must not have had a fun time in jail—she clammed up whenever she was asked about it, eyebrows pinned down on her face.
It was so hot, Rentaro asked Enju to buy something at a nearby vending machine, which he rarely did. Enju, always ready to annoy Rentaro one way or another, came back with a piping-hot cup of coffee. He pulled the tab and attempted a mouthful. It was hot enough to burn his tongue. From the pit of his stomach, he cursed his life.
When they arrived back at the Tendo Civil Security office—now running extended hours for summer break—Kisara arched an eyebrow. "Hey, is that car…?" she murmured, as she pointed at a well-polished black limousine parked in front of the Happy Building.
Whoever was inside must have noticed Rentaro, because the back door flew open, revealing a young woman who almost threw herself at him.
"Satomi!"
The Seitenshi was in a blindingly pure white dress. She was also wearing white heels—not exactly running gear. One heel slipped, causing her to lose her balance. Rentaro ran up and caught her just before she hit the pavement.
"Jeez, Lady—"
Rentaro's complaint was cut off when he noticed the Seitenshi's moistened eyes. They took him aback enough that he abandoned his feigned offense entirely.
"Thank you so much, Satomi. It looked like you were out of the office, so I waited here in my vehicle."
Rentaro scratched his head distractedly, averting his eyes. "No, that's…that's fine, but what brings you here in such a hurry?"
"Ah, yes," the Seitenshi said, bringing her hands together in front of her chest and taking something out of her purse. "I am here today so I can give this back to you."
"Give back…?" Rentaro said as he accepted it. He took a glance, only to find his ID photo peeking from the window of a leather card-carrying case. There was no mistaking his civsec license. He had forgotten about the Seitenshi stripping it from him at the palace, however long ago.
The gesture was so moving that he froze, license clutched in hand. Funny how he'd never thought about it much when he first got it, but now that it was back in his pocket, it made his chest feel warm and intensely grateful. He tried to say something then stopped, realizing he was about to lie. Instead, he closed his eyes and exhaled out his nose. It was almost enough to make him forget about the Seitenshi—but, noticing her smiling right at him, he panicked a bit and turned to her.
"You, you could've just mailed it to me," he stammered. "Like, did you leave the palace just for something like this?"
"No… Not, not just for that, no…" The Seitenshi was stammering herself. She grasped at her skirt with both hands. "When I heard you had died at the Plaza Hotel, I was in such a state of shock, I couldn't carry out my political duties. I didn't even have an appetite. So when I heard you were alive, I…"
The Seitenshi's lips were pursed tightly, as if trying to hold something back. Then, with her smooth, velvety gloves, she held Rentaro's hands tightly, drawing them toward her.
"I'm so happy you made it, Satomi."
Having such radiant beauty in front of him rendered Rentaro helpless. He let her do as she wished, marveling at how attractive she was up close.
They looked at each other for a long moment—then turned away in unison, blushing. She hid her cheeks with both hands, as if trying to mask the redness.
"I'm sorry… Staring at a man up close like this…this is so improper of me…"
The icy stares of the women behind her made the ruler of Tokyo Area break out in a cold sweat.
"Ex-cuse me!" Kisara said, coming between the two and giving the Seitenshi an admonishing look. "Um, L-Lady Seitenshi… I'm not sure you have seen him like this before, so I wanted to give a word of warning: There is nothing cool about Satomi at all. He's unintelligent, he's a useless bum, his feet smell, and his face is so ugly that just looking at him drains the energy right out of you."
The Seitenshi rubbed a cheek with her right hand as she gave Kisara an odd look. "Have you and Satomi been seeing each other, President Tendo?"
"We have not!"
"Then why do you have such a frantic look on your face?"
"I am not frantic at all!" Kisara turned toward Rentaro, as if about to bite him in the neck. "Satomi? One moment, please?"
Why's she targeting me?
"So were you just playing around with me, Big Brother?!" Tina wailed.
"Yes! And me, too?!" Enju snapped.
Tina was in a state of abject sadness. Enju was more on the angrier side of the spectrum.
Just as Rentaro was ready to lift his hands in the air and beg for divine intervention, a friendly male voice rang out:
"Oh-ho! The Lady Seitenshi is with you all, too?"
It was a late-middle-aged man with a folded fan, a hakama formal skirt, and hair like a pineapple. "Yo!" he said, a greeting well out of character with his traditional garb.
"Mr. Shigaki!" Rentaro shouted, overjoyed at this lifeline thrown to him.
Senichi Shigaki grinned, exposing his white teeth as he guffawed. "I was just thinking that I was overdue for a visit…but oh, my, even Lady Seitenshi has joined the company, has she?"
The Seitenshi gave a well-mannered bow. "Good afternoon to you, Mr. Shigaki. I trust your Varanium mines are faring well?"
"Ha! More or less, I suppose."
"I find it hard to believe that a man who was once Kikunojo's butler has such a talent for business!"
"Ahh, I guess you could say I found my calling late in life, eh? Ha-ha!"
"And I understand you are aiming for electoral office?"
"Oh, you make it sound like such a lofty thing, my Lady! Please, you embarrass me!"
After pleasantries, Shigaki turned to Rentaro and Kisara, flashing them a somewhat distressed smile.
"Kisara," he began, "I…I suppose I owe you an apology, don't I? I'm here because I wanted to do it in person, you see."
Rentaro realized Shigaki was talking about his role in arranging Kisara's would-be marriage.
"I made the arrangements because I thought it would be the best thing for the both of you, but I had no idea young Hitsuma and his father were both caught up in criminal activity. And now look what happened to the young man… Truly, I am sorry."
Kisara gave an open-minded smile at the grown man profusely apologizing to her. "Not at all," she said. "None of us were hurt, in the end. So don't worry about it, Mr. Shigaki."
"Na-ha-ha! Ah, I thought you might say that."
Rentaro felt a tug at his shirt. Peering down, he found Enju and Tina, concern on their faces as they looked up at him.
"Rentaro, who's that guy?"
"Oh, right, you haven't met him before… Mr. Shigaki?" He motioned to the man, then introduced the trio to one another.
"This is Senichi Shigaki, girls. He's the manager of Tendo Civil Security Agency on paper, and he's also my and Kisara's more-or-less legal guardian."
"Wow! That fancy an old guy, huh?"
"Well! Nice to meet the both of you, then." Shigaki crossed his arms, greeting them with a stern frown at first, then dropping the front and giving them both a friendly pat or two on the head.
"Ah-ha-ha! Would you look at the two cuties we've got here, then? And you know that Shiba girl, too—don't you, Rentaro? Juggling five girls at once! Why, I don't think I managed even that many when I was your age, boy!"
Shigaki elbowed Rentaro in the stomach, just in case his point hadn't come across clearly enough. But before Rentaro could yelp Sir, no, I—, the elbow knocked the coffee out of his hands. It went flying through the air, the still-hot liquid arcing dangerously toward the sleeve of Shigaki's jacket—
By the time Rentaro thought Oh crap, it was already too late.
"Yeowch!"
Shigaki went to a knee, lifting up his sleeve in an attempt to dodge. Rentaro rushed to him, social shame overcoming him as Shigaki took out a handkerchief and lowered his sleeve again. The old man's eyes were aimed squarely at Rentaro's coffee cup. "What on earth, my boy? It's hot as blazes out here, and you're going around with hot coffee in your hand? What's that all about, hmm? Is that what's popular with the young folks these days?"
"I, um, you aren't burned or anything, sir?"
"Mm?" Shigaki nonchalantly replied. "Ahh, this'll be fine."
"Let's go up to the office," Tina suggested. "We've got some cold water up there."
Shigaki gave it a moment's thought, then agreed to stop by long enough to use the sink. This is sure turning into a weird day, Rentaro thought as he accompanied his legal guardian up the stairs and inside.
Enju, watching from behind as Tina and Rentaro escorted Shigaki, was nailed to the ground in surprise. She crossed her arms, wondering what all that was about.
Apparently she was the only one out of the group who noticed, but when Shigaki had his sleeve lifted up for that split-second, she saw something.
He must have been a fan of tattoos, because he had something that looked like one on his upper arm. Kind of a fancy design, too—a pentagram with wings on top of all five points. It was an odd mismatch with his otherwise conservative choice of wardrobe.
But Enju was never one to dwell on things too long. Kicking the observation out of her ever-curious mind, she darted up the stairs after Rentaro.
Senichi Shigaki, having safely made his fortune in the Varanium mining industry, owned a house in one of the poshest areas of Tokyo Area's District 1. Inside the large residence, within a study that he forbade anyone else to enter, there was a bookcase half-recessed in the wall, one filled with old classics and dictionaries patiently waiting to be opened again.
If someone with architectural experience entered this study after giving the house an examination from the outside, he or she probably would have noticed that the room was far too small compared to the external dimensions.
Upon returning to this study, Shigaki turned not toward the handsome mahogany desk resting on one side of the room, but to the far end of this bookcase. He took out The Encyclopedic Guide to Weapons of the World, Vol. 3, then inserted a key into the hole that lurked behind the tome. This activated the Elecompack-branded mobile shelving. The shelf, laden with books, glided along rails on the floor. In an instant, the wall of books had fallen back, revealing a corridor to a new room.
With a practiced gait, Shigaki delved into the pitch-black hall and the inscrutable abyss. The dimensions of the space were only barely visible.
Then, out of nowhere, there was the whoosh of flame springing to life, followed by the floor lighting up a dim shade of blue.
It illuminated a large leather executive chair, which Shigaki promptly used. That was enough to energize the light, instantly brightening the entire room. A pentagram drew itself on the floor, adding intricately designed wings to each point with a single stroke.
"You're late, you idiot. You think you've got enough clout with this group to keep me waiting?"
Looking up, Shigaki saw an executive chair much like his own at one of the star's vertices. There sat a man with his legs crossed, his bushy beard and head of hair giving him the appearance of a lion. It was Sougen Saitake, the lone Five Wings Syndicate executive manager from Osaka.
Shigaki, Tokyo Area's top manager, looked around the room. As far as he could see, only two points on the pentagram were occupied—his and Saitake's. The other three chairs were empty.
"I suppose I can excuse Hokkaido for its absence, but where's Hakata and Sendai?"
"How should I know? I'm fine with just the two of us handling everything, regardless."
Looking closer at Saitake revealed that his body had a blue-tinged light coursing around it—the telltale sign of a holographic broadcast.
Shigaki was attending nothing less than a board meeting. One attended by the five most powerful people in Five Wings—the chosen vertices of the pentagram.
"I have just returned," Shigaki solemnly began, "from a meeting with Rentaro and his people. The sheer enormity of what he destroyed, and yet he couldn't have been more carefree with me."
"Yes, I'm sure having your contacts purged from the police force must have been quite a setback."
"Not exactly. We can replace them all anytime we like. If you call that a 'setback,' I think having a certain someone send an undercover assassin over to kill the Seitenshi was rather more of a setback for our cause, was it not?"
"Ah." Saitake stared into space, looking somewhat embarrassed. "I am glad to see your snide remarks haven't suffered at all. I thought eliminating the Seitenshi would be the most efficient way to move things along. I gave you all an ultimatum. You responded with this naive idealism, so I went through with it. You know full well that I have no time for those kind of people. Either you follow me, or you get the hell out of my way. That's how I do business."
"Saitake, you have no idea how Tokyo Area works. The Seitenshi is an indispensable symbol—government personified. We need her if the Area's government is to retain any kind of public mandate. The chaos that would result from her killing could help us come to power, yes, but as long as the Tendo family has not been toppled, any effect would be fleeting at best. We have to get Kikunojo Tendo out of the picture first."
"And that's why you're going through the incredibly circuitous route of securing Kisara Tendo? Shigaki, is that girl truly worth all this effort?"
Shigaki shook his head. Of course he had to bring that up. "You didn't see the crime-scene photographs of Kazumitsu Tendo's murder. You wouldn't understand until you do. That girl is the most demonic offspring the Tendo clan has ever seen."
"Oh?"
"Plus, I understand her ultimate goal is to kill Kikunojo Tendo as well. We both seek the same thing."
"Hmph. And yet you failed to recruit her."
"Oh, I've quite succeeded."
"Mm?"
Shigaki's lips curled.
"I said, I've succeeded."
Saitake fell silent, attempting to gauge how true this was.
"By the way," Shigaki continued, "how is Juzouji doing?"
"Hmph. The machine's purring along, you could say. He thought you were the number-two of the group after me, you'll be delighted to know."
"Ha! You'll be taking my 'snide' crown from me before long, you know."
"Only because I've learned from the best."
The two chuckled at each other across the darkness.
"So," Saitake said, "Five Wings has taken the leadership posts of Osaka Area and Hokkaido Area. We have three left to go. Do not let our dream escape your memory. Our cause is just."
"Glory to the Five Wings."
"Glory to the Five Wings."
The blue light disappeared. The room was wrapped in darkness once more.
The howl of a lonely dog echoed from some faraway point. The darkness was growing thicker as Rentaro Satomi dragged his sore feet across the brightly lit street, on his way back home. The smell of burnt explosives pervading his body gave him a headache; his arms were shaking so bad from all the recoil he was surprised nothing had gotten dislocated. Using chopsticks might pose a challenge for him later on.
He tried putting his hands over both ears, but the ringing continued. It was a pretty bad case. He had working ear protectors on—or, at least, they were supposed to be working; Miori's new gun and ammunition must have generated too much of an explosive blast for them.
He had spent the entire past day running testing duty for Shiba Heavy Weapons' latest products. Miori was busy developing a handgun that used powerful Initiator-specific ammo. Once it was complete, he was planning to ask Miori for the first one off the line so he could hand it to Tina.
Miori never said anything about Rentaro's recent legal trouble. The closest she got to that was when she said, "Time to pay me back, Satomi dear," after passing him at the gun range. It was just more of that weird sense of distance she liked to retain with him. He kind of liked it.
He was busy enjoying the sense of fatigue that racked his body as he tromped up the metal stairway and turned the doorknob to his apartment. The moment he opened it up, he was greeted by a girl in a black sailor-style school uniform and a frilly apron.
"Welcome back, Satomi."
"Um…Kisara?"
She was all smiles, going behind Rentaro and pushing him into the room. He took off his jacket and loosened his necktie as he looked around. Then he realized the other girls in his life weren't there.
"Where's Enju and Tina?"
"They're out watching the neighborhood fireworks show."
Rentaro slapped a hand with his fist. "Oh! The one where they ask you to pay five hundred yen to join the district association? That was today?"
Five hundred yen didn't seem like it'd be enough to result in all that exciting a show, but the girls had yet to see any kind of fireworks this year. They were willing to bite at just about anything.
Kisara, reading Rentaro's face, gently shook her head. "Oh, it's fine. You have to be twelve or younger to participate, anyway. They'll have a bigger show at the main festival soon enough. We can all hit that one together."
Huh. So this is the first night I'll be alone with Kisara in a while, then.
Rentaro noticed the assortment of colorful dishes on the low table. He could tell she had been using the kitchen. An ever so slightly foul smell wafted in from somewhere. The nervous sweats were coming already.
"Kisara, you didn't…cook, did you?"
She smiled in response. Instead of answering, she simply pointed two thumbs at herself. She must have had nearly ten bandages wrapped around her fingers.
"Well," she said, "it's kind of annoying to have everyone pick on my food all the time, you know? I'm trying to improve a little bit."
Rentaro flung his body down by the table, admitting defeat in the face of Kisara's mangia, mangia aura.
An acrid, sour stench, like the contents of a dog's stomach freshly unfurled on the carpet, stung his nostrils. "Oh, God," he whispered, shutting his eyes tight.
The gel-like piece of organic matter on the plate ferried from the kitchen was done up in a horrid array of colors, like a crazed painter splattering a canvas with everything he had on his palette. Just looking at it gave Rentaro a crash course on what insanity truly meant.
The smell it emitted stabbed into his eyes. He tried to pass it off to Kisara as tears of joy while he scooped up a bit in the spoon. It was oddly springy, jiggling about in excitement. With one final, resigned motion, he brought it to his mouth.
For a single moment, he experienced nirvana. Across the river, he could see his father, Takaharu Satomi, beckoning at him.
"Gehh, this slop is disgu—"
"Dis-guh-what?" Kisara stared daggers into his eyes.
"It's one of the most alarming creations of mankind!"
"Ooh, tell me more."
"It's like the food of some mad artist! It makes my very pulse stop!"
"Hee-hee! Thank you."
Kisara, luckily, was stupid enough not to realize she wasn't being complimented.
"—Stop treating me like an idiot!"
—Or not. He was hoping to string her along a bit longer than that, at least. His roommate stood up in a huff, running a hand distractedly through her hair.
"Ugghh, I just… All right, you teach me, Satomi."
"Huh?"
Suddenly, Kisara was bashful, toes almost turned inward as she rubbed her thighs together.
"Satomi, you promised you'd teach me how to cook, didn't you? Before all…that happened. Like, when we had those sweet potatoes?"
Oh. Right. He did say that to her. Maybe.
After a moment's thought, he stood and rolled up his sleeves. "All right, whaddaya want to make?"
"…What's the secret to your stir-fried vegetables?"
There wasn't any "secret" to it. Vegetables, pan, oil, bam. But Kisara was ready to go, tightening her apron and chopping up some spinach from the fridge. Rentaro stood behind her in the director's role. Or he meant to. But after just a couple minutes, he already couldn't stand it any longer, taking her hands from behind.
They had to begin with how to use a kitchen knife. The knife tapped several times unsteadily against the chopping board. The TV wasn't on. Several quiet moments passed.
"Um, Kisara?"
"Hmm?"
"Did you…like Hitsuma, or anything?"
Kisara silently kept her hands moving. The tap-tap continued swiftly.
Silence reigned for several moments. It was painful.
"I don't know."
"Oh…"
"But I don't think it was love, or anything."
"…You kissed him, though, didn't you?"
Rentaro cursed himself. He should've known when to give up, and he didn't. But the panic on Kisara's face as she opened her eyes wide and said, "You saw that…?" was far greater than his.
"N-no!" she continued. "Not like that. I kind of had my palm up like this, to block it, and when Hitsuma came up to me, I kind of pushed…"
She must have realized she wasn't being very convincing with her little hand-gesture show. Kisara tried desperately to figure out how to win Rentaro's trust—but then he smiled at her. Paradoxically enough, seeing her act so serious convinced him that all his worries were for nothing.
"He…he didn't do anything like what you're thinking, Satomi. So I'm still a…a virgin and everything, too…"
"Uh, yeah."
Something about the sudden introduction of bedroom terminology made Rentaro's pulse quicken as he added salad oil to the frying pan and put the spinach on top. It shrank down with an audible sizzle.
"So, speaking of which, did you hear about the new prime minister of Hokkaido Area?"
He thought he was being ignored for a moment before Kisara softly replied. "Yeah, what a surprise. Pretty amazing, huh? Prime Minister Kiryu was fine one day, and then…poof."
Both Rentaro and Kisara had met him several times during their time at the Tendo mansion. "Yeah, I was pretty shocked, too," he added. "I figured he was gonna serve in that post until he was one hundred or so."
"Did you hear the rumor, though?"
"What?"
"I heard that Kiryu ate breakfast, then started clutching his chest out of nowhere and fell off his chair. He never woke up after that. Like, apparently they found a lot of weird things during the autopsy, too. Supposedly they wanted to do some more testing on the body, but it got blocked and they reported it as death from illness. They closed up the whole investigation before it began."
"The hell?" Rentaro asked, taken aback.
Kisara replied with a lifeless shaking of her head. "I don't know."
"You think the new prime minister's an okay guy? Tsukihiko Juzouji?"
"They say he's pretty sharp. He's probably up to the job, I guess."
Rentaro felt conflicted. He wasn't really a fan of Souichi Kiryu's style of governing. He always acted so self-righteous and arrogant in front of the cameras, like he thrived on public controversy. But maybe that was the kind of leadership it took to guide the island of Hokkaido from postwar ruin to a rebuilt local power in the course of a single generation. Either way, few actively cheered for his passing.
Plain spinach sauté was a little lacking by itself, so with Kisara's permission, he filled a kettle with water and placed it on an adjacent burner. He turned the knob, and heat, along with the smell of gas, wafted as the blue flame ignited.
She worked her cooking chopsticks. The sizzling continued. In his role as teacher, Rentaro was giving Kisara instructions from behind her back. To an impartial observer, however, it might have looked like they were embracing each other.
Her hair smelled good. The apron looked good over her uniform, he thought.
"Hey, actually, Kisara, why do you always have some kind of uniform on? Are you trying to match me or something?"
"Because I can use it as workwear. It keeps me from having to change between here and school. I have my own clothes, too, but probably not as much as most girls my age. Probably a hell of a lot less, actually."
There was something boastful, downright haughty, about the way she accented the hell in that sentence. It was like she was trying to put pressure on Rentaro with it. He scratched the back of his head as he stared off into the distance.
"Uh, you wanna maybe go clothes shopping sometime?"
"Ohhh? Sure. I'll try to develop some expensive tastes between now and then."
She brought a hand to her hip, lightly, as if she was about to start whistling with glee. Her short skirt swayed a bit in response.
"B-but," a stammering Rentaro continued, "I just mean… You looked great in that kimono for the meet up, and you looked great in that wedding dress, too, but… Really, I think you look the best when you're in that black uniform, in the end. I mean it. You're beautiful."
Kisara turned around. Her eyes were wide.
Why does love always have to be this asymmetrical thing? Every time, there seems to be this imbalance between everything I feel about someone else, and everything she thinks about me. The scales always tip one way or the other. What do I have to do to bring the ache in my heart across to her?
His voice failed him. It frustrated him immensely. Whenever he was in front of someone he liked, his vocal abilities plummeted to the point where he wanted to die.
Instead of relying on them, he took a step forward.
"K-Kisara!"
He brought his hand around her narrow waist, clutching it tight. Kisara's chest pushed up to him with a yelp. Her unbelievably well-built face was right next to his, a sweet aroma filling his nostrils.
Her cheeks grew more and more flush. Her own heat was stirring a little.
"Whoa, hey, Satomi, where're you—?"
"—Back at the visitation room…"
"Huh?"
Rentaro tilted his head down and brought his lips to Kisara's ear.
"When I berated you and ordered you out of the room… I'm truly sorry. I was such an idiot that whole time. I never should have said any of that to you. I know I'm late saying this, but I'm so, so happy to be home. Thank you, Kisara."
The edges of the surprised Kisara's wide-open eyes filled with an onrush of transparent liquid. A single line ran across one cheek. She wiped at it with a knuckle. Then her broad eyebrows arched up as she looked at Rentaro, eyes soft and gentle. The tears were from a happy place. He could tell.
"Don't be stupid. I was waiting for you to say that the whole time."
"Kisara…"
The joy upon hearing this drove the elated Rentaro to bring his face closer. Kisara turned away, her face red from ear to ear.
"W-wait, Satomi. I really can't do…that… I'm too embar… I'll die if I…"
At any other time, Rentaro would have respected Kisara's wishes and taken a step back. But now, Rentaro was tired. Tired of writhing under an agony he had no answer for. Even if it meant his destruction, he could no longer hold it in. He had to see where it finally led him.
Rentaro relaxed his grip slightly.
"Well, if you really don't want to, Kisara, I'll stop right now."
"Really?"
"No," he said in her ear as he brought their lips together.
The kettle began to whistle.
With a clank, her cooking chopsticks fell to the floor.
Sumire had been right all along: "If you really just want Kisara to be happy, you're gonna have to keep killing off your own feelings. There's no way to half-ass that. Do you swear you'll do that?"
And now Rentaro had broken his promise.
Nothing about his outlook had changed. Marrying Hitsuma had been the only way for Kisara to forget about revenge and live out her life. It had been the sole, and final, method for her to move on. Even if that had meant Rentaro would have had to abandon his love forever—if that had led to Tendo no longer feeling compelled to massacre her own family, he would've had to accept that. But now he knew:
Being in love was like insanity.
Rentaro was insane for Kisara. He was awash in love, inflamed by it. And he couldn't stop her revenge any longer. This love had every indication of taking the entire world down with it.
At the last possible moment, Rentaro had taken the selfish route. He would be forced to pay for that sometime, no doubt. He would probably regret it. Regret that, except for this single moment, he could never stop Kisara.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-06-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/epilogue002.txt
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Black Bullet, Vol. 6: Purgatory Strider
He had resolved to fight for the sake of "justice." It could drive him, someday in the future, to cross paths with Kisara and the "absolute evil" that flowed in her. There was no way he could deny that.
Soon, Kisara would be taking sword in hand to hunt down the Tendo family, her sworn nemeses. With every one she slashed down, the rift between her and Rentaro would grow that much wider. There may never be another sweet day like this one in their lives together. Perhaps this was the peak. Perhaps, after this, they'd both come tumbling down, their mutual hatred piling up on itself as they did.
But—
No matter how much their relationship deteriorated from now on, no matter how much they screamed at and harangued each other, no matter how much they stabbed at each other with their blades of loathing—for now, now at least, he wanted to give up his body to her soft lips.
He pushed Kisara against the refrigerator and forcefully locked his lips against hers. The soft valleys of Kisara's chest pushed against him. They softly flattened down, changing shape. Her eyes narrowed, as if she was intoxicated by these events, and she brought her hands around Rentaro's neck.
He was willing to do anything to leave his body to the bliss that lay ahead, but Sumire's voice refused to let go of his mind:
"You can always rebuild a broken body, but a broken heart's beyond all help. You can't do a thing with it.
"And if it's too late for Kisara, that's gonna be up to you to manage."
• Enju Aihara has a Gastrea Virus corrosion rate of 43.8%
• An estimated 496 days left until shape collapse
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/appendix001.txt
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Black Bullet
AFTERWORD
When trying to accomplish something, I do not think it is futile to calculate how much effort it will take to arrive at the end. And most goals can be calculated with the equation: Talent × Environment × Effort. For example, if you assume that there is a value of a thousand required to reach the goal, then someone who has a ten in talent and environment, and a ten in effort, will be able to accomplish their goal (pass the bar exam, write a song using Vocaloid software, become an author, etc.) because 10 × 10 × 10 = 1,000. What I realized using this equation was you can't use inferior talent or environment as an excuse to abandon effort.
There are many people who brag about how they have no talent and then abandon effort, but I personally think that's not how it works. I think people who were not blessed in the areas of talent or environment need to put in a hundred times the effort of a genius or someone privileged. Even if the values of their talent and environment variables are only one, it is entirely possible to reach the goal with a thousand in effort. I often say that I'm a failure, but even so, I believe my strong desire to create the best is the only thing that determines the quality. I believed that, and I kept believing and believing until I was working so hard that I spit blood and continued to move forward and finally became an author, and I am somehow able to continue being an author.
When I met the author who wrote the cover review for this book, Reki Kawahara, and told him how excellent I thought his composition and writing, he shook his head furiously, denying it. It may sound presumptuous, but because I am also an author, no matter how humble the other person is, I can feel the mastery achieved after oozing blood by reading between the lines. I wanted to write about how happy I was that the review was written by someone who was a hard worker like me.
Everyone should also bless hard work. If you have a heart that earnestly believes and pushes forward, I'm sure your dreams will come true.
This time, too, I owe a lot to my managing editor, Mr. Kurosaki, the illustrator Saki Ukai who makes the main character look excessively cool, Reki Kawahara who wrote the review for the cover, and everyone else who was involved in the book, including everyone at the editorial department. Thank you all.
Finally, to my dear readers: In the next volume, we will start on the story of that person who was inserted occasionally in the subplot up until now. I hope you will look forward to the next volume as well. Thank you very much for buying this book. I pray that all of my readers will be blessed.
Shiden Kanzaki
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter002.txt
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Black Bullet
After that, time flowed slowly but steadily.
As time went on, those in the situation room received reports from the investigation team that mixed fact and fiction together. It was hard to tell how many hours had passed, but right around when the night sky was starting to lighten, decisive evidence was finally displayed. The panel in front of them held pictures that had been taken by an unmanned surveillance aircraft.
The pictures were zoomed-in images of the Monolith near where the Stage Four Gastrea had been. The first picture focused on a white stain about thirty centimeters in diameter that was shaped like mold. In the second picture, the white object had spread to about a meter in diameter. In the third, fourth, and fifth pictures, the white object slowly spread across the whole Monolith.
The characteristic bleaching. It completely matched up with the content of reports on Aldebaran when it appeared in the past. There was no reason to doubt it any longer.
"Lady Seitenshi." Kikunojo looked at her solemnly.
"Yes, it is the Varanium corrosion fluid, isn't it?" she replied.
Just then, an analyst flew into the room carrying a bundle of documents, his face turning pale. "The results of the supercomputer calculations are here! It is impossible to separate the corrosion fluid from the Monolith. At this rate, the bleaching will take over the whole thing in a week, and then Monolith 32 will completely lose its ability to give off a magnetic field and collapse!"
"What will happen once it collapses?"
"From the Pandemic induced by Gastrea rushing in through the break in the line, seventy percent of the citizens of Tokyo Area will die within two days, and the rest will follow within four days. It will be the end of Tokyo Area."
"Th-that's impossible! Redo your calculations!" the Chief Cabinet Secretary howled.
"We redid them over and over! We can't believe it either!" The angry analyst forgot his manners and threw the bundle of documents in his hands at the Chief Cabinet Secretary. The documents made a paper blizzard that danced around the basement situation room. The room suddenly became quiet, and no one moved a muscle.
The analyst took a deep breath with his shoulders and returned to his senses, looking down in embarrassment.
The Seitenshi pulled the rosary around her neck toward her and held it close, both hands shaking. If this couldn't be called hopeless, then what could? Even the Cabinet members, who had been making a fuss at the beginning, entreatingly waited for the Seitenshi to speak.
She took a slow breath. Especially at times like this, she had to be strong. She stuck out her chest and raised her face with dignity. "Everyone, let us think of a countermeasure while we are still in control of the situation. We must stop the spread of fear and maintain order as much as possible. If we abandon our reason now, it will turn into chaos that we will have no chance of controlling. Capital functions will be paralyzed, and it will become a state of anarchy. After that will be the demise of Tokyo Area. At the very least, we must avoid losing without putting up a fight."
The Seitenshi turned to her aide. "Kikunojo, I believe Tokyo Area has an extradeep underground shelter for times like this. How many citizens can the shelter accommodate?"
"Approximately thirty percent, I believe," he answered. "But even if we stuff as many provisions in as we can and hole up, if help doesn't come within two months, it's all over."
"It's better than not doing anything at all. Please create a system to select thirty percent of the citizens immediately."
The Chief Cabinet Secretary hurriedly interrupted. "Your excellency, we should immediately start sending citizens to other Areas using aircraft guarded by civil officers."
Kikunojo shook his head. "That's pointless. It is akin to trying to scoop all the water from a giant urn with a ladle. We would not be able to save even one thousandth of the citizens."
"Then what about taking a sea route?"
"There are Gastrea that live in the ocean. Aegis-class cruisers and aircraft carriers might be better, but high-class ferries would just end up feeding the Gastrea."
"Then what are you saying we should do?!"
The Seitenshi looked sidelong at the Chief Cabinet Secretary and quietly cut him off. "Kikunojo, how long will it take to make a replacement Monolith?"
"It will take at least ten days," said Kikunojo. "It will definitely not make it. It would be better to think of another way—"
The Seitenshi cut him off. "Then begin production of a replacement Monolith immediately."
Kikunojo looked surprised, but then looked down and said, "As you wish," bowing low. "What should we tell the media?"
"Summon the reporters' club and tell them everything. Let's ask for their cooperation after that. Even they should not want Tokyo Area to fall into a panic."
"Even if the reporters' club is on our side, it would be impossible to restrict the information online."
"Even so, we should be able to buy some time. Either way, as the bleaching advances, the bleached Monolith will be visible even from far away. If we can just last until then, that will be enough."
"Then…"
Understanding Kikunojo's hesitation, the Seitenshi nodded. "Yes, in the three days between the Monolith's collapse and the completion of the replacement, Tokyo Area must be defended to the bitter end. Kikunojo, it will be an all-out war. Mobilize the self-defense force at Monolith 32."
"We will also need to ask for help from the civil officers…," Kikunojo added. "I will gather as many as I can. I shall not let personal feelings get in the way during a time like this."
Now that he mentioned it, the Seitenshi recalled that Kikunojo did not like the Cursed Children.
Kikunojo continued. "Lady Seitenshi, with all due respect, I would ask that you also call in civil officers that you trust." Kikunojo stopped talking for a moment and stared into her eyes, then continued. "Call in the civil officer you trust the most."
"The civil officer that I trust most…?"
The Seitenshi closed her eyes. After a while, she opened them, slowly.
She had decided.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter004.txt
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Black Bullet
BLACK BULLET 3 CHAPTER 01
THE THIRD KANTO BATTLE
1
There was a blackboard behind Rentaro Satomi. Directly above that was the sun. At his feet was grass. And in front of him were those things he didn't like—kids. There were a lot of them, too.
Looking next to him, he saw a nervous girl dressed in an all-black sailor-style school uniform. It was Kisara Tendo, and she stood at attention without moving, her jaw tight.
Rentaro looked forward again with uninspired eyes. The kids looked at the pair without even trying to hide their curiosity. They sat directly on the grass with their knees bent, and instead of desks, they had long pieces of cut planks, on top of which they had spread their pencils, erasers, and notebooks.
Rentaro poked Kisara's side with his elbow and said in a low voice, "Which one of us should introduce ourselves first?"
"Y-you start, Satomi," Kisara replied, voice thin and shaky. "I'm so nervous, my heart feels like it's going to leap out of my mouth."
Though it was a pain, Rentaro trudged forward one step, scratching the back of his head and looking at the faces of the kids one by one. "Um, I'm Rentaro Satomi, and I'll be your teacher starting from today. Nice to meet you." He raised his hand slightly in greeting, but the kids did not show any reaction and just stared at him. It seemed as if they were telling him to say something else.
"My hobby is observing bugs and gathering plants. I like microorganisms, too."
Silence.
"I can also fight using Tendo Martial Arts, I guess."
Silence.
He paused. "Do you have any questions?" he asked finally.
He was suddenly met with a chorus of "Yes!" as every member of the class raised their hands in vigorous unison. Their wild energy was overwhelming.
At a loss and wondering why it had turned out this way, Rentaro looked up at the sky. There were only a few clouds in the blue. There was no wind, and an aircraft left a trail as it roared past in the sky. Covering the sun with the palm of his hand, he narrowed his eyes. It looked like today would be hot, too.
Tokyo Area Outer District, District 39. Rentaro and the others were in the outdoor classroom.
"You can do it, Mr. Satomi!" a lazy voice called out suddenly from behind the students.
Rentaro looked in that direction resentfully and saw a man sitting in a folding chair, beaming as he waved his wooden cane around. The man was not even 160 centimeters tall, and his lightly tanned skin had deep wrinkles from years of hardships. He had round glasses perched on top of his nose. He was just past middle age, the self-appointed guardian of the Manhole Children who lived in the Outer District. His name was Matsuzaki, and during the Kagetane Hiruko terrorist incident, he had taken care of Enju for a while.
However, still wondering why they were doing this, Rentaro tilted his head and looked at Enju Aihara, who was mixed in with the kids, smiling and waving at him. Next to her, Tina Sprout was sleeping boldly, prostrate on the table from homeroom.
"I would like you and Miss Tendo to teach the Outer District children." Matsuzaki had broached the subject a few days after Rentaro enrolled Enju in the Outer District elementary school.
During the Kagetane Hiruko terrorist incident, Enju was exposed as one of the Cursed Children who had the Gastrea factor in her body, and she was inevitably expelled from the elementary school she attended at the time. It became a pressing matter for Rentaro to find her a new elementary school, but at the same time, it was a delicate problem, and Rentaro and Kisara proceeded carefully.
In the end, they agreed that they could disregard everything but Enju's comfort, so they transferred her to the Outer District's outdoor classroom, known officially as Tokyo Area District 39 Third Temporary Elementary School.
Because that was on the horizon, Rentaro and Kisara were baffled. "Why do you want us to be teachers?" Rentaro asked.
Matsuzaki did not lose his smile. "Well, when you get to be an old man like me, your ways of teaching also get old. I want to bring in some new blood. New teachers won't come here to the Outer Districts, and as you can see, this school that I'm running on a half-volunteer basis will fall over if you blow on it. So, I thought it would be nice to let current students like yourselves take control of the teacher's pointer for a while."
Kisara, concerned, folded her hands. "We have school as well, you know."
"Yes, so even if it's only on the weekends when you have time, will you please come?"
Rentaro and Kisara exchanged a glance, nonplussed.
Returning to his senses upon hearing their boisterous chorus of "Yes!" Rentaro saw the mountain of swords that were the girls' raised hands as their attack continued. The twenty female students wore tattered clothes, and they looked dirty. He wasn't sure of the last time any of them had bathed. That was to be expected, though, since all the students were Cursed Children girls who had been abandoned.
Rentaro felt uneasy. He wasn't fit to take on the important task of teaching and leading other people. Yet, these were doubts taking over. He shook his head; this kind of thinking would do him no good. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he shouted from his stomach:
"All right, kiddos! Your teacher will answer all of your questions! First, you over there—"
"Yes, Teacher! Is it true that you are living with Enju and thinking of marriage in the future?"
He groaned.
For her part, Enju shouted angrily, "It's true!"
Rentaro held his head. You be quiet.
"There's no way that's true. She's a freeloader. Okay, next."
"Should we call you Mr. Satomi or Mr. Rentaro?"
Was that all? he thought, feeling relieved. Rentaro waved his hand quickly in front of his face. "You can call me what you want."
"Pervert!"
"Lolita complex!"
"Unfortunate face!"
"I'll beat you all up, you little twits!"
For some reason, the students all started laughing at that. After that, he fielded a few more questions, but the kids were having fun laughing, and Rentaro was soon worn out.
"Now, I'll switch with the other teacher." Rentaro handed the floor over to Kisara, haggard after the consecutive-question punches. As they passed each other, he whispered in her ear, "They're tough."
Kisara moved forward with the stiff movements of a robot. "I-I'm Kisara Tendo. Um, I…"
"Teacher! Enju said your boobs are that big even though you don't use any padding. Is that true?"
"Huh?" said Kisara.
"Teacher! Enju said your boobs are so big, you can't see your feet. Is that true?"
"What?!" Kisara turned red and cringed, trying to hide her chest. Finally, she glared sharply at Rentaro.
"S-Satomi, do something!"
She was asking the impossible. As a guy, he couldn't intervene in a conversation like that.
Enju, whose prank had succeeded, covered her mouth with her hand and snickered. Enju had transferred a few days before Rentaro and Kisara, and she already had the class in the palm of her hand. She had amazing adaptive abilities, as usual.
"Miss Kisara! Are you and Mr. Rentaro going out? Are you getting married?"
Kisara yelled, red-faced, "We are not going out! And we are not getting married!"
Enju pumped her fist in triumph as Rentaro suffered a grave injury to his heart.
"Excuse me, Miss Tendo…" Old Matsuzaki beckoned diffidently at Kisara and whispered something in her ear. As soon as she heard what he said, Kisara looked back at Matsuzaki, surprised.
Next, Matsuzaki beckoned diffidently at a student saying, "Kyoko," and a girl stood up, looking down; she was clearly embarrassed as she walked to where Kisara and Matsuzaki were.
Rentaro stood by idly as the circumstances passed him by. What in the world were those girls up to? The girl named Kyoko whispered into Kisara's ear.
"What? That's early. You got it when you were ten? That's two years earlier that me…" Kisara lowered her voice and this time, she whispered in the girl's ear.
The girl who had looked like she would be crushed by anxiety at first slowly began to look relieved.
Finally, Kisara put a hand on each of the girl's shoulders. "It's something that all girls will have, so it's nothing to be worried about. Let's go shopping together sometime. I'll teach you a few things then."
The girl beamed and gave a big nod. "I love you, Miss Kisara! I look forward to working with you!" Saying that, she hastily returned to her seat.
"Satomi…" Kisara's body trembled, and her voice was stifled as she looked down.
"Wh-what is it…?" said Rentaro nervously.
"Satomi, come here for a sec!" As soon as she said that, she pulled Rentaro's sleeve and dragged him to the ruins where the students could not see them. Had he said something that had offended his prideful boss? Thinking that there was a possibility that she would shake him down, Rentaro made a cross in front of his chest.
However, the next instant, Kisara started hopping, her face all smiles. "Hey! Did you hear that, Satomi? She said she loved me! She said she loved me!" Kisara squealed, covering her mouth with both hands and blushing, hugging her chest. "What should I do? I was going for the 'kind but cool Miss Kisara,' but look at me now. I can't look like this in front of everyone."
"Do you even like kids, Kisara?" Rentaro asked. "What do you like about those things? They're just noisy, aren't they?"
Kisara huffily put a hand on her hip. "It must be nice to be you, Satomi. No matter where you go, kids like you! You wouldn't understand what it feels like to be hated by kids the way I am."
"Kids don't like me," said Rentaro.
"They don't?"
"They don't. Kisara, imagine a pack of mini hyenas living in the savanna."
"M-mini hyenas?"
"That's right. Now imagine there's a herd of gnu passing in front of the pack of mini hyenas. When that happens, hyenas look for the weakest individual and then attack it with a pack of thirty to eighty, all hunting together as a group. Those kids have sniffed out that I'm the weakest and are attacking me as a group. They don't like me."
"Is that really what it is?" Kisara did not look satisfied, but she slapped her cheeks and made her face look sharp. Pronouncing, "Come on, we should probably head back," she turned on her heel and went back to where the students were. Then, standing on the rough-hewn teacher's platform, she brushed her long, jet-black hair back. "Are there any kids left with questions for me?"
"Yes, Teacher! Is the uniform you're wearing for Miwa Girls Academy?"
"Oh my, you sure know a lot. It is a pretty famous high school, but does everyone know about it?"
Apparently, other than the girl who asked the question, no one knew what the school was, and they all shook their heads.
"Well, do you all know who the Lady Seitenshi is?"
This time, almost all the girls in the class nodded.
"That pretty princess, right?"
"The leader of the nation, right?"
"That's right, the Lady Seitenshi is also enrolled in Miwa Girls Academy. Although, she's been so busy with government affairs that she hasn't come to school once."
The children raised their voices in wonder, and one of the girls raised her hand apologetically. "I've never seen the Lady Seitenshi before."
"Oh my…"
"The Lady Seitenshi looks like that!" Enju stood up, pointing.
Rentaro looked in disbelief in the direction Enju was pointing, and then almost leaped into the air. On the shoulder of the road about twenty meters past the meadow, the Seitenshi herself descended from inside a parked limousine with a lace parasol in her hand, walking straight toward him.
With her absolute beauty, she was clothed in her white ceremonial clothes that looked like a wedding dress. There was no mistaking it: This was the real thing. But why was she in the Outer District?
The Seitenshi cast a sideways look at Rentaro as she swept past him and went to stand in front of the students, smiling as she waved her hand gently. "Good afternoon, everyone. Are you having fun studying?"
The students were frozen with their mouths hanging slightly open.
"Huh?" The only person who spoke was Tina, who had been sleeping until now and had just woken up.
Finally, the Seitenshi turned around and looked straight at Rentaro and Kisara. "Satomi, President Tendo, we are in an emergency situation that could mean life or death for this country. I have a favor to ask of you."
2
Inside Happy Building 3F—the Tendo Civil Security Agency offices—a heavy silence had fallen. Rentaro and Kisara sat on the love-seat sofa in the reception area, with a glass table between them and the Seitenshi, who sat facing them. Before her, a tea stem floated in her cup of roasted green tea, swaying idly.
Rentaro and Kisara had just finished listening to the Seitenshi's explanation. The contents were hard to believe.
The clear tinkling of the wind chime sounded out of place as it echoed through the room.
Rentaro wiped the uncomfortable sweat from his face. His temple, which he was pressing down on, was throbbing hotly. He shook his head softly as he lifted his face. "Lady Seitenshi, let me make sure I understand what you've said. In six days, a Monolith will be destroyed, Gastrea will rush in, and Tokyo will be annihilated by a Pandemic, right?"
"If we do not counter, that is what will happen," she agreed.
Rentaro looked at the pictures spread out on the glass table: those of the bleached Monolith, and the Gastrea head so repulsive he wanted to look away. "The news yesterday said that the Gastrea that approached the Monolith were immediately driven away…"
"We have told the media the situation and have their cooperation."
"People who believe in freedom of speech would be shocked to hear that."
"I do not think you wish for Tokyo Area to stop functioning right now either, Satomi. Please allow me to control the information that does not need to be known, the information that will only be poisonous to society."
"Dictators say exactly the same thing."
"H-hey, Satomi?" said Kisara, trying to stop him.
The Seitenshi said, "It's fine," and shook her head softly. "Either way, in a few days, the bleaching of the Monolith will be visible even from far away. Right now, under the command of Aldebaran, Gastrea are gathering outside the Monolith. We predict that there could be up to two thousand of them in the end."
"Two thousand?! You must be kidding!" blurted Kisara.
Rentaro gave a heavy nod in agreement. "This is rash. We'll be killed. We'll all be annihilated."
"We are doing everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen."
Rentaro put a hand to his chin. "But…why Aldebaran?"
The Seitenshi shook her head slowly. "I do not know, either. We are investigating that now."
"What? What do you mean?" Kisara asked, confused.
"Kisara, how much do you know about Aldebaran?"
"Let's see… If I remember correctly, it's a Stage Four Gastrea that we knew about pretty early on, and when Gastrea were running rampant ten years ago, it focused on wreaking havoc in Asia, right?"
"Do you know why it was given its distinct code name?"
"I…I don't know…"
"Aldebaran is an old Gastrea that always appeared with the Stage Five known as Taurus. Taurus is a strange Stage Five that acts with a group, and Aldebaran could be called its right-hand man. That's why it was given the code name Aldebaran, after the brightest star in the Taurus constellation."
"But Satomi, isn't Taurus…?"
The Seitenshi answered Kisara's unfinished question. "You're right. Of the eleven Zodiac Gastrea, three are confirmed to be destroyed. The first is the Scorpion that Satomi defeated; the second is Virgo, which was defeated by the current IP Rank 2 Initiator; and the last was the Taurus corps, once feared as invincible, which was destroyed by the strongest and number-one ranked Initiator in the world. But the most important thing is that Aldebaran is a Stage Four, not a Stage Five."
Kisara covered her mouth as she let out a gasp.
"Yes, Kisara: Other than the Zodiacs, all Gastrea are affected by the magnetic fields generated by the Monoliths, so they shouldn't be able to get past the Monoliths."
"But, Aldebaran retreated after hanging onto a Monolith, injecting Varanium corrosion fluid," Kisara muttered.
"Yes, that is the mystery."
Kisara was deep in thought.
"But…" Rentaro frowned and looked at the Seitenshi. "I don't know about that, but the ant incident was definitely a diversion."
"A diversion?" The Seitenshi's eyes were panicked, but after a moment turned to deep thought. "Satomi, that's unthinkable. Stage Ones cannot invade through the Monoliths; Gastrea that cannot enter cannot be used as a diversion."
"Lady Seitenshi, do you know about the self-sacrifice of ants? There is a type of ant in South America that plugs up holes in the nest once it gets dark. When they do that, there are always some worker ants left outside who work to plug the hole from the outside. By the next morning, all of those ants are dead. In other words, in order to protect the network of their nest, they carry out their duties as sacrificial pawns."
"You think the Model Ants that attacked the self-defense force facilities were acting as such?"
"That's the only explanation for it. Even if I allow that the Stage Four could possibly hang on to the Monolith, ultimately, there's no way that the Stage One would be able to invade."
Just by being carriers of the Gastrea virus, the Cursed Children started to feel sick and faint if they approached the Monoliths. Even if the self-defense force had not annihilated the Model Ants, they would have probably died from weakness from the effects of the magnetic field.
Rentaro continued. "In other words, they charged the Monolith in order to buy time for Aldebaran to grab onto the Monolith and inject Varanium corrosion fluid into it. They knew that they would die."
"That's a very…systematic way of acting. They're being led in a way that hasn't been seen before." The Seitenshi groaned as she thought aloud. After a while, she lifted her face. "Satomi, your theory is extremely useful. You truly are amazing. Even though many Gastrea experts have been putting their heads together to figure out why Model Ants would be piercing the Monoliths, you've figured it out in a second."
"That's because Satomi is kind of obsessed," noted Kisara.
"Ugh, don't say that…," Rentaro rebutted.
The Seitenshi looked at the slouching young man with a curious expression on her face. "Satomi, do you know a lot about insects?"
"Not just insects, but about animals in general. I mean, I liked Fabre's Souvenirs Entomologiques, and it kind of continued from there…"
"I see… You didn't have any friends, so the insects were your friends, right?"
"Why do people automatically assume I have no friends if I know about bugs?!" Rentaro saw the edge of the Seitenshi's lips twitch for a second, and he realized something: The mood was so dark she was distracting them with jokes.
"Lady Seitenshi, what do you want me to do?" Rentaro sighed.
She quietly lifted her tea to her mouth. The wind chime tinkled, and in that pause, the sound of the air conditioner echoed through the room. "I want you to form an adjuvant, Satomi."
"An adjuvant?" He saw Kisara's body stiffen next to him. Apparently, Kisara knew what that meant. "Kisara, what's that?" he asked her.
She looked at him with an expression of shock. "Wait, Satomi, you don't know what the adjuvant system is? Didn't you get a lecture on it when you were getting your civil officer license?"
"I don't know. I slept through most of the lectures."
"I can't believe you!" Kisara hid her face in her palm. "During emergency operations, the government can make use of civil officers by grouping them—like the self-defense force. An 'adjuvant' refers to a team system, with squads composed of civil officers."
"Team system? You mean you want me to form a fighting team?"
"That's right," the Seitenshi nodded. "An adjuvant fights under a commander, who is in charge of the team leaders. In other words, it is a completely different system from the one used during the Kagetane Hiruko terrorist incident. Currently, in order to organize large-scale squads of civil officers, we are reaching out to leading civil security agencies. I would like you to become a team leader, too, by gathering members to fight in the decisive battle against the Gastrea.
"Satomi, no matter how much we hurry, the production and transportation of the replacement Monolith will take nine days. I would like you and your squad to intercept all the Gastrea that will invade in the three days between when the Monolith is destroyed and when the replacement is put in place."
The Seitenshi folded her hands in her lap.
"I understand that you must be confused by the suddenness of it all. But please, Satomi, for the sake of the country, will you lend me your strength just this once?"
3
Things had gotten bad.
Rentaro hurried home, his hands in his pockets and eyes downcast. The moon shone in the sky, and the dazzling streetlights cast his shadows dancing across the paving stones, while cheerful jazz music leaked out of a store somewhere in the distance. Hearing it, Rentaro paused and turned his head.
The area around Happy Building—the building that Tendo Civil Security Agency was a tenant of—turned into a street full of bars at night. The night tribe of drunk men staggering with their neckties around their foreheads, thin dogs nosing about the trash, and people passing out flyers for their establishments became a thick crowd.
Normally, Rentaro wouldn't even pay attention to them, but tonight, he gazed upon them for quite some time. The scene was completely normal—it didn't look as if Tokyo Area was going to be annihilated in six days. He wondered if the Seitenshi tricked him; if he was just being made to play along with a bad joke.
But this was just an attempt on his part to embrace plausible deniability. He shook his head and rebuked himself. That straitlaced national leader would not lie about nor fabricate something of this level.
What a pain.
He glared in the direction of the faraway Monolith, but of course, it was too dark to see it. The ever-standing wall that had protected people for ten years…the strongest, most reliable wall, built from the knowledge of mankind: The Monolith. It was going to be destroyed. In six days, it would definitely be destroyed.
Rentaro realized that he was starting to feel on edge and turned onto the road that led home.
The fact that the Seitenshi came to see him directly probably meant that she had high hopes for him. It was a big improvement from the arrogant attitude she had held during the terrorist incident. Even so, he could not give the Seitenshi an immediate answer when she offered him the job. This job was just too dangerous.
Besides, how could civil officers who were all show-offs form a team and fight? If it weren't under these conditions, he would want to tell her not to be ridiculous. She shouldn't expect such a prideful group to work cooperatively. Even when her commander gave his order, the best they could probably do was fight separately, on their own.
And looking at the facts of the Monolith attack, the enemy Gastrea corps was undoubtedly a highly organized system. In a team battle, it didn't matter how specialized each individual was, as evidenced by many recent battles in history.
The tepid night wind blew from his chin to his neck, and the soles of his shoes hit the stone pavement rhythmically.
What should he tell Enju? With the Kagetane Hiruko terrorist attack and the Seitenshi assassination attempt still fresh in their minds, could he tell Enju to risk her life again? She was still a child, only ten years old.
Before he knew it, he was standing in front of their run-down apartment. Scratching his tired face, he climbed up the metal stairs that creaked with rust and turned the knob of the door.
Suddenly, he was accosted by two pointed blades pushed against his chest.
There were two magical girls standing in the doorway.
More precisely, there were two girls dressed in costumes from the Ako samurai magical girl cartoon, Tenchu Girls. Looking closely, Rentaro could see that the weapons were toys called Stick Blades, fake swords that had magic-wand handles.
"Are we really going to do it, Enju?" Tina, who was dressed as Tenchu Pink, said uncertainly.
Enju, dressed as Tenchu Red, puffed her chest. "What are you saying? This will make those things called 'men' yours in a second. All right, Tina. Let's do it just like we rehearsed."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter006.txt
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Black Bullet
With a quiet, "Ready, set, go—!" the two girls turned flirtatious and announced in unison, "We'll give your heart divine Tenchu punishment!"
Everything Rentaro had worried about today seemed foolish all at once. That was right—Tina was sleeping over today.
Rentaro put a floor cushion down next to the low table in the living room and sat down. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was past 7 p.m. He turned on the TV but was too concerned about the goings-on behind him to focus on it. In the kitchen, he saw the two girls excitedly swinging something shaped like a cotton swab.
"We will cook today so that you should quietly be waited on, Rentaro!" It had been some time since Enju had sat him down and said that, earlier in the evening.
It was not just because Rentaro's usual spot in the kitchen had been taken that he was unable to sit calmly. What is it with their clothes, anyway? At his seated eye level, Rentaro saw two pieces of cloth that were so short they could barely be called skirts fluttering on their hips.
Rentaro wasn't sure who the target audience for the anime that mixed and matched Ako samurai and magical girls was, but it was probably the generation of innocent girls, with the addition of adults with impure spirits that could not be called innocent by any means. Rentaro got that feeling from the flashes of underwear he glimpsed under the skirts of Tenchu Red and Tenchu Pink.
Rentaro put his hand in his chin, and before he knew it, he was staring at the cooking team. Tina's face, covered in flour, was full of energy, unlike the soundly sleeping countenance she had this morning. Thanks to the Owl Factor in her body, she was extremely nocturnal. Who would believe that out of the 240,000 civil officer pairs in the world, she ranked in the top hundred? That she was an assassin who could hit a target over a kilometer away and deliver the finishing blow?
In the midst of their hustling and bustling, a fragrant smell wafted toward him, and soon Enju and Tina returned to him with their hands under a large plate. Looking at the large dish placed on the table, Rentaro let out an involuntary sound of awe.
It was a gigantic pizza that was almost extralarge. The rich smell of bubbling cheese covering a bright red layer of pizza sauce made his stomach growl. The toppings were simple, with just salami and mushroom. There was nothing to criticize about it.
"Come, Rentaro. We made this with everything we have. Please eat it," said Tina.
Looking sideways at Tina, who was covered with flour from the dough, Rentaro brought a slice to his mouth. The full-bodied flavor of the slightly burnt parts of the cheese, along with the juices from the salami, seemed to mix with the dough to give it a crispy texture as the bite spread through his mouth.
Enju and Tina didn't blink as they stared sideways at Rentaro, giving a suggestive cough.
"Yup, it's good," he said.
"You think so?" Tina's eyes crinkled as she smiled.
Rentaro laughed teasingly as he gave Enju a sideways glance. "You get especially high points for not adding honey cake or steamed cheese bread into the crust."
The girl leaped to her feet. "I-I know not to add that now!"
"Enju, you want to feed that kind of food to Rentaro?" Tina sighed.
Rentaro turned to face Tina. "No, it's just that the girls around me have a knack for catastrophic cooking, so I had been about to give up on you, too, but this was delicious. But why did you make pizza?"
Tina put the palms of her hands together and smiled softly. "Pizza and Pepsi are traditional foods from my country, America." (Tina's words would have made an Italian very angry.)
"Hey, Tina, I have a favor to ask. Will you cook for Kisara like that, too? If I leave her alone, all she eats are frozen dinners from the convenience store."
"Then, next time, I'll make anchovy pizza."
"What? No, I mean, you can make other food."
"Then, I'll make carbonara pizza."
"I said, something else."
"Marinara pizza."
"Why is it all pizza?"
"I only know how to make pizza, you know."
"Seriously?"
Tina was a pizza machine. Rentaro sighed.
Tina Sprout. She was the criminal behind the Seitenshi assassination attempt, but she was also under probation thanks to that very same Seitenshi, so she was currently living as a freeloader with Kisara. It had only been about a month since the incident, but Enju had no problem treating her as a friend, and Kisara had no problem treating her like a little sister.
Rentaro could not suppress a wry smile, thinking of the irony of that fate. At one point, both Enju and Kisara had fought against Tina with their lives on the line. When he asked how they could change their minds so easily, they both said unanimously, "There's no need to bear a grudge after the fight," which honestly bewildered Rentaro.
Was that really how it was? He didn't understand it.
"Tina, by the way, those clothes…"
When Tina looked down at the Tenchu Pink clothes covered with frills, she looked awkwardly embarrassed. "Is it…cute…?" she asked.
"You know about Tenchu Girls?"
"Yes, Enju let me watch the whole first season the other day."
"How was it?"
"It was quintessential Japanimation."
"You think it's that good?"
Tina sidled up next to Rentaro and suddenly grabbed his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder. She was a soft weight, with her sleek platinum blond hair giving off the nice, light scent characteristic of girls. "I am grateful to you, Rentaro. I'm living a dreamlike life I definitely would not have been able to experience if I had remained with Professor Rand. I always wanted a big brother like you, you know." She paused for a moment and looked up at Rentaro through her lashes. "Can I call you 'Big Brother'?"
Rentaro's heart skipped and he looked away, scratching his cheek. With Kisara and Enju, the Tendo Civil Security Agency sure wasn't lacking in beautiful girls, he muttered to himself.
"You can't, Tina! You're not allowed to get a head start!" Enju stood hurriedly and squeezed between Rentaro and Tina, looking at Rentaro like she was about to bite. "You, too, Rentaro! You looked lovestruck and careless just now, even though you never look happy when I press my bosom against you!"
Rentaro scratched the back of his head. "You scrape against me like a washboard, and it hurts."
Enju stamped her feet in frustration then and there. "What?! I, too, will become one with elite breasts one day! So you should just endure it for now!"
What the heck are "elite breasts"…?
Just then, Tina erased the expression from her face and stood up quickly, looking at Enju. "Enju, I do not want to make a surprise attack, so I will tell you clearly right now: I am serious about Big Brother. I will not let you or President Tendo have him."
Enju looked like she had been stabbed in the back by a comrade in arms. "T-Tina…? B-but, you said we should work together to defeat the Great-Breasted Queen, Kisara, whom we faced…"
Tina shook her head slightly. "That's what I believed at first, too. It's true that President Tendo's resilient breasts are a threat. In terms of Gundam, she would be Big Zam. However, there is only one Big Brother. Even if we were able to steal him from President Tendo, after that, there would be a bloody battle between you and me. In that case, I would rather not have any allies from the start."
Enju widened her eyes in shock and earnestly gripped the fabric on her chest. The letters C.B. were written on a pin arranged there. "Then, what about the anti-boob organization we formed, Counter Breasts?"
Tina shook her head again. "Today, we will disband."
Tina tore off the C.B. pin on her chest and threw it to the ground, stepping on it with her heel.
"Whoaaaaaa! Wh-what are you doing, Tina? After we went through all the trouble to make it!" Enju fell at Tina's feet in tears and hugged the pin close.
Tina snickered coldly, gazing down at Enju. "Besides, look. I have a bigger chest than you do."
"T-Tina. You traitor! Homewrecker! Female panther! Female cat!" Enju screamed.
It was hard to believe that this was a conversation between two ten-year-old children. Rentaro sighed as he watched the political violence of the Counter Breasts as their internal rift started. In any case, Tina appeared to be getting along in the Tendo Civil Security Agency just fine.
The warm night air floated through the eight-tatami-mat room. It was filled with the medicinal smell of mosquito repellant, but outside the window, Rentaro could hear the reserved chirping of bell crickets and pine crickets.
It was past 10 p.m., and it had been a while since they turned off the lights. Rentaro's eyes were already used to the darkness. He was deep in thought as he lay in the middle futon between Enju and Tina, gazing at the complex wood grain in the ceiling.
As they ate, during the height of their feast, Rentaro tried explaining to the two of them about the collapse of the Monolith and the worst-case scenario of the Gastrea invasion after that. As expected, the two of them paled for a second, but then Enju retorted angrily, without a moment's delay: "We will fight as well! It'll be fine as long as we do something, right?"
"Enju, are you…okay with that…?" You might die, you know, he started to say. Enju and Tina had experienced battling against the Gastrea many times as civil officers. He did not think that they misread the threat that a faction of two thousand Gastrea would be.
"Big Brother," Tina said as she stepped forward. She had a stern look on her face. "The Initiator ranked ninety-eighth by the International Initiator Supervision Organization, Tina Sprout, once fought the one thousandth–ranked Rentaro Satomi and lost. She died once. The life I'm living now is without a doubt my second life. Please use it as you wish."
Rentaro was taken aback both by Tina looking up to him and by Enju's dignified eyes. Rebelling against death, or resigned to living—where did the core of their strength come from? Even he and Kisara, who were closer to being adults than the two of them, could not come to an immediate decision after hearing the Seitenshi's request.
Rentaro shook his head. "Very well. I will definitely tell Kisara of your determination."
He found Enju snoring on the futon to his right as his consciousness came back to him. The silence hurt his ears. The sound of the clock's second hand ticking away seemed louder than usual in his ears.
"Big Brother, are you awake?" He heard a voice that sounded like the buzz of a mosquito. It was Tina.
Rentaro tried to sound as calm as he could. "You can't sleep?"
"Yeah."
It wasn't surprising. With the nocturnal animal factor in her, this was when she would have been the most active.
"Will you talk to me for a little bit?" she asked.
"Yeah, sure."
"I thought it over, and I was thinking of taking sleeping pills at night to change my sleep cycle so I can wake up in the morning."
"You don't have to force yourself."
"No, I want to. Because I want to live in the same time as you, Enju, and President Tendo."
After hearing her say that, it would be unfair to stop her.
She continued. "I said so during dinner, as well, but I am grateful to you, Rentaro. The Tendo Civil Security Agency is warm and comfortable, and I want to stay here forever. I'm the happiest I have ever been in my life."
Tina's words were becoming more and more passionate. Rentaro hesitated, but he opened his mouth slowly. "Tina, there's just one thing I think I should tell you. This life will probably not continue for long."
"Is it about Aldebaran? Then, you don't have to worry."
"That's not it." Wind blew outside, and the window shook. Then the wind was completely gone, and there was the sound of leaves rustling against each other.
"Is it about…Enju's body's corrosion rate…?"
Rentaro looked sideways at the girl in question. She had kicked off her blanket and was sleeping with her underwear displayed for all to see. She made a small sound and turned a little. "There's that, too," he said.
"Is there something else, as well?"
Rentaro put both hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling. "That's right, Tina, this concerns you now, too. Tina, why do you think Kisara and I started the Tendo Civil Security Agency in the first place?"
Tina didn't seem to understand where the question was going, and he could almost see a question mark appear on top of her head. "To defeat Gastrea and protect the peace of the citizens, right?"
"In other words, you're saying it was in the spirit of justice? Unfortunately, that's not the case. We became civil officers purely for revenge. My arm, leg, and eye were eaten by Gastrea, and Kisara's parents were killed by them, too. That's why we started the agency: with hatred, and the desire to get revenge by annihilating all the Gastrea in the world. Like most of the rest of the Stolen Generation, I also hated the Cursed Children, so I really didn't want to partner up with an Initiator, and if that Initiator had done something strange, I would have shot and killed her on the spot. But the one who came was Enju, who had been betrayed by humans many times before, and she had even colder eyes than we did."
In the darkness, he could hear Tina holding her breath. She probably couldn't believe that the Tendo Civil Security Agency now was the same as the bloodthirsty Tendo Civil Security Agency back then. "You were able to reach the state you're in now just a year after that?" she asked.
"That's right. First, Enju and I changed. And then that spread to Kisara. But that's all it is."
Tina responded with silence, thinking in the darkness. "I would like to hear more about that. May I ask President Tendo about it, too?"
"No." Before he knew it, he had thrown off his covers and gotten close to Tina. Surprised, he put his hand to his mouth and shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry… But don't touch Kisara's past."
As he looked at Tina, who was tilting her head, he saw panic in her eyes. "Tina, what's the Kisara you know like?"
"She's…kind, of course, good at her job, broad-minded, and cool."
"Then you should definitely not talk to her about the past."
"Why not?"
"Because she'll turn into a different Kisara than the one you know."
"What?"
Rentaro exhaled slowly through his nose and closed his eyes. His sleepiness was mostly gone.
"Tina, the three of us each have our own goals. I want to know the truth about my parents' deaths, Enju Aihara is looking for her birth parents—and Kisara Tendo lives to kill the people who killed her family."
Tina trembled and pulled her blanket up to her shoulders. "No way… President Tendo is…"
"Tina, I'll tell you more later. As much as I remember about my parents. Why Enju's last name is Aihara. Kisara's regret. But go to sleep for today." Rentaro put his hand on top of Tina's head.
Tina was silent for a while, but then finally lifted her gaze. "Then, please let me use your arm as a pillow."
"What?!" He had no idea why that warranted a "Then."
Without Rentaro's consent, Tina crawled into his blankets. When he reluctantly offered his left arm as a pillow, Tina happily put her head on it and started sniffing his sleeve. Wondering what she was doing with a bitter smile, he let his gaze return to the ceiling. He wouldn't be able to fall asleep for a while, anyway. That's what he thought, but strangely, the warmth of a body next to him was comforting. His eyelids grew heavy, and he finally went under.
Light flickered behind his eyes. A gentle breeze, filled with the fresh scent of morning air, blew over the back of his neck and his shoulders. Something swayed in the wind, causing a fluttering sound. Opening his eyes slightly, Rentaro lifted his head. The wind came in from a crack in the window, which was blowing the curtains, which in turn was causing the light to flicker. But it looked like it would be a nice day, along with yesterday. Getting up and looking at the clock, he saw that it was 6 a.m.
Enju, a morning person, was already out of bed. When she noticed Rentaro, she raised a hand as she swung her pigtails. "Are you awake, Rentaro?! I'm making the morning coffee."
Just then, as if Enju's words had given a signal, the teapot whistled, and the TV announced that it was six o'clock with up-tempo music as a new program started. The morning became noisy all at once.
"Hey, Satomi? I'm coming in." Just as he heard the voice outside the door, there was the sound of the spare key being inserted roughly into the lock, and Kisara appeared in her black sailor school uniform, looking angry with a hand on her hip. "All right, I'll have you return Tina now."
Rentaro pleaded as he smoothed the stray hairs from his bedhead. "What do you mean, 'return'? It's not like I stole her."
"You might as well have. Yesterday, I was lonely sleeping by myself. Recently, I haven't been able to sleep without cuddling Tina. So return her immediately. Besides, I'm worried that you'll do something weird to her."
"I wouldn't do anything like that."
"By the way, where is Tina?" Enju asked.
At the question, Rentaro and Kisara looked around, but they saw no sign of the girl anywhere in the eight-tatami-mat room. Just then, something shifted in Rentaro's blankets near his groin. Rentaro looked up at the ceiling and prayed. No way, give me a break here.
But his prayer was in vain, and Tina crawled out from under his blankets, rubbing her eyes sleepily. The sweatpants she had been wearing had come off along with her underwear, and all she wore was the dress shirt he had lent her as pajamas.
Not noticing Enju and Kisara, who had been stunned speechless, Tina looked at Rentaro's face and tried earnestly to smile with her sleepy eyes. "Good morning, Big Brother. Last night was fun. You were so desperate, and there were scary parts, too, but I'm glad you taught me a lot of different things."
Kisara paled and looked at Rentaro, pulling out her cell phone with shaking hands. "I-I'm going to report you…to the police…"
"Wait! Wait a minute! I just talked to the night version of Tina! That's all!" Rentaro said.
"What do you mean, 'night version of Tina,' you perv! You're the worst! I can't believe you! Tina is only ten years old!"
Enju screamed, looking like she was about to cry. "Tina got ahead of me!"
Kisara pushed some buttons on her cell phone and yelled, "Oh, hello? Is this the police?"
Just as it seemed like Rentaro was about to start a life on the run, from behind them they heard someone say with a sigh, "The Cursed Children have finally started even this, huh?" and everyone stopped in their tracks.
Behind them was the TV that had been left on. But because his senses were honed to expect biased news about the Cursed Children based on what was regularly broadcast, it was almost animal instinct that told Rentaro the news would not be good.
Looking back fearfully, he saw on the TV that a reporter at the scene was talking with a commentator in the studio. The reporter held the mike with both hands and seemed to look right at Rentaro. The caption in the upper right corner of the screen said in harsh brush strokes, VIOLENT ACT BY ONE OF THE CURSED CHILDREN! ACTIVIST MURDERED!!!
The room froze, and Rentaro's temple pulsed with burning pain. Tensions had already mounted to the point where there was no doubt about who the perpetrator was.
According to the reporter, the Tokyo Area branch chief of a secret anti-Children organization with almost one hundred thousand members in Japan was found dead in a park a few kilometers north of his home in Tokyo Area District 2. The park was a gathering spot for young delinquents, so at first, it was thought to be their doing, but that was not the case. According to the eyewitness report, the man was attacked by a group of children who looked like they were from the Outer District, and in the heat of the fight, he hit his head on the handrail near the stairs. His skull was cracked, and he died at the hospital he was brought to due to a cerebral contusion. Before he died, he was also confirmed to have traumatic cuts.
The Pureblood Japan Association was a large organization said to have many politicians and influential people from different Areas. The chairman was subsequently reported as harshly denouncing the savagery and brutality of the case.
The female reporter was polite. She kept to the broadcast codes and continued speaking respectfully. However, the words she used dripped with contempt for the Cursed Children.
Rentaro shook his head softly. "Kisara!"
Kisara had turned pale with her eyes open wide and was hugging his body. "This is bad, Satomi… This will greatly change public opinion."
Kisara's misgivings soon turned to reality. The Seitenshi's measure that was going through the House of Councillors that would respect the basic human rights of the Cursed Children, the New Gastrea Law, was rejected. In its place, a newly prepared measure on "the reevaluation of the danger of transmission of the Gastrea virus from the Children to humans and countermeasures against it" was efficiently submitted and passed through the lower house of the Diet.
This measure was popularly known as the Family Register Revocation Law, and the moment this measure went into effect, Enju and the others had their family registration and citizenship taken away, losing all protection under the Japanese Constitution. It was an extremely cruel law.
4
"I see, then there aren't any particular problems there, huh? ……Yeah, I know. Sorry for the trouble. I owe you one…… Yeah, okay, I'm hanging up." Rentaro pushed the END CALL button and sighed, moving off the wall he was leaning on.
"All right!" he yelled, lifting his head and looking with gloomy eyes at the field the soccer and baseball clubs were sharing as they ran around cheerfully. Rentaro was in front of the sports field of Magata High School. There were only four days left until the Monolith would be destroyed. That news still had not been made public, and Tokyo Area maintained a temporary peace. But when that was made public, this peaceful scene…
Rentaro stuffed his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and walked out of the shadows of the school building. When he did, the scorching sun shone down on him, and he longed for the shade of the trees. He pulled at his uniform to send some cool air to his chest, but the sweat pouring out of him showed no sign of stopping. He couldn't believe they could do club activities under this blazing sun.
As he neared the statue in front of the school, he noticed a small crowd of people there and stopped in surprise for a moment, but as he got closer, he realized that it was nothing he needed to worry about.
"It's a foreigner!"
"Her hair's so smooth and pretty!"
"I want to touch it!"
"Her eyes are blue!"
"She's like a doll!"
When Rentaro forcibly slipped through the opening in the crowd with difficulty and got to the front, he saw an uncomfortable Tina standing in the middle of the curious stares.
"Oh, do you want some candy?" and then more slowly, "Do you eat candy?" A group of three girls nervously offered Tina wrapped candies, representing the group.
"I do not want any."
"She talked!" they exclaimed.
Of course she can talk. "Sorry I'm late," Rentaro said aloud, using a loud voice on purpose, waving his hand as he got closer.
"Big Brother!" Tina rushed over to him and hugged him around the waist with both arms.
"Big Brother?" the three girls exclaimed in unison. Looking at the little chorus, Rentaro thought he had seen them before somewhere and then suddenly realized that they were his classmates. He couldn't remember their names, though.
"Satomi, don't you keep another young girl at home, too? Did you get another one?"
"I don't keep her, she's a freeloader!"
"Hey, introduce me to this girl."
Everyone in the crowd around them seemed to be murmuring the same thing. Everyone wanted to meet Tina.
Rentaro sighed. He couldn't stay here. "Tina, let's go." Without waiting for a response, he pulled Tina's hand and ignored the cries of, "Hey, wait!" from the female students trying to stop them. He escaped with haste.
"They were interesting."
"Sorry I was late. How was school?"
"Today was fun, too." Tina looked shyly at Rentaro. "Did you call Mr. Matsuzaki?"
He glanced at Tina, who was walking next to him. Thinking there was no use hiding it, he nodded. "Yeah, I did."
A few days had passed since the news report, but rather than calming down, the situation had turned into an even bigger deal. The Stolen Generation finally had a target for their anger, and their actions were quick, and their grudges deep. There was criticism against the Seitenshi, a supporter of the Children, and demonstrations at the Seitenshi's palace. The news gathered fervor, and groups that had been dying down—like the anti-Children citizens group and ones even more extreme—instead increased their activities.
There were even groups that started interfering with the Outer District, which had been left alone by silent agreement before, so Rentaro could not just stand by quietly. And so, whenever he had a free moment, he would call Matsuzaki to ask about the conditions in the Outer District, because based on the report, it could directly affect the safety of Enju and Tina, who were going to school out there.
Rentaro and Tina went to Magata Station together, and Rentaro inserted coins into the ticket machine and bought two tickets. In the short time before the change and tickets were spit out, Rentaro glanced at Tina, who gazed at the train map as if everything she looked at was strange.
Tina had started addressing her nocturnal sleep cycle the day after sleeping over at Rentaro's house. Even though it was the middle of the day, she did not seem sleepy at all, so she must have achieved some success.
Rentaro asked himself if he should tell her. Earlier, when he saw Tina surrounded by a crowd of people at the statue in front of the school, his heart almost stopped for a moment with worry.
In the past, he had seen a similar sight. Back then, it was Enju who had been surrounded, and it was because she had been exposed as one of the Children with the Gastrea virus inside her and was about to be expelled from school.
Rentaro did not know how Initiators were treated in America, but he knew they were not worshipped as gods. Which meant that even Tina must understand that she needed to hide her red eyes. It wasn't something worth mentioning specifically, but because of the current situation, he couldn't help but feel anxious.
"Rentaro, what is the matter?" Before he knew it, Tina was looking up at him with a wondering look on her face.
"Oh, it's nothing," he said.
The train going into the city wasn't especially crowded or empty. Letting Tina have the seat he got, Rentaro grabbed the strap in front of it. His body swayed a little from the inertia of the train as the departure bell rang noisily. He allowed his body to move with the slight vibrations from the train tracks.
He raised his eyes casually, only to feel uncomfortable. A train ad with the caption VIOLENT ACT BY RED-EYES!!! ARE THESE GIRLS TURNING INTO GASTREA INSIDE TOWN LIMITS?! came into view. Rentaro quietly slipped his body sideways so that the ad would not enter Tina's line of sight. If only the world could become a place where he didn't have to do something like this, sooner rather than later…
"By the way, where are we going now?" Tina asked.
As they got off the train and walked into the throng of people in the city, Rentaro lifted his face from the GPS on his cell phone and looked at Tina next to him. "Didn't I tell you? We're going to invite some civil officers."
"Invite?"
"I think I told you about this before, but adjuvants fight in teams. That's why we need to gather people who will team up with us first." Rentaro felt around in his pocket and pulled out the slip of paper Kisara had given him. On it was a list of names and addresses, and the top fifteen had already been crossed out. This was the list of possible adjuvants that Rentaro and Kisara had put their knowledge together to come up with.
Rentaro glared at the sixteenth name on the list. "Right now, we're heading to a place called the Katagiri Civil Security Agency. I met them on the field once. They're a small agency like us, run by siblings. Can't say much about their personality, but they're definitely strong."
Tina gave him a dubious look in return. "You can't say much about their personality…?"
"Yeah, you know. They're kind of weird. But they're definitely strong."
"But why did you bring me?"
"Because otherwise I won't have a chance to show you around Tokyo Area."
Tina's look turned to one of surprise and she looked down shyly. "A date with Big Brother," she murmured passionately. Rentaro tried his best not to hear.
A lot of people were sitting at the edge of the bronze fountain in front of the station, and there were fresh leaves above them giving shade with their deep glossy color. There were sweet smells coming from the ice cream shop they passed, mixed with the fresh smell of summer coming from the watermelons near the entrance of the supermarket and the strong cinnamon scent from the fried bread store. They wafted over together and stimulated his nostrils.
Tina entwined both arms around Rentaro's and cheerfully passed the department store. For some reason, Tina looked so funny acting like a new wife with her chin stuck up in the air as she walked that Rentaro let out a small laugh. He was chided with an angry look.
He wished that this time would continue forever. He really wanted to enjoy the time he could spend with Tina. But a part of him knew in his heart that this was all an illusion. The incident with the Family Register Revocation Law the other day definitely woke up the feelings of hatred Tokyo Area citizens had for Gastrea. He needed to be ready for the kind gazes those around him had for Tina to turn into ice once it was revealed that Tina carried something in her body that a normal girl definitely would not have.
As they approached a five-road junction in the middle of the city, Rentaro suddenly heard singing and stopped. It was the characteristic soprano of a young girl, and a hymn at that. Turning his head toward the sound, he soon realized that it was coming from the wide pedestrian bridge above. He could have just ignored it and continued on, but for some reason, Rentaro was extremely curious about the voice and urged Tina up the stairs of the pedestrian bridge. There was a rush mat spread out near the middle of it, and the voice was coming from there. It seemed different from a street performance, somehow. As he got closer and realized what it was, Rentaro soon regretted coming.
The singer was a beggar girl clad in rags. Even though she had good features, they were stained, and the cape she wore was greasy, giving an overall shabby impression. The girl held out a beggar's bowl with both hands and sang at the people who were heading to the road. On a piece of scrap wood next to her were the words, "I am one of the Cursed Children from the Outer District. I need money to feed my little sister. Please give what you can." Standing in front of her, even though it was rude to say so of a girl, he could smell body odor.
Rentaro became worried that Tina would be shocked, but she was unexpectedly calm. She just looked on with solemn eyes. There were surely slums in her country, as well, so other countries must have been in a similar situation as Tokyo Area.
"Hey, you…," said Rentaro.
"Yes?" The girl stopped singing and smiled, lifting her face, and Rentaro thought something was strange. The girl's eyelids were still closed. He suspected that she was blind, but soon realized that wasn't it. The Cursed Children were protected from disease thanks to the Gastrea virus. "Hey, what happened to your eyes?"
"Oh." The girl gently rubbed around her two eyes. "They were mutilated by the lead that was poured into them."
Rentaro was speechless. Was this part of the beggar business? Where they try to make people feel sorry for them by having their eyes mutilated or doing something cruel to paralyze their arms or legs so that they could get money? Was that something that could be overlooked in this wide world?
The girl seemed to sense Rentaro's hesitation with her skin and shook her head gently. "This wasn't done to me by someone else. I did it to myself."
"Why…?"
"Because I couldn't think of another way to feed my little sister… And because the mother who abandoned us hated my red eyes."
Rentaro muttered inwardly, had a bitter taste in his mouth. Gastrea shock. The eyes that shone red and were the same in all Gastrea. During the war, there were people traumatized by fear from seeing them, and the red eyes became the trigger for attacks of convulsions or cramps or other symptoms. It became the most widespread disease of society after the Gastrea War.
In cases where one of the Cursed Children was born to a family where someone had Gastrea shock, the family circumstances usually ended in tragedy.
"How can you smile?" Tina asked the girl hesitatingly.
Rentaro wanted to know, too. The girl seemed to smile persistently in the face of unimaginable adversity. Although this was a word used very rarely for a girl of ten, she was like a saint.
The girl did not answer the question but quietly stretched her hands out to Tina. Tina was surprised at first, but once she realized the girl meant no harm, Tina let her do as she wished.
In place of her unseeing eyes, the girl's hands traced Tina's features, from her hair and face to her neck, collarbone, and shoulders, brushing over them, until finally the girl lifted her face slowly. "Are you one of the Cursed Children, too?"
Rentaro looked around him hurriedly in surprise. The people coming and going on the pedestrian bridge passed quickly with indifference, and there was no sign of anyone finding fault with what she said.
"How did you know…?" said Tina, dumbfounded.
Facing Tina, the girl's smile grew bigger. "You're pretty. I'll bet the boys can't leave you alone, right?"
Tina glanced for a second at Rentaro before saying, "That is not true," shaking her head dejectedly.
"You know, I can't live without depending on others, so I naturally learned to smile. Besides, I don't know what face to make other than this anymore." After the girl's face twisted in a bitter smile, she said, "But," and slouched her shoulders a little. "Recently, I have been hit more and have had dirty words yelled at me more often, which is a little painful. Did something happen?"
Just then, a passerby threw something metallic into her metal bowl. The girl smiled softly and quietly made a deep bow.
Rentaro looked at the pull tab of a canned drink that had been thrown into her bowl and felt disgusted. He glared at the snickering man wearing a double-breasted suit, but the man soon disappeared from view.
Rentaro slouched and looked at Tina. "Actually," he started, and he and Tina proceeded to tell the girl the circumstances of the murder of a civilian by Cursed Children.
"I see, something like that happened…" The girl nodded meekly.
"That's why you shouldn't beg in the Inner Districts until this settles down. Everyone's bloodthirsty, so it's dangerous for you to be here."
Then, the girl stammered for the first time. "But…"
Rentaro put his hands on the girl's shoulders and looked directly at her. "Promise me."
The girl squirmed indecisively but finally faced Rentaro and said, "Okay" loudly.
Rentaro exhaled through his nose. He could rest easy for now. Rentaro put his hand in his wallet and pulled out a bill, putting it in the girl's hand. "Is that enough?"
The girl took the bill and put it between her fingers. After rubbing it slowly, she lifted it to her nose and breathed in the smell deeply through her nostrils. "Wow, this much? Thank you!" As if to thank him, the girl crossed her hands in front of her chest and lifted her chin, then started singing low and quiet. When her voice eventually grew louder and went higher, the solemn and clear soprano pushed back the tumult of the city and spread gently through the air.
She was singing "Amazing Grace."
Rentaro quietly put his hands on Tina's shoulders to urge her on, leaving quietly so that the girl would not notice. After putting enough distance between them, Rentaro looked back a little, reluctantly.
The voice singing a blessing continued. But for some reason, it sounded a little sad.
5
Going through two more thoroughfares and into an alley, it seemed like they had arrived at another world; like the deep ocean where the light of the sun did not reach. The smell of perspiring grease, rust, and mold thriving in the humid twilight drifted through the narrow confines. When Rentaro pushed open the building's iron door, creaking and thick with rust, he entered, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with the GPS on his phone.
However, he realized too soon that his feeling was wrong. After climbing the stairs of the run-down building with no elevator, he was at his destination.
Even the sun, which was shining brightly when he left school, was now slanted, and threw orange light onto the ground. From somewhere off-site was the clang of heavy construction equipment, ringing hollowly through the building like the rumble of distant thunder.
Rentaro and Tina stood for a while before the door that was beyond worn out and practically at "dilapidated." The wall that was probably originally white was a completely different color, and there was graffiti on the lacquer in all directions.
"Is this really the place?" Tina asked in shock.
Rentaro, who could just barely make out the sign that said KATAGIRI CIVIL SECURITY AGENCY, responded with a "Probably."
From the information he got beforehand about how there were only two officers, Rentaro had predicted that it was not a large agency, but he had never imagined that he would find a civil security agency shabbier than his own employer in the entire universe.
There was no doorbell, so he knocked on the door, yelling "Hey!" a few times, but there was no response.
Just as he was about to go home, an energetic voice suddenly called out, "Oh, Rentaro Satomi the Pervert!"
Turning to look, Rentaro saw a blond girl appear at the stairs they had just climbed up. Suddenly, she leapt back and bared her teeth, starting to growl.
He knew this face. She was clad from head to toe in black pleather with a choker collar and engineer boots. Her dyed-blond hair was split in the middle and tied on each side. In the midst of all that punk fashion, the bright red backpack she carried looked extremely out of place. It looked like she had just gotten home from school.
"Little Sister Katagiri, huh?" he shot back.
"It's Yuzuki, Rentaro Satomi! Fuck you! Don't come near me, you letch! I'm gonna catch your pervy-ness!"
Oh yeah, this was what she was like, he recalled with a touch of irritation, but getting angry here would be just what she wanted, so he chanted quietly to himself, Calm down, calm down. "It's been a while, Little Sister Katagiri. Haven't seen you since the manhunt three months ago, huh?"
Yuzuki crossed her arms, feigning boredom. "Hmph, you were just a lowly low-ranking civil officer back then, but now you're the savior of Tokyo Area who defeated a Zodiac, huh? What do you want? Don't tell me you came to rub it in? If that's why you're here, then you can turn right around and go home, you letch."
"That's not why I'm here. I came because I have work for your brother."
"We don't need work from a perv!"
Rentaro looked at the decrepit hallway and office door and knocked on the wall. The vibration made a corner of the plaster fall off. "Wouldn't it be better to at least hear what I have to say?"
Yuzuki looked annoyed as she pulled out the key from the back of her choker and put it in the door, stealing a look at Rentaro as she opened the door. "Big Bro! You have a guest!"
Following the girl inside, he was first overwhelmed by the choking smell. All families had their own smell that permeated everything, but the Katagiri Civil Security Agency's was the smell of a cloth that had wiped up milk and was dried in the shade. Scattered around the reception area were empty containers of instant noodles and junk food. There were shed clothes scattered everywhere, a hanging plant dangling from the ceiling, and tall piles of comics. From floor to ceiling, it was so messy that it seemed like it was done on purpose to make visitors shrink back.
Just then, something moved a little. Rentaro looked to see a sleeping man sitting on a stool with his combat boots resting on the table.
"Yo, Bro! Wake up!" said Yuzuki, shaking him.
"What is it, my sweet?" said the man in a sleepy voice, pulling off the adult magazine covering his face and glancing at Rentaro. Then, he uttered "Whoa…" and put the magazine back on his face.
"Hey, you! What do you mean, 'Whoa…'?"
"Try to understand, boy. Right after I wake up, a guy with a face so unfortunate that I feel like I'll be cursed just by looking at it is standing right there. For a second, I thought the Grim Reaper had come for me." So saying, he grunted and jumped out of the chair.
Because of Rentaro's height, he had to look up at the man just a little. He wore black cargo pants, a field jacket, and amber sunglasses. He had dark blond hair like his little sister, but with earrings and half-finger gloves. With his muscular build, he gave off an overbearing air. The words I am an American printed on his jacket were in such bad taste that the American girl next to Rentaro was clearly annoyed.
Tamaki Katagiri. Even though he wore clothes that looked like they belonged to a thug, he was the president of the Katagiri Civil Security Agency.
Rentaro looked around the messy office with distaste. "Well, what can I say? Looks like you're doing well."
"Hmph, I don't need your sarcasm, boyo." Tamaki looked appraisingly at Rentaro and then flopped back into his president's chair. "It's been a while. What do you want?"
Rentaro scratched the back of his head. "Actually—"
"Shall I take a guess? The Monolith's motherfucking destruction is drawing near, so you have no choice but to form an adjuvant, so you're going around asking people to join you, but they've turned you down everywhere else, so you had no choice but to come here. Right?"
Rentaro had nothing to say in response. He had gotten it exactly right. Rentaro thought back on the fifteen crossed-out names on the list of possible adjuvants and almost let out a sigh. In the two days since he informed the Seitenshi that he would accept the job, he had gone around knocking on the doors of various civil security agencies to gather strong allies, but his progress could not be called satisfactory by any means.
Some got really angry, others had unpleasant expressions on their faces that looked like they had been insulted, he was turned away at the door of some, and there were even some others who just stole the advance and then ran away. He was at the end of his rope.
Tamaki crossed his arms and looked so triumphantly proud that Rentaro couldn't say anything in response. "Well, it's only natural. Upstart brats like you are hated by civil officers around Japan."
"Shut up," Rentaro said sulkily, but he had to agree with Tamaki on the inside.
Rentaro and Enju's IP Rank had been 123,452 just a few months ago. Among the civil officers, they were no better than the middle zone, who could neither hurt nor help. As a civil officer like that who had two consecutive and amazing successes, in short time he had risen to a rank of 300.
Because he had risen in social status by his own abilities, Rentaro had also accumulated a number of interested stakeholders. But this was natural to any era, and, similarly, had the effect that most of the other civil officers disliked him. On top of that, another factor that made him hated was the fact that he was a sixteen-year-old high school student. Obviously, there were not many high schoolers who were constantly risking their lives as civil officers. The average age of a Promoter was around twenty-eight. And generally speaking, Japanese culture valued years of experience over anything else, so from child to adult, those living beings called Japanese tended to stick to the outdated way of thinking that they did not want to take orders from someone younger than them.
With just the combination of his age and the increased stakeholders, it was more than enough to make all fifteen of the civil security agencies he had visited before this turn him down spectacularly.
Tamaki shifted in his seat, and the springs of his chair creaked. "Well, how much prey are we talking?"
Rentaro said, "It hasn't been put on the news yet, but there are two thousand. The head of the enemy is Aldebaran."
Yuzuki's eyes widened, and Tamaki raised his sunglasses and rubbed the corner of his eye. "The exit is that way. Hey, Yuzuki, the visitor's going home now."
"I'm not done talking yet!"
"Stupid, idiotic boy. That's called a suicide mission. It's like a praying mantis threating a horse carriage by raising its front legs. It's beyond pathetic. It's funny."
"If we don't do anything, then it's over for Tokyo Area. You two will die, too."
"That news hasn't been spread past the civil officers, right? If that's the case, then the smartest thing to do would be to get my hands on some plane tickets to escape Tokyo."
"Then you guys can laugh cheerfully from another Area with a beer in one hand as you watch the Tokyo Area citizens who didn't have time to run away get killed by the Gastrea."
Tamaki didn't say anything.
"If we had the assistance of civil officers like you two, we'd have the strength of a hundred men. Please lend me your strength, Katagiri."
Tamaki silently stood up from the chair and started to circle Rentaro menacingly. "The most important thing for us in deciding whether or not we take a job is if the returns outweigh the risks. That thing called Aldebaran is a monster of a Gastrea. The story of how it turned three cities into ruins with Taurus is famous. I don't know how many civil officers the government is planning on trying to scrape together, but there's obviously a slim chance that we'll make it back alive. What is the government prepared to give us for that?"
Rentaro hesitated. "A promotion in rank and reasonable pay, I suppose. Of course, we can give you a little, as well—"
"Motherfucker," Tamaki interrupted. "That's all I can say. I can only take it as an insult that they expect us to risk our lives for something like that."
"If you're not happy with that, I can talk it over with the Lady Seitenshi to see if she can raise the pay and rank promotion."
"You don't understand it at all, boyo. It's not about money."
"Then—" Rentaro lifted his face and looked straight at Tamaki. "What do you think about fighting for my sake?"
Tamaki looked taken aback for a second, then met Yuzuki's eyes. The next instant, the two of them started laughing, holding their stomachs. Tina couldn't help herself and stepped forward to get closer to them, but Rentaro kept her back with his hand.
"You say interesting things, brat. You've changed in the short time since I last saw you." Tamaki shrugged his shoulders. "There's one thing I forgot to say. I won't work under someone weaker than me."
"Then…," said Rentaro.
"Yeah, that's right." Tamaki stuck out a fist, baring his canines with a carnivore's smile. "If you can beat me, then I'll think about joining your adjuvant. If you're a man, then prove to us that you've got balls."
The battle was to be held at a public gym that they rented out near the Katagiri Civil Security Agency. Or rather, Tamaki marched in and said, "Scram! Kids should go home and play games!" to the good citizens who were exercising there, quickly chasing them away.
Gym No. 3, which Tamaki had obtained, was smaller than both Gym No. 1 and Gym No. 2, but it was still twenty meters long on each side and had a high ceiling. Spectators who were now gathered at the entrance clamored and shouted as they watched the takeover with interest. It wasn't every day that they got to watch a skirmish between civil officers.
Rentaro and Tina faced off against the Katagiri siblings, putting distance between them and looking at their equipment. The older brother, Tamaki, had a gauntlet wrapped with showy chains over his half-finger gloves, and at his hip was an automatic revolver, a Mateba Unica. Since they were in a public place, they probably wanted to avoid gunfire, but Rentaro and Tina would have to be careful of the gauntlet.
In contrast to that, taking a loose stance was the unarmed Yuzuki. If Rentaro's memory served him right, then the Gastrea factor inside her body was…"I'll tell you my name, Rentaro Satomi! With an IP Rank of 1,850, I'm the Model Spider Yuzuki Katagiri!"
That's right, she had the spider factor. Rentaro didn't have any pleasant memories with Model Spiders.
"And I'm Tamaki Katagiri, with the same IP Rank of 1,850."
Realizing that there were high-ranking civil officers in a public gym on the outskirts of town, the spectators gulped. Tamaki waved a practiced hand at the spectators before turning toward Rentaro and snorting. "Hey, kiddo. I thought your Initiator was a noisy little bunny girl? Are you planning on taking us on with an impromptu pair?"
"Yes, and we will win." It was Tina who spoke. She too slid into a calm, relaxed stance.
Rentaro looked at her without being able to laugh off Tamaki's ridicule. Tina was a long-distance type Initiator who specialized in night sniping. However, right now, Tina's hands did not carry a sniper rifle, and it was not a dark night where she could draw out her full potential, either.
Tina seemed to understand his concerns and smiled. "Do not worry, Big Brother. If we're going to do this, let us win." Tina stared ahead and continued. "Besides, I think this is a good opportunity. Because not only can we see their power, but I can also display my strength for you, too. I want you to know what I can do."
Tina lifted her forearms, and from her loose sleeves, three round, fist-size objects tumbled out. Right before the Bits touched the ground, they floated up gently, acting like living, conscious beings as they flew around Tina, tracing geometric patterns in the air.
Shenfield—It was the thought-drive interface used by the neurochip buried in her brain.
"Formation Delta, and maintain autonomous trajectory Foxtrot." Tina made a horizontal sweeping motion with her hands and the Bits started flying in triangles as they spread out and rotated above her head, which caused a stir among the spectators. Tina then pulled out a black glove from her pocket and put it on her right hand. Apparently, she only had one glove, and on her wrist, there were two small metal rings that shook at the edge of the glove.
Rentaro was curious about her equipment, but he didn't have time to ask her about it.
Tina looked at the Katagiri siblings. "I'll tell you my name. I am Model Owl, Tina Sprout. I have no rank because it was revoked. Please be gentle with me."
"H-hey, what're those weird things flying around you?" Tamaki asked.
"W-wait, what do you mean, your rank was revoked…?" Yuzuki asked fearfully. Rentaro understood her unease. She must have started to realize a little that Tina was no ordinary Initiator.
Having one's rank revoked was a pretty severe punishment among the many punishments a civil officer could receive. People who became civil officers in the first place were generally a bloodthirsty bunch, with many would-be yakuza and people who liked violence and fighting. Therefore, having a death or two in skirmishes between civil officers was no big deal. If their licenses were taken away every time something like that happened, there would soon be no civil officers to protect Tokyo Area; so unless they committed a serious crime like injuring a civilian, the current situation was that a certain level of violence was tolerated.
The demon, Kagetane Hiruko, and his partner, whom Rentaro had faced off against before, were truly atrocious psychotic killers. In the end, their licenses were taken away, and their rank was frozen, but to put it another way, it took killing as much as they did before civil officers received such a severe punishment.
Yuzuki was probably wondering what Tina did that made her receive the punishment to have her rank revoked. And it wasn't like Tina could say with all the spectators milling around that she was the one who attempted to assassinate the Seitenshi.
Tamaki and Yuzuki closed rank and stuck out their fists, their eyes sharply narrowed. Rentaro could understand the sudden seriousness.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter008.txt
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Black Bullet
They had changed their perception of Tina Sprout. The temperature of the air in the gymnasium dropped, and it was filled with intent to kill.
Rentaro crouched and took on the Tendo Martial Arts Indestructible Stance. It was one focused on defense, allowing the user to shift quickly to evade or counter. Rentaro continued looking forward as he spoke to Tina next to him. "Tina, let me tell you now—those guys won't be beaten easily. I've never fought against them before, but if we let our guard down, we'll probably be beaten in a second."
"I know. I will take the Initiator. Big Brother, please take the Promoter."
Feeling goose bumps, Rentaro got close to Tina, and they beckoned together, provoking the Katagiri siblings. Tina's and Yuzuki's eyes blazed bright red at the same time as they released their power.
"Let's dance, boy!" At Tamaki's words, the siblings charged them side by side. It was a straightforward attack without any underhandedness to reflect the character of the siblings—or so Rentaro thought. Suddenly, Yuzuki jumped on Tamaki's shoulder and leapt upward, flying high over Rentaro and Tina. Her trail sparkled with light.
What was that? Rentaro had no time to resolve the question in his mind as Yuzuki landed on the ground at his back. Realizing they were surrounded, Rentaro narrowed his eyes. "Tina!"
"Okay!" said Tina. In the midst of the confusion, Rentaro and Tina quickly stood back to back.
Yuzuki and Tamaki kept a fixed distance away as they started circling Rentaro and Tina. It was as if they were two sharks, tenaciously circling their prey, instilling fear as they waited to sink their jaws into them.
Rentaro and Tina also changed positions as they matched the slow movements of the Katagiri siblings. Through their shirts, he could feel the heat of Tina's body and the damp sweat on her back in response to the slowly mounting pressure. They would certainly be at a disadvantage in a long fight. An impromptu pair would start to unravel the minute they started feeling nervous.
In order to pick a fight with the brother, Rentaro dove forward and shortened the distance between them in an instant. It was a test: Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 8—
"Come on!" Tamaki swung an arm that was about as big as Rentaro's thigh and Rentaro matched his movement. "Homura Ka—!"
"Ahhh!"
The meeting of Rentaro's and Tamaki's fists sent shock waves across the entire gym. The heavy blow sent numbing tingles up Rentaro's artificial arm, and he shut one eye without thinking.
In Tamaki's style of killing, he definitely did not have the skillful technique Rentaro had. However, the difference in their physique and muscle strength was enough to be a deciding factor in their fight. In addition, the attack power of the knuckledusters hanging from Tamaki's fists was undervalued.
However, at this point, Rentaro was still misreading the threat of the Promoter named Tamaki Katagiri.
Rentaro then noticed Tamaki's knuckledusters and guiderail—or something that looked like the grooved chain of a bike—moving. Wait, were those even knuckledusters? Seeing the compact power unit on the back of his hand, Rentaro got chills down his spine. I see, that's a—
Tamaki grinned, and Rentaro hurriedly tried to pull his fist back, but it was too late. With a sudden explosive sound, the chain that looked like a knuckleduster started to rotate, and when their fists met, it shaved off part of Rentaro's fist.
"Arghhh!" Rentaro's brain registered the seething pain, and he stumbled forward. Looking at his right fist, he saw that the artificial skin had been completely shaved off, and the Super-Varanium inside was peeking through. Since he hadn't cut his pain nerves before the fight, a wave of injury so intense left his mind feeling spent. If he had used his real left fist, his hand would have been a terrible sight. Rentaro lifted his face and gritted his teeth as he looked at Tamaki. What Tamaki had on his hand was a grinder, a rotating file. No, there was a more precise name for it as a weapon—"A Varanium chain saw, huh…?"
"That's right! Took you long enough to notice, boyo." Both of Tamaki's fists buzzed like a nest of angry bees. "But you were hiding the hardware inside you from me, too. Now we're even."
Rentaro quietly hid his exposed Super-Varanium fist from the eyes of the spectators. Tamaki's fist could be swung in defense in addition to the obvious offensive attack. Even so, if Rentaro did not attack, the situation would just get worse. What should I do? What should I do?
"All right, I'm coming!!" Tamaki shouted.
With a terrible, rotating buzzing sound, the two fists rushed at him. Rentaro stepped backward and escaped three punches by a hair, only to have Tamaki's combat boots fly upward, kicking at him with the heel. As Rentaro blinked, he saw that there were chains wrapped closely in the pattern of Tamaki's boots, and Rentaro felt chills again. Jeez, you've gotta be kidding me—
Rentaro cut off the pain sensors at the same time the chain on the bottom of Tamaki's boots started making a violent sound. He immediately threw up his artificial right arm and left leg in defense. A second later, his artificial skin and his uniform were completely shaved off, and the sound of Varanium on Varanium rang metallically through the whole gymnasium.
Rentaro had been thrown back, but for some reason, he did not fall to the ground. Instead, he was suddenly caught by something soft and flexible behind his back. It felt like a boxing glove. He was shocked when he looked behind him. Wrapped around his back were sparkling threads of light.
It was spider silk.
In the back of his mind, an image of Yuzuki flying over him earlier with a thin trail of light behind her overlapped with what he saw. She probably had the ability to create a territory by putting up invisible strings in the spaces where she walked. Earlier, when they surrounded and encircled Rentaro and Tina, she had already completed her preparations.
At that, another suspicion raised its head: Why wasn't Tamaki accidentally caught by the invisible threads? As he thought this, the existence of Tamaki's amber sunglasses suddenly passed through the back of his mind. Perhaps there was some sort of special treatment applied to them—a treatment that would allow him to see the invisible threads…
Rentaro finally understood the way these siblings fought. As his sister created a territory to drive the prey into, Tamaki used his chain saw with its immense attack power to violently fell their opponents. It was a bad joke that a pair using such an elaborate strategy had not gotten any further than IP Rank 1,850.
At that moment, a dark shadow crossed Rentaro's body. It was Tamaki, swinging his fists with that horrifyingly metallic sound. Rentaro twisted his body desperately, but that made the threads around him stretch more, and the more he panicked, the worse his situation became.
He used all the tension in his body in one instant to crouch and evaded Tamaki's fist in the nick of time. A veering whir passed by his ear, and he shivered like a block of ice had been slipped down his back. Lifting his leg reflexively, he stopped the fist that came at him with the sole of his right shoe. The chain saw buzzed and sparked as it played the rubber, but Rentaro bore it, gritting his teeth.
Tamaki, certain that he would win, stepped back for a moment, twisted his body around and added a circular motion as he lifted his leg to plow a kick into Rentaro. Along the way, the chain started rotating with a roar. This was bad. "Die, ya bastardddd!"
Rentaro fired the cartridge in his leg. Bam! From his right leg, the cartridge shot out with the sound and force of an explosion. With the tremendous kickback, he was able to tear through the threads and ducked under Tamaki's kick; he braked with his left and darted directly behind Tamaki.
"Wha…?!" Tamaki exclaimed.
Rentaro wasted no time in hitting his calves with a hard blow. Tamaki couldn't bear it and let out a groan as he fell to his knees. Rentaro looked at him contemptuously and raised his right leg high, then held it for a moment directly above his head.
Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 4—
"Inzen Jokahanameishi!" Rentaro's heel fell with the speed of a guillotine and hit the back of Tamaki's head. There was a roar, and his face sank into the floor of the gym.
Feeling victorious, Rentaro exhaled, then calmed his breathing and his heart. The spectators were speechless. Rentaro came out of his stance, scratched the back of his head, and looked down at Tamaki.
Did I kill him? he wondered. Well, Tamaki was trying to kill me. He exhaled through his nose. Tamaki had yelled, "Die, ya bastardddd!" at the end, while obviously coming at Rentaro with the intent to kill, so it was legitimate self-defense, and there was a crowd to witness it.
Just as Rentaro thought he saw Tamaki's body twitch, Tamaki put both hands on the ground to push his face off the floor and drew near Rentaro with an expression of rage. "Bastard! You were seriously trying to kill me with that last hit, weren't you? If it hadn't been me, I woulda died, ya know!"
"What, you're alive?" drawled Rentaro.
"Is that bad?"
Even as he cracked jokes, Rentaro was astonished at Tamaki's combat abilities. He couldn't believe he was forced to use his cartridge in public.
Tamaki Katagiri—putting his low speech and strange actions aside, Rentaro definitely wanted him in his adjuvant.
"Hey, kid, the girls' fight looks like it'll be settled soon, too."
Following Tamaki's gaze, he saw that Tina and Yuzuki's match was also reaching its climax. Using the high-speed maneuvers characteristic of Initiators, Yuzuki tried to dazzle Tina as she flew, freely turning as she pleased. In contrast, Tina took the stance of an ancient martial arts master and closed her eyes, not moving a muscle. Not paying any attention to Yuzuki's feints, Tina precisely dodged only the real attacks that occasionally came.
Rentaro soon noticed the trick of how Tina evaded the attacks. Shenfield, which was spinning as it traced an equilateral triangle above her head, was busily responding to Yuzuki's high-speed maneuvers with its camera eye. Even with Yuzuki's speed, three Shenfields locked onto her at the same time made it impossible for her to lose them. Meanwhile, Tina could read Yuzuki's location coordinates that Shenfield was sending to her wirelessly, and so dodge her attacks with the least amount of movement necessary.
With that, it was like she had eyes in all directions. No wonder she was able to defeat the Initiator with specialized leg strength, Enju Aihara. It could be said that the godlike Initiator formerly ranked 98th was living up to her reputation.
"Huh, the fight's over," announced Tamaki, grinning mischievously with his arms crossed as he stood next to Rentaro.
"Tina's going to win, right?" Rentaro huffed.
"Idiot. Look at this."
Rentaro let out a cry as he looked at the amber world through the cracked sunglasses Tamaki handed him. A vast number of threads were hung throughout the girls' battlefield. Tina had been forced so far into the middle of the spider web that she barely had room to move. Yuzuki had not been flying around randomly. Every time she kicked the ground or jumped about on the wall, she was expanding her territory, definitely chasing Tina into a corner.
This was bad.
Yuzuki seemed to think the time was ripe and made an enormous leap into the air, sticking to the ceiling of the gymnasium that was probably twenty meters high. A spiderweb immediately formed at her feet, and, hanging upside down, she looked down at Tina and yelled, "Hey, you! You've realized what my ability is by now, right? Surrender. You have no chance of winning. Because if you just move your neck a little, you'll be caught in my net."
Looking at Tina holding her stance soundlessly with her eyes closed, Yuzuki revealed her annoyance for the first time. "I see… Then don't blame me if you get hurt." Yuzuki's voice turned cold, and she bent her knees, storing up as much spring as she could. She was filled with a thirst for blood.
Yuzuki kicked off the ceiling with an explosive sound that made the building tremble. A cannon fast–drop attack using the physical strength of an Initiator with the addition of the acceleration of gravity was heading straight for Tina.
Instantly, Tina opened a piercing eye and waved the black glove on her right hand. She stuck her left forefinger and middle finger into the metal rings on the glove on her right hand and pulled hard, and threads of some kind came out.
Piano strings? Rentaro wondered.
Tina used her teeth and fingers to form something like a cat's cradle with the piano strings that had been stored in her glove and met Yuzuki's attack. Yuzuki and Tina clashed, and the floor exploded. The spectators screamed as the ground shook with a tremor so severe it made even standing dangerous. Rentaro immediately covered his face, but pieces of the floor and shock waves hit his body, making him gasp for breath.
After the intense ringing in his ears stopped, he opened his eyes a little and saw a thick cloud of dust swirling around. Where was Tina? Where was Yuzuki? Rentaro wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and held his breath as he watched the center of the explosion attentively. Finally, the dust settled, and the two girls were revealed. Rentaro was left spellbound by the sight that was before him.
Tina was on the bottom, and her neck was held down by Yuzuki's hand, ready to strike. If Yuzuki pushed just a little more, she could probably break Tina's neck. However, the outcome of the match was determined by the almost cruel difference in their abilities.
Layers of piano strings were wrapped around that hand of Yuzuki's that pinned down Tina; she couldn't move even a single finger. In addition, the piano strings were wrapped around both her arms and legs, and even her neck, until she was caught in her own threads and hung like a marionette. It was hard to describe the strange sight of a girl who had the Spider Factor inside her caught in a web of string.
Tina had fixed the positions of the beginning and end of the string with her left hand and her teeth, and if she pulled the string with her teeth, then Yuzuki's head would likely fall off in a second. Yuzuki was frozen like a statue with both eyes open wide. No, she was not even allowed to close her eyes. Just a few millimeters in front of her eyeballs were Tina's fingers.
Tina made a "scissors" shape with her freed right hand and placed them right at Yuzuki's two eyeballs. Of course, if Tina pushed even a little with her fingers, there was no reason for Yuzuki's eyeballs to remain unharmed.
Not just Rentaro, but Tamaki and all the other spectators were spellbound. No one had considered that Tina would be able to win from behind, so their brains couldn't process what had happened from the time the ground exploded to when the match was decided.
Only Shenfield spun with joy at its master's victory, and eventually retreated under the hem of Tina's dress.
Tina slowly removed her fingers from in front of Yuzuki's eyes and released the strings. After watching them writhe on the ground like the cord of a vacuum cleaner as they rewound themselves, Tina finally stood up, removed the glove, and returned it to her pocket.
While considering this show of force, Rentaro thought back on the many techniques Tina Sprout had shown him. The piano strings in her glove were definitely a weapon used for assassinations. He had seen it in an old film before: The target enters a bathroom stall, and the assassin drops the string from the stall next to it, wraps it around the target's throat, and strangles the target using the basics of a shoulder throw. It was a cruel technique, but it was still more elegant than poking out someone's eyeballs.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter010.txt
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Black Bullet
Rentaro could not help but feel the depth and darkness of the gap that stretched between him and Tina. Tina was clearly made of something different from the others in the Tendo CSA. Too, she was not limited to just the Tendo Martial Arts that Rentaro and Kisara studied; she could be said to have trained her mind in the spirit of everything and anything that could be called martial arts. She was probably the most extreme example of the Shaolin Kung Fu teaching that said, "Justice is helpless without power, and power without justice is violence." Yet, no matter what part of martial arts one looked at, biting or poking out someone's eyes fell under the category of evil and abusive.
However, Tina the former assassin was probably never asked to do anything other than destroy a human body in the most efficient way possible. Just imagining how she wandered through the underground society where killing and betrayal ran rampant made Rentaro's chest hurt. Tina probably never knew what it felt like to have fun as a girl, or be happy.
Rentaro remembered again how Sumire Muroto had said, "Those with ranks under a hundred have sold their souls to the devil. It's no exaggeration to call them monsters." If I'm aiming to be in the top ranks, then I'll have to fight against guys like this, huh…? Thinking that, Rentaro's consciousness returned to the gym.
He looked on pityingly at Yuzuki's back as she lay on the ground with both hands on the floor, her confidence shattered, showing no sign of trying to stand up.
"Please stand up, Yuzuki." It was Tina.
Yuzuki looked for a while at Tina's outstretched hand but finally shook her head in self-derision. "You're strong, aren't you? Having someone like me in your adjuvant will only cause you problems."
This time, it was Tina's turn to smile as she shook her head. "That is not true. I was formerly ranked 98th. For you to have me cornered to that point is something I think you can be proud of. You were much stronger than I imagined, Yuzuki."
"Ni…ninety-eighth?!" Yuzuki's eyes were open so wide they looked like they would burst.
Looking at Yuzuki, Tina stretched out her hand again, stronger this time, and smiled prettily. "I ask you as well, Miss Yuzuki Katagiri: Please join Big Brother's adjuvant."
Yuzuki looked down for a moment but finally grasped Tina's hand firmly and stood up. Then, unexpectedly, Yuzuki was overcome with emotion and hugged Tina's head, all smiles. "I love you, Tina! You were superstrong and supercool! Marry me!"
Embarrassed and baffled, Tina flapped her arms. She probably wasn't used to someone expressing affection so straightforward and openly.
Next to Rentaro, Tamaki was watching the scene intently, dumbfounded. "Yuzuki can't make friends at school because she doesn't want anyone to see her eyes. But look at how happy she looks…"
Rentaro's mouth started to smile spontaneously. "Then, we pass?"
Tamaki returned to himself suddenly, then finally gave a big nod and stretched out his right hand. "Very admirable, Rentaro Satomi. We, the Katagiri Civil Security Agency, are at your service."
"I'm counting on you." Rentaro grasped Tamaki's hand and shook it hard. When their eyes met, they both smiled wryly, a little embarrassed. There was a clap, and when Rentaro turned his head to look, one of the spectators was clapping his hands for the brave fight of the civil officers. Another person followed suit, and then another, until even those who hated them and discriminated against them seemed to be worn down by the persistence of their fellows, and came to clap as well. The sound swelled until the applause seemed to wrap the gym in a never-ending thunder.
6
The hot sunlight faded and night fell, but thick, damp air still wrapped around them. They passed by the receptionist at the university hospital and walked down the halls that smelled of medicine. Wearily, Rentaro looked next to him. "Sorry, Tina, I'm sure you're tired, but just be patient for a little longer."
"It's fine. I'm just happy I can be with you, Big Brother." Tina looked down once before raising her face again. "I thought I needed to meet Dr. Muroto soon, anyway. I was nervous meeting her alone, so having you with me is reassuring."
"You know about Doc?"
"Yes, I heard about her from the Professor." "The Professor" was probably Tina's former Promoter, Ain Rand. Tina was originally paired with him. However, when she failed her mission, he readily abandoned her. Ever since then, there was no sign of Rand contacting Tina, but Rentaro wondered how Tina felt about that. Because of the subject matter, it was hard to find the right time to bring it up, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't curious.
"I have heard that she is no exception to the geniuses who are eccentric and hard to deal with," said Tina.
"It's nothing that simple, you know."
"Huh?"
Passing by the demon monuments meant to keep people away, they carefully made their way down the damp, moldy stairs, careful not to miss a step. Its ominous atmosphere, like that of a haunted house, made unease creep up on Tina until she clung to Rentaro's clothes. But before long, the sound of his shoes on the green ceramic floor tile echoed around the basement chamber. The uncertain light of the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling lit the room only dimly. Scattered all over a table was a collection of gory horror movies, and on the shelves were Gastrea fetuses in formaldehyde. Complicated numerical equations covered the blackboard on the far side. Rentaro could see morgue drawers on the walls to the left and right.
Looking around the messy expanse, Rentaro did not find Sumire. It was so quiet his ears strained, and the only sound was the slight hum of the incandescent lightbulb. And there was the peaceful smell of death, too. "Hey, Doc, where are you?" Rentaro called out.
There was a slick sound, and then a ghost wearing a white lab coat appeared from the darkness behind Tina, already bending over her.
"Eeeeeeek!" Tina's piercing screech sounded like that of a strange bird; she ran behind Rentaro's back with lightning speed.
"B-big Brother. Wh-wh…! Wh-wh…! What is that?!"
"That's Doc. But—" Rentaro followed Tina's pointed finger and folded his arms.
Sumire was lying on the tiles after being shaken off by Tina and stayed there, twitching on the ground, showing no sign of getting up. Eventually, the woman turned a feeble expression on Rentaro and said, her voice cracking, "Do you…have something to eat, Rentaro?"
"Food?" Rentaro echoed lightly. But then a lightbulb went off in his head, and he slapped Tina's back.
When they had left the Katagiri Civil Security Agency, Tina had already become fast friends with Yuzuki, and Yuzuki had given her a parting gift for it. Tina looked at Rentaro uncertainly, then took out the dried persimmons from the daypack on her back, fearfully walked forward and put them down, then hastily retreated.
Sumire snatched up the packet without looking at what was inside, then turned her back to them as she gulped it down greedily. Over the sound of the wrapper ripping, she complained, "What, dried persimmons?" and clicked her tongue without a trace of remorse.
Tina looked on in disbelief at Sumire, then shifted her gaze to Rentaro. "This is one of the greatest minds in the world?"
"Um……… Yeah, well." Rentaro found himself unable to reply immediately.
When Sumire finally returned to her senses, she stood with a shout, spreading her arms benevolently as she walked toward them. "Oh my, you saved me. My gratitude, Rentaro. I almost died."
"What happened?"
"Well, my stockpile of food ran out, and I was going to ask you to buy some more, but then I realized that I had lost my cell phone. It's a sad story."
"To collapse with hunger is something Kisara would do."
Sumire waved her hand in front of her face. "Please don't put me in the same group as that pauper. I have more money than I know what to do with. I just don't go outside."
"You come out of the basement for Enju's regular checkups."
"Oh yeah, that. I offer incense and prostrate myself, then sit in lotus position and meditate for twenty-four hours while reading the Koran before I can finally go outside for half a day."
Rentaro was utterly stunned and highly disgusted. "Do you really hate going outside that much?"
"Of course. Think about it carefully. Outside is a world that stinks with the smell of gaudy women's perfume mixed with the smell of old men's body odor. That's not something you can just endure. It makes me want to turn all the people other than myself into dust."
"Am I included in that?"
"Just looking at your unfortunate face makes me depressed, so I immediately want you to turn to dust and I pray for it every three hours, but my prayers aren't getting answered."
It was then that Sumire seemed to notice Tina and raised her eyebrows. She leaned over and put her face close to Tina's, only to stand up and gaze sadly at Rentaro. "Rentaro… You finally did it, huh? I'm going to tell you this at least—You'll be in the slammer for a long time."
"I didn't kidnap her!"
"And she's a blond little girl, huh? Have you been playing so many adult games that you've gone off the deep end?"
"That's you!"
Tina looked stiff as she took a step forward. "My name is Tina Sprout, Dr. Muroto. I have heard a lot about you from the Professor."
"Oh, so you're the one who was with Ain… What did that idiot say about me?"
Tina hesitated a little and stole a glance at Rentaro. "He called you the biggest pervert of all time."
"Hmph, the next time you see him, tell him this: Then you are the most stubborn person in the world."
"So you and Ain Rand didn't get along after all, Doc?" said Rentaro.
Sumire laughed and spread her arms. "Of course not. We're such good friends that the minute I see his face, it makes me want to spit on it."
It appeared to be an extremely dangerous relationship.
"Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, huh, Tina? I'm Sumire. I know it's sudden, but I love you. I want us to love each other in the dissecting room."
Tina looked at Rentaro, on the verge of tears. "Big Brother, what is wrong with this person?"
Rentaro shook his head. "Doc doesn't care if a corpse is male or female. She'll take anything."
"What?!"
Rentaro looked at Sumire exasperatedly. "Doc, someday, you'll turn into a murderer just to procure a corpse."
"Oh, I didn't think of that possibility. Thanks. What? I want to see your suffering face, so I'll do that to Enju or Kisara first." She laughed maniacally.
"When you say it, it doesn't sound like a joke, so stop it!"
"Why don't I wear a jacket made of human skin and dance around?"
"I'm telling you, that's scary! Are you really a doctor?"
"Of course. I've read the Hippocratic oath, too. 'First, I will abstain from fraud and corruption and abstain from doing harm to others. Second, even if asked and permissible, I will abstain from using medicine or conducting surgery to commit a crime.' See?"
Rentaro was silent.
"In the first place, if I wanted to make a quick buck, I could just do the opposite of what that says. In that sense, it is a valuable document."
Sumire stopped talking for a moment and smiled, looking at Tina. "By the way, Tina, has he teased you in a strange way? Like in a sexual way?"
Tina looked back angrily. "Big Brother would not do such a thing."
"Oh? What do you think you know about Rentaro here? He's groped young girls' bottoms in passing a hundred times. He's snuck into an elementary school and stolen stool and urine tests a thousand times. He's the level of pervert that the Vatican wonders if he's possessed by a demon, and they should either send an exorcist or worry over him every day.
"You should look in an English-Japanese dictionary. Next to the borrowed word tsunami is the word satomi. The definition should be 'an uncommonly advanced political deviant.' Speaking of grandmaster class perv, Satomi, he's kind of famous around the world, and it's said that for his supreme pervertedness, within thirty minutes of his death, he will be made into a saint as a real dynasty warrior of the yokozuna class."
Tina paled and looked at Rentaro, stepping backward and shaking her head softly. "I had no idea you were such an important person. I have been very rude to you up until now…"
Why was Tina being so polite now?
"Hey, wait a minute, Doc! Stop messing around!" Why are you so passionate about obliterating my standing in society?
Sumire seemed satisfied after thoroughly making a fool of Rentaro and guffawed loudly, going to the cupboard and starting to make coffee as usual. Over the sound of the electric mill grinding, she urged them to sit, proclaiming, "You guys sit over there somewhere."
Rentaro and Tina took a hard look at the equation that had overflowed from the board onto the wall as they sat down on the stools.
"Doc, what's this?" Rentaro asked.
"A Millennium Prize problem called the Twin Prime Conjecture. It seemed interesting, so I tried solving it. I sent it to the International Congress of Mathematicians. If it's correct, I'll get some pocket money from this, too."
"Really? I don't really get it, but it's pretty amazing."
"Not really." Just then, Sumire looked as if some realization had come to her and she glanced at Rentaro. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot—just yesterday or the day before, Shoma came to visit me."
Reflexively, Rentaro pushed his seat back with a screech and stood up. "He did?! Why? What's he doing these days, anyway?"
"Now, now, calm down. Here, have some coffee."
The scent of coffee from the heat-resistant table drew him reluctantly back down.
"He was actually looking for you, but after I said you weren't here, he left without hearing what I had to say. He still doesn't talk much—or listen to what people have to say. He hasn't changed."
"Shoma was…" Rentaro put his hand on his chin, thinking.
A reserved voice interrupted from next to him. "Big Brother, who is this Shoma person?"
"Hmm? Oh, that's right. There's no way you'd know. Tina, have you heard from Kisara about the Tendo techniques I use?"
"The Tendo Style, wasn't it? About how President Tendo is a master of its sword-drawing techniques, and that you have a shodan, the introductory level black belt ranking?"
Rentaro nodded once. "His name is Shoma Nagisawa. He's my senior, a disciple who made it to eighth dan in the Tendo Martial Arts, and the leading disciple of the Tendo Style. Honestly, it's kind of nostalgic…"
"Do you respect him?"
Rentaro looked at Tina, surprised. Putting his hand on his chin again, he put the pieces of his memory back together and tried putting it into words.
"I guess…you could call it that. He was so strong that I simply couldn't beat him. Sukekiyo Tendo had his eye on Shoma for an assistant instructor, but one day, Shoma just quit the dojo out of the blue without saying why. I was really sad. More like, I felt betrayed… Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it before, but I probably did respect him."
The conversation died with that, and in order to cover the silence, Rentaro sipped the strong, bitter coffee. What in the world did Shoma come looking for him for?
Tina looked apologetically at Sumire. "I have a favor to ask, Doctor."
"What is it?"
"In regards to the maintenance of Shenfield—"
Sumire seemed to understand everything with that, and waved her hand in front of her face, looking annoyed. "Well, if Ain could do it, there's no reason why I can't. I have to do maintenance on Rentaro's artificial arm, anyway. Adding one more person isn't a problem."
Tina gave a courteous bow, but she still seemed to have something to say. Sneaking a look at her profile, Rentaro tried his best to act calm as he said, "Tina, say everything you want to say. If you plan on staying at the Tendo Civil Security Agency from now on, then don't hide anything from us."
That seemed to do the trick, and Tina straightened and lifted her chin, looking at Rentaro and then Sumire one at a time. "I will have a pursuer coming after me soon."
The atmosphere in the basement lab tensed.
Sumire crossed her arms and sat back deep in her chair, which creaked. "Ain?"
"Yes, Doc," said Tina.
"But Tina, there doesn't seem to be any movement from that Rand guy at all," interjected Rentaro.
Tina shook her head. "I'm sure he's just in a hurry. The Professor probably never thought that I would not commit suicide but would surrender to the enemy instead… But after he finishes getting ready, it'll be a different story. The Professor likes loyalty and hates betrayal. Once the Professor hears that I am living peacefully in Tokyo Area, he will definitely come to eliminate me."
"Wait a minute. If Rand were to try to eliminate you, how would he do it?"
Tina was one of the Cursed Children and a mechanized soldier of the American version of the New Humanity Creation Project, known as NEXT—an Initiator with unlimited potential. Her skill was real, and even Rentaro had been brought to his knees by its pressure once. To readily think of coming after someone like this would make this Rand guy an idiot who acted without thinking of the consequences. Unless…
"What if there are other Initiators who were made into NEXT soldiers?"
"Are there?!" At this, even Sumire paled, but Tina just nodded gravely.
"As far as I know, there are five. They are all a generation after me. I am the first Hybrid the Professor created…"
"Hybrid?"
"An Initiator who is one of the Cursed Children but has the abilities of a mechanized soldier at the same time. The Professor used family records he got illegally to form contracts with all the girls. And all the girls have combat abilities at least as good as mine, if not better."
Tina paused then, looking Rentaro straight in the eye. "Rank 100, also known as 'Giga Hedgehog,' Ashley Springsteen. Rank 95, 'Meteorfall' Irene Spencer. Rank 88, 'Fer-de-Lance' Faye Kronmiller. Rank 70, 'Blood Creek' Louise Zelazny. And Rank 21, 'Pluto' Rita Salisbury. Among them, the leader, Rita, surpasses me in every way."
There was no way to listen to this without shivering. Ain Rand's passion in creating the ultimate warrior and his total insanity probably surpassed Sumire's.
"I'm sure you know this already, but Initiators and Promoters ranked in the top 100 get nicknames out of respect and awe. I was also known as 'Silent Killer' in the past," said Tina.
"'Silent…Killer'…," murmured Rentaro. If those girls were to band together and come at them, it was possible that Tokyo Area would sustain enough damage to be completely destroyed. And the leader had an IP Rank of 21… The current Rentaro didn't stand a chance against her.
Looking sideways at Tina, he suddenly felt a pang in his heart. Tina may have been friends with those five girls. Rentaro suspected as much, looking at her melancholy profile.
Sumire's eyes, which were half-covered by her bangs, narrowed sharply. "Tina, what are you thinking?"
"Shouldn't I leave the Tendo Civil Security Agency after all? If I stay, I will just cause trouble for everyone." Tina shook her head hard. "Tina Sprout died once already. I couldn't stand to cause trouble to those who allowed me to live a second life—President Tendo, Enju, and Big Brother."
After a brief moment, Rentaro's and Sumire's eyes met.
"Idiot," said Rentaro.
"You're not very smart, are you?" said Sumire at the same time.
"Huh?" Tina froze with her mouth open.
Going toward her, Rentaro put his hand on her head and tousled it hard. "Kisara, Enju, and I aren't so weak that you need to worry about us! You're just a kid. Don't hold back."
Sumire also pointed at Rentaro, grinning broadly.
"Tina, to give you a liberal translation of what Rentaro just said, it's 'You're an important part of my plan to create a harem of little girls, so I won't let you get away. Also little girls' sides are delicious, lick, lick,' so yeah, that's what he meant."
Tina gave Rentaro a pitying look. "Just what is the root of your attachment to ten-year-old girls?"
"Isn't it obvious that they're all lies Doc made up?!" Rentaro shouted.
Sumire held her stomach, laughing.
Rentaro glared at the woman. "Ah…damn it," he sighed, scratching his head vigorously. "Hey, Tina. I have one question. You don't hate the Tendo Civil Security Agency, do you?"
Tina shook her head so hard it looked like it would fall off.
"And it's not that you don't want to stay with us?"
She shook her head again.
Rentaro closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. "Then, there's no problem. Kisara and I will figure out the hard stuff, so you should just go do your homework or something."
Rentaro opened one eye to see how Tina was taking this. She still looked like she was about to object halfheartedly, squirming.
Rentaro put his hands on the girl's shoulders and enunciated each syllable clearly: "Don't worry. I will become stronger, too."
That seemed to do the trick. Tina smiled, looking a little embarrassed, and then nodded obediently. After a moment, she bowed deeply, too. "If you would be so kind. Thank you for taking care of me."
Rentaro exchanged a quick look with Sumire. It looked like they could relax for now. Jeez, she was a handful in a different way from Enju. Although that was part of what Rentaro loved about her.
Sumire spread her arms calmly. "Tina, sorry, but I need to talk about some grown-up stuff with Rentaro right now. Will you give us a minute?"
Seeing Tina's eyes waver uneasily, Rentaro gave her a small nod. "Can you get back to Kisara's place by yourself?" he asked her.
"I'll be fine," she replied. After exchanging a few more words, Tina bowed deeply once more at the door and then left the basement room without another look.
Rentaro watched her leave for a long time.
"She's a good kid," said Sumire.
"Yeah. Kisara took her in, and she has a good eye for people," said Rentaro.
Sumire put her elbows on the desk and her chin in her hands, grinning. "You're doing a good job of increasing the number of young girls around you."
She had to make it sound so bad.
Sumire tapped the top of the desk with her index finger. "How's it going, Rentaro, really? Do you feel any sexual charm from Enju or Tina?"
Rentaro said angrily, "Stop it. They're only ten."
"You're just saying that for appearance's sake." Sumire was looking at him without moving. Apparently, it was a serious question.
Rentaro shifted his gaze brusquely and scratched the back of his head. "They're cute. I do think that. And sometimes they'll do something that makes my heart skip. Is that good enough for you?"
"I'm glad you're being honest. By the way, Rentaro, do you know this fairy tale?"
Fairy tale?
Sumire recrossed her legs and tilted her head, staring at the ceiling with a faraway look in her eyes. "There once was a whale whose body was so big that he was alienated from his friends. After wandering around by himself for a while, he finally saw something he thought was another whale—a submarine—and fell in love."
"A submarine?"
"That's right. The submarine tried to chase the whale away, but the whale became completely attached to it and wouldn't leave. The whale earnestly tried various approaches on the submarine."
Rentaro didn't say anything.
"And then finally, during the war, an enemy destroyer ship was seen. When the submarine tried to submerge, the whale protected the submarine from a depth charge with his life and died. The whole surface of the ocean was dyed red with the whale's blood, but even so, the whale was happy that he could protect the one he loved."
Rentaro paused. "Doc, what are you trying to say?"
"Rentaro, whales and submarines are different things. When they come together, there can't be a happy ending."
"Enju is human. She's human, no different from you and me."
"I know what you're trying to say. But you should also understand that people who feel that way are in the minority. And maybe you shouldn't support it so much."
Rentaro shook his head slowly. "That's impossible, Doc. I can't think of a life without Enju and Tina anymore."
"But they will fall like leaves one day. Rentaro, don't chase after falling leaves. The lifespan of Cursed Children is bound by the shackles of the corrosion rate of their body, which they cannot be freed from."
Rentaro gritted his teeth and looked away from Sumire. "Doc, it's not that I'm running away. I will definitely talk to Enju about this. But please don't pursue it right now. It's not like I know how to bring it up with her, either."
"It's really the doctor's job to tell them, though…"
"Please don't. When she finds out, I will definitely be the one who told her."
Sumire shrugged her shoulders. "Well, if that's what you've decided, I won't interfere. By the way, did you know, Rentaro, that Cursed Children can breed with normal humans?"
"Theoretically speaking, right?"
"No, it's happened."
"What…do you mean?"
"Do you know about the custom of child marriage? There are actually a lot of countries where girls get married when they're still children."
"No, but the law……" One way or another, all civilized nations should have had some sort of law forbidding the marriage of girls until their bodies were matured.
"What are you going on about? In the Middle East, in countries where rape crimes are rampant, girls lose their virginity just by walking outside. And generally, in those countries, no one will take a girl who's damaged goods as a bride, so in order to prevent that from happening, parents will secretly marry their daughters off before they even understand what's going on around them. And the Guinness World Record for youngest person to give birth is five years old. It's not strange for one of the Cursed Children somewhere around the world to have already experienced giving birth."
"But wouldn't the Cursed Children fight back? No one would want that, right? To be married off to some weird guy before you know it?" Besides, the girls were part of the New Humanity, with powers that far surpassed those of regular humans. If they faced a situation they didn't want to be in, they should have the power to break out of it with their own hands.
Sumire recrossed her legs in her chair. "Rentaro, do you know how elephants are trained?"
"Elephants? No…"
"When the elephants are still young, their legs are wrapped with a strong chain with the other end of the chain fixed to a stake. The young elephant will cry and go wild, but it won't be able to break free. Eventually, that elephant gives up. And once it learns that it can't get away, it's all over. Even if it grows up to become an adult and gets stronger, if it has a thin hemp rope tied to its leg, it won't try to move one step from that place."
Rentaro suddenly looked at himself in the full-length mirror at one end of the basement room. A scary Rentaro, eyes narrowed, stared back at him. "Doc, what're you trying to say…?"
"Try changing elephant for Cursed Children. Unfortunately, the story you thought up of the Cursed Children fighting for their own freedom is like the pipe dream of a child who doesn't know the realities of the world yet. In countries where women already have low status, women are treated as trophies taken by victors of war, not as humans. Then, add the additional factor of Cursed Children to the list of things to be discriminated against. Those girls aren't human anymore. They're livestock. And even if they're raped while being cut up, they don't die easily. They're pretty fun toys for perverts to play with."
"Stop."
"No, I won't stop. I haven't said anything until now, but I hate people like you who don't face reality. Have you ever seen one of the Cursed Children cut up by blades and hung with a rope, rotting, with flies swarming around her at eight years old? How about the heroic expression twisted by agony of a six-year-old who had ruptured organs after being forced into sexual relations with a piglike man? There's still more—"
Suddenly, the shrill sound of something shattering to pieces echoed around the basement room. There was a dull pain in Rentaro's hand, and when he looked at it, he slowly realized that his left hand had moved on its own and broken the mirror he was looking at. Fragments were piercing his fist, and lines of blood dripped onto the tile that covered the ground.
"Stop! It's making me sick!" he shouted.
"Rentaro, it's not like you believe that the Children outside of Tokyo Area are living heavenly lives, right? Thinking that you can solve all their problems is arrogant. Even the strong acts of discrimination against the Children in Tokyo Area are happening because they're supposed to happen. Everything has a reason and a consequence."
Rentaro finally understood where Sumire was going with her charade. "Are you saying that foreign Initiators have it much worse, so it can't be helped if Enju and Tina get dirty words thrown at them or are stepped on?"
"If you take the argument to the extreme, that's exactly it. Since it's you, you're probably worrying about useless things and thinking about something stupid."
"Let me say this, Doc. I hate people like you, who act so cold."
"You are powerless, Rentaro. If you really want to change the world, then you shouldn't have left the Tendo family, which controls the politics and economics of this country from behind the scenes."
"I…" Was he wrong? The next words wouldn't come out, and his breathing was quick and shallow. He shook his head once and closed his eyes, forcing his heart and breathing to calm, searching for Sumire's meaning.
"Then, I will drive off the Gastrea from this world as a civil officer in the place of those politicians," he said finally. "There's no way there's only one way to change the world, right? Tokyo Area is small. Without the civil officer guards, aircraft can't fly, and because of the dangers of marine Gastrea, we can't really swim in the ocean, either. I want to give Enju the freedom to look around at a wide world. Doc, I will reform the world for Enju's sake. That's why I'll defeat them. Even all of the Stage Five Gastrea."
Sumire was frozen, her mouth slightly open. But in a moment she looked up at the ceiling, slapped her forehead, and burst out laughing. "I see, so that's how you took it. 'All the Stage Five,' huh? Well, I've lost. Leaving aside whether or not you can do it, that was well said, Rentaro." Her laughing suddenly cut off and she sat back down in her chair, eyeing him with a smile on her face. "You're different from me after all. You're so bright, it's blinding."
"That's not true. Doc, you're—"
Sumire shook her head gently. "No, I'm no good. Once humans think they know something well, they start looking at only the useless stuff. I'm more suited to this dark basement, after all. I can't walk under the light of the sun."
Rentaro didn't speak.
"Rentaro, do you know what the most beautiful thing in the universe is?"
"No… What is it?"
"From the Buddhist worldview, it's said to be the flower of the sacred ren lotus. In other words, it's you. Rentaro. Your soul is beautiful."
Rentaro felt a knot in his chest and looked at Sumire, at a loss for words. Coming from Sumire's roundabout personality, this could be said to be the greatest praise.
"Doc……"
Sumire stood and spread both arms. "As you are right now, it's probably okay if I showed you that."
There it is, he thought, and braced himself. In the first place, Rentaro did not come to Sumire's lab today to watch Tina and the doctor meet each other.
With last month's Seitenshi assassination case, he had defeated the sniper who had an ingenious plan and saved the Seitenshi. For his services, Rentaro had been promoted to IP Rank 300, and he had risen to a Level 5 top secret–information access key. He was far from the Level 12 access key that was given to those within the top ten IP Ranks, but even so, there might be details about his parents or the Gastrea War that he could find out with his newly opened levels of access, so he had entrusted his access key to Sumire and had her look into the details for him.
He guessed from Sumire's sharp words until now that she was trying to prepare him for what she was about to show him; she always did things in such a roundabout way. Before he knew it, the palms of his hands started sweating, and he wiped them on the cuffs of his pants. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.
Sumire pulled out a disc from the top of her desk and inserted it into her laptop. Pointing a remote control at the wall, she pushed a button and a screen Rentaro had seen before slid down, connecting wirelessly to the projector. It was probably what Sumire used for her hobby of watching movies. Sumire started to do something with her back turned toward him, and then snuck a glance at him and laughed with meaning. "I hesitate in uploading this information to the cloud. It's that kind of information. There's pretty shocking stuff in there, too."
Rentaro held his breath and waited for Sumire to finish what she was doing.
"First, this."
Suddenly, a picture was brought up on the screen. The large image was covered with small writing, and Rentaro squinted as he leaned over. It looked like it went back twenty years, counting back from the current year of 2031.
Rentaro read over it and scowled. The items from the year 2021, when the Gastrea War broke out, until the end of the war were mostly blacked out. Taking the mouse from Sumire, Rentaro clicked on the blacked-out parts and got an error sound accompanied by the message "Access Key Level Too Low."
"Have you noticed, Rentaro?"
"Yeah…" Rentaro nodded as he glared at the chart. The chronological tables of recent history everyone, including Rentaro, studied at school did not have these black lines in them. This was because the items themselves were completely erased from public view.
In the history textbook used at Rentaro's school, Magata High School, there were surprisingly few pages that touched on the Gastrea War. He had heard that the documents relating to it had been lost in the fires during a period of confusion during the war, and many of the data centers that housed servers had been destroyed, so there were no accurate records left. That was the reasoning given, anyway.
When he had first heard that, he had nodded in agreement. That was because ten years ago, in 2021, the world population, which was in a glorious spring and had grown to almost eight billion people, was slaughtered until less than ten percent were left.
However—
Rentaro glared at the blacked-out chronology once more and tapped his foot in irritation. The message "Access Key Level Too Low" meant that as long as he had the right access key, he could open the censored parts and see the truth. In other words, the public reason given by the government that documents had been destroyed during the Gastrea War was a flat-out lie. But why was the government hiding the details of the War? Or…what was under those black lines that was so bad it had to be hidden?
"Rentaro, look at this." Sumire approached the screen, extending a pointer and indicating one side of the display.
When Rentaro looked closely and double-clicked the words to enlarge them, parts of the words that had been blacked out were revealed and turned red. Apparently, this was the information that could be revealed with a Level 5 access key.
He skimmed it and saw that most of it was the war history. There was the Gastrea Legion's fight against the self-defense force in the Kanto Battle and the Second Kanto Battle, and the recent Fox-Hunting incident where Tokyo Area almost broke out in a Pandemic. There was also what was declared the most beautiful destruction in the world where poisonous butterfly scales caused group hallucinations in the Morphe Butterfly Incident, and the Kagetane Hiruko Terrorist Incident, which of course was hard for Rentaro to forget. All these names were still too fresh in his memory to be called nostalgic.
Jumping to the items on military affairs, the Stairway to Heaven Project and the New Humanity Creation Project—which were thought of by the general public as an urban legend—were both evidenced here as truly extant. Rentaro tried going to the detail screen of the New Humanity Creation Project, but there was nothing more than what Rentaro already knew written there. That was only to be expected, Rentaro thought, crossing his arms. If he wanted to know more about the New Humanity Creation Project, instead of fishing for information in documents, it would be faster to just ask the head of the Japan branch of the project, who was standing in front of him. He would get more details, too.
Rentaro input all the information into his brain at once and fell into a slightly excited state. He felt his pulse quicken.
"Rentaro, the problem is this." The words were so small that if Sumire had not used the pointer, he would have almost missed reading them. There it was.
It was as if his spine was struck by lightning, and his eyes opened wide.
"On a certain day, in a certain month, in the year 2021, Seven Stars Village was annihilated."
Rentaro's body felt numb, and he couldn't move an inch. His throat was dry. "Doc…is Seven Stars Village…?"
Sumire nodded gravely. Rentaro and Sumire both knew the name Seven Stars.
The Inheritance of the Seven Stars—It was hard to forget the key item of the Kagetane Hiruko Terrorist Incident that had rocked Rentaro's fate. Rentaro had chased down the mastermind, Kikunojo Tendo, but not even he could figure out why the mysterious item was a catalyst that could call out the Zodiac Gastrea Scorpion.
The duralumin case the Inheritance of the Seven Stars was in contained a broken tricycle…
His instincts screamed to not get involved with this case. Rentaro was sure that once he knew the truth, he wouldn't be able to run away and would be screaming until the end of the world. That almost certain premonition ran through the back of his head.
"Strangely, this is the only account of Seven Stars Village. Looking around on maps online, Seven Stars Village had been erased from all of them. It was hard to find this, you know." Saying that, she threw a thick book of maps on the desk in front of Rentaro. It was dirty and faded from the sun and ragged with tears, but Rentaro could just barely make out the words Atlas of Japan 2020. This was a map of Japan from before the Gastrea War.
Rentaro turned the pages with shaking hands. Sumire had marked it with a tab, so he didn't have to go through the trouble of looking for the exact spot.
It looked like Seven Stars Village was in the northern part of Old Nagano prefecture. It was somewhat near the boundary with Old Toyama prefecture, at the foot of the three-thousand-meter mountains that made up the Hida mountain range. Of course, not just Seven Stars Village, but all of Nagano prefecture had turned into Unexplored Territory long ago, so it was not possible to approach it sans preparation.
Anyway, Rentaro carved the location of Seven Stars Village deep into his heart.
"There's one more thing. This one is a video. I acquired this in a remarkable way." Sumire raised her head as she operated the laptop. "A government worker uploaded it by accident. Whoever it was noticed right away and deleted it, but it was still cached. The file was corrupted, but I used some software to restore it. Thanks to that, the video is rough. Normally, you would need a Level 10 access key to see this data."
"Level 10?" If he remembered correctly, Level 10 was for those with an IP Rank in the top thirty. Rentaro now could barely dream of having an IP Rank of 30.
Sumire's unusually serious eyes were staring at Rentaro. "This is the really bad one. Proceed with caution. This is the Ardi File."
Ardi File?
Just as he opened his mouth to ask, Sumire double-clicked the mouse. Suddenly, the screen turned black, and there was sound like the breathing of a monster. The sound and video skipped and there was a loud noise artifact that repeated from the bad video quality, making the strange breathing seem even more eerie. He knew it was impossible, but Rentaro even felt like there was a nasty smell coming from the video.
It looked like it was recorded on something of handycam size, and the photographer was trembling terribly.
Rentaro licked his upper lip nervously and couldn't decide if he wanted to stare at the screen so he wouldn't miss a single word, or run away desperately out of the basement room the second he was given permission to. However, the video that was filled with noise suddenly became clear.
As soon as that happened, Rentaro's whole body stiffened.
Some thing had been put on top of an operating table and was looking at him with its enlarged right eye. Its whole body was covered in bandages, and if it didn't just barely retain a human shape, then Rentaro would not have been able to identify what it was.
Its left shoulder was gigantic, and its left arm was shriveled awkwardly as if the shoulder had stolen all its nutrients. There was a third leg at the crotch by its right thigh, and its sternum was enlarged. Even worse was its face. Only its completely red right eye was swollen, suppressing its left eye and nose and other organs, and drool dangled from its uneven yellow teeth, making a large stain on the sheets of the operating table. There were a large number of tubes going through its arms, legs, eyes, genitals, and everything, and the wiring on the operating table looked like a bundle of spaghetti.
Rentaro's knees felt weak, and he put his hands on the table at once to stop himself from falling over, but when he put his hands on the table, glass test tubes were pushed off and fell to the ground, breaking one by one.
"Rentaro, are you all right?" Sumire approached him uneasily, giving gentle commands with her hands.
The back of his right eye throbbed with pain. He bore it and forced himself to look. Seeing the bulge of the chest, and not seeing the bulge of the male genitalia, Rentaro discovered that it was female.
He hadn't noticed the words DEVIL VIRUS coming onto the screen. The monster was panting and staring at the person behind the camera with its red eye. The person behind the camera took a long shot of the monster from the front, as if it was their job, and then without warning, it was cut off.
It hadn't even been a whole minute, had it? But to Rentaro, it had seemed like an eternity. Rentaro desperately rubbed his upper arms and just then became aware that he was holding back a feeling of nausea. "Doc, what was that…?"
Sumire shook her head silently. "I don't know, either. But since it's called Ardi File, that's probably the Ardi."
"Ardi……?"
Because the beast's whole body was wrapped in bandages, he couldn't see the color of its skin, let alone whether or not it was human. The only things on the screen were the operating table and the machines around it. Because of the bright white light shining down from something that looked like a halogen light, he had assumed it was an operating table, but he had immediately lost confidence in his abilities of perception given his reaction after.
"Ardi was likely a code name. Probably taken from Ardipithecus ramidus. Rentaro, have you ever heard of how our ancestors came from Africa?"
"No……," Rentaro said. "By 'we,' do you mean the Japanese people?"
"No, not only Japanese people, but Americans and other Asians and Europeans, too. Ten years ago, the world was about to reach a population of eight billion, and it was said that mankind had branched out from a single woman born in Africa. This was seen in mitochondria, but it is only passed down through the female family line."
"Only female… Does that have anything to do with why the Cursed Children are all female?"
"I don't know. But the African woman who was the origin of the mitochondria was given the name Mitochondria Eve, based on the Bible. And getting back to the point, currently, the oldest fossil of mankind ever excavated is a 4.1-million-year-old ramidus ape-man, in other words, Ardi. Ardi does not equal Mitochondria Eve, but Ardi and Mitochondria Eve have both been called 'mankind's first woman' before. But anyway, neither is scientifically the oldest."
"'Mankind's first woman'…? Then, Doc, what was that?!" Rentaro pressed Sumire for an answer.
Sumire nodded. "That person's eyes were red. That was probably the first ever infected, mankind's first Gastrea."
The strength left Rentaro's entire body, and before he knew it, he had slouched down onto the stool. There was a mountain of things he shouldn't have thought about. However, there was something he just had to ask Sumire before he forgot about it. "Doc, you saw the words Devil Virus on the bottom right, didn't you? That's the Gastrea virus, right?"
"Well, that makes sense if you think about it."
"But why is it called the Devil's Virus?"
This time, it was Sumire's turn to tilt her head in question. "Probably because it acted like a devil?"
"Then, wouldn't demon or Satan work, too? No, wait. That's not right…" Rentaro put a hand to his chin as he gathered the questions lurking in his mind. "Why didn't they tell the world about it as Devil Virus? How did we come to call it the Gastrea virus?"
Sumire didn't seem to quite understand his question. "Does there need to be a reason? I think it's common for names to change when they go into widespread use among the population." She didn't seem to have any doubts about the phrase Devil Virus.
The more Rentaro thought about it, the less he understood. What was happening? Why did something like this—
Rentaro's cell phone buzzed. The name on the screen read Kisara.
"Satomi, did you see the news?" Her voice, however tense it was, still made a part of him feel unconsciously relieved; it blew away the otherworldly atmosphere that had wrapped itself around him. He felt like it had pulled him out of hell.
However, that was short-lived. "Satomi, it's started," she continued. "The Monolith's bleaching has been spotted! It looks like it can't be hidden any longer."
Rentaro kept the phone on his ear and said in a low voice, "Doc, turn on the TV."
Sumire quickly operated a nearby device and soon the picture from the TV was projected onto the large screen. There was no need to change the channel; all the stations were probably broadcasting the same breaking news.
The video was aerial footage from a news helicopter. The rotors were noisy, and the female reporter's voice sounded far away, but there was no doubt about what she was trying to say.
From the close-up of Monolith 32, they could see what looked like stains of white mold all over the Monolith. The corrosion fluid injected by Gastrea Aldebaran had finally eaten away at the enormous barrier, enough so that it could be seen from afar.
The video changed again, this time to show recorded footage. Rentaro groaned involuntarily. A helicopter flying above the Unexplored Territory was recording the mass of Gastrea that had gathered in the dense forest. The black mountain of them that could be seen from between the trees were of varying shapes and sizes. Of course, they weren't limited to land-dwelling units. Bird and insect aerial units that could fly could also be seen. It looked like there were already close to a thousand of them. Perhaps in response to the approaching news helicopter, the Gastrea on the ground looked up, and they roared together in a bone-chilling wail filled with resentment and hatred.
Then, suddenly, the recorded footage was interrupted, and it went back to the live broadcast. Abruptly, on the top half of the screen, an IN MEMORIAM reel came on with headshots and names. Apparently, the news crew that went to film the concentration of Gastrea had been unable to return.
"The people of Tokyo Area are in a state of panic. Everyone is waiting for the government to act as soon as possible." Even though it hadn't even begun yet, the captions on screen were already calling it the Third Kanto Battle.
Sumire hadn't known what was going on, and she was frozen with her eyes wide.
Even after turning off the TV, the image of the gathering of Gastrea facing the sky and howling remained burned into Rentaro's brain. Why are you coming for us? Do you really hate mankind that much? Rentaro slowly let out the breath he had been holding.
There were four days left until the Monolith collapsed. He needed to gather his force as soon as possible.
7
"Rentaro, is this good?" With a hammer in one hand, Enju leaned over and waved at him, all smiles.
"A little deeper, please," said Rentaro.
"Got it!" With dangerous enthusiasm, Enju hammered the pegs that fixed the four corners of the structure they were building.
As Rentaro watched Enju nervously, he took two poles, put them through canvas sleeves, and crossed them. Once Enju saw he was ready, their eyes met, and they pulled it up together with a shout.
There was a loud flap, and then the two-person tent was standing over the thin undergrowth.
"Oh, it's up, it's up! That's brilliant, Rentaro!" Enju hopped around, making her pigtails bounce.
Rentaro looked at the sun shining down on them from the middle of the sky and wiped the sweat on his brow, then shifted his gaze to the tent with a grim expression on his face. The tent they had just put up was not much to look at, with visible stains and traces of repairs (and even though it was already the year 2031, it was still made of heavy canvas).
Looking around them, he saw several eight-meter-square squad tents and the tent for the frontline headquarters in the distance, made of the newest GORE-TEX. They were probably all government-issued goods from the self-defense force. Compared to that, their tent was taken from the Satomi family closet, and they were just lucky that it hadn't gotten moldy.
Rentaro lifted his face and looked at the Monolith that filled his vision.
Tokyo Area, District 40. Ten kilometers before Monolith 32. That was where the frontline headquarters for the civil officer troops had been placed.
Rentaro sighed. The reason they had not received government equipment was simple. It was solely because their civil officer squad was not fully formed yet. The civil officer registration area he had gone to in the morning was an open tent like those used for sports festivals and funerals. Rentaro and the others had headed over in high spirits, ready to join the troop and fight some Gastrea, but they were met with the curt, "Rejected."
Apparently, the smallest unit used in civil officer troop tactical strategy was a squad—in other words, because they would move as adjuvants, those who did not form an adjuvant group were not allowed to participate.
The smallest possible adjuvant was three pairs, or six people. In other words, even with the Katagiri siblings, not only did Rentaro still need at least one more pair before he would be recognized as an adjuvant, but he was also being completely left out of the tactical arrangements.
Tina probably couldn't participate in combat since she was a criminal who had received a heavy penalty from the government. And it was unfair to expect Kisara to provide much combat power since she had chronic kidney disease.
After the Seitenshi approached him directly to take this job, he couldn't face her with, "I couldn't find enough members." His own feelings on edge from impatience, he rocked back and forth slightly with irritation. He needed to get another pair to join them so he could register as soon as possible.
Rentaro turned back to Enju. "Enju, do you want to put the things we brought into the tent and go toward the middle of the camp?"
"Recruiting?" Seeing Enju's eyes glitter, Rentaro grimaced.
"It's not as fun as you think it is, you know."
"Then, I will make it amusing!"
I give up. He was going to have to take drastic measures.
Enju trotted ahead, beckoning him forward to the tune of "Rentaro, hurry!"
Rentaro shook his head and pointed his feet toward the frontline headquarters. District 40, where they were camped, was adjacent to District 39, Enju's hometown. It was no exception to the rule of the Outer Districts in that it was run-down. However, once the military got there, it looked completely different.
As he neared the camp's nexus, the first thing he noticed was the smell of fermented alcohol. Under the open tents that were put up everywhere, even though the sun was still high, an ill-bred Promoter was downing drink and grumbling.
Next came the smell of gunpowder smoke. Among the rough voices, there was the occasional ear-splitting sound of gunfire. A salesman was selling Varanium weapons, giving his pitch about how powerful his stock was as he let civil officers test them.
There were other food and drink stalls, performers, moneylenders, and a variety of other rough stores that were more than street stalls but less than festival stands all in a row, and in the middle, when they got to the main street, it was so crowded that it was hard to even pass through. Rentaro felt like he would get drunk on all the humanity.
Rentaro held Enju's hand so they wouldn't get separated and quickly escaped to a side street pulling her along. He found a stump between a gun shop and a fortune-teller and sat down, loosened his necktie, and gazed up at the sky. The sun continued to shine high in the middle of the blue, and there was the continuous sound of cicadas chirping. It made him feel like he was being steamed alive in his completely black uniform. "Damn it, there are so many people."
"I like this festival-like atmosphere," commented Enju.
"Festival? Do you realize that the fate of Tokyo Area is at stake?"
Just then, there was the sound of a female voice snickering beside them. Next to them was a fortune-teller wearing a robe that looked far too hot for this weather, with various gold and silver accessories on her arms. She wore clothes that looked like the chador worn by women from Islamic countries, and her mouth was covered with a cloth. Before her, a crystal ball was laid out under the simple canopy of the tent.
"Oh, excuse me. Your Initiator is very energetic, isn't she?" It was a clear, high voice. She sounded very young.
Rentaro looked toward the people coming and going on the street, and after going back and forth about it in his head, he asked the fortune-teller a question that had been lurking in the back of his mind. "Hey. How can you all be so calm? You never thought to run away or anything?"
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter012.txt
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Black Bullet
A lot had happened last night. First of all, the spokesman from the Seitenshi's office had officially announced the scenario about the collapse of Monolith 32. The reactions were pretty much what they had expected.
The extradeep underground shelters the Seitenshi had prepared could only hold thirty percent of the citizens of Tokyo Area, and those people were chosen randomly by computer and contacted that day.
The problem was the remaining seventy percent of the population. They vented their uneasiness and confusion on the Seitenshi, and when they found out that Cursed Children were included in that thirty percent, many people strongly opposed it. Demonstrations and rallies were quickly organized, and there was a strong group that took the position that there was something wrong with the selection process and demanded a reselection. Among them, there were even bloody organizations formed that wanted to kill the Cursed Children by brute force and steal their winning spots.
To Rentaro, these groups were extremely dangerous. Naturally, this was because they would attack the Cursed Children, but once they realized that they did not have enough spots for all their members, it was also possible that they could quickly change into an organization that attacked the general public.
Those with a little more foresight had bought out the plane tickets to other areas and were running away. Tickets to Osaka and Sendai Areas were sold out within minutes after the government press conference, and a single ticket had jumped up in price and was currently selling for as much as someone's life savings in auctions and on the black market. The Seitenshi's office encouraged evacuation to other areas, but there was an overwhelming shortage of spots.
All of Tokyo Area was wrapped in panic. If things got out of control, and it got past the level that could be taken care of by the police and vigilante groups, then it was possible it would turn into a state of anarchy.
Of course, the criticism was focused on the Seitenshi. It started with hackneyed criticisms like that she was covering things up or that she was incompetent, and continued with calling her a whore or gossiping about her femininity.
Since she would probably receive the same criticism once Aldebaran appeared and the truth was announced, as someone who had been studying to be a politician in the Tendo family, Rentaro thought the Seitenshi's response was correct. Right after announcing the worst-case scenario for when the Monolith collapsed, her press office announced a best-case scenario at the same time that reversed it.
They announced that they were manufacturing a replacement Monolith and attempting to construct a Monolith on-site. The Seitenshi's office promised that they would finish preparing the replacement Monolith three days after the collapse of Monolith 32, and they provided detailed paperwork to prove it. And so, it was announced that for three days after the collapse of the Monolith, Tokyo Area would be protected by the mighty self-defense force that had proved itself time and time again during the Second Kanto Battle, and the rear guard would be made of the civil officer troops.
This announcement was somewhat effective, and it was able to absorb some of the shock received by Tokyo Area. The draft of the speech had been polished carefully, and as usual, the Seitenshi's eye contact and breath placement were perfect—she had to have practiced it many times. She had done a good job preparing so much in only a few days.
The media criticism of the Seitenshi showed no signs of slowing, as usual, but the Seitenshi was completely indifferent to her own pain, so even if she were spit on, she would stand firm and smile and pay no heed. The problem was, she had a tendency to be too sensitive to the pain of others.
"Satomi, I cannot bear to have more seeds of sadness sown in this world…" During the previous incident involving the assassination attempt on her, she had said this to him plaintively. There was no way Rentaro could think that that was just a random remark she made. If she were a real saint whose heart was pained more by the hurt of others than her own, then there was no way she would tolerate the plan failing. Because if they failed, then the lives of all the residents of Tokyo Area who could not run away in time would be lost.
But apparently, the other countries had decided that the plan proposed by Tokyo Area was hopeless. At the Tokyo Area stock market, there was an avalanche of panicked selling that started at the morning trading session and continued until the close of the afternoon session, and it was estimated that taking into consideration the possibility of Tokyo Area disappearing from the map, a limit down was unavoidable for all stocks in the exchange. After the Great War, this actualized as Gastrea Risk, which further complicated the monetary economy.
Currently, there were few factors that could be looked at optimistically. Yet even so, the day after the Seitenshi's announcement, gun dealers and liquor stores, and even the fortune-teller in front of him weren't running away, but had come to the Outer District and were solemnly doing business. Rentaro couldn't understand it.
The fortune-teller narrowed her eyes and smiled. "It's simple. I'm betting that you civil officers will win."
Rentaro was astonished and stood with his mouth gaping.
The fortune-teller continued. "That's why I came here to do fortune-telling: So I could lift the spirits of the civil officers. Usually, there are bad fortunes mixed in, too, but starting from today, I've made it so that only good fortunes will come out. I'm sure the gods will agree that it's fine to have days like this occasionally. Oh, and don't tell anyone about this," she chuckled.
Rentaro and Enju looked at each other. Enju smiled, and before he knew it, Rentaro also found himself smiling. "Then, please tell our fortune."
"Sure, no problem." So saying, she faced the crystal ball and did some quick fortune-telling movements. In no time she was looking at them. "Now, young man in the black, you two are looking for people to join your adjuvant, right?"
Rentaro raised an eyebrow. "How did you know?"
"How, I wonder?"
Rentaro realized that the fortune-teller must have been watching them since before Rentaro started talking to her.
"Don't worry. I'm sure you two will meet wonderful companions. Please continue forward without giving up."
"Thanks. It makes me feel better to hear that from someone else."
The fortune-teller put her hand to her mouth and smiled. "No problem. You're welcome."
"My turn, my turn, my turn, my turn!" Enju raised her hand and drew closer to the fortune-teller. "I wish for you to tell my fortune, as well!"
"Miss, what would you like me to look at?"
Enju put her hands on her hips and stuck out her chest, exhaling through her nose. "My breasts. I wish to be bigger than Kisara. If possible, I'd like a bust of about a hundred and twenty centimeters."
"A hundred…and twenty…?" At those words that showed no fear of the gods, even the fortune-teller was speechless, and after looking at Enju's flat chest, the fortune-teller looked at Rentaro, perplexed.
Rentaro shook his head quickly. Don't look at me…
"Well… Don't dreams come true if you believe?" The fortune-teller took care of it with a vague general statement. And then, without a pause, she stood up, saying, "Oh, right! I just remembered something I have to do," and hastily folded up her store and ran away.
Enju's eyes sparkled as she looked at Rentaro. "Rentaro, did you hear that? I will be a hundred and twenty centimeters, she said! After I'm a hundred and twenty centimeters, I'll let you feel them every day!"
"Um…well… I'll wait without getting my hopes up. Look, more important, we have to make an adjuvant! An adjuvant!" Forcefully changing the subject, Rentaro patted the side of the stump he was sitting on. Enju sat down quietly and looked at the large street in front of them, uncharacteristically serious.
Rentaro also slapped his cheeks with both hands to get back his fighting spirit and evaluated the civil officer Initiators and Promoters coming and going on the street. The metallic sound of swords and shields hitting armor mixed with a cloud of dust being kicked up by the comings and goings of the crowd, leaving their throats dry and scratchy.
The civil officers were wearing many different kinds of outfits, from battle dress uniforms to tactical vests in military style with interlocking attachment MOLLE; to western-style armor, plate mail, helmets, gauntlets, and armored jackets. There were also many different kinds of weapons, from MINIMI machine guns to Galil assault rifles and Magnum revolvers. He also saw halberds, war hammers, shamshirs, and the great claymore swords that Scotland was so proud of. It was as if they had gotten lost in the waiting room of the ancient Roman Colosseum.
"It feels like we're in the waiting room of the world's greatest martial arts tournament, huh?" Sitting next to him swinging her legs, Enju echoed his thoughts suddenly.
What they all had in common was that their weapons were made of Varanium, so their sword blades and striking edges were all black. Individuals who had been taken over by the Gastrea virus had a wide variety of abilities, so there were many different ways to deal with them. Another way to put it would be to say that there were as many different ways for civil officers to fight as there were types of Gastrea.
"Are all of them people we can get to join us?" Enju asked.
"No, most of them are probably already part of another party," Rentaro lamented. "But there are people who aren't, too. You could say that this is where the guys who missed being part of an adjuvant are putting up their hopes at getting one last chance."
"About how many more people do you wish to have join us, Rentaro? Is having one more pair enough?"
Rentaro fixed his gaze on the road in front of him. Just then, a covered Humvee made its way slowly down the wide street. "About that, Enju… I'd like to have five pairs with a total of ten people, including us."
"You want that many?"
"Yeah, there are a few reasons for that. I think that's just the right number if we compromise between the limit of how many people I can lead and the number of people we need to minimize blind spots in the party."
"Then, we must work hard to bring in many new companions, huh?"
"Yeah, I'm counting on you, partner."
After a while, Enju pulled on the edge of his clothes and pointed out a pair. "Rentaro, how about them?"
Looking in the direction Enju was pointing, Rentaro saw a heavily armed civil officer pair. The Initiator's weapon was a long spear, and the Promoter was carrying a rifle made by the Knight's Armament Company. But what Rentaro focused on was their defensive armament, the body armor that covered them. "No, those guys are no good."
Enju looked confused. "Why not?"
"Look at their bodies. They have armor close around their necks, head, and even their elbows and knees. Amateurs who don't want to die have the tendency to focus on defense. But when fighting Gastrea, that can be fatal. You understand, don't you, Enju?"
Enju scowled uncharacteristically and crossed her arms. "Certainly for us Initiators, rather than increasing our defense, it would be more logical to lighten the load on our bodies to make it easier to run away with our speed."
"Right, you get a hundred percent for that answer. That's exactly it. You could say the same thing for Promoters. Anyway, since Gastrea are bigger and stronger, one big hit from them would mean the end for a human, so in actuality, the more lightly equipped guys have a higher chance of survival."
"I see. Then, those who are equipped more lightly are stronger? Understood. Then, next, we should find someone like that to join us, right?" There was hardly a pause before Enju yelled, "Found someone!" and restlessly ran toward a new pair.
One look at the Promoter, and Rentaro almost jumped in surprise. He was a head taller than Rentaro himself, and he wasn't just lightly equipped—he was half-naked, wearing only underpants. On top of that, his face was covered with a mask. On his shoulder he had a spiked club like those carried by demons in folktales, and he was extremely muscular. Rentaro wondered if there was a reason why he looked like the weapons dealer in Dragon Quest.
He already had the fiercely individualistic Katagiri siblings on his team. If he added a beast like that to his team, there was no doubt the direction his adjuvant would take. He definitely wanted to keep that from happening. Rentaro watched the progression of events nervously, and after some heated discussion, the Promoter shooed her away with his hand.
Enju came back with her shoulders slumped and pigtails drooping. "They refused…"
"R-really." Rentaro breathed a sigh of relief where she couldn't hear.
After that, they spent a few hours talking to civil officers who appeared strong, but as he expected, they did not get a favorable result. Most people were already part of an adjuvant, and the civil officers who weren't were not satisfied with Rentaro's proposed payment or were too prideful to follow the orders of a man who was younger than them, and other similar reasons.
Even Enju, who proudly worked hard to invite people at first, lost her smile after being refused three times, looked like she was about to cry after being refused seven times, and looked pitiful and dejected after being refused ten times.
The sun had gotten low, and Rentaro's and Enju's shadows became darker and longer. But just as Rentaro thought they should stop for the day, things took an abrupt turn. A scream roared from afar, and the people coming and going stopped in their tracks. Then, commotion spread through the crowd like fire.
Rentaro pricked up his ears to see if he could hear what was going on and overheard stuff like, "There's a fight between civil officers!"
"One of the pairs charged at the other without knowing the difference in their abilities."
"That was stupid."
He looked Enju in the eye and nodded. Jogging toward the scream, he soon figured out where a crowd had gathered and pushed his way through to the middle with simple words of apology. When he emerged in the middle of the donut of people and his vision opened up, he was suddenly met with something far beyond what he could have ever imagined in front of him. Rentaro involuntarily put a hand over his mouth. "Enju, don't come over here!"
But it was too late. Next to him, Enju was frozen with both eyes open wide.
Damn it. Rentaro leaned in all too quickly to check if the pair was breathing and find a pulse. Using his thumb and forefinger, he even forced their eyelids open to check their pupils.
Rentaro closed his eyes. Finally, he looked at Enju and shook his head. "It's no use, they're dead."
As Rentaro stood and looked over the scene of the murder again, there was no way he could not be horrified. There was blood splattered everywhere. He could even see blood on the roof of a tent ten meters away.
The dead piled on top of each other were an Initiator and a Promoter. Rentaro and Enju had both seen the two victims before.
"Rentaro, are not these people…?" Enju started.
"Yeah, there's no doubt," said Rentaro. "They're the heavily armored pair you were going to talk to first, Enju." They seemed unused to fighting, but because they were wearing equipment that emphasized defense, Rentaro had never thought that they would be killed in a scuffle with other civil officers. But—
The Promoter's face was frozen in an expression more fearful than Rentaro could have imagined, and his eyes were wide open. The iron-filled stink of blood seemed to get stronger as it followed his nostrils around, and he had to shoo away the swarms of black flies that came at them.
Rentaro swallowed his feeling of not wanting to touch the dead body again and bent over to investigate once more. The Promoter's ceramic plate armor—which looked to be the thickness of Type IIIA++ based on the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) standards for the ballistic resistance of body armor—was cut clean in two, and he had a long horizontal slash across his stomach. The Initiator lost her life from a single diagonal slash that started near her neck.
What sword was it that created this nightmare? Rentaro stood and looked around at his surroundings. "Is there anyone who saw what happened?"
"C-could you be Rentaro Satomi?" A small, skinny man stepped forward, trembling with fear.
Rentaro didn't respond right away. "What if I am?"
"Uh… Y-you… Never mind, it was my mistake. Forget about it."
"Huh? What do you want?"
"I said, forget about it!" the man said, sounding irritated, and then he turned and left before Rentaro could stop him.
Rentaro felt more and more like he didn't know what was going on. What was with that reaction? Why was his name important?
"Heeeey, there's a fight over here, too!" a loud voice yelled suddenly, and all the civil officers gathered around Rentaro turned in that direction. The civil officers moved forward as one.
"Rentaro!" Enju shouted.
"Yeah, let's go, too. It could be the guy who did this." Rentaro asked a nearby shop owner to take care of the aftermath of the incident and pushed down his impatient feelings as he went over to where the voice was.
There was a crowd gathered at a meadow a little ways away from the market street. The crowd was more spread out than the donut-shaped crowd from earlier, so he didn't have to push through this time. He made his way easily to a spot where he could see what was transpiring.
The battle had not even begun yet. But seeing two pairs facing off, Rentaro gulped involuntarily.
What's going on?
Slightly closer to Rentaro was a short and stout giant with a Mohawk. Next to him was an Initiator with old eyes who was accompanying him. The Promoter in the pair farther away from him was tall and slender, wearing a long coat with a visor above his eyes. The Initiator next to him was wearing a skirt with a long jacket and a pointed black hat with a wide brim. She seemed to be aware of the eyes on her and cowered, moving restlessly.
Looking at the red-faced man with the Mohawk, Rentaro frowned. It looked like there was alcohol in him. "Hey, you beanpole. Do you know who I am? I've robbed and murdered twelve people. I've been sentenced to death in three different countries. I'm the wanted man, Brick Nigel," the man with the Mohawk shouted in a vulgar, thick voice and waved his Abakan assault rifle around.
Facing him, the man with the visor and coat shook his head calmly. "It's not like I said you were weak. I'm sure you're strong."
"Then, why won't you drink my liquor?!"
"I'm under no obligation to drink with you."
Angrily, the Mohawk's veins popped. He jerked his chin at the Initiator by his side, and the Initiator wordlessly twisted her body as she raised a spear. It was a throwing javelin.
Something tugged on Rentaro's sleeve. It was Enju, looking uneasy. "Why has no one noticed, Rentaro?"
Rentaro realized what she was trying to say and looked at her in wonder. "You've noticed?"
"Of course I have. There is too big a difference in skill in this fight!"
In front of him, in the midst of a high tide of nervousness and wild enthusiasm, the man with the visor and coat narrowed his eyes. "Give it up. There is no glory or pride to be had in this fight. It'll be boring whether you win or lose."
But these words only served to fan Mohawk's flames of wrath. "Shuuuuuuuttttt uuuuuppppp! Heeeeeyyyyy!" He sighted the Abakan and set it to full auto, ready to gouge holes in the grass and turn the other pair into Swiss cheese.
But just before he could, his two opponents disappeared.
Mohawk looked up. Rentaro followed his gaze and was taken aback. The Initiator had lent the Promoter a shoulder, and the two were flying high in the sky. Just then, the Initiator cut her partner loose, and the man in the coat fell ten meters in front of the enemy girl.
Rentaro was astonished. The Promoter was going to face off against the Initiator? No way. "Look—"
—out! Before he could finish, a number of things happened.
The girl with the javelin saw her chance and started to run up, allowing her body to turn with centrifugal force as she readied her throw. But before the thrust, her cells expanded with a popping sound. By the time Rentaro realized that she was an Initiator with specialized muscle strength, it was too late. She took one last step, breaking the ground apart and throwing her javelin at great speed.
The javelin chasing the speed of sound spiraled with a roaring wind, heading straight for its target to turn the man in the coat into smithereens. There was no reason to doubt that, so when the man did the unthinkable and stretched an arm out in front of him to parry, Rentaro's eyes widened.
Immediately afterward, the sound of an explosion rang out, and the tip of the javelin clashed with the man's arm. There, Rentaro saw something he found hard to believe: The javelin that had been going as fast as a cannonball changed its course slightly, and the next instant, it flew in a completely different direction. It had been deflected successfully.
Rentaro wondered how the girl felt when she saw that, but he lost his chance to ask her. Between the girl who fell forward after throwing the javelin and the man in the coat who used as little movement as possible to deflect it, there was way too big a difference in how long their moves put them out of commission.
In no time, the man had closed in on the girl, the hem of his long coat fluttering in the air as he filled the girl's line of sight. The next instant, there was a heavy thud as he slammed the heel of his hand into her chin.
The threatening regenerative abilities of Initiators had just two weak points. This meant that of the two, the heart and the brain, he had shaken up the brain, giving her a concussion in the blink of an eye—and making her pass out.
There was no time to sigh in admiration of his amazing skill, though. The other fight was also nearing its end. The girl in the hat moved to draw the gunfire of Mohawk, who was firing blindly as he swung his rifle back and forth. The instant the gun ran out of bullets, the girl kicked off the ground and engaged with the man. Instantly, the man's rifle was cut to pieces and dropped to the ground. Mohawk was dumbfounded and fell to his knees, looking up with froth spewing from his mouth as he too passed out.
It was so spellbinding that for a second the entire place was silent. The Initiator looked shyly at the ground, and as she gave an extremely polite bow to the audience, cheers exploded.
It was like a fight between a child and an adult. In contrast to the Mohawk man and his partner, who had been going for the man in the coat as a kill from the start, the man in the coat and his Initiator aimed for the much more difficult result of putting their opponents out of commission, and on top of that, they succeeded. In addition, the girl in the hat was obviously an Initiator of the same type as Enju with specialized speed.
"Enju, that girl in the hat. What did she do when she defeated the Mohawk?" It had happened too fast for Rentaro to catch with his kinetic vision.
"It was probably her nails," said Enju.
"Nails?"
"Yes. Her nails grew extremely long in an instant and then shrunk again."
Which also narrowed down which Gastrea factor she had. Rentaro's eyes were both staring at the man receiving applause from the middle of the circle. There was no doubt about what he was seeing anymore.
Rentaro walked into the middle of the ring and called out, "Hey!" to the team's back. When the man turned and saw who it was, his expression turned grim. He walked over to Rentaro silently.
"R-Rentaro!" Enju's panicked voice made a commotion behind him, but he didn't halt his advance.
The instant they were close enough for their fists to touch, Rentaro's right hand and the man in the coat's right arm were brought up at the same time. The people around them expected tragedy and gulped, but the next instant, Rentaro and the man's arms locked in joy at their reunion.
"Huh?" Enju and the Initiator in the hat both lifted their voices at the same.
Rentaro looked over his fellow Promoter. There was no strength in the man's eyes, and it seemed like he was going to start laughing awkwardly. "The move that made the Initiator with the throwing javelin faint was Sanda Tama Kirin, wasn't it? You haven't gotten weaker at all, have you, Shoma, bro?"
"It's been too long, Satomi. I've heard rumors about what you've been doing. Have you been working hard?" This man had never been one to show his emotions, but even his lips relaxed slightly at this.
Enju, who had come up alongside Rentaro, had her mouth gaping open and her eyes open wide.
Rentaro put his arm around the man's shoulders and looked at Enju. "Let me introduce you, Enju. This is the eighth dan of the Tendo Martial Arts, Shoma Nagisawa. He's my senior in the Tendo Style."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter014.txt
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Black Bullet
8
In a squad tent wide enough for ten people to sleep, one that had tent flaps on four sides and a roof, it was spacious enough to give a slight sense of freedom. It was a world of difference from the old tent they had brought with them. Rentaro stood in the middle of the space and gave a big stretch. He was finally recognized as an adjuvant; there was no way he wasn't happy. He had just gone back to the registration booth again and told them that he had the minimum six officers required and officially completed the adjuvant registration.
Shoma had also wanted to team up with Rentaro, and happened to be looking for him to do so; Rentaro was moved by the coincidence. However, at the same time, someone as strong as Shoma would have been in great demand, so Rentaro had asked him, "Why did you want to join my team?"
"Ever since I heard rumors that you had defeated the Scorpion, I was thinking that I wanted to fight by your side someday. I might be unworthy, but I thought at least the strength of an eighth dan Tendo Martial Artist had to be of use in some way. Let's work together again like we did in the dojo in the past. Let me in on your conspiracy, too." It was inevitable after this was said to him.
The girl in the pointy hat had also introduced herself. Her name was Midori Fuse, and she was a Model Cat Initiator. She was a conspicuous speed specialist and also had the ability to retract her nails. It was pretty much as Rentaro had expected.
"Oh, this is pretty nice! Viva freedom!"
Turning around toward the voice, Rentaro saw Tamaki coming in late, followed by a slightly shy Yuzuki, who was looking down. Beyond them was Shoma, with Midori hiding behind him, followed by Enju.
"It's like a secret hideout!" announced Enju excitedly. Rentaro chided her to sit down, and everyone followed suit, making a loose circle.
Tamaki came to sit cross-legged and cheerfully slapped his knee. "All right! Now that we've got six people in our adjuvant, let's go around and do some simple introductions—"
"Wait, before we do that, there's something I'd like to ask," Shoma interrupted. Shoma looked at Rentaro with enigmatic eyes. It was the sort of thing that someone who had not known him for very long might have misunderstood, thinking Shoma had contempt for them based on not being able to see his emotions or hear the intonation in his voice.
"Of course, you're the one who gathered the members, so you should be the leader of our squad, Satomi. It's based on that that I want to ask—are you planning on fighting with the six of us? Or do you still intend to gather more?"
Rentaro's eyes met Enju's, and then he conferred to Shoma his earlier plan to have five teams with ten people total.
Tamaki put his chin on his elbow and said indifferently, "Oh? Two more pairs, huh?"
"No, one more pair."
Suddenly, a dignified female voice rang out through the tent, and everyone looked in its direction. Rentaro was taken aback and rose to his feet reflexively. He did not expect the people standing there at all.
Standing in the red light of the setting sun at the entrance of the tent were Kisara in her black sailor school uniform and Tina with her blond hair tied up, sparkling in the evening sunlight. Kisara suddenly flipped her black hair and quickly stepped inside, and before Rentaro could open his mouth, she quietly went to the middle of the circle and knelt formally. The sweet fragrance of Kisara's hair spread gently throughout the tent.
Kisara quickly raised the black scabbard of the murderous blade Yukikage and prepared to draw it with a clear ringing sound. "Tendo Style swordswoman, Promoter Kisara Tendo, and NEXT-enhanced sniper, Initiator Tina Sprout. The two abovementioned persons have come to pay a visit to join Rentaro Satomi's adjuvant."
"Huh?" Rentaro raised his voice hysterically. Sticking out one hand and saying, "Hold on, time out," he put his other hand to his temple and desperately fought against a headache. "Wait! W-wait a minute. What do you mean, Promoter and Initiator?! N-no, more important, isn't Tina's rank still revoked because of her punishment?"
"I talked over Tina's rank revocation directly with the Lady Seitenshi to have her retract the punishment. Right now, we're at a critical moment that will determine if Tokyo Area survives or not, so honestly, they're in a situation where they'll take any help they can get, you know? I thought if we negotiated well, we'd be able to get Tina's punishment taken away, and it went just as I expected."
Then, what Kisara had just said was neither a joke nor a misunderstanding…
Kisara chuckled. "That's how it is. I just finished registering with the International Initiator Supervision Organization. Tina and I will start at an IP Rank of 9200. Tina's in a new pair, so she'll temporarily have a huge drop in rank, but I'm sure her actual ability is a little higher."
It wasn't just "a little." The sniper with the ingenious plan who once fought Rentaro had achieved an IP Rank of 98 on her own without taking into account the combat ability of her partner, Ain Rand. Adding a devilish swordswoman who was a Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing initiate as a Promoter would mean their actual combat ability was…
Realizing that he was getting overwhelmed, Rentaro quickly regained his senses and said, "Come here for a sec," and pulled Kisara into a corner of the tent. In an irritated voice, Rentaro said, "Kisara, you can't do this. You should think about yourself a little. Don't tell me you've forgotten why you were relegated to doing office work?"
Kisara sulked and pouted, saying, "If you're talking about my dialysis treatment, I already went today. And even while we're fighting, I'll go when I get a chance." Kisara stopped talking for a moment and put both hands on her hips, glaring determinedly at Rentaro. "So, Satomi, let me join your adjuvant, too. This is an order from your boss."
"Of course I can't do that! What if something were to happen to you? Do you know how I would feel—"
She cut him off. "Why can't you realize that I feel the same way?"
"Huh?"
"When you're in danger, all I can do is pray. I don't want that."
Rentaro was dumbfounded, taken completely off guard.
Kisara straightened and bore her gaze into him. "Please, Satomi. If I start to drag you down, you can abandon me."
He couldn't win. Rentaro closed his eyes, exhaled from his nose, and put both hands on Kisara's shoulders. "I won't let that happen. I'll protect you, Kisara. So don't worry."
"S-Satomi…?" Kisara's cheeks turned bright red, and she suddenly bent forward and slumped her shoulders. "Jeez, what are you saying such embarrassing things for, idiot…… Hey…shoulders…they hurt… Don't…push me…into the…tent… Jeez, you idiot."
Rentaro's heart pounded at the rare sight of an innocent Kisara. "K-K-Kisara! I, a-actually, I have always… Huh?"
Just then, there was a discreet cough from next to them, and when Rentaro slid his gaze to it, he saw Tina looking sullen, narrowing her eyes ill-humoredly, saying, "Excuse me," and looking pointedly toward the center of the tent.
Feeling eyes on him, Rentaro suddenly came back to his senses and realized that there were five pairs of eyes staring at them. Rentaro and Kisara separated hurriedly, both of their cheeks turning red as they cleared their throats and went back to the circle in the middle of the tent.
"Um… So, well, uh… Anyway, we have some new teammates, Kisara Tendo and Tina Sprout." Rentaro pushed the two of them forward softly.
"My name is Tina Sprout. I look forward to working with you," said Tina.
"I'm Kisara Tendo. By the way, I'm also Satomi here's boss. I'm counting on you all," added Kisara.
"It's been a while, Kisara," finished Shoma.
At first, Kisara narrowed her eyes at his gentle voice, but her suspicion soon turned to surprise. "No way. Shoma?!"
"Anyway, you're my disciple senior, so is it bad that I addressed you casually by your first name?"
Kisara waved her hand in front of her face. "It's fine, we've known each other for a long time. Wow, this takes me back." However, then Kisara shifted her gaze and lowered her tone of voice. "Hey, Shoma, why did you quit the dojo suddenly? We were really worried, you know. Now that I think about it, why are you suddenly a civil officer now…?"
Rentaro felt bad but casually backed up Kisara, adding, "I was surprised, too." Shoma didn't seem like he wanted to talk about the past, but it had been a shock when Shoma, who the master had his eye on, suddenly quit the dojo, and Rentaro would be lying if he said he wasn't curious about how Shoma ended up becoming a civil officer.
"I wasn't cut out for it," Shoma said. "That's all it was."
Rentaro's and Kisara's eyes met. "Sorry, Shoma, bro," said Rentaro.
"It's fine." Shoma said only that, resolutely, forcing the conversation to a close.
Rentaro deeply regretted probing. Within the extraordinary prodigy that Rentaro and Kisara had once been jealous of spread a dark despair. However, there was one more thing Rentaro had to ask him. "The pair that was cut down on the street—was that your doing, Shoma?"
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
Rentaro sighed with relief and rubbed his chest, shaking his head. "Never mind, don't worry about it." Then, suddenly shifting his gaze toward Tamaki, he saw that Tamaki was staring at Kisara, his mouth gaping open.
Yuzuki looked worried and poked Tamaki in the ribs. "What's the matter, Tamaki?"
"……Yuzuki, it's a goddess. My goddess is here," he muttered.
His partner frowned. "Um, Tamaki…is your head feeling okay?"
Suddenly, Tamaki sprang up and went with amazing speed to kneel in front of Kisara. "So lovely, so dignified, so beautiful! On top of that, you're the boss of the civil officer who defeated the Scorpion. Please, let me call you my angel!"
Kisara tossed her hair and put her hands on her hips, saying haughtily, "It would be problematic for you to call me that."
"Then at least let me call you 'ma'am'!"
"Well, I guess that would be okay…"
Tamaki smiled complacently and rubbed his hands together. "Ma'am, shall I massage your shoulders? Or would you like me to prepare a chair for you?"
"Well, I'm hungry, so go buy me some melon bread. Oh, I only like the ones with hard cookie crusts."
"Gladly!" Tamaki looked like he was being repelled as he flew out of the tent at full speed, and his back looked small in no time.
Rentaro looked disgustedly at Kisara, but Kisara was beaming as she put her palms together in front of her chest. "Look, look, Satomi! I've found a new wallet!" Kisara said it with a smile, carefree.
Rentaro scratched his head vigorously, and then put his hands together and gathered everyone's attention. "Since we have a lot of new faces, I think some introductions are in order."
When Tamaki returned happily with a piece of melon bread in one hand, they quietly started the introductions. It probably came as a surprise to no one that Tamaki, who liked being the center of attention more than anyone, was most eager to go first.
The chain saws that were powered by small motors embedded in his gloves and shoes were received most unfavorably by their teammates.
Enju covered her ears and shouted, "They're too loud!"
And Shoma spat, "These are illogical weapons," and promptly lost interest.
Dejected, Tamaki drew the Mateba gun from his hip and shouted, "This is my big Magnum!" This time, the squad of female soldiers threw rocks at him. His little sister, Yuzuki, turned red with embarrassment and covered her face with both hands.
Next was Yuzuki. She went outside and found two ordinary beech trees, bridging the tops with invisible threads and crossing easily from one side to the other. With cheers and applause erupting around her, the simple-minded Yuzuki bragged, "Well, this is what you get when you mess with me," and was soon displaying the peak of her ability.
"Hey, we can see your underwear from down here," Rentaro pointed out. The next instant, there was a high-speed kick that passed through where his neck had just been, and it gave him goose bumps down his spine.
Yuzuki bared her teeth. "Die, you pervert! Die, you Lolita-complex bastard!" flared up at him. If Enju hadn't practically pinned Yuzuki's arms to her sides, Rentaro would have been honest to goodness killed.
Real spiders exuded silk from places called spinnerets, but it looked like Yuzuki could exude silk from the tips of her fingers on both hands. A spider's spinneret was located around where the buttocks or urethra of a human were. As a biology maniac, he was tempted to ask, "Can you produce silk from your anus?" but he had to be prepared to lose his life for that privilege.
Next, it was his turn. He didn't want to, but he could not hide his abilities from the teammates he would soon be fighting with side by side, so he gave a simple demonstration of what his artificial eye could do and finished quickly. Even with just that, Tamaki, Yuzuki, and Midori, who were seeing it for the first time, were all astounded.
Next was Enju, who stuck out her chest cheerfully and said, "It is my turn at last." They went outside, and Enju pointed at a single cedar tree standing about five hundred meters away and then released her power. She touched the cedar and came back in seconds.
"She's even faster than me…" Midori sighed, looking crestfallen.
Enju and Yuzuki, who seemed to have similar personalities to begin with, hit it off almost immediately. Enju and Tina were also friends already, and so were Tina and Yuzuki, so the three of them became a trio in the blink of an eye.
The problem was the remaining Initiator. In short, Midori's self-introduction was a fracas. Midori was nervous and stiff as she made her way to the front and bowed deeply. "M-m-my name is Midori Fuse. I-I am a Model Cat Initiator, and my special ability is scent divination!"
Scent divination?
"And my IP Rank with Shoma is 970."
There were sighs of awe from those present. When they were able to overpower their combat opponents without killing them, Rentaro already kind of suspected a high rank, but it was amazing that they were ranked within the top thousand.
Next, Midori showed everyone her ability to retract her nails. Seeing strong nails extend suddenly about 1.5 times the length of her fingers made Rentaro gulp involuntarily.
"You don't release those nails as far as they can go, do you?" Kisara asked, looking interested.
Midori saw that someone understood her well and broke into a smile for the first time. "You're right!"
"What do you mean?" Rentaro asked.
Kisara stuck out an index finger proudly. "Satomi, when fighting with weapons, it's advantageous to keep your opponent from knowing the reach of your attack; in other words, it's very important to keep your opponent from being able to figure out the distance. You can put pressure on your opponent mentally that way."
"Really…" He kind of understood, but kind of didn't.
Next, Enju stuck her hand straight in the air to ask a question. "Are you able to use magic?"
"Magic?" Rentaro repeated back at her dubiously.
"That's right. I mean, Rentaro, she is wearing a hat like a witch, so she must be able to use magic." Apparently, she was talking about the pointed hat Midori wore.
The instant her hat was pointed out, Midori became startled for some reason. Shoma shook his head at his partner and admonished her, saying, "Don't hide anything from your friends." That seemed to be the last straw, and Midori slowly put her hands on her hat and pulled it off.
Inside the tent, a quiet astonishment spread. On her head, pushing through her hair and pointing straight toward the sky, were two cat-shaped ears. At first, Rentaro wondered if they were fake, but after a while, they folded based on her will, and it dispersed that doubt.
Midori must have been self-conscious about them and hurriedly put her hat back on.
Enju looked at Rentaro as if bewitched. "Is such a thing possible, Rentaro?"
"Yeah, when the Gastrea genes that are mixed in manifest themselves, there are cases where the animal genes are so strong that even the skeletal structure changes. There aren't many, but they exist. Of the Initiators with bird-type Gastrea genes, there are apparently some who even have wings."
"I wish I could fly, too…" Tina, who had owl genes, murmured her regret.
The two mischievous girls, Enju and Yuzuki, grinned and tiptoed stealthily behind Midori without her noticing. As Rentaro watched, wondering what they were doing, the two of them whispered, "One, two, three!" and of all things, they pulled down Midori's skirt as hard as they could. The underwear she was wearing came clean off with the skirt, and in an instant, Rentaro's vision became filled with a large amount of flesh. To put it concisely, the bottom half of Midori's body was as bare as a baby's bottom.
"Neoooooooooooowww!" Midori pulled her long jacket to hide the affected areas and then collapsed starting with her knees.
"Wh-what are you two doing?" Rentaro demanded.
The dumbfounded Enju and Yuzuki did not respond for a while, but finally Enju slowly lifted her gaze and said, "We wanted to check to see if she had a tail, too…"
"I do not have a tail," Midori said, and then started crying.
Enju and Yuzuki probably just wanted to be friends with Midori. They never thought that they would hurt her feelings, and Enju, having lost her chance to give back the underwear, held them in her fist, nervously pacing back and forth. Finally, she came in front of Rentaro and said, "Here," holding out the underwear to him and looking depressed.
"Wait, what do you mean 'Here'?! It won't do any good giving it to me!"
Shoma looked at Rentaro pityingly. "Satomi, have you finally…"
"'Finally' what?! I don't have a Lolita complex!"
And so ended the fracas that was Midori's self-introduction, and then Shoma, Kisara, and Tina also took turns introducing themselves.
Shoma used the Tendo Martial Arts to cut a tree in half, trunk and all. Kisara showed a sword-drawing slashing attack to cut a boulder ten meters away with a loud reverberation. Tina released Shenfield and shot through a target two kilometers away in one shot with a Barrett antitank rifle, scaring those around her out of their wits.
And so, everyone gave a quick display of the techniques they could use, and Rentaro realized an interesting commonality shared by each pair. It was obvious that Rentaro and Enju were both close-combat specialists to the extreme. If they stayed that way, they would have no way of fighting against mid-to long-range opponents, so as a last resort, Rentaro had started carrying around a pistol. It made them just barely able to also deal with mid-range opponents.
It appeared that the Katagiri siblings and Shoma pair fought with a similar combat ideology. Yuzuki's spider silk was one of the best abilities for creating a territory, but even so, in order to seal the opponents movements, Yuzuki had to deliver a finishing blow, so it was probably categorized as close range. Her older brother, Tamaki, was also a close-range type, so in order to make up for their weak point, he owned a handgun. The same was true for the Shoma pair (earlier, Shoma had shown them a Sig P226 X-Five gun).
From that point of view, only the Kisara-Tina pair had a different combat ideology. Kisara could attack anything within range of her sword-drawing attack, and had a gun for self-defense. She was a mid-range specialist Promoter. In contrast, Tina was best at long-range fighting, but she could use pretty much any firearm and was an all-rounder.
What should he do in order to draw out the full potential of everyone?
Rentaro was lost in thought when suddenly a man's voice interrupted, "Excuse me," next to Rentaro. When he looked, he saw a civilian type of self-defense force official salute and then take a step toward them. "All civil officers who will be participating in the operation must report to the front of the front line headquarters at 1930 hours. This is a summons from Troop Commander Nagamasa Gado."
9
The sun went down, and their surroundings were enveloped in darkness. In front of the frontline HQ was a simple tiered platform, torches on each corner driving back the black.
Listening to the sound of branches popping, Rentaro turned to gaze at his colleagues, who were bustling silently. Rentaro wondered how many of those gathering here were civil officers. It looked like there were around five hundred pairs, but he wasn't sure if a thousand officers was a reasonable number to go up against two thousand Gastrea.
After a time, a pair appeared onstage and the crowd made an uproar.
"IP Rank 275, Nagamasa Gado, huh…?" Rentaro had seen him on TV many times before, so he knew there was no mistake.
He was bald with a goatee, a Promoter with a soldier's disposition. It was true that he was old for a Promoter, since they were usually between their twenties, thirties, or forties, but no one seeing his discerning eyes, his aura overflowing with confidence, and his straight back could call him a worn-out old geezer. No, people called him the Couragous Wizened Hero.
Next to him was his Initiator, who accompanied him like a shadow. If Rentaro remembered correctly, her name was Asaka Mibu. She had straight black hair like Kisara, but her presence was faint, and she seemed to be a quiet girl. For some reason, her eyes were always shut tight. It did not seem appropriate to call a ten-year-old girl this, but she seemed like Gado's wife. What drew Rentaro's gaze above all was the equipment they had.
"An armor-type exoskeleton, huh…," sighed Tina, who was on one side of him.
It was no wonder: Along with combat armor glowing red, Asaka had a light blue cape, and Gado had a cape with the corps' flag on it. Of course, it was not simply armor that was grossly out of date.
"Rentaro, what is an 'ek-so-skeleton'?" Enju asked.
Rentaro thought about how to answer Enju's question in a way that would be easiest to understand. "Enju, have you heard of powered suits? They're suits that increase the wearer's physical strength and defense when worn. Twenty years ago—around the early 2010s, in order for exoskeletons to protect against rifle bullets, the armor was so thick it was hard to move in them, which meant the battery didn't last long, and they couldn't be mass produced. There was nothing good about them. But thanks to high-tech materials like Varanium alloy and carbon nanotubes, they were able to be implemented like hers. What Gado and Asaka have on is the latest model from Shiba Heavy Industries. It raises all the basic specs, from physical strength to armor."
"I wish to have armor as well!"
Troubled, Rentaro frowned. He tried imagining Enju wearing an armor-type exoskeleton, but rather than her wearing the armor, the image of the armor wearing her was stronger. Though, imagining Enju drowning in the armor was cute at least.
But that wasn't the point. "Impossible. It's way too expensive."
Enju became crestfallen, pigtails and all. "Too expensive, is it…?"
"Yeah, to put it bluntly, we couldn't buy it even if we saved up both our salaries for ten years."
"Then! I will inquire about getting it from Miori for free!"
Hey, come on… She seemed to give it up half as a joke, but Enju's eyes looked pretty serious, and Rentaro's face stiffened. During the Seitenshi assassination attempt, Rentaro didn't know what Sumire had said to Enju, but ever since, she started mumbling "Zone" more often, and she seemed a little strange. He was sure that her complete loss against Tina, whom she was supposed to have the advantage over, also had an effect.
It wasn't that he didn't understand her impatience, but for her to disregard her own physical and mental strength and be attracted to the easy answer of an exoskeleton was not something he welcomed as her guardian. I need to find time to talk to Enju about this…
"Thank you for gathering, brave ladies and gentlemen!"
Lifting his head in surprise at the sudden shout that reached his ears, Rentaro saw Gado raise his fist on the stage.
"I am your troop commander, Nagamasa Gado. You are the chosen ones who will save Tokyo Area. I am proud to fight alongside you all." Gado took a breath and slowly surveyed the gathered troops.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter016.txt
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Black Bullet
Not even the rowdy Promoters jeered or snorted with one look from Gado. If Rentaro had been standing up onstage, it would have been vastly different.
"I'm sure you know that Gastrea are an enemy that increase exponentially via a virus, but as long as you know how to deal with them, there is nothing to be afraid of. You all also know that Tokyo Area is facing an unprecedented crisis. And there is no one who can reverse that situation but us. Kill them! The abominable Gastrea killed your fathers, mothers, friends, families, and lovers! It is your duty as civil officers to kill as many of them as you can. The defeated can be forgotten. The present history is made by winners. No one pities the losers."
Gado tightened his fist and hit the stage as hard as he could. "We will win! We will win and make history! And our names will be written in the history books. We will overcome the Gastrea and fight without drawing back. Make your nation, your descendants, the spirits of those who died defending the country proud! Let's kill them!"
A cheer rose loud enough to make the ground shake. Renataro was dumbfounded at the speech, buried as he was by the cheers around him. The content was extreme, but Gado probably took into consideration the bloodlust of the Promoters and thought something simple like this would be easier to understand.
Rentaro rarely respected his superiors, but he had no choice but to recognize that Gado was shrewd and able. So long as this man stood at the head of the civil officer corps, there was no need to worry that they would be steered wrong.
Next, Gado moved on to explain the specifics of the plan they would carry out with the self-defense force for the Third Kanto Battle. However, unlike the general policy part of Gado's speech, the more Rentaro listened to the explanation, the more puzzled he got.
Currently, their battle formation had Monolith 32 between the Gastrea corps and the combined self-defense and civil officer forces, with the two sides glaring at each other. The start of the battle was predicted to be the same time as when the Monolith collapsed. It was fine up to that point. However, the problem was how Gado was saying the civil officers would be used.
Rentaro had heard before this started that the civils would be under the command of the self-defense force, but he thought they would follow behind as the decisive rear guard and trample the Gastrea.
Rentaro glanced behind him and spotted the camp lights of the self-defense force near Monolith 32 deep into the darkness. They were too far away; if the civil officer troops were really expected to be used as a decisive force, then they should have been deployed closer to the self-defense force. It was as if they were trying to keep bad blood at a distance, deploying the self-defense force and civil officer troops separately. But having the two forces a kilometer or two apart would be ineffective.
At this rate, even if the self-defense force wanted the support of the civil officer troops, in the time between the request for help and when the civil officers rushed to the scene, the battle would already be decided.
This was like the self-defense force was keeping the civil officer squads at a distance on purpose. Rentaro thought as much and then shook his head softly. They really were trying to keep them apart.
Across the country, civil officers were hated for the most part. From the police organizations' perspective, civil officers were thorns in their sides, territory thieves who overstepped their jurisdictions and intruded on the scene. From the SDF's perspective, civil officers ended up interfering with the duty of defending the country, which the SDF had taken on. It wasn't surprising that they wouldn't like civil officers in the slightest. In this scenario, COs were probably called the decisive backup in name only, but were really meant to do nothing. The SDF was most likely going to attempt a settlement without them.
It looked like Rentaro was not the only one to realize this. There were a considerable number of Promoters who looked disappointed after hearing Gado's explanation. Gado himself realized as well, of course, and tried to pass on the information as calmly as possible, but he could not completely conceal his disappointment and resentment in the space between breaths.
After finishing a cursory explanation, Gado said with a glare, "Does anyone have any questions?"
Rentaro looked around him, but no one seemed to have any questions, so he raised his own hand.
Next to him, Kisara said, "Hey, Satomi!" and poked him with an elbow. Apparently, she was afraid that he would pick a fight.
"You over there," said Gado. "You're young, aren't you? Who are you?"
"IP Rank 300, Rentaro Satomi," said Rentaro.
There was a small stir from those around him.
"Oh, you're the one…," said Gado with realization. "I welcome you. I will take anyone who can lend their strength right now."
"Hey, what did your explanation just now mean?" Rentaro asked.
Gado looked embarrassed at the directness of the question. "We have been ordered to prepare ourselves and stand by in the rear until we receive other orders from the self-defense force. That's all."
"Then, why don't we just withdraw the troops to the Flame of Return ten kilometers away? If we're there, we can use the natural fortress of the dilapidated buildings with a lot of places to hide, which would give us an advantage in guerilla warfare. Over here, it's all open fields with too good a view. You know that we civil officers aren't good at fighting on fields, right? Then—"
Gado cut him off. "I know what you want to say. However, if we fall back that far, we will not be able to respond to the self-defense force's support request promptly."
"Do you really believe something like that will come?"
Gado did not say anything, but his eyes flashed, and Rentaro and Gado glared at each other wordlessly. The commotion around them had gotten so rowdy that it was out of control. Suddenly, Gado seemed to remember something and started to speak, but he ignored Rentaro's question and instead gave a quick rundown of the next day's schedule, and then hurriedly left with his Initiator in tow.
After everyone returned in groups to their squad tents, Kisara put both hands on her hips as if to slow herself down, and when it apparently wasn't enough, she opened her mouth angrily. "Jeez! You scared me. You did snap at him after all! Can you be in the presence of someone important without flaring up at them?"
Rentaro scratched his head hard. "It's not like I snapped at him. I was just trying to resolve the doubt in my mind."
Help came from an unexpected source. "I agree with Satomi," said Shoma. "Something was off about Commander Gado. If Satomi hadn't asked, I would have."
"Wait, Shoma. Satomi is my employee. Will you please not spoil him?"
"But if I think about the self-defense force taking them all down, it seems kind of anticlimactic," said Tamaki.
"It's fine, isn't it, Tamaki?" said Yuzuki. "It'd be fine if we got through this without anything happening. Because then everyone can go home safely."
Listening to the Katagiri siblings talk, Rentaro mumbled, "I hope that's the case…"
"What is it, boyo? There something you wanna say?" interjected Tamaki.
Rentaro shook his head hurriedly. "There wasn't any deep meaning behind it or anything…"
Sensing that the air was growing dark between them, Kisara tried to smooth things over. "I know! Since we were actually able to form an adjuvant, wanna do something for good luck?"
The other seven looked at each other. No one had any objections.
Rentaro and the others went outside and took some branches from their allotment of firewood, making a pile and lighting the portable fuel. In no time, red flames stretched up and heat warmed their skin. They gazed at the tongues of fire for a while in silence, stealing fleeting glances at each other. The faces of those around the bonfire glowed red in the darkness, and from the treetops came the sound of late-summer insects. It was a strange and wondrous atmosphere.
What would happen to them from now on? Would they really be able to fight to the end without losing anyone?
Rentaro pulled his XD gun from his hip and raised it over his head, holding it aloft over the flames, and looked around him. "Everyone, thanks for being willing to help out someone like me. In the three days between the collapse of the Monolith and the arrival of the replacement Monolith, let's fight through together with all our strength."
"Jeez, you're overreacting." Smiling to hide her embarrassment, Kisara drew the Yukikage from her hip and crossed it above Rentaro's XD.
"My life is yours, Big Brother. For your sake, I will do anything." Tina lifted her sniper rifle and crossed it over Rentaro's and Kisara's.
"Jeez, Tina, you're too serious. Just what's so great about this perv?" Yuzuki grumbled, stretching her arm to cross the others.
"Hey, hey, hey, Rentaro Satomi. Be grateful for this strength I'm lending ya!" Tamaki added his Mateba.
"It's a great responsibility, huh, Satomi?" Suppressing a chuckle, Shoma raised his Sig gun.
"I-I think Leader Satomi is a good leader!" Midori released her nails and lifted them up.
"Everyone…" Rentaro was at a loss for words for a moment.
Then, suddenly he felt something heavy on both shoulders and stumbled forward. Enju had jumped on Rentaro's shoulders and sat so she was riding them. "We have gathered all these strong people. We will definitely win!" Enju lifted her small and graceful hand, and from eight directions, eight hearts crossed.
Enju smiled as she led the others in a cheer. "All right, everyone, let's work hard together! Hey, hey—"
Enju's voice seemed far from his ears as Rentaro thought. In the end, Rentaro was unable to get their last pair.
He was most worried that the Gastrea Aldebaran had appeared near the Monolith, which normal Gastrea would not go near; and that it had accomplished the feat of invading and withdrawing as it pleased.
There was also the problem of the corpses that had been cut down on the main street. It wasn't Kisara. She hadn't arrived yet at the time, and she had no reason to do something like that in the first place.
He had a mountain of vague worries. He also had a mountain of specific mysteries to concern himself with. However, he had to move forward. The huddle the eight of them were in dipped inwardly, and the next instant, it bounced up toward the sky.
"—Ho!!!" They chorused together.
The shouts of eight voices echoed through the night sky, and the smoke beacon celebrating the formation of their adjuvant rose high.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter018.txt
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Black Bullet
BLACK BULLET 3 CHAPTER 02
DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD BY FIRE
1
"It's time. Stop." Rentaro pushed the stopwatch, and groans of people relaxing could be heard here and there.
"Ahh.…"
"Whoa…"
Kisara clapped her hands. "Okay, pass your answer sheets to the front!"
The students of the outdoor classroom calmly passed their papers forward. The foremost student represented the others and handed the papers to Rentaro. He bundled the stiff, low-quality papers together on the crude table, put them in his bag, and then lifted his head.
"How was it?" he asked them.
He was met with reproaches of "I couldn't do it!" and "It was hard!"
Kisara, who made the questions, looked conflicted, but after noticing the smiling Enju and prim Tina, it looked like at least a couple of them had passed.
Rentaro had checked the questions ahead of time, but multiplying two-digit numbers together looked to still be a little too hard for the children of the Outer District. Rentaro had known before he enrolled Enju, but it looked like he had no choice but to say that the children of the Outer District were at a lower academic level than normal ten-year-olds. However, that did not mean that the IQ of the children of the Outer District was lower.
In fact, Rentaro and Kisara were the ones who were surprised at how quickly they absorbed new information. Generally, grades were determined by the total value of three main parameters: memory, critical thinking to apply things memorized, and interest. Rentaro, who had a vast difference in his grades for biology and history even though they were both memorization subjects, was painfully aware that he could not underestimate the power of interest.
Like an Italian artist once said, eating against one's will is injurious to health, and study without interest makes the memory retain nothing it takes in. Of course, the Outer District had few recreations, so to the girls, even studying seemed to be fun, and that was a big part of it. However, even though Rentaro had not known them for very long, he felt like outside of that, they also knew that studying was something that would be beneficial to their futures.
Rentaro tilted his head and squinted at the rays of sunlight shining down on them. Conversely, what about himself? His earliest memories were of burned fields after the Great Gastrea War, of collapsed homes and buildings, people crying and shouting, black smoke that stung his eyes, and the stink of decay.
After everything had been taken away from him, the empty Rentaro was able to stand again after being filled with hatred. Hatred became the fuel that drove his body, and it had provided temporary relief.
But in the end, that was nothing more than a stopgap measure. Eventually, he ran out of fuel, of course, and he came to see everything as meaningless, finally losing his ability to keep up his enthusiasm for study and dropping out of school. Even so, he had been praised as a prodigy and whatnot when he was young.
To Rentaro, the students in front of him were dazzling. He was sure these girls were the hope of Tokyo Area. Rentaro found this personal opinion an unyielding one, even if everyone else in the world chanted opposition. But Rentaro shook his head and pushed back the sentiment. He had other things to do at present. "Please pass these handouts around," and distributed sheaves to the front row of pupils.
Once the handouts were passed around, the students looked at each other with unconcealed confusion. One student raised her hand nervously to speak for the class. "Mr. Rentaro, what does this 'Future Dream' mean…?"
Rentaro put both hands on his hips and exhaled through his nose. "It's just as it says. Write about what you want to be in the future."
The students looked like they were not quite satisfied with this explanation. Apparently, they had never done this kind of recreation before. This was supposed to be a break after the test, but he might have made them more confused instead.
Oh no. He looked up at the sky, scratching the back of his head. "Well, if you don't want to do it, then—"
There were scritching sounds, and when he looked at the girls, they were already giving the papers their full attention, pencils moving intently.
So you will do it. Rentaro sighed as he looked at the students, and asked himself why they were spending the precious time they had left in the Outer District's outdoor classroom.
There were less than three days left before the collapse of the Monolith.
Currently, Rentaro and the others were sleeping in the civil officer squad tent, and he and Kisara had told their high schools by phone that they would be taking a temporary absence. His homeroom teacher had accepted it silently and said, "Do your best," with casual insistence.
Under Commander Gado, they had standard training in the morning, but it was all in the classroom, learning about simple formations and the different types and meanings of signal flares. Well, he thought, that was only natural. There was a limit to how much training they could do in the remaining three days, and they weren't expecting something as organized as the SDF, which had been training for years, from civil officers who were "just a bunch of ruffians." The fact that they had the whole afternoon off was further proof of how low the expectations were for them.
So Rentaro, Kisara, Enju, and Tina chose to spend the rest of their time in the outdoor classroom. It may have been that part of their hearts wanted that peace of mind. Rentaro had heard that routine work like this helped to lessen stress. He was sure that that was the reason why he was here, too.
Just then, Enju called out, "I'm finished!" and stood up, excitedly turning in the paper to Rentaro. It read: "My future dream is to become Rentaro's wife and kiss him as much as I want every day." Underneath the scrawl was a sketch of a strange-looking monster face with large googly eyes. Is this supposed to be me? he thought.
"You do something similar every day already, don't you?" he said.
Enju laughed and locked her hands behind her back as she returned to her seat. "Then, I am happy every day."
Rentaro smiled wryly and returned back to his interrupted thoughts. On the other hand, there were big changes happening in the city. The large underground shelter that had been made after the Great War had been opened, and thirty percent of the residents of Tokyo Area who were chosen by lottery were already starting to be evacuated by block. Naturally, even within families, there were those who had been chosen and those who had not, and there were embraces and promises to reunite seen all over the place.
The remaining seventy percent were completely divided into two types. The first type believed that the mixed troops of the SDF and COs would be victorious and tried to maintain normal societal operations. The second type believed that the troops would lose.
The latter were escaping overseas, even selling off their household goods at low prices to scrape together enough money to buy the aircraft tickets that had suddenly jumped in price. Those that could not do even this were going around town crushed with despair, struggling to do whatever they could to forge or steal shelter spots.
Public order was disrupted mainly by the second type of people, and riots broke out as a result. Vigilante groups organized and strengthen patrols, but the current situation was that it was not nearly enough compared to the number of riots breaking out.
All of Tokyo Area was being torn apart by fear and worry. However, Rentaro thought their unease was justified.
A person's mental state was able to stay calm because of ignorance. If people were able to count on their fingers the number of days until their deaths, they would not be able to sleep peacefully.
Whether they were aware of it or not, people expected each day to proceed according to plan. However, currently, the kind veil of ignorance had been lifted, and the truth had been exposed to all the residents of Tokyo Area. The truth said this: "Your lives will come abruptly to an end in three days, and it is possible that you will be eaten alive."
Large parts of the population became depressed in each district, and the whole town was still. But even so, the days passed solemnly.
The cool fresh air touched his skin, and he tilted his head. Rentaro gazed at the blue sky that seemed to stretch forever and then looked back at the students scribbling away silently as they sat on the grass. Rentaro thought that the outdoor classroom where he was teaching seemed to be isolated from the worry and confusion, and time passed gently. For a moment, he succumbed to those strong feelings.
However, of course, the Outer District was not such a leisurely place that it could hold onto that tranquility for long. The triggers of violence that were building up in the whole area had not yet reached the Outer District. However, it was probably just a matter of time.
Rentaro prayed. He prayed that it would pass away without anything happening.
Just then, there was another voice that announced, "I'm finished." Tina stood up and brought her paper to him.
Her paper said, "My future dream is to become Big Brother's wife and kiss him as much as I want every day." Rentaro froze, mouth agape.
When he lifted his gaze to Tina, she blushed with embarrassment and ducked her head. "C-can't I?"
Rentaro didn't know what to say and was mumbling something ambiguous when the stopwatch went off. Rentaro clapped his hands to tell everyone to stop and then collected the papers.
"All right, that's it for today's—" As he was trying to end the class, he stopped before the last word.
The children were all staring at their desks with gloomy faces. For the girls, the fact that they still had classes to attend had allowed them to stop thinking about the destruction they faced and had probably saved them mentally, at least until now.
Rentaro crossed his arms and thought for a moment. "Hey, Miss Kisara, how much do you have in your wallet right now?"
"Huh? What do you mean?" Kisara asked, confused.
"Just tell me."
Kisara opened her worn-out coin purse and made a sour face, then held up three fingers. If she had that much, combined with what he had in his wallet, they should have enough for round-trip train tickets.
Rentaro nodded once and faced forward, shouting from his gut. "All right! We're going on a field trip, so raise your hands if you want to go!"
With the excited and restlessly moving girls in the lead, Rentaro and the others changed trains, got off at District 14, and followed the signs from the station. As they got closer to their destination, there was more forest, and the peaceful smell got stronger; even the chatter of the students turned to wonder. In the forest with knotty roots echoed the chirps of cuckoos, and the sunlight sparkled as it filtered in between the branches of the trees. After they passed the forest of light, there was a large group of abandoned buildings standing in front of them.
The glass of the windows was cracked, and the buildings themselves were slanting; in the place of people, it had become nesting grounds for different species of birds. But in their golden age, these were proud to be some of the few intelligent buildings in Japan. There was a small park, too, courtyard-size, around the building. This was the only part that was well taken care of, and it did not have the shadowlike atmosphere of most abandoned buildings.
When Rentaro's group got to the center, Rentaro walked up the steps and stopped in front of the monument that came up to his chest. On the top half was written in large letters: FLAME OF RETURN.
"Mr. Rentaro, what's this…?"
Looking back to answer his student's question, Rentaro glanced at each student in turn as he started to talk. "Do any of you know about the Second Kanto Battle?"
All the girls shook their heads at once.
Rentaro put his hand on the monument and rubbed its rugged metallic skin. Even in the summer, it felt cool to the touch against Rentaro's hand. "There were two Kanto Battles in the past. The first time, it was during the war ten years ago. In what is now called the Outer District, the SDF clashed with Gastrea, and it suffered a crushing defeat."
"They lost?" Enju asked, her eyes wide.
Rentaro nodded. "That's right. And so, the self-defense force was forced to regroup by retreating to old Saitama, and they lost a lot of ground. If they had won that battle, the current Tokyo Area would have been much, much bigger. And the Second Kanto Battle happened right where you're standing now."
There was a stir, and the students looked at each other. "Did they lose again?" one of the girls asked.
Rentaro shook his head. "No; this time, they won."
Sighs of relief swept among the girls.
"In fact, it's because they forced back the war front and put up the Monolith blockade that Tokyo Area has the shape it does now."
Tina raised her hand. "Why were they suddenly able to win if they lost the first time?"
"That's a good question. The first time, it was still early in the Great Gastrea War, so mankind did not yet understand what the organisms called Gastrea were. Even if they wounded the Gastrea with normal weapons, if they hit anything other than the brain or heart, the Gastrea were able to recover."
The girls smiled bitterly. The fact was that with the Gastrea factors inside their bodies, they were probably better acquainted than him with the self-regenerative abilities.
"Are you saying that the second time, they had more information?"
"That's right. Using the surviving communication networks, information was shared around the world. By that time, the fact that that Gastrea showed a strong aversion to Varanium was already so widespread, it was considered a self-evident truth. That's why by adding Varanium to tank gun bullets, they were even able to kill Gastrea with hard shells with one hit. This Flame of Return has two meanings—one, to commemorate the day we won the war, and two, as a memorial to the souls of those who lost their lives during the Gastrea battles up to that point. Actually, this monument was made by melting two thousand guns used during the Second Kanto Battle."
As one the girls breathed an awed, "Really?"
Having such a great audience, Rentaro congratulated himself a little and asked, "Do you know what the Genan Festival is?"
They all raised their hands. "I know! It's that pretty festival where the sky shines with lights, right?"
It was Rentaro's turn to be impressed. The lights must have been bright enough to be seen even from the Outer District. "That's right. People make small palm-size balloons, and then when night falls, everyone releases them at once, so some of you may have seen it before. The balloons are supposed to be filled with thanks to the people who died fighting in the Gastrea War, and the festival started after the Second Kanto Battle."
There, Rentaro suddenly realized something and lifted his eyes to count in his head. "There are five days left before this year's Genan Festival, huh?" After he said that, he looked back at the children.
For some reason, they all looked downcast with their shoulders slumped. "Mr. Rentaro… Are we going to die? Will we be able to live…to see the next Genan Festival…?"
Rentaro exhaled from his nose and put his hand on the student with chestnut brown hair. "Dummy. You still don't know why we came here for our field trip?"
"Huh?"
Rentaro looked at each and every one of his students. "The fact is, I brought you here today because I wanted you to know about the Second Kanto Battle. I think you already know that the fight that will start after the Monolith collapses will be called the Third Kanto Battle. But even after the Monolith falls, the self-defense force that won the Second Kanto Battle will be protecting us, so you won't be dying."
One of the students looked at Rentaro nervously. "Mr. Rentaro, is that really true?"
"Yeah, it's true."
"But the self-defense force's missiles and planes crashed, didn't they?"
Startled, Rentaro started to say, "How did you know that?" but shook his head almost immediately after. Even these girls would be naturally greedy for information if their lives were at stake.
Rentaro put his hand on his chin and considered. Last night, he had called the Seitenshi to ask about the effect of the lynching of a regular person by the Cursed Children on the Outer District. At the time, she had told him something baffling.
In the first place, when he had seen the report of the gathering of Gastrea, he thought that if the Gastrea were concentrated in one place, then it was the perfect chance to get them all at once with a missile or other weapon of mass destruction. And apparently, Rentaro was not the only one to think that. Timing their movements with the mass of Gastrea, an Aegis cruiser in the water, under orders from the JNSC, fired a precision-guided munition—a Tomahawk missile. However, what was baffling was that there was no confirmation that the missile had hit its mark before its signal completely disappeared.
Before they even had a chance to be puzzled, two fighter aircraft, the treasure of the self-defense force, sent missiles from the air to hit the targets, but these gave a last indistinct scream before communication was lost.
The last one even Rentaro knew. It was the TV news crew that was lost after broadcasting live from the Unexplored Territory the other day. From a picture taken by an unmanned aerial vehicle from high above, apparently, they had been able to find the wreckage of the two fighter aircraft and the news helicopter.
The news helicopter had been cut cleanly in two and then mangled, and the fighter aircraft had been made into perfect cross sections with their wings sheared off. The Tomahawk missile had not been found yet, but the Seitenshi predicted that it would be found in a shape beyond what they could imagine before long.
As he listened, Rentaro rubbed his upper arms unconsciously with the chills crawling up his spine. In other words, nothing that had gone to the mass of Gastrea had returned safely. But was it because of Aldebaran, as well, or…?
"We also have no idea what happened," said the Seitenshi. "I have heard that you know about the habits of Gastrea, Satomi. I'm sorry, but with our shortage of personnel, we would even want the opinion of a civilian like you. Do you have any idea what might be going on?"
Rentaro was bewildered. If it had just been the helicopter, then it would have been reasonable to deduce that a strong flying Gastrea caught it and tore it apart. However, fighter jets that could fly at supersonic speeds and cruise missiles that were even faster than that had been shot down, so this was no ordinary situation.
Japan's airborne self-defense force had been one of the organizations to suffer the most losses in the Great Gastrea War ten years ago, but that was why the surviving pilots had had plenty of real combat experience and were called some of the most powerful in the world. For Gastrea up to Stage Three, unless things went very wrong, it was hard to think that they would fall behind.
But considering further… What if it was a peregrine falcon–type Gastrea? It was the fastest bird on earth and could reach speeds of up to three hundred kilometers per hour in nature.
Rentaro thought that much and then shook his head. No. The fighter aircraft that had been found had their wings cut off cleanly, according to the Seitenshi. It was too hard for even a peregrine falcon Gastrea to slice off wings made of a tough metal alloy.
In the first place, if a Gastrea that flew at almost the speed of sound came into contact with a fighter aircraft, neither would be able to leave unscathed. If that was the case, then it would be hard to explain why there were no Gastrea corpses at the scene.
Since the Seitenshi was counting on him, he wanted to solve this for her somehow, but he didn't have the slightest idea. However, there was already a suspicion in the corner of his mind, and it had put down roots.
Just then, Kisara poked him with her elbow, and the students all looked at him together with strangely uneasy expressions. Wondering just how long he had been lost in thought, Rentaro hurriedly cleared his throat. "The fighter aircraft getting shot down and losing the missile is no more than a rumor. Miss Kisara and I will both be fighting on the front lines as civil officers. You all can stop worrying."
"You guys are fighting, too?" a student asked.
"Yeah."
The children looked at each other and finally started to look a little relieved.
Thinking it was a suitable time, Rentaro put one hand on the Flame of Return and considered the students. "I'm sure you know about the lynching of the regular person by the Cursed Children—"
The second he brought up that topic, the students' expressions clouded over. One girl lifted her face to speak for everyone. "It…wasn't us, you know."
"I know. But there's something I want you all to hear. There's the saying that all humans are born equal—" Rentaro closed his eyes and exhaled. "That saying is a lie."
"Huh?" questioned a bunch of different voices.
When Rentaro opened his eyes, he looked at his pupils one by one. "A crime committed by one of the Stolen Generation is judged as a crime by that one person, but a crime committed by one of the Cursed Children has an impact on all of you. I want you all to know this, too. Humans are not born equal at all."
"Then…" He heard a hoarse voice, and one of the students asked, shaking, "Then…what are we supposed to do?"
"Bear it. And don't even think about getting even. Right now, I think all you can do is bear it for a while. No matter how bad the cards you were dealt, you must make a hand out of those and win somehow. This is the same for all of you." Rentaro scratched the back of his head. "Th-that's why, well, even if it's something that can't be helped, since I've become your teacher, I'll teach you a bunch of stuff, if you'll have me—"
"Everyone, gather round!" one of the students shouted, and in no time, the twenty students huddled with their foreheads touching and started whispering to each other. After a while, the students started to steal glances toward Rentaro, and Rentaro watched uncomfortably as he heard a voice say, "That teacher's pretty good."
"Wh-what's that about?" he asked Kisara, who was standing next to him.
Kisara put her hand to her chin. "Who knows?"
Finally, they finished their discussion and the students adjourned with solemn faces, only to make an Okay symbol with their hands. "Mr. Rentaro, you pass."
"Wh-what?" Rentaro stammered.
"It means we like you."
"I-I see."
"There are five of us who would like to date you with marriage in mind."
Rentaro didn't say anything.
"I am one of those five."
There was an even longer pause.
Kisara pointed at herself, looking like she was about to cry. "Wh-what about me?"
"We haven't decided about you yet, Miss Kisara."
"What?!"
Finally, the students swarmed around them with shrill voices and pulled both of Rentaro's hands. Pulled along, Rentaro looked up at the sky and gave a big sigh.
2
By the time Rentaro and Kisara took the children back to District 39 and returned to the squad tent with Enju and Tina, it was already dusk. All four lined up at the field kitchen to get food, then went back to the tent and sat in a circle.
From the smell of spices that wafted toward them, Rentaro had already somewhat guessed that today's meal was curry. Since he didn't expect much from the taste, it ended up being better than he expected. That itself left a strong impression, but it helped that his stomach was empty. He cleaned his plate in no time. To the members of Tendo Civil Security Agency, who were always in needy circumstances, today's food was a happy miscalculation.
After the meal, the Initiators had their corrosion-inhibiting injection. Kisara announced, "I'm going to the restroom," and similarly took her bag and walked aimlessly somewhere. She probably didn't want to be seen taking her chronic diabetes' insulin shot.
When Kisara finally came back, inside the tent, in the dim light of the camp lantern, everyone had spread out the foodstuffs and junk food they brought from home and were letting loose.
They told stories of Gastrea they had bravely defeated, as well as encounters and eyewitness accounts of mysterious Gastrea. Tamaki, who was old enough to drink, had beer and enthusiastically sang songs he composed himself, his face red.
Strangely enough, even though it hadn't even been two days yet, living crowded together in a tent like this, it was like they had been friends for years.
Rentaro also let loose a little, shaking a can of cola and spraying it at Tamaki, but in general he was coldly observing the situation.
Everyone was relaxed and laughing, which was unusual for them. However, it was likely that this was their only chance to play around. Everyone was probably this relaxed because they were afraid. The others had probably also noticed this, but there was no one who dared to say it out loud.
Finally, when Enju started to rub her eyes sleepily, that was everyone's signal to break up for the day. The half tent that Rentaro brought and didn't end up needing was reappropriated by Kisara and Tina.
Tamaki didn't even try to hide his ulterior motives when he said, "Ma'am, you should sleep in the same tent as us."
Kisara stuck out her tongue in reply and blushed as she snuck a sideways glance at Rentaro. "I don't want Satomi to do something weird to me while I'm sleeping…," she replied, and turned away in a huff.
Tina's face made it obvious that she wanted to sleep in the big tent, but when Kisara said, "Tina, you're not going to betray me, too, are you?" Tina lost to peer pressure and let herself be persuaded to go to the other tent.
A little while after turning out the light, Enju, Yuzuki, and Tamaki soon fell asleep and started snoring, Enju and Yuzuki holding each other. A little ways away from Rentaro, Midori was sleeping in a very proper position. And Rentaro thought Shoma was awake, but he seemed to be sleeping sitting up and cross-legged, leaning on the wall of the tent.
Just me, huh? Rentaro sighed, gazing at the curtains of the tent fluttering in the wind. His mind wandered to the conversation with his students during the day. Even if it had been to calm the hearts of children fraught with worry, it pricked his conscience a little that he had lied and said, "We have the self-defense force, so it'll be fine," without any basis for that statement.
Truth be told, he was worried, too.
In the self-defense force that had won the Second Kanto Battle, aside from the traditional conservatives, there were also the war advocates who wanted to open up the Monoliths and decisively get rid of the Gastrea. They had recently gained power, and lately, it appeared that these men and women did not even obey the commands of the Seitenshi.
The man named Takuto Yasuwaki, whom Rentaro had met and had intense confrontations with during the Seitenshi assassination attempt, was one of those in the war advocacy group that had been created after the Second Kanto War. And he had heard that the group camped out in front of the Monolith were all of the same type as Yasuwaki. If they underestimated Aldebaran's strength, then that could come back and turn into a crisis for Tokyo Area. Rentaro held at bay his uneasiness that wouldn't go away and took a deep breath, praying that he was worrying needlessly.
Just then, a voice that sounded like the buzz of a mosquito entered the tent. "Satomi, are you awake?"
Rentaro slowly lifted his eyelids. "Kisara?"
"Yeah, do you want to go for a walk?" Her voice came from outside the tent. Rentaro got up quietly to keep from waking Enju next to him and went out of the squad tent.
Yesterday, it had been hot and humid and hard to sleep, so he had braced himself, but the wind that hit his skin didn't feel especially hot or cold and was instead a comfortable temperature. The undergrowth swayed with a rustling sound in time to the sound of the insects, and in the midst of that stood Kisara, holding down her hair to protect it from the wind. For some reason, Kisara's smile showed both loneliness and embarrassment. "Did I wake you?"
Rentaro shook his head. "How far are we going?"
"Let's see." Kisara kept her hands clasped behind her and spun around, looking at the sky. "Let's go to Monolith 32."
"That's a little far." After a moment's thought, he suddenly had the brilliant idea of taking Kisara to the frontline headquarters.
Seeing a sentry standing on watch next to the motorcycle parking area, he saluted. "Commander Gado asked me to take a message," he said smoothly.
Three minutes later, Rentaro had the keys to a motorcycle in his hands. Taking the helmet off the Kawasaki motorcycle with a sidecar he had chosen, he handed it to Kisara, who took it in astonishment, then finally gave up and shook her head, fastening the buckle under her chin.
"Do you remember how to drive?" she asked.
"I haven't driven since getting my civil officer license, so it's been about a year. But I'm sure it'll be fine." He turned the key in the ignition and started off. At first, he had a hard time with the rough, unpaved roads, but eventually, his hands remembered what to do, and the rest of the time passed quickly.
After about twenty minutes, they saw the front line facilities of the self-defense force. Rentaro casually passed through the base, but in fact, he was burning the whole of the facilities into his memory.
The troops were probably composed of foot soldiers called the Infantry Brigade. He could only estimate the number of people based on the scale of the facilities, but there were probably around six thousand. There were armored vehicles and tanks lined up in rows and a missile silo. The sentry was holding a Shiba Heavy Weapons Type 21 rifle; he was well equipped and seemed to be in high spirits. This was the full strength of the SDF…
Rentaro slowed the motorcycle at the side of the Monolith and suddenly felt all signs of life disappear. They were probably trying to stay away from the Monolith to protect themselves from the fragments and mineral dust produced by its collapse.
Cutting through the wind on the motorcycle, Rentaro lifted his gaze and thought, It can't be helped. The Monolith stood sternly in front of them to protect Tokyo Area, but it would soon succumb to its incurable disease and be stained white, falling to pieces. Even just looking at it was horrifying, and it was human nature to not want to be caught up in that.
Twenty meters in front of the Monolith, Rentaro stopped the motorcycle and told Kisara, "We're here."
She took off her helmet and shook her head. Her beautiful black hair, which sparkled even in the dark night, fell to her waist in waves. "Thanks for driving," she said, and started walking briskly to the Monolith.
"H-hey, Kisara!" He was about to say it was dangerous, but since Kisara didn't show any sign of stopping, he scratched his head and, left with no other choice, followed behind her.
She went all the way to the base of the Monolith and stretched out a hand to touch the Monolith through the clamp on its side. "Satomi, try this."
Rentaro couldn't tell what Kisara was trying to say but went to stand by her dubiously, attempting a light touch of the Monolith. He'd felt a Monolith many times in the past; he remembered them being smooth and cold. However, the sensation Rentaro felt on the palm of his hand was completely different from what he had remembered from the past. This was dry and crumbling; it felt like crushing dried leaves. He thought it was some kind of mistake and reached his hand up to run it down the side. When he did, the pieces that came off the surface fell into a pile at his feet.
He didn't speak.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter020.txt
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Black Bullet
"It's terrible, isn't it?" said Kisara. "It's still okay because the corrosion hasn't reached the inside yet, but…to think that corrosion fluid can do this to Varanium…"
"The Monolith…will really collapse, huh?" Rentaro tilted his head and looked up at the tip of the Monolith that thrust into the sky, lost in his complicated feelings.
In the past, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke defined the stone monoliths that appeared in his story as objects installed by God to stimulate mankind's evolution. If that were the case, had mankind been able to learn anything important from the Gastrea War and evolve to a higher dimension? Thinking about it that way, was the destruction that spread out before him related to the death of God?
He shook his head. Stop, you're just avoiding the issue. The only thing he could say was that the Monolith was definitely going to collapse. And he needed to hold back the death that would result from that in order to connect to the future of the world.
Kisara stepped back as she looked up at the Monolith. "Hey, Satomi, do you know how Monoliths are made?"
"Now that you mention it…I've never seen it in person. Since we say that Monoliths are assembled, I'd say the parts are all brought to the location and—"
Kisara looked at Rentaro with an expression that seemed to express her disgust. "Idiot. With an answer like that, I can't even give you partial credit. The answer is, well, it would be easier if you imagined how ancient pyramids were built."
"Pyramids?"
"Pyramids were built by taking cut stone blocks and using special tools to stack them on top of each other, right? Monoliths are also made from masses of blocks. Those are flown in with transport aircrafts or helicopters and stacked onto each other at the site. Of course, if they were just stacked, they'd quickly be blown over by the wind, so they're stuck together by adhesive stronger than the stuff used in military aircraft and spaceships."
"Then this is made of piles of blocks? I can't see where they're joined, though."
"That's because the precision of Japan's Monoliths is considered top class even among the rest of the world." Kisara boldly stuck a finger in the air. "It starts with a hundred meters." She slid the finger she lifted and pointed at the Monolith. "When this Monolith 32 collapses, the initial construction will stack blocks up to a hundred meters high. With that, normal Gastrea won't be able to come in anymore. After that, they'll continue building for about a month until it reaches its final height of 1.6 kilometers. Satomi, you might not remember this, but after the War, the Monoliths didn't start out this tall."
Rentaro shook his head silently. He did remember. The Monoliths after the Great War were a lot shorter. The endless fear of the Gastrea made humans create gigantic walls that were 1.9 kilometers high. "How long will it take to build it up to a hundred meters?" he asked.
"If the materials and transport vehicles are all here, then it would take about half a day."
"That fast?"
"Well, yeah. It's not an individual or a company, but the Tokyo Area government that's hiring all the general contractors to build this. Of the ten days it all takes, most of the time is spent making the Varanium the right shape. Well, in the end, even if it's restored to 1.6 kilometers, that still doesn't prevent the flying Gastrea from wandering in from a high altitude, though—"
"That's not all, is it? There will still be those Gastrea who run away from freak shows, research institutions, and collectors with unusual tastes, and those who run into the area protected by Monoliths with infected body fluids, and…"
"Initiators whose corrosion rates went above fifty percent."
"Wait a minute, Kisara. Don't you think this is weird? In the first place, why is the government trying to rebuild a Monolith here? Even if they desperately built a Monolith, if Aldebaran came to inject Varanium corrosion fluid again, it'd be all over, right?" He paused. "Wait, that's not it." Rentaro tried to put into words the doubts that were lurking in his mind. "Why hasn't Aldebaran attacked any other Monoliths? Rather than attacking one place, wouldn't it be more efficient to attack a number of different places at the same time to create a hole?"
"That's it. That's the problem." Kisara thrust her index finger at him. "Somehow, after observing for the past few days, the government has come to the conclusion that Aldebaran can't attack other Monoliths. And in reality, Aldebaran hasn't interfered with any other Monoliths."
"Is there a reason for that?"
"The government looks like they have some theories, but in truth, they don't actually know. Hey, Satomi, since the two of us are here together, do you want to try reasoning it out?"
Rentaro nodded silently. Ever since Rentaro heard the explanation of the contents of the job directly from the Seitenshi herself, he had doubts about the indifference toward other Monoliths held by Aldebaran, which was no more than a Stage Four Gastrea. It was reassuring to be thinking about this with Kisara, whose knowledge and insight surpassed his.
Kisara held up three fingers to show him. "I have three hypotheses. The first is, when Aldebaran attacked Monolith 32, it used up all its strength and then needed to rest for a long time."
Rentaro put his hand on his chin. That was possible. If Aldebaran was a normal Gastrea, then just coming near Varanium electromagnetic waves would be enough to make it waste away. However—"It's already been four days since that first incident, right? Wouldn't it have recovered by now?"
"No, there are individual differences, so we can't necessarily rule that out. My second hypothesis is that because of where it's situated, the Monolith's effects are lessened."
Rentaro looked around them, but there were just plains as far as the eye could see. "Is there any difference between this place and the adjoining Monoliths 31 and 33?"
Kisara raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms. "You could say they're exactly the same."
"Is it possible that there's something buried under ground?"
Kisara shook her head. "Before the Monoliths are built, they do a simple soil test, so it's hard to believe."
"Then that's not it."
"Right, so the third hypothesis is, Aldebaran is not very smart, so it did not think of attacking multiple Monoliths at the same time."
"That's not it." Rentaro could deny that promptly; it was the least likely. "That guy even used the loyal ant Gastrea to stall for time in order to attack this place. Aldebaran is smart, provokingly so."
"That's true." Even though she had come up with this explanation, she did not seem to put much faith in it and withdrew it easily, folding her arms again.
"But thanks to you, I've been able to organize my thoughts," said Rentaro. "I have one more conjecture." Rentaro looked up at the top of the Monolith that was being cruelly bleached. "What if there was some sort of problem with this Monolith in particular?"
Kisara gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "But that's…"
"But if that's the case, that would give a reason for why this Monolith was targeted and the others were not."
Kisara put a hand to her chin. "That's true… You're right… I didn't think of that." Kisara looked straight at Rentaro. "I'll try looking into this Monolith a little more."
"Please do."
To discuss this further without waiting for the results of her research would just be piling inference on top of inference, so it was not constructive. His wise childhood friend also seemed to realize this, and she stopped the conversation with a "Yeah," and gave a big stretch. She went to the sloped meadow and lay down facing the sky, patting the grass with her hand as she looked at him. "Satomi, why don't you come lay down next to me?"
Suddenly, his heart gave a big leap.
"R-right." Rentaro told himself to keep Kisara from suspecting that his heart was pounding inside and moved awkwardly to lie down next to her. There was a rustling sound, and the smell of warm earth reached his nostrils. Looking quietly next to him, he saw Kisara's white arm stretched out on the grass, her pretty thigh and the line of her body, and the bulge of her chest pushing up the fabric of her clothes.
"Hey, Satomi, look at the sky! Look!"
Rentaro had only been looking at Kisara, so he didn't look at the sky until she told him to, but when he did, he let out an involuntary exclamation of wonder. In the clear summer night sky with no moon, the Milky Way twinkled. There were so many stars that it was hard to find the Big Dipper. "Wow…" he breathed. "Amazing. That's all I can say."
"We live in the middle of all the lights in Tokyo Area. Because of them, the light of the stars is drowned out. Even though they're actually this beautiful."
Stealing another glance at Kisara's profile, he saw that she had her mouth open slightly, her eyes fixed on the stars with a childlike expression on her face. You're even more beautiful, you know. If he could speak the words that welled from his chest, it would be so much easier to figure out his relationship with her.
Employee and boss, childhood friends, foster brother and younger sister born only a few months apart, student of the Tendo Style and senior disciple. Adjuvant leader and member. There were a lot of words that could be used to describe them, but none of them hit the mark.
For some reason, her left hand stretched out on the grass seemed far away. If he could just muster the courage, it would have been possible for him to gently cover it with his palm. Rentaro shook his head softly. "Kisara, do you know what light pollution is?"
"Light pollution?"
"Yeah, pollution caused by light." Still lying down, Rentaro wrote the words out in the air for her. "Just as you say, the lights from the city are man-made, so they're not good for natural organisms. It can be so bright that it can even be seen from man-made satellites."
"Really?"
"Birds will fly in circles around the searchlight of a lighthouse until they finally fall from exhaustion. Bats and mice have also become easier to see by their predators because of the light, so they've become more cautious. Migratory birds think that the day is longer and eat for longer, making them too fat. Just-hatched baby sea turtles look for the ocean based on the reflection of light, so some get confused and end up going not to the ocean but to a hill. And fireflies who look for their mates using light can't find their lovers because of the artificial lights leaking out."
Glancing next to him, he saw that Kisara was looking at him with a faint smile. "Am I boring you?" he asked.
"No, not at all," she said. "I think it's wonderful."
Rentaro paused for a moment. "Hey, Kisara, why did you ask me to come to a place like this with you? You should be able to tell me now, right?"
Kisara gazed at the stars in silence.
Rentaro looked at her profile and asked as quietly as he could. "Are you scared? Of the Monolith collapsing?"
She shook her head quietly. "Saying something like this might be inconsiderate, but right now, I'm so happy it's scaring me."
"Happy?"
"Yeah, I'm really happy right now. Even though we keep hearing about the Monolith collapsing, it still hasn't sunk in yet."
"I…get that."
"And at the Tendo Civil Security Agency, we have Enju, and Tina, and you. We're like a family. We aren't making money at all, as usual, but we have enough to survive."
"Tina said she was happy right now, too, you know. I'm sure Enju is, too."
"What about you?" she asked.
"I am too, of course."
Kisara closed her eyes quietly. "Recently, I've been having this dream."
"A dream?"
"Yeah. When I come to, I'm on a bridge surrounded by the morning mist as far as the eye can see. I don't know how I got there or why I'm there, but I just know that I have to move forward. So I move forward in one direction on the bridge, but there's no one there. Eventually, the bridge ends abruptly and my body is swallowed up by this black swamplike thing. I just watch it silently until finally even my head goes under, but eventually, I figure out how to breathe and eventually feel better."
Rentaro didn't say anything.
"When I wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, I realize that my face is streaked with tears, and after that, I kept seeing the same dream over and over, so I started to think about it. And then I realized."
Looking next to him, his eyes met Kisara's. Kisara looked like she was about to be crushed with worry, and her eyes were wet.
"I realized that I was crying because I understood that this happiness had to end someday." Kisara shook her head with delicate eyes. "I killed them. I killed everyone in the world."
"Idiot." Rentaro put his hand on top of Kisara's and squeezed it. She was warm and slightly sweaty. "You've become overly sensitive without realizing it. Don't worry. Neither Enju, nor Tina, nor I will disappear."
"Yeah… You're right."
Looking sideways at her, he saw a slight hint of relief on her face, but in Rentaro's heart, slight ripples were spreading. During puberty, people saw a lot of different dreams, so it might not have been worth mentioning or making a fuss about, but when interpreting dreams, bridges were important metaphors that connected this world from the next, and the present to the future. And swamps represented wicked feelings or spite, envy, or jealousy, and the color black also had similar meanings.
Generally, people who dreamed that they sank into swamps were very stressed and struggled to get out, but even when Kisara realized she was sinking, she was unimpressed and accepted it, which was somewhat eerie.
What did that mean?
Rentaro suddenly shook his head to clear it of the thoughts he was having. No way, what am I thinking? Whatever he was thinking definitely didn't apply to Kisara.
"Satomi?" she said.
"Huh? What? Oh, what's wrong?"
Suddenly, Kisara lifted her left hand and tapped her watch. "Today will end in five minutes. And then we will be one day closer to the collapse of the Monolith."
"I-it'll be fine. I-I'll protect you, Kisara."
Kisara looked a little surprised but immediately turned bashful and smiled back at him. "Thank you, Satomi."
Rentaro felt his cheeks grow hot and looked away. And then the second hand went around the dial four times, and the countdown began. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four—"
Rentaro felt a squeeze from the hand he was holding, and Kisara's nails dug into his skin a little.
And then, the next moment, Japan entered the next day. Rentaro let out the breath he had been holding. The Milky Way still hung above them, unchanging.
There were two days left until the collapse of the Monolith.
3
After sleeping for two nights in a tent in District 40, Rentaro had gotten used to life there. However, Tina and Midori, who seemed more delicate, could not really stand the rugged floor of the tent and sleeping bags, and complained lightly.
Under Gado's command, this morning they were making barbed wire and sandbags and setting concrete blocks normally used to stop tanks in the areas where they predicted Gastrea would enter. The remaining time was spent in the classroom reviewing what they went over the day before, and as a final top off they were given details about the punishments for disobeying orders directly from Gado himself.
Apparently, Gado was pretty nervous about the civil officers not being able to agree on a course of action, so he was trying to prevent that by implementing a harsh punishment. Well, that was only natural, Rentaro thought. Even if the civil officers were a bunch of show-offs, if just one person turned and ran when the Gastrea attacked, it would have an effect on everyone's morale. If he was the commander, he would want to eliminate those rotten eggs who thought of themselves before everything else to the detriment of the group as soon as possible. He had no objections to Gado's way of doing things.
After they were dismissed, Rentaro dropped off Enju, Tina, and Kisara at the outdoor classroom, changed trains, and got off at Magata City. Sadly, even though Rentaro had brought a tent with him, he had completely forgotten to bring a change of clothes and underwear. Enju had already run out of underwear and was currently renting Tina's. Himself aside, as Enju's guardian he couldn't make her do something so crass.
Therefore, "Mr. Rentaro" was taking a day off today. When he got off at Magata City and started walking around, he immediately felt tension in the air and stopped. The first thing that met his eyes were the large amount of flyers covering the ground that looked like they had been blown over by the wind. Picking one up, he saw that there were conspiracy theories written on them, like "Don't forgive the tyrannical government! The government had already decided all who would be evacuated to the shelters from the start!"
Now that he thought about it, it had been two days since he had been home to Magata City, but in those two days, the city had turned into this. Near the concourse, there was an old man with white hair and a white beard, outfitted like someone homeless, standing on a wooden crate yelling in a high voice about the destruction of the world and the new hope that would come after that. Normally, no one would pay any attention to such incoherency, but Rentaro could see many cheering him on.
The bottoms of Rentaro's shoes crunched as he walked through the shopping arcade in front of the station. Display windows had been destroyed and looted. A little while later, Rentaro passed a truck with looted goods on it and was shocked when he realized that the driver had a vigilante group armband around his arm. So even those who had previously maintained society had become accomplices to criminality. He had heard about it on the news, but the situation was worse than he had imagined.
There were few people walking around outside. Naturally, evacuation had already started for this block. It was easy to forget when in the Outer Districts, but right now, the whole city-state of Tokyo Area was in an emergency evacuation.
While he was thinking this, he reached his apartment. It was still peaceful around here, but it would probably be caught up in the looting soon. Thinking that, he stuffed necessities and consumables into his overnight bag, not letting his hand stop. When he finally lifted his swollen bag, he felt its weight at the base of his arm.
Standing at the entrance to lock the door, he gazed at the eight-tatami-mat room with a swell of emotion—it was possible that he wouldn't return to this room again. But Rentaro brushed off the sentiment and pushed the sadly creaking door shut. He inserted the key and twisted the lock, shutting away the room and his memories. The next time he came, it would be to unlock it with Enju.
Putting the bag on his shoulder, he got on the train to head back to District 40. Even though there were not many people inside the train car, it was tense with the feeling of forcibly repressed panic. It was suffocating.
Looking for an escape for his eyes, he noticed a hanging advertisement near the roof. The headline of the handwritten ad said, BLOOD RETRIBUTION AGAINST THE CURSED CHILDREN! LYNCHING IN DISTRICT 3!!! The deterioration of public order had gathered in the easiest place for it to be vomited out.
The image of a certain girl recalled itself to his mind, and his heart skipped. No way. He shook his head, but the idea wouldn't leave once it had taken root. Rentaro wasn't able to contain himself, and stuck his hand in the closing door to get off the train.
Rentaro had gotten off at the District 9 station he had stopped by when he visited the Katagiri Civil Security Agency. Moving through the sparse pedestrians as he rushed out of the station, he pushed aside a couple and overtook an elderly walker as he strode with impatient steps. He couldn't explain why he was in such a hurry, but he didn't falter either.
Finally, he approached a five-road junction and climbed up the steps of a wide pedestrian bridge. She shouldn't be here. That's what he told himself over and over. She had promised.
He heard clamoring from above and felt murderous intent prickling on his skin; he could see a crowd of people. Panting, Rentaro dashed up the steps, and everything came into view. He saw a rush mat spread near the middle, and the metal bowl the girl had used was knocked over, with coins spilled out on the ground. There she was: Lying facedown on the ground was the caped girl. Around her was a band of grown adults. There were eight, in a wide range of ages from twenties to forties.
"What are you doing?!" Rentaro rushed over in front of the waif.
The fallen girl used her left had to try to push herself up with all her might and looked at Rentaro with her unseeing eyes. "That voice…are you that civil officer from before…?"
The girl had scratches all over her face, and the wound on her right arm that she was pushing down on had a spreading bloodstain that showed no sign of regenerating. Surprisingly, the girl's smile did not go out even after all this.
"Damn it, what a disgusting brat!" Facing front, Rentaro saw that the oldest man in front of him was holding a Varanium switchblade dripping with blood, his face twisted with hatred. It was a thin knife with a blade about twelve centimeters long; it was too short to fight off a Gastrea, so it was hard to think of what it could be used for other than to deliver a fatal wound to one of the Cursed Children.
The beggar girl shook her head, still bent over on the ground. "I'm sorry, Mr. Civil Officer. Even though I promised…I deserve what I got, but I, I just…"
"It's fine. I get it. Don't talk."
Just then, the middle-aged man with the knife took a step forward out of rage. He had a wide forehead and was plump, with flesh sagging underneath his chin. If he smiled, he probably would have looked very kind. Rentaro was shocked that even someone who seemed good would commit an act of violence against a defenseless girl.
"Move!" the man yelled. "That girl mixed in with the rest of us with an innocent look on her face and attacked when she found a chance. She's worse than the Gastrea! We have to eliminate the Cursed Children from the city!"
Rentaro knew the reason for the man's thoughtless anger. In short, this crowd was scared. Ever since that news, they were afraid of the Cursed Children coming after them for revenge.
Rentaro closed his eyes and drew his XD gun from his belt. Then, lifting his arm, he fired one shot into the sky. The kickback roiled through his arm and the gun's explosion roared into the sky. The agitated men stopped in surprise.
"I'm a civil officer." Rentaro very calmly took his license out of his breast pocket and held it in front of the men. Quietly, he said, "Try taking one more step closer. Next time, I'll shoot you."
Facing the men, who were stirring nervously, Rentaro continued. "You're not done yet?" The men snuck glances at one another for a while, but it was obvious that they had lost their spirit. The middle-aged man in front turned on his heel and spat, "The ones you civil officers are protecting are those brats after all, huh?"
The good-for-nothings snuck spiteful glances back at him and finally retreated like an ocean wave. As Rentaro looked around, the onlookers around them also hurriedly scattered.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter022.txt
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Black Bullet
Why was everyone afraid of them? Even though they were desperately protecting Tokyo Area, why were all the looks at them of spite or fear?
Outside, there were two thousand Gastrea. Inside, there were violent people who discriminated against them. Even though this was the time for the whole Area to come together as one…
"Excuse me…" Looking back, the girl was standing with a smile of gratitude mixed with remorse. Rentaro looked at the girl's blood dripping onto the ground and silently took out a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his uniform, applying pressure to the wound as he bandaged it. The wounds that had not been applied by the Varanium knife were already on their way to healing naturally.
After the first-aid treatment was completed, she seemed to calm down somewhat, and the girl lifted her face gently, suddenly stretching out her hand toward him. Rentaro pulled away for a second, but she did not seem to mean him any harm, so he let her brush her hands over his face and shoulder.
"I remember your voice and face, Mr. Civil Officer." The girl smiled more deeply and blushed. "You're my type."
"Idiot. You don't have to thank me. Just get out of here right now. Try coming here again, and next time, I'll be the one to hurt you! Got it?"
He meant to scold her, but the girl did not seem the least bit afraid. She just kept smiling and picking up money, rolling up her rush mat and putting it under her arm, thanking him over and over. "Please allow me to thank you one day when I have time."
"Don't come!"
The beggar girl waved her hand at the busy street as she left.
Rentaro pressed his temple with his left hand. Damn it, does she really get it? But he was glad he made it in the nick of time to save her. As he turned on his heel with that sense of satisfaction, something suddenly gave him the chills.
Behind him, there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary. The wind blew on Rentaro's cheek and then blew away.
As he rode the train, he couldn't get the eyes of the crowd out of his head.
4
A little while after he got back to the tent, Enju came back from the outdoor classroom along with Tina and Kisara. "I have returned!"
"How was school?" Rentaro asked.
Enju couldn't contain her excitement and flapped her arms. "Today was fun, too. Kisara wasn't popular at all."
"Huh? Kisara?"
Tina looked confused. "Big Brother, you are very popular. When President Tendo said you were off today and that she would be teaching all day, there was a lot of booing…"
When he looked at the woman, she turned away in indignation. "Miss Kisara is not popular at all!" she parroted.
"Well…I like Miss Kisara?" he offered.
"Stop trying to console me."
Then what am I supposed to say?
As Rentaro floundered, a voice interrupted them with, "Ma'am." It was Tamaki. "While you were gone, a strange man came by and brought this—" He pulled out a sealed manila envelope from his chest.
"Oh, that was fast. They finished looking into it, huh?" Kisara gave Tamaki a curt "Thanks" and took the envelope, unsealing it carefully.
"Kisara, what is that?" Rentaro asked.
"Remember, Satomi? You said yesterday that maybe there was a problem with the Monolith, right? I got someone to look into it."
Kisara twitched as she read over the few pages of materials in the envelope. She crumpled the papers in her hand, and her fingers trembled and turned white.
Rentaro could tell something was strange. Wondering what was going on, he snuck a look at Kisara's face—and he almost died from shock. "H-hey, Kisara…?"
"I'm going outside for a minute."
"Hey!" Rentaro's words were left behind as Kisara quickly turned and left.
He had no time to hesitate. Stumbling, Rentaro quickly pulled on his shoes and rushed outside the tent, looking around. He didn't have to look for long to find Kisara walking in front of him, heading toward another party that was sitting around a campfire. Without saying a word, she threw the documents into the fire.
The people sitting around the campsite looked up in surprise, but their intruder walked away without a word after making sure the documents were aflame.
After it was obvious she wasn't coming back, Rentaro ran to the fire pit, pushing the people around it out of the way. There it was. Without a moment's hesitation, Rentaro stuck his right arm into the conflagration. He hadn't thought to cut off the pain sensors in his arm, and he gritted his teeth in pain.
Even so, Rentaro's arm remembered what it had to do. Sticking his arm into the depths of the brightly burning flames, when he finally passed his limit and had to pull his arm out, his smoking artificial arm was grasping a half-burned piece of paper.
"H-hey, what are you guys doing?" Ignoring the bewilderment of the neighboring party, Rentaro apologized silently to Kisara and unfolded the scrap of paper.
He groaned involuntarily and staggered a few steps. What is this? Why…was this name…? Rentaro followed Kisara's back with his eyes, and seeing that she was far away, looked back at the scrap of paper that now sported blackened edges. It appeared to be the end of the document.
AS STATED ABOVE, MONOLITH 32 APPEARS TO BE A YOUNG MONOLITH BUILT NEAR THE END OF THE GREAT GASTREA WAR. THE ORDER FOR THE MONOLITH TO BE BUILT WAS PLACED BY THE PARTY OF THE CURRENT VICE MINISTER OF LAND, INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT AND TOURISM, KAZUMITSU TENDO…
Kazumitsu Tendo. The grandson of Kikunojo Tendo and one of Kisara's much older brothers. In the past, when Rentaro had lived in the Tendo residence, Kazumitsu had also still lived there, so Rentaro saw him many times.
Why was Kazumitsu's name here?
It was hard to deduce the rest of the document's contents from the excerpt. However—
Rentaro's shoulders shook. In the back of his mind, he recalled the profile of Kisara's face he had seen earlier in the tent. She had been sneering. She had on her revenge face, one that she would never show in front of the girls.
5
The wind was blowing strong the next morning, making the curtains of the tent flutter. The weather wasn't bad, but the clouds drifting in the sky were passing by at great speeds.
"You're going today, too?" Tamaki stood by the doorway to see them off, but he looked more solemn than usual.
"Yeah," said Rentaro.
"Why do you still have to go to school at a time like this? I don't get it," said Yuzuki, furiously combing down her blond hair.
Next to her, Enju raised her hand energetically and answered, "It's because it's a time like this!"
"Huh?" Yuzuki sounded like she truly couldn't understand.
Rentaro thought she had a point. He also wasn't confident that he could explain his actions to other people.
From the adjacent two-person tent, there were the sounds of hurried morning preparations. When Rentaro went to wake its residents this morning, Kisara and Tina were both still sound asleep. The two of them seemed to have trouble falling asleep the night before and finally slept, but only when the sky was already turning light.
Rentaro looked up behind him and gazed at the bleached Monolith. There was one day left.
Gado had decided to let everyone have the whole day free. Apparently, because today was the last day, he intended for everyone to enjoy it. It was true that if they didn't see their loved ones now, it was possible that they would never see each other in this world again.
And Rentaro naturally chose to spend his last free day as Mr. Rentaro. It was a strange feeling, though. At first, he had been forced to do it against his will, and he hadn't planned on getting into it that much.
Tamaki looked at him with an even more dubious expression. "Won't this just increase your regrets?"
"Maybe, but I need to at least say good-bye."
"Well, as long as you get it, just make sure you don't come back all gloomy."
"What about you guys?"
This time, the Katagiri siblings looked at each other. Tamaki shrugged. "I guess I'll eat something delicious to prepare for tomorrow and then go to sleep."
"You guys don't have anything else to do?"
"Our family and extended relatives were almost entirely killed by the Gastrea. There's no one to say good-bye to."
Rentaro regretted his question, and paused before his next question, considering it. "Did you guys become civil officers to get revenge on the Gastrea?"
Tamaki put both hands behind his head. "Hmm, I wonder. I don't think about really tedious stuff like that."
"But I can't believe you can just not think about it—"
Tamaki cut him off. "The guys who bring grudges to fights with Gastrea are the ones who die early."
Rentaro felt like he had suddenly been stabbed in the chest. Tamaki pushed up the bridge of his sunglasses with his middle finger, as if he didn't want Rentaro to see his sharp eyes peaking out from over the top. "Well, if I had to say, I'd say I was fighting for someone's smile. All right, my sweet, shall we go back to sleep to prepare for tomorrow?"
Yuzuki must have been sleepy, because she just nodded in agreement and somehow the two of them made it over to their sleeping bags.
Rentaro had mixed feelings after catching a glimpse of Tamaki's expression, but he forced himself to switch gears. Sticking his head into the tent, he called out to Shoma, who was in the corner of the tent taking apart his gun and cleaning it. "What'll you do today, Bro?"
Shoma shrugged and looked at Midori next to him. "We're planning to start training in a little bit. 'Cause it'll be problematic if my body doesn't move when I need it to."
Both the Katagiri siblings and Shoma pair had simple plans. Well, from their point of view, Rentaro and the others going to school without a care might have seemed like they were unaware of the looming danger.
But just then, Tina rushed out of the smaller tent and said with an apologetic expression, "Please go on ahead." She followed it with a bow.
He gave an amicable wave to show he understood and guided Enju forward with a hand on the back of her shoulders. If they left now, even if they got there in the shortest amount of time, they would still be quite late.
And so, the last day started quietly.
Rentaro bought tickets for District 39, and they got on the train. On the trains between the Outer Districts early in the morning there were almost no passengers, and it wasn't that hard to find a train car that was completely empty.
Turning their backs toward the orange sunlight shining from the east, they sat next to each other on the red velvet seats. As the train left the station, their bodies swayed and the hanging straps quivered. Finally, the train car accelerated slowly, and there was the rhythmical vibration of the train passing over the tracks. The shape of the shadows changed by the second, and moved from left to right.
Rentaro's back, which had absorbed the morning sunlight, was nice and warm. It was hard to believe that today might be Tokyo Area's last. Once tomorrow came, they would be fighting a decisive battle against two thousand Gastrea, led by Aldebaran, a force that would be unimaginably strong. It was sure to be a fierce battle unlike anything Rentaro and the others had ever experienced before; there was no guarantee that Rentaro or Enju would be alive to breathe after these next battles.
Because they both understood this implicitly, the early morning air seemed fraught with tension. Because of how short the time they had left was, even this casual time seemed like something irreplaceable, a halo that made the world sparkle.
"Enju, are you having fun at school?" Rentaro asked.
She narrowed her eyes and rubbed her head against Rentaro's chest comfortably. The girl smelled sweet, like sunlight. "Yes, I am having so much fun. Thank you, Rentaro."
"If you're having fun, it's because you're working hard."
Enju lifted her head and shook it, still clinging to Rentaro's chest. "I know that you and Kisara secretly stayed up at night looking for the best school for me to attend while tapping on the calculator."
Rentaro was taken aback. "You were watching?"
Seeing Enju smile wryly, Rentaro had mixed feelings. He didn't really want a child to know about this kind of real-life cost-benefit analysis.
"I am grateful to you, Rentaro…," said Enju. "And I guess I'm a little grateful to Kisara, too."
Putting his arm around the pouting Enju, he hugged her to his chest. "It was worth the hard work, then."
Enju's upturned eyes blinked and wavered with unease as she looked at him. "Rentaro, is it not fun for you to be a teacher, after all?"
"Well…" Rentaro looked at the groups of ruins passing by the window. Most of the buildings had collapsed, and only the sky was vast. "I'm having fun."
"What?"
Once he admitted it, he felt the worry lift from his chest. The next words he spoke came out pretty honestly. "No matter what started it, I'm having fun right now. It's because of you, Enju. Thanks."
At first Enju's eyes widened, but then slowly her expression changed to a smile, and she hugged Rentaro's arm, overcome with emotion.
Rentaro was about to protest, but seeing the charming expression on Enju's face, he held his tongue and let her hold him. The sound of the train shunting along the rails and ties was softly buried in silence, and time passed peacefully.
Rentaro didn't know how much time had passed when it was announced that the train had reached District 39, and he urged the reluctant Enju to get off. When they left the station, wind came from below that seemed to roll up and push at their backs. Walking with the girl on the already familiar streets in front of the station, their view was soon filled with ruined buildings.
As they walked, he collected his thoughts. Today's classroom would probably also be full of kids from the Outer Districts. But since today might be the last day, he decided he'd talk about hope and happiness.
After they walked for a while, Rentaro saw a mountain of trash blocking their way. Once they got past that, the open meadow would be spread out in front of them. And as long as they had a blackboard and students, it didn't matter where they were—it was a classroom.
The closer Rentaro got to their destination, the more nervous he got. But for some reason, it wasn't a comfortable nervousness but an ominous premonition. Just then, Rentaro noticed an unpleasant smell and covered his mouth and nose with his hand.
Was it the smell of something burning? Why? When he saw a police officer from afar, Rentaro's heart skipped. The whole area was cordoned off with caution tape. That was exactly the place Rentaro and the others used for their outdoor classroom. Even though he had no idea why the policeman was there, all his hairs stood on end nervously.
The eyes of the hoodlums from the city flashed through his mind. "The ones you civil officers are protecting are those brats after all, huh?"
As the distance between them shrunk to ten meters, the policeman also noticed them and walked over.
"Enju, stay here…," Rentaro whispered.
"R-Rentaro?"
Leaving Enju, Rentaro went to face the officer and exchanged a few words. There was sadness in his face. Finally, the man opened his mouth. His words were few, and cruel.
The blood drained from Rentaro's face. The things around him faded into oblivion, and the scene twisted. He didn't hear anything else the officer had to say. He even forgot to thank the officer as he turned around and returned to Enju.
When Enju saw his face, she froze. Fearfully touching his face with his hands, he felt his dried-out skin and tense muscles. "Enju, let's go home. You don't have to go to school today."
"Wh-why? Why all of a sudden—?"
Rentaro didn't say anything.
"Then, early tomorrow morning for just a little bit…"
"You don't have to go tomorrow, either."
Enju gasped. "Then, then, after we finish fighting—"
"You don't have to go the day after, or the day after that, or the day after that." Rentaro put both hands on Enju's shoulders and met her eyes. "Enju, listen to me calmly—"
His nails almost dug into her shoulders. He couldn't meet her eyes and looked down. "A bomb exploded in our class. Because of that news report."
6
Rentaro followed along as he was taken through the gloomy building with moldy black concrete and was made to wait in front of the door. He lifted his eyes to read the words on the sign over and over and tried to reconnect with the reality that he had lost, but he couldn't focus, and his thoughts were disordered and fragmented.
Finally, the door opened, and a police officer in his late thirties appeared wearing white nitrile rubber gloves, and he beckoned Rentaro listlessly. It would have been nice if it had been Inspector Tadashima, whose face he knew, but it appeared to be a different jurisdiction. Rentaro made a silent bow and went inside.
It was a concrete room with an area of about six tatami mats. The lighting was dim, and it smelled of incense. The inside was full of stretchers covered with white cloths, and because it was summer, a sour smell was mixed in. There were a total of nine inside. There were apparently more in the room next door.
Rentaro shook his head. He just wanted to yell at them to stop messing around. There was no way this was reality. Just let me wake up from this ridiculous dream right now. He was overcome with the desire to yell that out. However, no matter how long he waited, the nightmare would not end.
The inspector with the tired eyes spread his arms perfunctorily. "Well, it's great that you can confirm these. It's kind of soon but take a look." Saying that, he roughly flipped back the first white sheet.
As he did so, the cloying smell of blood spread, and Rentaro gagged and covered his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut. The body in front of Rentaro forced him to confront the reality that he had been half avoiding. He would be having nightmares every night for a while and did his best to swallow his nausea.
After he calmed his heaving stomach, the first thing he heard was the sound of the air conditioner running. Rentaro shook his head desperately with his hand still covering his mouth. "This is terrible… I can't believe something like this happened…"
"In order to increase its destructive power, a large amount of Varanium fragments were stuffed inside. It was terrible. The victims were Children who didn't belong to any family registers, much less have IDs. You'll have to verify their identities."
"What about Mr. Matsuzaki?"
"Oh, that old man? He's fine, but he's laid up in bed from the shock."
Rentaro turned his head and, looking over the depressing number of stretchers around him, took a pair of rubber gloves selflessly.
Had all of these been his students? There was no way. Yet his instincts told him that if he didn't do something, the despair would swallow him up whole, and freeze his feet to the floor. However, that feeling was soon overwritten by hellish despair. Every time Rentaro lifted a sheet, his eyes encountered a new hell.
He girded his breaking heart and carefully told the names of the girls one by one to the inspector next to him, who was taking notes with a binder in one hand. It was surprisingly similar to the morning roll call.
He wondered how the perpetrators felt right now. Were they holding their stomachs and laughing because they were successful? Were they satisfied? Or did they feel the slightest bit of remorse?
When the long hand on the clock made about one circle, the hellish torture finally ended. He was so completely exhausted that he could barely stand.
Signing the documents and turning his back on the voice that said, "Good work," he went outside, dragging his feet until he came to sit in the waiting room. He wanted to fall asleep then and there.
Just then, a "Let go!" ripped through the hall. In front of him, he saw Enju struggling desperately as she was held down by two police officers. Shaken for a moment, Rentaro took a deep breath to calm his heart and walked briskly over to the girl, a stern expression on his face. "Why did you come here? I told you to go home!"
"I want to see Micchan! I promised Sasana I'd show her Tenchu Girls next time!" Enju yelled.
"Enju, you understand, right? They're already—"
"It's a lie! They're all lies!"
Enju, you… Rentaro closed his eyes and rebuked his half-flinching heart. He knew what he had to do. Rentaro looked quietly at the police officer near him. "Throw her out."
Enju looked at him like he had betrayed her. "Rentaro? Rentaro? Rentaro…!"
Listening to her wails grow farther away as she was pinned down on both sides and dragged away, Rentaro's fist shook and he gritted his teeth. Just as she was out of Rentaro's field of vision, suddenly, the officers on either side of her were knocked down, and Enju rushed back toward him.
Her eyes were red. She had released her power.
"Hey, idiot. Stop—" Before he could finish his sentence, he was blown back by a strong force, and the next thing he knew, his hands were on the ground. Looking back reflexively, he realized that she had gone into the morgue behind him.
What had just—? The air trembled for a moment, but it could also have been Enju's sob. But the next instant, a shriek echoed inside the police station. It was a scream the regular Enju would never have screamed that could crush the hearts of those who heard it.
Rentaro closed his eyes hard and held his ears as hard as he could. He wanted to avert his eyes for just an instant from the harsh reality of it all.
7
When he pushed the iron door open, a strong, slanted gust of wind greeted him. The clouds were moving surprisingly fast, just like they had been that morning.
Rentaro went to the fence and held it with his left hand, staring at the bleached Monolith in the distance. Civil officers couldn't cry every time someone died. Hardening their hearts was something they all had to master sooner or later.
Seeing that Enju had calmed down after crying herself to exhaustion, Rentaro went to the roof of the police station. Right before he left her, Enju was even able to muster the strength to smile at him to thank him for his consideration, but when Rentaro saw that, it made him feel the impending danger even more.
Rentaro pulled out the bundle of handouts from his bag with his right hand. They were the future dreams he had his students write for fun after the quiz. Idol singer, actress, pastry chef, nurse, wife. It brimmed with various hopes that would never come true.
Lynching and killing with bombs. What made the hearts of the citizens of Tokyo Area so devastated that they would do such things? In the past, Rentaro had been taught that humans possessed both high intelligence and virtue and were true social animals, that they were the beings closest to God. Then why did they kill each other like beasts? How could they destroy each other's hopes and dreams? Why in the world could they machinate such stupid things?
Damn it, he muttered in his heart. What in the world was I looking at? The ones who really needed a helping hand were those girls.
There was a gust of wind on the roof, and Rentaro's uniform fluttered. The papers in his hand were also blown up, making an arc in the sky, spinning and undulating as they danced in the air. Rentaro gripped the fence tightly with both hands, his body shaking. Sorry, everyone. It was my fault. I'm truly sorry.
Rentaro gritted his teeth and looked up at the sky. The Monolith in the distance seemed to be pressing near to his chest.
It was then that the cell phone in his breast pocket started to vibrate. Seeing the name on the screen, he hesitated for a moment but then finally pressed the button to pick up.
"Can you talk now?" said the voice on the other end.
Rentaro looked up at the Monolith and closed his eyes miserably. "I'm embarrassed to be part of the Stolen Generation. Even though they trample the Children and laugh, they still expect us to defeat Aldebaran… But we still have to do it… Damn it!"
"You knew that when you first became a civil officer, didn't you? You must carry it out, Satomi. That is what a civil officer does."
"But Kisara, don't you always say to carry out justice? Tell me, where is the justice in this vat of filth that is Tokyo Area?"
"That's not it, Satomi. That's why we have to fight. If we win and save Tokyo Area, then there may be a few more people who will abandon their swords of hate and change the way they think. Satomi, didn't you say it in front of those girls, too? 'Bear it. And don't even think about getting even.' Did you say that even though it wasn't what you thought just because you wanted to look cool in front of those girls? That's not it, right? Please, Satomi, let your mind be filled with righteous light. Don't abandon your heart of justice."
Rentaro put his hand to his temple as he shook his head. "I don't know what face to make as I fight beside Enju…"
"I don't know either. But you can't run from her."
"…Being a civil officer is a terrible trade, isn't it?"
"But that's why it's worth doing."
Rentaro looked up at the sky and exhaled deeply.
"Have you calmed down a little?"
"Yeah, thanks, Kisara."
Kisara teased, "I'm actually a pretty devoted woman, you know."
"How's Tina?"
"She's fine. She's calmed down."
"Then, what about you…?"
"I'm fine, too."
"I see…" If that's what she said, then he was probably supposed to ignore the slight shaking in her nasally voice. Still, the anger that was budding inside him was like a banked fire, burning brightly at a high temperature. But right now, he would not think about the absurdity of it. He had to aim that spearhead at Aldebaran.
Rentaro felt optimistic as he looked out over the Outer Districts. "Then, I'll go back soon to see how Enju's doing."
After Kisara gave herself some time to think, she was sure to say, "Got it." But she stopped in the middle of those words, and the Kisara at the other end of the line shook violently, and he could hear her gasping breaths.
"Hey, Kisara—"
"It's begun, Satomi."
Rentaro frowned. But before he could say another word, the woman on the other end of the phone spoke again. "Look at the Monolith."
Rentaro raised his gaze from the ground. A ripple of shock went from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
First, a corner of the rectangle collapsed. But that immediately led to the next collapse. The large body of the cracked Monolith finally couldn't stand up against the Varanium corrosion fluid and let out a scream, and then nothing could stop the chain reaction.
From where Rentaro was, he couldn't hear the sound of the collapse, but that made the shriek of the Monolith even clearer. Abruptly, the whole bleached Monolith became fatally cracked, and the Monolith looked like it was shrugging its shoulders as it completely disintegrated. Chills shot down Rentaro's spine.
The collapsing structure looked like time-lapse photography, falling from its base with fragments peeling off. It would crash to the ground in no time. There was a roar, and Rentaro was suddenly hit with a rumbling from the ground—a shock wave—making Rentaro raise his arms and grit his teeth. The intense vibration shook Rentaro from his feet to his guts, and the shock wave blew away the surrounding debris, rotting signs, and sheet metal.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/chapter024.txt
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Black Bullet
When Rentaro looked up again, he saw the sky covered with a cloud of dust and fine particles. "No way…"
There was no way. There should have been one more day before the collapse. Wasn't that what the precise calculations done by the Seitenshi's office said?
Rentaro's clothes flapped in a sudden gust of wind, and at the same he had a sudden realization: "The wind…"
Currently, in the year 2031, it was still hard to completely predict the weather, and they could not accurately predict the chaotic air currents. The people at the Japanese National Security Council had read the flow of wind wrong.
It was starting. The Third Kanto Battle was starting—and not when they were planning.
"Satomi!" Kisara yelled.
"I know!" Rentaro hung up and fixed his eyes on the Monolith once more, running toward the battlefield.
July 12, 2031 at 3:16 p.m. This moment in time was the start of what would be remembered in history as Tokyo Area's worst war, the Third Kanto Battle.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/copyright.txt
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Black Bullet
Copyright
BLACK BULLET, Volume 3
SHIDEN KANZAKI
Cover art by Saki Ukai
Translation by Nita Lieu
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
BLACK BULLET, Volume 3
©SHIDEN KANZAKI 2012
All rights reserved.
Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS
First published in Japan in 2012 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2016 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.
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First ebook edition: April 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-34497-5
E3
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Black Bullet/Black-Bullet-Volume-03-[Yen-Press][Kobo]/prologue.txt
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Black Bullet
PROLOGUE ALDEBARAN
There was nothing more tedious than patrolling on a hot and humid night. The man had already been walking for two hours, the rifle sling hanging from his shoulder digging in. Even if this was something that he did every day, he had long lost his ability to concentrate.
Sweat kept pouring out no matter how much he wiped with the towel around his neck, and although the undergrowth swayed occasionally with a small, viscous breeze, his skin under the thick cotton camouflage did not feel the slightest bit cooler. The smell of hot earth filled his nostrils.
He was alone, jungle boots crunching along the ground as he walked. Sergeant Yoshifusa Sato of the Ground Self-Defense Force was on patrol again today. This was the third time he had been made to go on patrol after losing a card game against his seniors.
As he walked, he hit his flickering flashlight to make it work properly. Finally, he hit it with all his strength and it suddenly turned on full blast. All right, he thought, shining the light on his surroundings.
Tokyo Area Outer District, District 40. Yoshifusa was patrolling at the border between heaven and hell of his cramped world. From his perspective, on his left-hand side, forest continued as far as his light could reach, and on his right-hand side was the face of a jet-black wall that stood straight up, blocking the way.
Yoshifusa stopped, looking at the sky for just a minute. But the wall towered over him, piercing the sky, and he, standing near its base, could not see the top. Of course, this wall did not really reach the heavens, but that didn't matter to Yoshifusa, who was at most 180 centimeters tall.
In any case, it was outrageously large.
The Monolith. Standing 1.618 kilometers high and 1 kilometer wide, it was an enormous rectangular Varanium structure. It was a lump of metal that shone deeper than the darkness.
Yes, it was more than 1.6 kilometers tall.
Low-flying clouds could come down to an altitude of six hundred meters, so at times, the Monolith pierced through the clouds. Even Japan's highest peak, Mount Fuji, was no more than 3.8 kilometers high: Two Monoliths on top of each other needed only a little more added to them to equal the sacred peak. Even its width—an entire kilometer—could easily take Yoshifusa fifteen minutes to walk.
Looking at something so outrageously large, it at times gave him the illusion of being lost in a land of giants. Who could easily accept that this was the work of man, not God? These Monoliths had been built every ten meters, stretching for hundreds of kilometers to surround Tokyo Area like the Great Wall of China. In a sense, they were as advanced as the ancient pyramids, and could be called a modern-day Tower of Babel.
Yoshifusa raised his arms and pointed his light at one end of the Monolith, and the ring of light drew up the stenciled words NO. 0032 from the darkness. The Monoliths could also be called a kind of curtain that protected mankind. Outside of them spread a terrible hell, with monsters that caused one to cower in fear clamoring around—monsters that used to be human.
Yoshifusa kept walking, and when he finally made it past the edge of the Monolith, he gazed silently at the darkness that spread into the outside world.
Yoshifusa once had a wife and son, but now they were probably living in eternal suffering on the other side as Gastrea. Or, they may have been reduced to beings who did not even care about that.
While he was lost in thought, there was a sudden rustling in the bushes, and he reflexively pointed the light in that direction. As he did so, something flew by in front of his eyes at high speed. Right before it plunged into the thicket, he was just barely able to tell that it had been a mouse. His heart beat loudly, and he gasped for a moment as he forgot how to breathe.
Yoshifusa shook his head. This is stupid. What am I afraid of? In the ten years since the Gastrea War, there had never been an instance of a non–Stage Five Gastrea successfully infiltrating the Monolith barrier.
Just as his line of thought shifted, a pungent stink suddenly reached his nostrils, and he covered his nose. It stank like a gutter. Where in the world is it coming from…? Just then, Yoshifusa heard the ragged panting of a carnivore above his head, and his whole body stiffened.
The type of sweat pouring out of him changed. Earlier, he had been sweating because of the heat and humidity, but now, it was because of extreme chills. He even had nausea from feeling completely alone. He took a deep breath to keep himself from panicking and slowly turned the light toward the sound.
A body, slimy and glittering, reflected the light that was projected onto Yoshifusa's retina. His light fell from his hands, and immediately after, he felt the strength leaving his legs. He almost fell to his knees.
"Wh…oa…"
There was a gigantic being about fifty meters directly above Yoshifusa, who was near the base of the Monolith. Its massive body spread throughout his field of vision, covering the sky, and it was clinging onto the Monolith. In the darkness, the silhouette of its thorax rose and fell. The breath it expelled gave off an intense heat while it made the air vibrate with a low-frequency sound. From where Yoshifusa stood, it was hard to grasp the scale of it, but it looked to be about as big as a jumbo jet.
"No way… Is that a Gastrea…?" It was impossible. How? When in the world did it get here? But the situation grew only stranger while he remained clueless.
Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot echoed in the night sky. Immediately after came a chain of angry roars and screams while gunshots continued intermittently. The assault had come from the self-defense-force residence directly in front of Yoshifusa—a place constructed near the inside wall of the Monolith where Yoshifusa and the others in the self-defense force lived.
"An enemy attack?" Yoshifusa stood stock-still, in a daze. He didn't think that there was something wrong with his head. However, with all the strange occurrences following one after another, he was unable to give his brain a reasonable interpretation.
Suddenly returning to his senses, he ran toward the residence hall with all his might, throwing his body against the door and rushing inside.
The bodies of his fellow squad members were being devoured by monsters.
The monsters were shaped like ants. However, they were no ordinary ants: Their bodies, which had been enlarged thanks to the Gastrea virus, came up to Yoshifusa's chest even when all their legs were on the ground. They were the giant-ant Gastrea, Model Ants.
The ants stopped their repulsive feast and pointed their heads toward the newcomer, L-shaped antenna and all. Dazed, Yoshifusa cried a desperate "Why?" for the nth time. Land Gastrea should not have been able to approach the Monolith. That established theory was being overturned in the most repulsive way possible before his eyes. The only thing he knew now was that he was in the midst of his worst nightmare.
"Get away from my friends…!" Shouldering his rifle, he quickly pulled the trigger. There was a sharp recoil on his shoulder and with a flash of the muzzle, the right eye of the ant next to him blew away, lodging sticky Gastrea bits into the ceiling. Yoshifusa was a diligent soldier; his movements were conditioned reflexes, and they were already after their next target. As consecutive rounds hit, the Gastrea let out dreadful screams. Even so, Yoshifusa showered them with a barrage of 5.56 millimeter bullets as he retreated.
I can win. Just as he thought that, chills suddenly shot down his spine. He reflexively jumped onto a rock and aimed upward. Through his scope, he saw an ant's brutal pincers scrape the spot where he had just been. Wondering what had happened, he lifted his face from the iron sight, and there, Yoshifusa froze with despair.
Before he knew it, he had been surrounded by a countless number of Model Ant Gastrea. There had to be more than a hundred of them. What about the other squad members? Yoshifusa mourned as he looked around. But the gunshots and screams had already stopped.
It looked like he was the only living, breathing human being left in this building. The Gastrea gave off a beastly smell, completely un-insectoid, as they opened their jaws, sticky with mucus. As the circle slowly closed in on him, he heard the pincers snapping with anticipation.
Yoshifusa closed his eyes. He had gone through mental simulations many times of what he would do when this happened. He was tempted, but as an advance guard responsible for national security, he could not allow himself to become like his wife and child. Instead, Yoshifusa abandoned his rifle and pulled the pin of a hand grenade, hugging it tightly, entrusting his prayers to those who would come after him.
Someone, anyone, please do something. At this rate, Tokyo Area will be in trouble.
In District 1 of Tokyo Area, in the basement shelter of the Seitenshi's palace, the door of the situation room of the Japan National Security Council, or JNSC, opened roughly, and the Seitenshi hurried in. As she entered, the members of the Cabinet who were already assembled and her aide, Kikunojo Tendo, stood up all at once from the long desk they were sitting at.
The Seitenshi waved them back to their seats with a hand and gazed at Kikunojo sternly. "What is the situation?"
"Ma'am. Today, at 2130 hours, enemy Gastrea appeared in the vicinity of Monolith 32. Their number is unknown. We still do not know the details."
"Send observation satellites equipped with night imaging, unmanned drones, and nearby self-defense squads immediately. We must understand the situation as soon as possible."
"I thought you would say that, so I've already made the arrangements."
The Seitenshi rewarded his efforts with a nod.
The direct phone line rang just then and Daimon, the Minister of Defense, jumped for it. After exchanging a few clipped words with the person on the other end, he raised his head to the group. "The main body of the self-defense force that was sent out as support fought with Stage One Model Ant Gastrea. They just reported that they were able to annihilate them before they started a Pandemic."
Relief and joy took hold of the situation room.
"There is more," Minister Daimon continued, still holding the phone up to his ear. He grimaced for a moment, and then slowly turned a pale face toward the others.
"The advance troops who arrived before the main force… They've been destroyed by a giant Gastrea thought to be the boss of the Model Ants. The boss had already left by the time the main force arrived."
Kikunojo frowned. "Already left, you said? It did not invade our borders?"
"No, there are pictures of the boss taken by one of the advance troops who was killed. Those pictures are being sent now—Here they come."
An image was displayed abruptly on the gigantic electroluminescent panel in front of them. The Seitenshi narrowed her eyes. With the camera shake and dark lighting, it was not easy to make anything out in the blurry picture. The photographer must have been in a hurry, so he didn't use a flash. In the midst of the darkness, the even darker Monolith could be seen faintly. There was a giant Gastrea hanging onto it, its silhouette terrifying enough to cause chills even though it was frustratingly hard to see.
Eventually, the second image was displayed. This one was also too dark. However, it struck something somewhere in the Seitenshi's memory. Where had she seen this Gastrea before…?
The instant the third image was displayed, the situation room broke out in a frenzy. The Seitenshi's eyes widened as far as they could go, glued to the panel. The third image was completely different from the other two. A searchlight from the ground had hit the Gastrea, and just its head floated out of the darkness. The repulsive Gastrea was a being that the Cabinet members present could not forget even if they wanted to.
"The Gastrea with the ability to corrode Varanium…the Stage Four, Aldebaran……" The Seitenshi said the name of the infamous Gastrea quietly, rubbing her arms. If this Gastrea encountered the self-defense force, the main force would not get off easy.
However, why was it here? How did it get past the Monoliths…? No matter how much she thought about it, she could not come up with a clear answer. All she could say was that something unbelievable was about to happen in Tokyo Area.
The Gastrea in the picture was wiggling its mouthparts, doing something to the Monolith.
The Seitenshi stood up from her chair and waved her hands. "Investigate the Monolith Aldebaran was on, Monolith 32, right away. Call Varanium experts and have them inspect it. Also, contact the ministries involved to have them give preference to the supercomputer CPU for the analysis. Everyone, this is going to be a long day."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/afterword.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
Afterword
Hello everyone, it's Hyougetsu. It's quite a relief to meet you again this volume. It's thanks to you readers that the southern independence arc was able to be published. The demon army's conquest is progressing quite smoothly, I'd say.
Volume three's a bit of a slow volume, but I felt like Veight and the others needed a break after all the nonstop action of the previous volumes. Though I guess it wasn't much of a break since Veight still got into a bunch of fights, but for him, it's all in a day's work. Compared to fighting the Hero, assassins and sea monsters are nothing. Incidentally, the Island Kraken was based off the winged argonaut, which is a species of octopus that actually exists. Of course, real winged argonauts are nowhere near as big.
Now then, I that's suppose enough explaining of this volume's events. After all, they're explained much better in the volume itself. Instead, I think I'll talk about things I had to watch out for during the writing process, since that's something you won't read about in the volume.
Most of the creatures and culture I've introduced so far are based on real-world creatures and cultures, but have been modified slightly to fit the setting. For example, everyone in Meraldia uses the base ten system, but that's because like humans on earth, humans here have ten fingers and ten toes. I imagine so long as that's true, base ten would be the natural choice for humans.
Creatures function in a similar manner. Their weight, size, and other traits are restricted by their ecology and the availability of food, just like on earth. As a result, you get a lot of creatures similar to ones you'd find on earth. On the other hand, I spent a very long time thinking about kentauros anatomy. After all, if they're half-human half-horse, then where do their stomachs lie? If any of my readers happen to be kentauros, please tell me about your anatomy.
Moving on, this volume got published a lot faster than the second one did. But because of how fast I'm updating the web version, we haven't gotten any closer to catching up. I'm hoping to keep up the pace when it comes to updating the web novel, so I imagine the published version won't catch up for a while. If I put out a volume a month maybe we'll get closer, but I'm pretty sure doing so would work my poor editor Lord Fusanon to death. I like him alive, so I think I'll stick to this slower release pace.
Besides, as always, my editor has been a huge help. Thank you so much for everything. The fact that I can publish even this fast is all thanks to him. I'd also like to thank Nishi(E)da-sensei for his wonderful drawings. He does a great job at drawing the girls, but more importantly, he does a wonderful job of drawing the guys as well. He can do everything from handsome pretty boys to burly pirates, and it never ceases to amaze me. Also, there's a manga version of Der Werwolf now, drawn by Terada Isaza-sensei. I'd like to thank him and everyone else at the manga department for all their hard work. Incidentally, you can read the manga for free on the Earth Star Comics site. To be honest, I look forward to the updates every month on the 26th, too. I'm a little nervous that my work's gotten this popular but I'll keep doing my best for all you readers out there. I hope you'll continue to support Veight through his many struggles. May we meet again in volume four.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/bonus.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
Bonus Short Story
I sighed as I contemplated the task Veight asked of me.
"Why must you ask me of all people?"
"Sorry, Melaine, but you're the only one I can count on for this."
"Oh really?"
Ufufufu, I suppose if you need me that badly I can do it. As Master's oldest disciple, I guess it's my job to look after my juniors.
"Ho there, Melaine. So you're taking part in this exorcism as well?"
"Parker...it's been a while since I last saw you. You seem to be doing well."
Parker's skull clacked as he laughed and said, "Hahaha, indeed. My complexion has never been better."
"If you say so."
I pointedly ignored his attempt at another pun about how dead he was.
Veight had asked Parker and me to assist him in a large-scale exorcism. He wanted to us to clear out the ruins underneath Zaria and eliminate any lingering spirits or skeletons. It wasn't a particularly difficult job, but the ruins were quite large, so it was time-consuming. Master could have done it all on her own, but it was faster and safer if we all worked together. That much I understood. What I didn't understand was why I had to be paired up with Parker while Veight got to go with Master.
"My, you seem rather dissatisfied with having me as your partner, Melaine."
"Who wouldn't be..."
We climbed down the stairs to our assigned floor and began exorcizing spirits. The lower floors of the ruins were filled with rooms, and each room had at least one undead to cleanse.
Some rooms were filled with skeletons who'd been summoned then left to rot, others with fragmented spirits who'd been experimented on in horrible ways, yet others with corpses who'd been possessed by wandering ghosts, and even some rooms with desiccated zombies wandering around.
"I guess this is what happens to a necromancer's domain when it's left alone for three hundred years... Stay still, you stupid thing! Sealing Prayer!"
I used my magic to exorcize the ghost out of a shambling corpse. All necromancers knew how to exorcize spirits. With how often they dealt with the dead, it was the first, fundamental skill every aspiring necromancer learned.
"With how many spirits there are down here, I can see why Veight wanted them taken care of."
Parker walked over to me after clearing an entire corridor of spirits. As always, he was able to exorcize swathes of undead with just a snap of his bony fingers. Even though we were both using the same magic, his was far more effective.
"Seems to me like you could have handled this on your own."
Parker smiled in response and said, "I could perhaps have completed the job on my own, but Veight insisted we go in pairs of two. You know how cautious he is."
"There's such a thing as being too cautious."
I sighed in exasperation. That being said, it was an ironclad rule of necromancers to perform exorcisms in groups of two or larger. Undead creatures possessed wills, and a moment's lapse in concentration could see a necromancer possessed by the spirits they came to exorcize.
"But now I just feel useless... Oh, here's one."
I dispelled the sorcery keeping a skeleton bound to this world, and it fell to the ground in a clatter of bones. Skeletons were easy to exorcize since all one had to do was remove the spirit from the bones, and the spirit would pass on by itself. Sadly, zombies were harder to eliminate. Those needed to have their spirits separated, then their original bodies destroyed.
After a few minutes of mindless exorcizing, I realized we'd cleared the floor of spirits. At least, I didn't sense any more.
"By my count, I believe I exorcized forty-one spirits."
Even though it wasn't hot down here, Parker was fanning himself with his hat.
"I took care of twenty-seven. I guess I really am no match for someone who's crossed the final threshold."
The gap in ability between us always frustrated me. Like Master, Parker was a master necromancer who'd crossed the final threshold. Even though I'd become Master's disciple first, I still hadn't reached that level. However, Parker didn't seem the least bit proud of his achievement.
He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I made a mistake crossing the final threshold when I did. There's no turning back for me now, but you still have a future ahead of you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're the one who'll succeed Master, not any of us. I guarantee it."
It's been a long time since I heard him talk seriously.
"I no longer have many possibilities left open to me. I can no longer improve my necromancy, so I have no choice but to branch out into other fields of magic."
"But you're already so skilled at necromancy, isn't that enough? You took care of those spirits in no time."
"Hahaha, well I have crossed the final threshold still! Until you do too, no matter how hard you try you'll never be able to reach my level!"
Maybe I should exorcize him too... I turned to Parker, who was still laughing, and launched an exorcism seal behind him.
"Whoa!"
"Don't let your guard down. It looks like there's still some spirits left."
Parker turned around and watched the spirit vanish through his empty eye sockets.
"Ahh, thank you... See, even a master such as myself needs your help from time to time."
Yeah, right. I know you left yourself open on purpose back there. When you do things like that it just makes me feel even worse. Even though I'm Master's oldest disciple...
"Oh yes, I found something interesting while I was exorcizing this floor."
Parker cheerfully fished through his pockets and held something out to me. It was a broken fragment of a crown.
"What's this?"
Parker smiled and said proudly, "Part of the undead lord Ugsfortis' crown! We can use this as a medium to summon his spirit."
"Isn't that the tyrant who was sealed down here!? Why on earth would you want to summon him!?"
"Well you see, Master and I have been working on this experiment together..."
"You're trying to develop some weird undead creature with Master again, aren't you!? Don't you dare!"
In retrospect, maybe there was still meaning in me being Master's first disciple. I need the authority to keep these two troublemakers in line.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter3.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
Chapter 3
The first thing Gomoviroa did after ascending to the position of Demon Lord was order a full retreat from the northern front. Her plan was to use the extra troops to strengthen our defenses in the south, and focus entirely on diplomacy and protection of our borders. These were all measures she'd outlined before in a meeting of officers, so there was no opposition when she made the official proclamation.
Master also declared that Grenschtat Castle would be converted into a training academy for new recruits. In truth, the castle had originally been made to train troops, so it was outfitted with all the necessary facilities. Here, we'd train new demon recruits from the rural villages in marching formations, weapon maintenance, and any other basic foundations they needed to be good soldiers. If I were to put it in SRPG terms, Grenschtat was now a base to produce new units from.
I was also planning on staying in Grenschtat until I'd fully recovered, so I'd be serving as a military instructor until I was fit enough to return to Ryunheit. My primary goal was to retrain the remnants of the second regiment. Master was planning on disbanding the second and merging the survivors into the third. Meaning that, eventually, they'd be stationed in Meraldia's southern cities.
Thanks to our relatively bloodless conquests in the region, we were still in a position to negotiate with the viceroys of the south. Hence why it'd be a problem if the demons of the second went on a rampage there. My job was to teach them how to communicate with humans instead of killing them. And for that, I needed to purge them of the primitive mindset that might makes right.
"Men, I know you experienced battlefields more terrifying than hell itself during the northern campaign."
I swept my gaze over the giants and ogres seated before me. We were in one of Grenschtat's larger halls that we'd converted into a classroom. It was a pretty surreal sight seeing bloodthirsty giants and ogres sitting hunched over desks. The second regiment had suffered devastating losses, and it wasn't their strongest warriors who had survived the slaughter. In fact, it was mostly their weakest who'd made it out alive. Only the cowardly and the wise had possessed the presence of mind to run.
"You aren't the best of the second regiment. The best of the second died during the fight with the Hero. And I'm sure you guys know that best of all."
The gathered demons hung their heads. Wow, these guys really are timid. The repeated defeats they'd suffered had probably scarred some of them, but my guess was most of these guys had been timid to begin with. And that was precisely why I needed to cheer them up.
"But you were the only ones who didn't balk at the thought of retreat. After learning how terrifying humans could be, you chose to run. And that's why you're still alive right now. From now on, I'm going to teach you even more about humans, so that you can keep surviving the battles to come."
The giants and ogres exchanged glances, confused.
"What's he talking about?"
"Dunno. Veight's lectures are too difficult for me."
"But he's right. Those humans were scary. I never thought they'd be that strong."
"Yeah, they were terrifying..."
I couldn't tell if my words were getting through to them or not.
"What's truly terrifying about humans is their tenacity. Even if you kill their strongest warrior, someone else will just step in to take their place. You have to understand, they're not like us."
After all, humans weren't led by their strongest fighter. That was why they could afford to send their best soldiers out into the field.
"Also, know that in a fight, they'll try to protect their weaker comrades."
That wasn't always the case, and there were definitely times when humans fought against each other, but in general, soldiers tried their best to protect civilians. Ogres and giants didn't form packs, so that was an alien concept to them. As far as they were concerned, weaklings who couldn't fight deserved to die. Hobgoblins at least formed simple groups, so they were able to grasp what I was getting at to an extent. The rest, however, could not.
"Th-They protect people weaker than them?"
"Why? What do they get for protecting weaklings?"
"Shouldn't you protect the strong? The strong can kill enemies and keep everyone safe."
I should have figured this would happen. Let's try a different approach.
"Okay, how about this? You guys liked the old Demon Lord, right?"
Everyone cheered in response. Guess I didn't even need to ask.
"And do you like the current Demon Lord?"
More cheers.
"Alright, and do you like them both because they're strong?"
The demons looked to each other in confusion.
"I... don't know?"
"The old Demon Lord was strong. But he was also kind. That's why I liked him."
"The new Demon Lord's nice, too. She's our saint, that's why I like her."
Looks like this method's working. Perfect.
"See? Strength isn't everything. Demons always follow the strong. But just because you follow someone doesn't necessarily mean you like them."
A few of the demons nodded. They were probably the ones who'd had more overbearing commanding officers. Because of how much value demons placed on strength, there were many stronger demons who liked to abuse their authority. Most of those had died during the Hero's onslaught in Bahen, though. They'd been the first to be abandoned by their subordinates, and faced the charging human army alone.
"If the Demon Lord was weak, would you no longer want to protect her?"
The demons rose to their feet and protested hotly.
"Of course not!"
"The holy saint saved our lives! There's no way we'd abandon her!"
"If she ever became weak, we'd protect her!"
"Yeah, we'd risk our lives for her!"
"Who dares threaten her!?"
A few of the hobgoblins clambered on top of their desks and started shouting battle cries. I really wish they wouldn't get riled up so easily.
"Okay, calm down before I get angry and chew up the lot of you."
The demons fell silent instantly. Those that had gotten up on their desks slowly got off, and soon enough everyone was obediently seated.
"If Lord Veight bit us, we'd die..."
"Yeah, his bites killed the Hero..."
"Hey, don't you think we should apologize before he gets mad?"
Uhh, guys, I was just joking. You don't have to look so scared. Perhaps it would be best if I continued my lecture.
"So even if the Demon Lord was weak, you'd protect her, right?"
The demons all nodded in agreement.
"Humans are the same. They want to protect the people they like, regardless of whether they're strong or not. So if you kill their weaker members, they'll all come at you to take revenge. The Hero was like that too."
The giants and ogres exchanged glances and started whispering to each other.
"Humans are scaaaary..."
"They're like bees!"
"If we're not careful they'll swarm us to death..."
"Yeah, we gotta be careful, or else..."
It appeared they were finally starting to understand. There was hope for them yet.
While I was busy reeducating our demons, the entire demon army was undergoing a huge overhaul. Chief among the changes was the standardization of the vice-commander position. Until now there hadn't been any clear hierarchy between vice-commanders. That wouldn't normally have been a problem, but everyone from squad captains to a regiment commander's most trusted general had been a "vice-commander."
From now on, only those serving directly under the Demon Lord or a regiment commander would be granted the title of vice-commander. Master had decided to appoint no vice-commanders other than me, making me the Demon Lord's sole vice-commander. When Baltze had heard the news, this was what he'd had to say to me:
"Did you know the other soldiers have taken to calling you the 'Demon Lord's Right Arm'?"
"I feel like that's a bit of an exaggeration."
"Personally, I don't believe it's an exaggeration at all."
Really?
With the destruction of the second regiment, Master had decided to reorganize the regiments as well. Half of the first regiment, and all the remaining forces of the second, would be incorporated into the third. The third regiment would then be rebranded the southern division. Master's plan was to focus the demon army's entire efforts on conquering Meraldia's southern cities. As a result of the reshuffling, Melaine had effectively been put in charge of the majority of the demon army. When she'd heard the news, she'd screamed, "Did you trick me again, Master!?"
Wait, she's tricked you before? On the other hand, Firnir had been quite happy when I'd told her the news. She'd seemed to have believed it meant she was free of her responsibilities.
"I'll finally be back to being just a field general. It's a relief knowing I'll only have to worry about governing Thuvan from now on."
Sorry, but you're not getting off that easy.
"Actually, Melaine has nominated you to be her vice-commander."
"What!?" Firnir shot to her feet. "Why!? What does she even need my help with?"
"She needs a lieutenant to help her organize military affairs and handle the actual fighting."
Firnir was the best warrior among Gomoviroa's disciples. There was no way Melaine could run the third regiment without her. It was true she was still young, but with a few dragonkin generals from the first regiment to advise her, I was certain she'd do a good job of handling military affairs.
"This was your suggestion, wasn't it, Vaito? Don't think I'll forget this..."
"It wasn't me. If you want to complain, go complain to Melaine."
Firnir held her head in her hands, her tail swishing back and forth wildly.
"Ugh, why do I have to do such a difficult job..."
"What's so bad about being a vice-commander? I like the job, personally."
"Maybe you do, but I don't!"
The only parts of the first regiment that hadn't been folded into the third were the Azure Knights, the Crimson Scales, and Master's personal bodyguard. They had been reformed as the new Imperial Guard regiment, and their job was to protect Master and the other essential members of the demon army. Their commander was Baltze, with Shure his vice-commander. It was a bit too small in scale to be a full regiment, but Master was planning to rectify that by adding her undead soldiers to its numbers. Meanwhile, me and the other werewolves had become Demon Lord Gomoviroa's personal troops, and our job was now to serve as her eyes and ears. Thanks to my unique position, I had authority over even the Imperial Guard regiment. Which, I supposed, was why everyone was calling me the Demon Lord's Right Arm. I was effectively her representative.
A month after Master's coronation, I was finally fit enough to return to active duty. Werewolves healed far faster than most other races, so the fact that it had taken me a whole month to recover was proof that the battle with the Hero had nearly killed me. Still, now that I was healed, there was no reason to keep lazing around. I decided to return to Ryunheit along with a batch of soldiers on their way to join the third regiment.
Even though Ryunheit wasn't my home, a wave of nostalgia washed over me as I gazed upon the main gates. Guess I've gotten pretty attached to the city. Airia was waiting for me outside the main gates, along with the various Demon Lord generals stationed here, and the captain of Ryunheit's garrison. While they were all dressed in different clothes and had different appearances, all of the people lined up before me were wearing matching black armbands. Airia had also pinned a black bouquet to her ceremonial viceroy's dress, indicating her mourning for Friedensrichter's loss. As I approached the gates she stepped forward and saluted.
"Welcome home, Sir Veight."
"My thanks for preparing such a grand reception."
As Airia was an official diplomat of the demon army, she had of course been notified of the Demon Lord's death. However, perhaps out of consideration for me, she didn't dwell on the topic for too long.
"I'm truly glad to see you return safe and sound."
"Thank you. And my apologies for making you worry."
Not only had I made Airia worry, I'd likely cause her no end of trouble in the near future. However, Friedensrichter's death was still being kept a secret from the other humans, so I couldn't go into details about that here. While the garrison commander hadn't been told of the Demon Lord's death, he and his men had at least been informed that someone important had perished. I returned Airia's salute and the two of us walked together through the city's gates. As we headed to the viceroy's manor Airia turned to me and said, "You look more mature than you did when you left."
"I don't feel any more mature, just tired."
I needed to hurry up and regain my old vigor so that I could help achieve Master and Friedensrichter's dream.
My office hadn't changed one bit in the time I'd been gone. The manor's maids had kept the room clean, but nothing had been moved. I made myself a cup of green tea and heaved a sigh of relief. Melaine was busy handling the organization of all the new troops the third regiment had received, but that wasn't my concern. After all, she was the regiment commander. Now then, it's time I got back to my own job.
I unfurled my map of Meraldia's southern region and pored over it. At present, Bernheinen to the northwest and Thuvan to the northeast were both safe. A combination of kentauros, vampires, and undead soldiers were protecting both. I doubted Meraldia would be able to launch an offensive from the north anytime soon, so now was the time to focus on gaining more allies in the south. As I perused the map, Airia gave me a brief explanation of the state of the south.
"Meraldia's southern half has two large main trade routes running through it." She pointed to the city of Beluza, which sat on the continent's southern tip. "The first is the southwestern road. It runs from the port of Beluza north through Ryunheit, then northwest into Bernheinen."
Airia's finger traced the trail marked on my map.
"The road follows the route our ancestors took when they first came to this continent. They built up Beluza as their capital and created a kingdom that stretched north up to Bernheinen."
I see. Oh yeah, come to think of it, Aram said something about how the people of the south were descendants of immigrants who'd come from across the sea.
"The second route is the southeastern one. This one goes from the southeastern maritime city of Lotz north up to Shardier, then from Shardier to Thuvan. This route connects to the northern half of Meraldia as well, but..." Airia lowered her voice and continued, "Because of that, there were many citizens from the north who used it to immigrate to the south. The constant flow of people leaving the north and entering the south was one of the main issues that sparked the Meraldian Unification War."
Ah, that explains why Shardier's especially hostile to the north. Airia grimaced and added, "Though you might have a hard time understanding such long-standing human grudges, Sir Veight."
Don't worry. I used to be human, too.
Airia then pointed to Beluza and said, "Beluza's also known as the pirate city. It barely follows Meraldia's laws, but it's also the largest city on the southern half of the continent, so it's hard to restrict their freedom."
"How large is it exactly?"
The larger its population was, the more resources and soldiers it would be able to produce. Airia grinned.
"It has a civilian population of two thousand."
"That's not that much... Wait, civilian population?"
Is the non-civilian population really big or something? Airia's grin grew wider and she said, "Correct, there are only two thousand civilians living in Beluza."
"And how many non-civilians?"
"A little over ten thousand."
Seriously!?
"So if they're not civilians, what are they?"
"Well, I guess you could still call them civilians."
"Okay, now you're not making any sense."
Still smiling, Airia apologized, "Sorry for phrasing it in such a confusing manner. Put simply, they're illegal immigrants."
"Illegal immigrants?"
This might have been biased of me, but illegal immigrants didn't exactly have the best reputation.
"Is Beluza really alright having that large a population of illegal immigrants?"
"It is indeed. While they might have arrived in the city illegally, most of the immigrants have been living there for generations now."
Honestly, that just made me more worried. Regardless, if it had a population that large, it wasn't a city I could afford to ignore. While Beluza was a good distance from Ryunheit, it was still the city's closest southern neighbor.
"Well, I guess we better start negotiating with them soon, then. Lady Airia, would you be willing to go as our official diplomat?"
"Gladly."
She was still smiling. From the looks of it, she really enjoyed surprising me.
"But first, I'd like to hear more about this city. What kinds of people are these illegal immigrants exactly?"
Before Airia could respond, Nibert—the younger Garney brother—barged into my office.
"Veight, there's some weirdo at the southern gate! Who the hell is he!?"
"Seeing as I've been here the whole time, how the hell would I know?"
Realizing his mistake, Nibert quickly explained the situation to me, "H-He's a skeleton!"
"You sure he's not just one of Master's undead soldiers?"
Nibert shook his head.
"No, he's different. He can talk. Brother's trying to deal with him, but he keeps talking about..."
"About what?"
"A-About stuff that doesn't make sense."
Oh, so that's who it is. Sighing, I waved languidly at Nibert.
"I know who it is... I'll go deal with him in a bit."
Nibert gave me a strange look, then nodded hesitantly.
"O-Okay. In that case, I'll go help my brother out. You better hurry, though!"
I stood up and dragged my feet out the door. I really didn't want to talk to him.
As I reached the southern gate, I found my werewolves already gathered around it. With a heavy heart, I stepped forward. As I drew close, I heard a familiar voice say, "Is a mouthful still a mouthful for you even after you've transformed into a werewolf? In that case, would it not be to your benefit to transform every time you try a mouthful of your friend's snacks?"
"W-Wait... now that you mention it, that makes sense, doesn't it?" Garbert responded somewhat hesitantly. A frivolous voice answered him.
"A splendid answer, my boy! Wait, are you perchance older than I am? I suppose in that case you should be the one calling me, your boy."
"Huh? Why would I do that?"
"I suppose you could call me your girl if you so desired. Though despite appearances, I am a man. Can't you see how silky smooth my skin is?"
"What skin..."
"Oh heavens, I forgot to shed my second skin. Behold, my unblemished pale beauty!"
"W-Well... you're definitely pale at least."
You're not supposed to take him seriously, guys... I pushed my way through the crowd of werewolves, heading toward where the voice was coming from. I knew it. It's him. He was wearing a high-class suit, and a broad-brimmed hat adorned with a feather. His gestures and mannerisms were overly flamboyant, but the effect was ruined by the fact that his face was just a skull.
"Oi, Parker."
The skeleton whirled around with a flourish upon hearing my voice.
"If it isn't Veight! Hello, my beloved brother!"
"I'm NOT your brother!"
The other werewolves started whispering to each other.
"Wait, that skeleton's the boss' brother?"
"They don't look anything alike..."
"Why's his brother a skeleton, anyway?"
Do you guys realize how stupid you sound right now?
"We're not related. This is Parker the Mysterious. He's another one of Master's disciples, and a former human necromancer. Technically he's one of the demon army's generals."
Just saying that tired me out. Parker's jaw clacked loudly as he spoke.
"Indeed! I am Parker, wearer of parkas!"
"Please stop, your puns are terrible."
Parker hung his head and started drawing circles in the ground with a bony finger.
"Don't you think you're being a bit too mean to your gentle older brother?"
"How many times do I have to tell you we're not related just because we're fellow disciples!?"
God, this guy's annoying. What's he even been up to this whole time? Before I could ask, Parker swiveled his head toward me.
"Oh, are you perhaps suspicious that I've been away frolicking while you were hard at work?"
I never understood how he was so good at reading my mind.
"Hahaha, despite appearances I am still one of the third regiment's loyal vice-commanders! Naturally, I have been working myself to the bone for the prosperity of the demon army. Though I suppose I'm nothing but bone!"
Finally, a chance to shut him up!
"Sorry, but we've abandoned the vice-commander system. Right now, you're just Parker, Gomoviroa's disciple."
"Huh?"
Parker fell silent, a confused look on his face. I turned back to the werewolves gathered around us and clapped my hands and said, "Alright everyone, go back to your posts! I'll take care of this clown!"
That seemed to jolt them back to their senses, and they slowly dispersed. Though they were still clearly confused. God, it's so hard to hold a proper conversation with Parker... I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back to my office.
"Under Master's orders, I traveled to the city of Beluza in the south. It was her wish that I establish an alliance with the mermaids living there."
Parker poured himself a cup of my green tea without permission as he spoke.
"And were you able to?"
"Not in the least." Parker guffawed, his bony jaw clacking. "The mermaids are pacifists through and through, you see. And when I told them we'd like to work with them even if they have no intention to fight, they told me they couldn't travel on land."
That made sense. They were mermaids, after all.
"So then I told them it would be fine if only half of them came."
"Half?"
"Indeed, just their upper halves."
"Please tell me you didn't actually say that."
Parker guffawed again, "They nearly drowned me for that one."
"You're a skeleton, you can't drown."
Master, I really don't think you should send this guy on diplomatic missions. Parker stared at the steam coming from the tea he'd poured himself and said lightly, "Alas, I must leave the honorable task of cajoling the mermaids to you. Knowing you, you will be attacking Beluza soon in order to strengthen your hold over the south, will you not?"
"I was planning on attempting talks with them before going for the violent option."
If we could bring them over to our side peacefully, that'd be ideal.
"But seriously, how badly did you make the mermaids hate you if you're pushing negotiating with them onto me?"
"You wound me! Ah, but I suppose I can no longer be wounded."
For the love of God, just stop. Incidentally, that particular pun was one I'd heard dozens of times.
"Oh, but that doesn't necessarily mean I am incapable of feeling pain. Though I digress."
"Whatever, just go home."
I waved him away and tried to formulate a plan on how to deal with Beluza, but Parker wasn't done yet.
"By the way, I heard you defeated the Hero and took revenge for the Demon Lord?"
"You heard wrong. The Demon Lord practically killed the Hero himself, I just happened to land the finishing blow."
"Oho..."
Oh great, he's about to get started on one of his rants again, isn't he? If he makes fun of the Demon Lord I'm seriously going to punch his lights out. However, Parker took off his hat, pressed it against his breast, and bowed low.
"You have my gratitude, Veight. You truly are the pride of Gomoviroa's students."
"Huh?"
"I, too, was fond of the late Demon Lord. There was something truly soothing about spending time with him. He was not only a powerful demon, but a visionary. There exist precious few like him."
It felt like it had been ages since I'd last heard Parker's serious voice. He scratched his skull awkwardly and muttered, "How unfortunate that I no longer possess the ability to cry."
"Parker..."
Parker scrunched up his cap and looked solemnly at the ground. After a few moments of silence, he looked up at me and said, "I'm proud to have a younger brother as outstanding as you."
The fact that he didn't come at me with another pun proved how deeply he was grieving. I walked over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You're not my brother, but you are a good teacher."
After another minute of quiet reflection, Parker donned his hat.
"Well, I can't stay down in the dumps forever. If even I'm depressed, the whole army's morale will drop. After all, it is a jester's duty to entertain his guests even when he himself is crying tears of sorrow."
"Except you're annoying, not entertaining. Besides, didn't you just say you can't cry?"
"Hahaha, well played."
What do you mean, well played? Parker headed for the door and said in his usual cheery voice, "If you plan on visiting Beluza, allow me to accompany you. I can, at the very least, be your guide."
"You kind of stand out too much for a covert visit."
"Oh, you mean this outfit of mine? Never fear, I have prepared quite the fashionable disguise."
"I'm talking about your face, you buffoon!"
How the hell am I going to negotiate if I'm bringing a walking skeleton with me? The moment I said that, Parker's skull-face vanished, only to be replaced by the visage of a handsome man. It took me a few seconds to register the transformation. While I was still blinking away the surprise, Parker said in a frivolous voice, "Impressive, is it not? I have been studying illusion magic as of late. While I cannot yet replicate the sensation and warmth of a human face, I can at least perfectly recreate the look."
"Of all the faces out there, why'd you pick that one?"
"This was the face I possessed when I yet walked the mortal plane. Considering how much time has passed since my death I suppose I should look much older, but alas, I lack the skill to create an elderly face."
Had he really looked so handsome during his lifetime? Even though he was such a joker?
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter31.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
"What do you think? Among Master's disciples, surely there are none as proficient in the illusory arts as I? Perhaps I should stop studying necromancy and become a master of illusions instead."
Oh yeah, this guy doesn't know about Lacy yet.
"Master's newest disciple is actually a master illusionist. She was able to raise fake walls around Ryunheit so realistic you could touch them."
"Do... Do you speak truly?"
Finally, I'd managed to surprise him. Though the fact that he was able to replicate even expressions was rather impressive. Parker folded his arms and dispelled his illusion.
"A-At any rate... now that you've seen my illusion, surely you have no objections to my accompanying you?"
Honestly, I had a hard time refusing Parker anything.
"Well, I guess it's not like you have any other jobs to be doing. Fine, you can come."
"Hahaha, I knew I could count on you, brother."
"Seriously, give the whole brother thing a rest! And don't you dare butt into my negotiations. If you mess things up I'll dump you into the sea!"
"Understood. You can put your faith in me. Literally, my body's hollow."
"Oh, shut up."
While he acted like an empty-headed clown, Parker was actually quite reliable. In fact, I'd relied on him more than once in the past. He was one of Gomoviroa's best pupils, and a master of necromancy. Which was why his usual frivolous attitude pissed me off so much. Damn worthless older brother.
Before heading out, I collected as much information on Beluza as I could. I also gathered all the materials and people I felt I'd need for this mission. As a result, a certain merchant ended up joining the delegation as well.
"I expected you would call for me soon," Mao grumbled as he packed his bags. "You understand that I buy my salt from Lotz and not Beluza, correct?"
"But you still sell salt to Beluza, don't you?"
Sighing, Mao replied, "I suppose that's true. Beluza's viceroy is a loyal customer of mine."
I'd put Mao's trading company in charge of procuring all the supplies we'd need for this trip, making my job a lot easier. It also gave us the perfect cover story. We could meet Beluza's viceroy under the guise of salt traders. Mao glared at me as he folded a set of robes.
"Is there a problem?"
"I will take full responsibility for seeing you to Beluza, but in return I expect you to pay for our travel expenses."
"Don't worry. I plan on paying you and everyone else I'm bringing along for your troubles. And as a bonus, we'll guard your caravan along the way."
There was nothing more reliable than a team of werewolf bodyguards. Next to Mao, the former fake Holy Priestess Lacy fidgeted uncomfortably.
"Umm, do I have to come too?"
"Yeah, we'll be needing your illusion magic, Lacy. I'd prefer it if you could come."
Lacy's illusions were detailed enough that she could easily fool anyone who wasn't a mage. If things turned sour, we'd need her help to flee the city. Even if they didn't, she might come in handy if I needed to intimidate the viceroy. Besides, she was a former government official. The very fact that we'd recruited a former Senate aide to our side would be a powerful negotiating tool. However, she was still a novice when it came to negotiating.
"Listen up, don't try anything crazy, okay? And while we're negotiating don't say anything unless I give you permission."
"O-Okay." Lacy nodded vigorously. "I don't really trust myself anyway, so I'll just do whatever you say, Veight! I'll be quiet, too!"
"Good. Don't worry, if anything happens, I'll protect you."
"Thank you!"
Her skills as a mage were top-notch, but I wish she'd be more confident in herself. All that was left now was to deal with that self-proclaimed brother of mine.
"This is rock salt, you say? Why would anyone sell salt to a city that specializes in producing it? Oho, so rock salt tastes different from sea salt? Let me have a taste."
"Mister Parker, you can still taste things?"
"Of course not, I have no tongue after all! Hahahaha!"
God, he's so annoying. Since none of these members would be any use in a fight, I'd also picked two werewolf squads to accompany me on the journey. Among them were the Garney brothers and Monza. I'd picked the Garneys because they were plenty strong even in their human forms. Meaning they'd be a valuable asset even in places where transforming wouldn't be advisable. Monza, on the other hand, was the best spy I had. With her around, I didn't have to worry about being snuck up on by assassins, or tailed without my knowledge.
"Hey, bro, I heard Beluza's in this place called the sea."
"That's right. The sea's like a huuuuge lake, except it's also salty."
"Wow, you know everything!"
"That's not all. The sea's also got these huge waves, and they always crash into the city."
"Whoa, that sounds scary. Does that mean Beluza's underwater?"
"Nah, there's no way a city could... Hey, Veight, Beluza's not underwater, is it!?"
No, you idiots. The water pulls back after the waves hit land. Honestly, I'd wanted to bring along a few more demons skilled in negotiation, but the few of those we had were busy managing other cities.
"Leave negotiations to me! I'll have you know I have quite the eloquent tongue. Though I suppose I no longer have a tongue!" Parker tried to clap me on the shoulder, but I grabbed him by his shirt and dragged him over to a nearby box. "Oh my, what is the meaning of this, brother of mine?"
"I figured we'd be able to fit you in a box if we take you apart. You'll be more portable that way."
"How could you ever think of turning your precious older brother into a shut-in(to a box)!?"
"It's because I want to make you mine and mine alone. Anyway, someone get me a hammer and some nails."
I wasn't really planning on shutting him into a box, but it'd be nice to have the threat available if necessary. Parker slumped into the box and looked despondently up at me.
"You've become a lot meaner since you first became Master's disciple..."
"And whose fault do you think that is!?"
Once our preparations were complete, our caravan set out for Beluza. For this trip, we'd be taking horses instead of a carriage. The road was patrolled and maintained, so I didn't expect any trouble.
"Our ancestors made Beluza their base of operations when they first arrived in this continent and began expanding to the north. As you can see, there were few areas nearby suitable for growing crops," Mao explained as he bounced up and down on his horse. "As they traveled further north, they built cities on the plains to serve as relay points between the explorers and Beluza. One such relay point was Ryunheit."
Airia had told me the same thing. However, this was a good opportunity to hear Mao's take on the current state of Beluza.
"So Ryunheit and Beluza are like sister cities, then?"
"They are. As we share common ancestors, the cultures and values of both cities are quite similar. Though the distance between us has weakened our relationship somewhat..."
Still, that was good news for me. It'd make negotiating easier. Since we were already on the subject, I decided to ask Mao about the north as well.
"So if the people of the south immigrated from across the sea, where'd the northerners come from?"
I'd asked Airia the same question, but she hadn't known. However Mao had spent a lot of time trading in the north, so perhaps he'd heard some stories. Mao frowned and said, "To be honest with you... I'm not sure."
"But you trade with the north a lot, don't you? Haven't you heard any origin stories from the people you do business with?"
"I have, but the thing is everyone's told me a different story."
Mao shrugged his shoulders. "One trader told me that they were natives to this land while another said that they'd traveled across the mountains in the north, fleeing a crumbling empire. Yet another told me they had gathered here because God had told them it was the promised land."
Those were wildly differing accounts, alright. There was no way to know which one was true, or if there was a kernel of truth hidden in all of them. Either way, it was clear their ancestors weren't the same as the people of the south's.
I was starting to see why there was so much discord between the two sides. It wasn't just about grievances of the past, both people had differing experiences and cultural values. I nodded to Mao with a sigh, and he asked, "Now do you see just how tenuous the existence of the Meraldian Federation is?"
"Yeah. All too well, actually. Honestly, I'm amazed someone managed to unite all these cities into one country." Mao gave me a smile. "You're an interesting man, you know that?"
"How so?"
"I never imagined a demon to understand our internal discord. However, you are quite an empathetic demon, Lord Veight."
Well, I was a human once before. I'd lived a pretty carefree life since reincarnating, though, so I never thought I'd end up dealing with ancient racial conflicts. After hearing all this, I realized it was smarter to focus on conquering just the south first. If all the southern cities saw the north as their enemy, the atrocities we committed there wouldn't close the door to negotiating. If anything, they'd help. When all was said and done, Master was human too, so she'd understand if I explained all this to her. However, Mao was right in assuming that normal demons would be unable to comprehend such grudges. Just thinking about how I'd have to explain this to the other demon generals made my head hurt.
It appeared Mao had more to say on the topic too, and he added, "I've heard that it was the north who was desperate to win the Meraldian Unification War. For whatever reason, they absolutely wanted to have the south under their control."
"I take it that's what the people of the south say?"
"Indeed."
Then it was probably best to take that story with a grain of salt. The way Mao told it, the south had just wanted to be left alone, but the north had wanted everyone to join under the same alliance no matter what. In the end, the north had won, and the south had been forced to become part of Meraldia. I could see why the south was unhappy with that. But I doubted the people of the north were unilaterally evil, so they likely must have had their own reasons for forcing the alliance onto everyone. Though whatever those reasons were, they hadn't told the south. I wonder why they'd been so desperate...
We camped out in the open that night. The road we were traveling was well-maintained, and there were plenty of suitable camping locations off to the side of the road. It reminded me of the camping trails we'd had in national parks back on earth. By arraying our wagons in a ring around our campground, we were also able to create a makeshift barricade to defend against any surprise bandit attacks. It'd be a problem if someone started shooting fire arrows into our wagons, but since most bandits were after loot, I doubted they'd want to destroy what they came to steal.
It was always possible they might sneak up and steal our cargo while we slept, but that wouldn't be too huge a loss. If they were going to steal our stuff quietly, they'd only be able to carry away so much. It probably wouldn't even put a small dent in Mao's profits. Bandits knew if they were too aggressive people would stop using the highways they roamed, and even worse, cities would send out armies to flush them out. It was common wisdom among them not to go overboard.
"Most of the bandits roaming this area are people who were exiled from their tribes or the nearby cities. They're civilized enough to negotiate with," Mao explained as we set up camp. "Salt is a necessary part of everyone's diet, so it's even more valuable than hard coin. If needed, we can always relinquish some as tribute."
That being said, Mao had no intention of giving bandits any of his precious rock salt. All they'd be getting was sea salt.
"Each bandit group has their own territory, and I've already paid the ones who control this highway enough to buy us safe passage."
Oh, so that's why you were talking to that group of shady looking guys earlier. This way Mao didn't have to worry about being attacked, and the bandits got what they wanted.
"But don't you still hire guards, normally?"
"Of course. They're leverage to help convince the bandits it's in their best interests to just quietly accept our tribute rather than fight us for our cargo."
I pointed to the sword strapped at Mao's belt.
"Do you actually know how to use that thing?"
"I learned a bit of swordplay from one of the warriors in the merchant's guild. Though, I am proud to say I've never needed to use it before."
That's something to be proud of?
"It is my opinion that any conflict that can be resolved without violence."
Ah, I get it now. So never having to fight is the pride of a merchant. As we were serving as Mao's guards for this trip, I had my werewolves alternate the watch, just in case.
"Would you like me to take charge of the caravan's security?"
While I appreciated Parker's offer, I shook my head and replied, "If we do things your way we'll scare the merchants to death."
Necromancy tended to terrify non-mages. After making sure the Garney brothers were keeping watch properly, I returned to the campfire. Naturally, Parker followed and sat across from me.
"Oi, why're you here? Go to sleep."
"I'm afraid I've already fallen into a slumber from which I will never wake."
He was just waiting for a chance to say that, wasn't he? It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't used the same joke four times already. Have some originality at least. Seeing my lackluster reaction, Parker drooped a little.
"I suppose that joke is getting old... Perhaps it's time I thought up new ones."
"I'd prefer it if you never make another bad pun again, personally."
Joking aside, there was actually something about necromancy that I wanted to ask Parker. But it was a rather sensitive topic, so I didn't know how to bring it up. Maybe I'll just ask Melaine when I get back to Ryunheit. Parker studied my expression, and then, as if he'd read my thoughts, said, "If there's something you wish to inquire of me, don't hold back on my account, my dear brother."
I'm terrible at keeping a poker face, huh? Though even if I wasn't, it was hard to keep secrets from Parker. Now that he'd figured me out, there was no point in holding back.
"What do you think will happen to Master?"
This had been weighing on my mind since the coronation ceremony. Right now, the demon army absolutely needed Gomoviroa. Not only was she the only one who truly understood the old Demon Lord's will, but she was also our most powerful demon. I didn't even want to think about what would happen to the army if the fact that she'd crossed the final threshold began to change her. More importantly, though, I personally didn't want anything to happen to her. I didn't want to be forced to kill her. The mere thought was abhorrent to me. After a few moments of silent consideration, Parker answered.
"What was the answer Master gave to the question the final threshold posed to her? You're worried precisely because you heard it, are you not?"
"She said that death is a phase in the endless cycle of energy."
"Hmm..."
The light of the campfire gave Parker's skull an eerie glow. He shook his head and replied, "Her answer was different from mine, so I cannot be sure... but she'll probably be fine."
"Aren't you taking this a bit too lightly?"
I was worried Parker was about to pull out another terrible pun, but it seemed that wasn't the case. While his tone was light, he was still completely serious.
"Not at all. You see, I crossed the final threshold by accident. However, Master only opened the door to death after careful preparation. That's why I believe she'll be fine."
"What do you mean, you crossed by accident?"
Seeing as Parker had achieved immortality, I'd always thought he was a complete master of the necrotic arts. However, he shook his head sadly and muttered, "I told you how I suffered from a severe illness while I was still alive before, did I not?"
"Yeah. You said the reason you picked up necromancy was because of that, right?"
Going off how he'd described his symptoms to me in the past, he'd probably had tuberculosis or something similar. Most illnesses were cured by magic in this world, but you'd need to be one hell of a healer to figure out how to treat tuberculosis. Even I didn't know how to cure it.
"Indeed. As the end drew near, I became even more desperate. I threw myself into my research, frantically searching for a way to evade the reaper."
Then, just before his death, Parker had crossed the final threshold.
"To me, life was a complex puzzle—a maze. A maze one can traverse only so long as one still draws breath. And at the end of that labyrinth lay the secrets to surpassing life and death."
So that's why he's called Parker the Labyrinthine.
"And you found those secrets?"
That was a redundant question, since if he hadn't he wouldn't be sitting in front of me right now. But to my surprise, Parker shook his head.
"I have indeed surpassed death. When I escaped the labyrinth, I escaped the clutches of the reaper." The flickering flames illuminated Parker's expression. "But there was nothing there. No hidden answer to the mysteries of life and death. Beyond the maze lay nothingness. A vast, empty void. There was no happiness, no sadness, practically no emotions at all."
"I'm not sure I follow."
Parker's analogy was a bit too abstract for me. It sounded like he was saying he lost all his emotions, but he was far too cheery and annoying for that to be true. Parker scratched his skull and tried to clarify, "I suppose that would be a difficult explanation to grasp. Let me see... To put it simply, the maze's exit did not lead where I expected it to."
"Okay, now you've simplified it too much."
That explanation was just as unhelpful, only for different reasons. Parker folded his arms and thought about how to convey what he'd found.
"Hmm, it's hard to find the words to explain it to a strengthening mage such as yourself. When I escaped the maze I believed I'd achieved my goal, but in truth, it was the opposite." Parker threw a branch into the fire and looked up at me. "I wanted to solve the mysteries of life and death, but crossing the threshold just brought me even further from the truth. In fact, it left me stuck in a void where I would forever be denied the answers I sought. Does that make more sense?"
"Not really..."
I knew necromancers were philosophers, but that didn't make it any easier to understand their ramblings. All I got out of Parker's explanation was that he'd messed up bad, and there was no undoing the mistake.
"Suffice it to say, I failed. However, it appears our esteemed Master did not. Which is why there's no need to worry! Simple enough?"
"I guess, but..."
While that did allay my worries regarding Master, now I was worried about Parker.
"So then, are you okay?"
"Me? Fear not, I am fine." Parker clacked his jaws together in a strange facsimile of laughter. "You see, there's something the previous Demon Lord told me back before I had officially joined the army. 'If all you found is emptiness, that means you are free to fill it with whatever you wish.'"
Okay, now this makes even less sense.
"His words opened my eyes. Crossing the threshold had given me the freedom to choose my own path. If I wanted to tell horrible puns, I could. If I wanted to make illusions that looked like my old self, I could. If I wanted to annoy my cute little brother, I could!"
"You wanna repeat that last one?"
I raised a fist, and Parker held up his hands in mock surrender.
"At any rate, this is why I've started to think that having an eternity full of nothing isn't so bad. Hahaha!"
"Don't try to change the subject on me. I'm not letting that one go."
"And the reason I pun so often is because I wish to share my humor with others! I have to make the most of what few emotions I have left, after all!"
"Oh no, you're not deflecting me this time."
I grabbed Parker's shoulders and shook him hard. However, he just kept laughing without a care in the world.
* * * *
—Parker's Recollections—
I still remember the day you became one of Master's disciples. You looked a little nervous, but mostly I remember the deep resolve in your gaze. Your dazzling radiance was too bright for these old, empty eye sockets. To me, you were like an arrow of light, shooting headlong toward the future. It made me, who'd been frozen in time all these years, a little jealous.
"So you're Veight. I'm Parker. Master's second disciple."
"It's nice to meet you, Mister Parker!"
From our very first conversation, you stirred my heart. Or you would have, if I still possessed a heart. My emotions withered so long ago that I couldn't even remember what these feelings were. Since crossing the final threshold, I had lost all but a few of my negative emotions. Which of course meant that whatever I felt then had to be a positive one. Whatever that feeling was, it was a comforting one. I wanted to bask in it for a while longer, at least until I remembered what it was.
"Oh yes, would you like me to tell you who you were in your past life? A necromancer of my considerable talents can do so with ease."
"Wha!? N-No thanks! I'm not interested in necromancy anyway!"
Then why are you studying under a famed necromancer? I must say, young Veight, your reactions are surprisingly entertaining to watch. Wait. Surprising? Entertaining? I can't recall the last time such words applied to me.
"Parker, stop teasing the newbie. Don't worry, even necromancers can't read people's past lives. In fact, we're not even sure reincarnation exists or not."
Oh Melaine, must you always ruin my fun? Well, I suppose seeing how flustered the poor boy is, I can let him off the hook for now. After all, it would be more fun to pull the rug out from under him when he least expects it. Wait. Fun? Oh my... it's almost as if I've returned to the person I was when I was still alive.
In the years following, I searched for the reason my emotions resurfaced. No, perhaps it would be more apt to say I pretended to search for them. I had, in fact, realized it long ago. The time I spent with Veight had returned them to me, but because I was so clingy, he began to grow distant.
"Oi, Parker, you're getting in the way of my training, so shove off."
"You wish to shove me off a cliff, you say? Feel free. I'm already dead so it won't even hurt!"
"Can't you at least make a better pun out of that one?"
Haha, you're sulking, but I know you're secretly happy I give you so much attention. Though I suppose I should think up some better jokes for the future.
"Anyway, do you know where the spirit-sealing charm is, Parker?"
"Indeed, it sits in that purple box over there. What do you need it for?"
"I was hoping to let you rest in peace..."
"You want to use them on me!?"
In retrospect, I probably was a bit too attached to him. I just hope it didn't make him hate me too much. Being hated by Veight would make me sad, after all.
Looking over now, I saw him sleeping peacefully in his bedroll by the campfire. Don't catch a cold now, you hear? Taking care of you's quite troublesome. Besides, then we'd have to send you back, and we all know how easily you get lonely.
I unrolled another blanket and covered him with it. I didn't need sleep, so I could stay up all night. Sleep well, Veight, I'll be here keeping watch.
I threw another branch into the fire and looked up at the stars. Life became rather dull when Veight was sleeping. There was so much I wanted to say to him that a day's worth of talking wasn't enough. But I suppose I'll save the fun for tomorrow. I just wish the sun would rise already.
* * * *
We traveled for a few more days after that. After cresting the last mountain in the range that divided Ryunheit and Beluza, we finally caught our first glimpse of the sea.
"Oh, there's the sea."
A vast blue expanse stretched out toward the horizon. This was my first time seeing the sea since reincarnating. Though Mao and his fellow traders had gotten used to the ocean, my fellow werewolves and Lacy were all awed by the sight. As they looked down at the sparkling azure waves, they gave voice to their thoughts.
"So that's the ocean... it's nothing like I thought it would be."
"Holy shit, it's huge. I can't even see the far shore..."
"Are you sure this isn't just an illusion of some sort?"
I guess I should have expected that reaction from Lacy, seeing as she's an illusionist and all.
"Let's go, guys. I guarantee it looks even more impressive up close."
Mao cocked his head and gave me a quizzical look.
"Sir Veight, isn't this your first time seeing the ocean?"
Crap, I messed up again.
"W-Well... that's what Master told me, at least."
"I see."
Thank God I became the disciple of a great sage. People will believe anything if I say Master told me about it. Or so I'd thought, but I'd let my guard down. For there was another one of Master's disciples here.
"Oh my, Master even told you about the sea? I wish she'd been as varied in her education with—"
I forcibly shut Parker's mouth and hurried everyone along.
"Come on, let's go. We don't want to waste any more time here."
"I-I suppose so..."
The pirate city of Beluza had been built in the shape of a crescent, following the shape of the bay it opened into. Though it did have walls, most of the city's protection came from the high peaks that surrounded it. The walls were short enough that an invading werewolf army could easily scale them if they were coming down the mountainside. The city sloped downward a little to the south, letting it catch all of the blazing afternoon sun. Furthermore, its harbor seemed to be bustling. That being said, there were an awful lot of boats milling about. Are those all the illegal citizens Airia was talking about?
Our party headed toward the main gates on horseback. As we grew closer, it became clear that the city was a disorganized jumble. Streets crisscrossed at random intervals, and buildings of wildly differing sizes stood next to each other. I admit I might be a little biased, but the city didn't seem all that safe either.
A rugged group of armed men approached us as we arrived at the gate. For a moment I thought they were pirates, but it turned out these were the city's guards. And here I'd been ready to call the city guard on them. Mao handled the formalities, and we were permitted into the city without incident. As we walked past, I decided to make my intentions clear.
"My name is Veight, Vice-Commander to Demon Lord Gomoviroa. I would like to meet with Beluza's Viceroy."
Everyone in the vicinity froze.
"Sir Veight, I really would prefer it if you would stop announcing yourself to every city we visit."
Mao sighed as he watched the nearby townspeople flee in terror.
It didn't take long for an army of garrison troops to push their way toward us. Thanks to Mao's skillful mediation, they agreed to escort us to the viceroy's manor, albeit under heavy guard. I'd wanted to enjoy the view on my way there, but now all I got to see was a bunch of hairy dudes around me. I was looking forward to seeing what a different world's ocean looked like, too. The troops escorting us whispered to each other in hushed tones, but my superior hearing caught every word.
"Th-That guy's the butcher of four thousand?"
"Not only did he kill four thousand men, he blew up Thuvan's walls."
"They call him Hero-Slayer Veight... he's buried dozens of Heroes already."
"L-Listen up, you cowards. You better defend the viceroy with your life."
"I'll see you in the afterlife, buddy."
The south's been the picture of peace for the past few months, these rumors are uncalled for! The viceroy's manor stood at the top of Beluza's Hill, the city's tallest point and namesake.
Me, Mao, Lacy, Parker, and my werewolf guards were escorted to an open terrace that overlooked the sea. As we took in the gentle sound of waves crashing against the beach and the dazzling sunlight pouring down on us, a stern-faced old man came out to greet us.
"I am Garsh, the Viceroy of Beluza. What business does the demon army have with me?"
Garsh had the appearance of a pirate king, which was fitting since this was known as the pirate city. This guy's definitely made some people walk the plank in his time. Burly, muscular bodyguards flanked the viceroy, further cementing my image of him as a pirate lord. Or maybe a mafia boss. Granted, if I gave the order my 8 werewolves would make mincemeat out of his 20 guards, so the effect wasn't as intimidating as he probably hoped. I got the feeling this guy might be hard to deal with, but it wasn't like I could leave negotiating to anyone else. Sipping the tea one of the maids had brought me, I sucked in a deep breath. I'd messed up big time with Aram, so I figured this time it'd be better to speak more naturally.
"Lord Garsh, I'll get straight to the point. Would you be willing to ally with the demon army?"
"Oho." Garsh folded his arms and stroked his beard. "If we ally ourselves with the demon army, we'll be making enemies of Meraldia. As it is, it's uncertain who would make for a scarier foe."
I'm pretty sure we're the scarier enemy here. But if I said that, it'd come out sounding like a threat. And this guy didn't seem like the kind of person who'd cave to threats. The fact that he was so confident even while dealing with a werewolf proved he had guts. Picking my words carefully, I responded, "Right now, Ryunheit, Bernheinen, and Thuvan are all under the demon army's control. Furthermore, we've allied ourselves with Shardier."
"Yeah, I know. I've already heard about how you helped that whelp out. My thanks for that, kid."
This pirate king was more informed than he looked.
"Truth is, I already talked to Aram in secret. He told me the demon army's someone we can trust."
Nice going, Aram. I hadn't expected him to open up negotiations of his own.
"But see here, Airia and Aram both lack experience when it comes to being viceroy. So sorry, but just because they recommended you doesn't mean I hafta trust you."
Considering his position, that was the natural reply. Meaning I had to really sell this alliance to him.
"In that case, Lord Garsh, let me just say this. If, as planned, the demon army is able to win over the rest of the southern cities, Beluza will be completely isolated from the north." If that was all I had to say, it'd just sound like a threat, but I wasn't done yet. "However, even were that to happen, we have no intention of cutting off your trade routes to the north. Our goal is not to make the people of Meraldia suffer."
"What?"
Garsh's eyes went wide with surprise. He'd likely never heard of a potential enemy straight up promising not to cut off their trade routes. Even Parker seemed taken aback by my declaration.
"Are you sure you want to promise something like that?"
"It's fine. Both the Demon Lord and Lady Airia have agreed to this proposal."
In all honesty, even if we cut off their land routes, Beluza could always use the sea to ship goods to Lotz. And even if Lotz joined the demon army, it would be easy for them to trade with nations other than Meraldia. So long as we had no means to enact a naval blockade, cutting off Beluza's trade routes would be an empty gesture. In which case, we were better off earning Beluza's goodwill by not doing so.
Besides, letting them trade, but levying a toll on them, would be more beneficial to us in the long run. Plus, if I had to, I could always have my werewolves dress up as bandits and start raiding Beluza's caravans. That would be a much more effective way of crippling their economy. I doubted I'd need to take measures that drastic, but it was always good to leave your options open. At any rate, it seemed Garsh still hadn't recovered from his shock.
"I don't understand. What did you come here for!?"
"To try and forge an alliance, of course."
The fact that he was this surprised came as a surprise to me. Arms still folded, Garsh lapsed into thought. After a few minutes he asked, "Then why have you blockaded our seas?"
"We haven't?"
Now it was my turn to be surprised. Considering it'd be pretty obvious if I lied, I decided to come clean about the state of the demon army's navy.
"Unfortunately, the demon army has no navy of its own. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't blockade your seas."
Garsh gave me an odd look.
"You mean the mermaids aren't part of the demon army?"
They aren't. Because a certain skeleton here failed to persuade them. I shot Parker a sidelong glance and he innocently looked away.
"Oi, Parker. What the hell is this?"
"It's as I told you, Veight. The mermaids said they dislike violence and so would not be joining the demon army." Parker, who was in his handsome guy disguise, replied in a confused tone. Seeing our exchange, Garsh, too, grew confused.
"The mermaids don't wanna fight us? Then why in the bloody hells are our ships going missing? I thought this was all the work of the demon army!"
It appeared Beluza had run into quite a rough patch. This was something I could use as leverage.
"Veight, you do realize everyone can see the wicked grin creeping up your face right now, right?"
"Can you just shut up for a minute?"
After I shut Parker up, I turned back to Garsh.
"It appears you seem to be having some trouble. We'd like to help, if possible."
"Now that sounds shady..."
Garsh gave me a suspicious glare. I promise we're not secretly behind this and just trying to get the credit for solving your problems. Not this time, at least. Garsh examined our faces one after another, then sighed dramatically.
"Not like you boys are giving me much choice. Fine, I'll consider joining your alliance. But only if you do something about the mermaids."
"Then we have a deal."
I'll have you know, you never want to be indebted to the demon army. Though, it's good for us, so please keep asking us favors. Now then, let's see how hard it'll be to solve these pirates' problems.
After negotiations were over, Garsh said something about how caring for guests was a viceroy's job and ordered one of his men to prepare us rooms. Meanwhile, he took us to a nearby restaurant for a meal. It was more of a bar than a restaurant, but the smell of sizzling seafood was delicious enough to leave me drooling.
"All that stuffy negotiation can come later. For now, let's eat!"
Garsh led us to the restaurant's largest table. Seeing as the rest of the tables were empty, I assumed he'd reserved the whole place for the night. Including me, our party consisted of 12 people. On the other hand, Garsh had come here alone. I was amazed he was able to act so calm at a table full of demons. It seemed his guards—who were waiting near the restaurant's entrance—shared my sentiment, as they'd gone completely pale. As I was marveling at Garsh's courage, our food arrived.
"Most of what we've got to eat here is seafood, so I don't know if it'll suit your tastes."
Despite what Garsh had said, all the food looked delicious. Especially since I hadn't had seafood in a long time. Plates of fried shrimp and mushrooms, stir-fried scallops, and fish stew lined the table. Most of the dishes resembled ones I'd had back in Japan.
"At any rate, I'm tired of haggling and negotiating. My personal motto's 'feed diplomats well, and everything will go smoothly.' Whaddaya think? Good motto, right?"
"Definitely."
I took a sip of some garlic shrimp soup as I gave Garsh an enthusiastic reply. Most of the food had a Mediterranean flair to it. Aside from Mao, no one else from Ryunheit's delegation had had seafood before. Lacy and the other werewolves exchanged timid glances before poking at their food.
"Hey, Veight, I think this soup has bugs in it..."
"Those are shrimp. They taste good, I promise."
"Veight, what are these lumpy things?"
"Those look like fish eggs to me. I don't know which fish they're from, though."
Why is everyone asking me all these questions? This was my first time eating seafood since reincarnating, so I wanted to enjoy it without being interrupted. Thank God I was reborn as a werewolf. I can eat as much as I want without getting full. I ate with gusto, all thoughts of negotiating gone. Garsh grinned as he watched me wolf down my food.
"Damn, kid! Do all werewolves eat as much as you!?"
"Yeah. We can eat way more than this too. So seconds, please. This food's great."
"Hahaha! So what d'you think of my chefs, kid?"
"They're some of the best I've seen."
I squeezed some lemon onto a piece of fried fish and ate it whole.
"This is the first time I've ever tasted fish this good. Get me some more!"
"Eat as much as you want, kid!"
Just then, the chef came out of the kitchen and whispered something to Garsh with a troubled expression. Sighing Garsh replied, "You're already out of food? My guests are still hungry, you can't just leave them like this."
"Sorry, boss. We have the ingredients, we just can't cook everything fast enough."
Well, it is pretty hard to feed nine werewolves at once. Even Monza, who was a light eater by werewolf standards, was currently in the process of devouring a whole chicken. Meanwhile, the Garney brothers had tucked away a dozen plates of food. There was no way the cooks could keep up with the pace we were eating at. Seeing the chef's troubled expression, Garsh smiled ruefully.
"I guess we can't let them eat raw fish like us. It's a shame, but we'll have to make them wait."
Now that I think about it, all the food they're serving has been cooked. The chef had even used vegetables and seasoning to erase the fishy smell of most things. He'd also used ingredients Ryunheit residents would be more familiar with, like chicken and cheese. Garsh was probably trying to be considerate of us, since we'd come from across the continent. However, I at least needed no such consideration. Garsh's earlier statement implied that Beluzans ate raw fish, right?
"Hey, Garsh?"
"Yeah?"
It doesn't hurt to ask, at least.
"Do you guys eat raw fish?"
The old viceroy grinned and said, "That we do, kid. There's nothing better than a freshly caught raw fish."
This guy knew his stuff. Technically it was best to let the fish refrigerate for a while, but there wasn't refrigeration in this world, so he'd have no way of knowing that. Anyway, that wasn't what was important right now. What was important was that I could eat sashimi.
"Mind letting me try some? I'm already here, may as well see what the local delicacy is."
"Oh, you've got guts, kid." Smiling, Garsh turned to the chef and said, "Bring our guest some fish."
"Are you sure, sir?"
"Course I'm sure. Worst case, we just end up eating it instead. Now get going, we don't want to leave our guest waiting."
Garsh watched me with a wicked grin as the chef returned to the kitchen. He was probably expecting me to gag. I didn't expect to see such an immature side of him. Soon enough, a waiter brought over a large plate piled high with fresh fish.
"This is our most popular assortment combo."
From the looks of it, it was more of a carpaccio than sashimi. It even came with a separate plate of dressing. I didn't know what kinds of fish these were, but they had white meat at least.
I looked up from the plate and realized everyone was staring at me. They were all interested to see how I'd react to the fish.
"Hey Veight... that's just chopped up raw fish, isn't it?" The younger Garney brother asked hesitantly. When he put it that way, I could see why it sounded unappetizing.
"Do southerners really eat this stuff? Doesn't it make them sick?"
I stopped Lacy before she could accidentally blurt out anything too rude. Insulting another culture's culinary habits was a big taboo. Garsh's grin grew wider. He and the rest of his guards were watching eagerly. They wanted to see how I'd react. Even though it had been decades since I'd last had sashimi, everyone's curious gazes made it hard to eat. I poured a little bit of dressing over the carpaccio and tried a forkful. It tasted pretty similar to sea bream. It had a light flavor that was easy on the palate. Most of all, though, it was delicious. I'm so glad I was reincarnated into this world!
"You alright, boss?"
Monza watched with unbridled curiosity as I chewed on the fish.
"Delicious."
"You sure you're not just saying that?"
"Yeah, it really is delicious."
So shut up and let me eat. Garsh and his men watched with dumbfounded amazement as I tore into the fish. But while it did taste pretty good, it was a little lacking. The dressing was too light. I needed soy sauce. I ruffled through my pocket and pulled out a tiny porcelain bottle. My apologies to the chef, but I really want sashimi right now. There was a reason I'd brought this bottle with me on our journey. Seeing the bottle, Garsh narrowed his eyes sharpy.
"Hold on, what's that?"
The guards standing behind drew their weapons. They were armed with short swords suited to indoor fighting. In response, the werewolves all got to their feet.
Goddammit, I messed up again. I'd been so obsessed with making this into sashimi that I hadn't stopped to think how me fishing through my pockets for a bottle must have looked to everyone else.
"Calm down, everyone. This is just a little seasoning I brought with me. I wanted to try it with your raw fish, that's all."
I popped the bottle's cork and poured a little of the black liquid into a small dish. Though my words had calmed everyone down, they were now staring at me with an even greater curiosity than before. I speared a piece of fish with a fork and dipped it into my soy sauce bowl. I slowly brought the piece of sashimi to my mouth.
Aaaaaaah... this is what I've wanted for so long. It's perfect. I'm so glad I lived to see this day. Everyone watched me with mild disgust as I drowned in bliss. Well, this is awkward. I'd come here to negotiate an alliance with Beluza, yet here I was trampling all over their culture. But while I did feel bad, I couldn't stop myself from eating more.
"Sorry, but could you get me another plate of this fish, without the dressing?"
"U-Uhh... sure."
After watching me dip fish into the soy sauce multiple times, Garsh finally asked, "What kind of sauce is that? I've never seen its like before."
"It's made from fermenting beans. We use it in Ryunheit to season dishes and as a dipping sauce for skewers."
"And what made you want to try it with our fish?"
Because I'm Japanese. Obviously I couldn't say that though, so I came up with another excuse.
"It does a good job of removing meat's odor, so I thought it might work on fish too."
"Can I try some?"
"Be my guest."
Garsh scooped a tiny bit of soy sauce up with a silver spoon, then brought it to his nose and sniffed it. Then he poured a single drop onto his palm and licked it. The guards watched him worriedly, but he just nodded a few times and said, "May I have some to keep? This'll be a hit in Beluza."
Before I could even say anything, Mao butted into the conversation.
"Lord Garsh, if you like, our guild would be glad to supply you with this sauce."
"Perfect. I need to show this to all the chefs I know. This will make the perfect dressing, and we can probably use it for grilling and stews too."
"I shall make preparations to send you a shipment as soon as possible."
I decided to leave those two to their business. Right now, all I cared about was enjoying my sashimi. Though, now that I'm thinking about it, it'd be nice to have some wasabi too. Let's see if we can find it somewhere.
Garsh let his subordinates handle the details of his trade deal with Mao and returned to his seat.
"Sorry 'bout that. But I've gotta hand it to you, that's some interesting sauce you've got there. Thanks for showing it to me."
"Oh, it was nothing."
To be honest, I was kind of regretting showing it to Garsh, but seeing how happy he was I couldn't bring myself to say that.
"I'm impressed ya knew it would go well with food you've never even tried before."
"Well, that sauce goes with pretty much everything."
"If you say so." Garsh folded his arms. "I always thought you demons were a barbaric lot, but it seems I've misjudged ya. Sorry 'bout that."
Actually, we are pretty barbaric. But if Garsh wanted to believe that, I wasn't going to correct him.
"We did live far from civilization until recently, so I don't blame you for thinking that. That being said, we'd like to live together in prosperity with humans from now on."
Garsh nodded in response.
"Looks I don't hafta worry about the demon army. Besides, you lot seem way more fun than to be with than the north. Assuming you're tellin' me the truth, that is."
He made sure to emphasize those last few words. It appeared he was still suspecting us of being the culprits behind his troubles at sea. I couldn't really blame him. We were demons after all. Either way, it looked like we definitely needed to have a chat with the mermaids. As I was musing over how best to approach them, Parker voiced a suggestion, "By the Demon Lord's command, I have spent the past few months negotiating with the mermaids. And in that time, they made no suspicious moves. Do you happen to have a map?"
"Yeah, give me a second."
Garsh brought over the map that was hanging on the restaurant's wall and spread it out on the table. Parker pointed to a section of shoreline southwest of the city and said, "I believe it's around here that the tide becomes gentler. There's also a coral reef and a few small islands, which is why the mermaids have made it their primary habitat."
"Hm?" Garsh looked puzzled. "That's nowhere near most of our sea routes. No sailor worth their salt would sail through a reef anyway. The ships we've lost were ones headed east to Lotz."
"Which is why I suspect that the mermaids are not the cause of your problem. They're wary of ships, so they tend to avoid the more populated sea routes." Parker said with a shrug. Garsh's expression grew pensive.
"Hmm... Hey, Veight. Can we trust this guy?"
You definitely can't. That being said, it didn't look like Parker was pulling this information out of his ass. I knew from experience that when he was serious, he never joked around or lied. Loathsome as it was, I had to back him up here.
"Parker has both my trust and the trust of the Demon Lord. He wouldn't report information he hasn't first verified."
Parker turned to me with a grin. God, I never thought I'd say those words.
"Regardless, I'll meet with the mermaids as soon as possible. If they are behind your missing ships I'll convince them to lift the blockade. And if they refuse to listen, I promise the demon army will cooperate with you in full no matter which action you choose to take."
I was pretty sure this was just a misunderstanding. Garsh nodded and brought over a tankard of mead from the bar counter.
"Drink, kid."
"Huh?"
The old viceroy grinned and continued, "We're done negotiating for the day. Now it's time to party. So unless you've got a problem with booze, drink up."
"Ah, you don't say." I took the proffered tankard and smiled. "I hope you've got food that goes well with alcohol, then."
"Don't worry, we've got enough food for you, kid."
Looks like I'm getting a free buffet tonight. If Garsh was offering, I had no reason to turn down his hospitality.
The next morning, Parker and I headed to a beach on the outskirts of the city. The beach was a short distance away from the bay that made up Beluza's main harbor.
"Let's go see these mermaids, shall we?"
Parker got into the tiny rowboat we'd been given and turned back to me with a smile.
"We're sailing there in this?" I asked.
"The seas around here are calm, and I don't need food or water. As long as we hit the right currents, we should drift there in three days."
I had a bad feeling about this.
"And what exactly am I supposed to eat in those three days?"
"Whoops, I nearly forgot! In that case, how about we do this?"
As if he'd been waiting for me to ask that question, Parker drew a strange symbol in the air and began to chant, "Arise from the dark gates of Gevina, my sworn friend."
His tone was cold enough to make me shiver. Mana twisted the space around Parker, and a pocket of air suddenly grew dark. The same process repeated itself in a few other locations, and a few undead skeletons appeared from the rifts Parker had created. There were four in total, and each skeleton was wearing a tattered sailor's uniform. Parker continued in the same cold tone that was so different from his usual cheery self.
"Brave sailors, there is no time for you to rest. You must row."
The skeletons boarded our tiny craft and picked up the oars with practiced movements. Once they were in position, they began to row. I hurriedly jumped into the boat before it got too far from shore. Though this was a rather gloomy way to travel, at least it would be fast.
Parker's greatest strength as a necromancer was his ability to directly summon undead from the underworld. Since he didn't have to create his own, he could summon a large number in a short period of time. However, they weren't "his" undead; he was effectively renting them. Because he had to choose from the available spirits of whatever location he was in, he couldn't choose what traits and abilities they had. Near a coast like this, most of the spirits would be fishermen or sailors who'd met their demise nearby. I watched the skeletons silently row and asked Parker, "Do these guys have any feelings or sentience?"
"My method of summoning them only allows me to give them orders, so I'm not sure. However, I imagine if they do, the only feelings that remain are lingering regrets." Parker's voice softened and he added, "I'm not too different from these poor souls, which is why I suspect I can summon them."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just silently watched the shore recede in the distance.
After a few hours, I noticed something was off. The surrounding mana was punctuated with ripples. That meant that someone nearby was using magic. Come to think of it, aren't most mermaids able to use magic? They were primarily skilled in magic that affected one's senses and emotions. Before long, I felt a desire to return home growing within me. I began to miss Ryunheit, Grenschtat, and the old village I'd grown up in. Whoever was casting this spell on me had to be close. I ignored these implanted emotions and turned to Parker.
"We're close."
"You feel it as well?"
"Yeah. Even if they're not making any noise, I can see the ripples in the flow of mana. It's emotion manipulating magic of some sort."
"Indeed. This is the enchanting melody of the mermaids that convinces travelers to turn back."
According to Parker, mermaids could use their song to both lure people in or drive them away.
"Though it has no effect on me, and it appears little effect on you. It works well enough on humans, of course."
As our rowers were undead, they remained unaffected as well.
"If we row toward the source of the song we'll reach the mermaids' village before long."
"I see."
I kept my gaze fixed straight ahead, ignoring the voice in my head whispering to me to turn back. Around the time the shoreline dipped below the horizon, we arrived at the coral reef Parker had mentioned. Ripples appeared around the boat, indicating that something was moving beneath the surface of the water. A second later, a group of beautiful half-naked women surfaced all around us.
So these are mermaids. This was my first time seeing them. They were all smiling amicably, which I hadn't expected. Parker removed his cap and bowed to the women.
"Long time no see, ladies. How do you do?"
The mermaids answered in voices clear as crystal.
"We're doing well, Mr. Parker."
"Who is that man traveling with you?"
"My, he looks rather handsome."
As the boat's only other passengers were undead, everyone's gazes focused on me. It made me feel a little self-conscious. I nodded to the mermaids and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you. I am the Demon Lord Gomoviroa's Vice-Commander, Veight."
"Oh, so you're the man Mr. Parker spoke of!"
Why're they all so surprised? The mermaids crowded around the boat and started staring even more intently at me. I grabbed Parker's skull and brought my face inches away from his.
"What the hell did you tell them about me?"
"J-Just that you were my little brother..."
"You mean your junior disciple. Anything else?"
Parker dropped to the ground like a sack of bones and pretended to be just a skeleton.
"Oi, answer me."
Giggling, the mermaids answered for him.
"Mr. Parker was always praising you, Mr. Veight. He told us that out of all the wonderful, talented people the demon army had, you were the most amazing."
"Mr. Veight, is it true that you can understand the thoughts of humans? I've heard that even humans follow you because of that."
Judging by their tones, it didn't look like the mermaids were lying. I looked down at Parker, and he bashfully turned away.
"I never imagined my doting side would come to light like this."
"Don't tell me you've been singing my praises everywhere you went?"
Parker grew even more flustered as he tried to talk his way out.
"I-I didn't talk about only you. All of my fellow disciples are precious to me. I've long since lost my birth family, and all of you are like family to me. I can't help but want to tell everyone about you guys!"
I never knew he was this easily embarrassed. Parker had self-destructed thanks to his own embarrassment, so I turned back to the mermaids.
"Sorry my fellow disciple is such a nuisance. It must have been painful, listening to him."
"Oh, not at all. Fufufu."
What are they all so happy about?
"It sounds wonderful, having siblings you can rely on..."
"How dreamy."
The mermaids excitedly splashed their tails in the water. I wasn't sure how to respond to this. Personally, I'd prefer to get down to business right away, but these mermaids didn't seem the type to take things too seriously. Since we weren't pressed for time, I decided to let them dictate the flow of the conversation. That being said, I still wanted to properly apologize.
"Parker's a good guy, but his frivolous attitude makes him easily misunderstood. So if he was rude to you at all, I apologize on his behalf."
The mermaids swished their tails from left to right.
"Oh, not at all! Mr. Parker is a true gentleman! In fact, he's saved us on multiple occasions."
A true gentleman? Now that I found hard to believe.
"But didn't he tell you horrible jokes like 'If you can't leave the water just bring your upper halves to the demon army?'"
"He never made such jokes, no."
The mermaids tilted their heads quizzically.
"Even though we refused his invitation to join the demon army, Mr. Parker still continued to assist us. He's a very sincere man."
This guy? Sincere? I could hardly believe it, but the mermaids just kept on talking about how amazing he was.
"Mr. Parker exorcized all of the nearby spirits for us. It's thanks to him that we can live in this coral reef."
"Were it not for his assistance, we would still be aimlessly wandering the ocean, awaiting our inevitable demise."
According to the mermaids, they'd lived a nomadic lifestyle until recently. However, they hadn't originally been nomads. Though they were hunter-gatherers, they preferred to settle in permanent locations. That was why Parker had exorcized the reef; so that it was habitable again.
"Those who die at sea long for land, and they often wander the waves searching for shore. Most spirits who fail to pass on drift to islands and reefs like these."
Parker chimed in with a supplemental explanation, but he was still covering his face with his hands. So that's what he was up to the whole time he was gone. I looked back down at Parker, and he scratched his skull awkwardly.
"Hahahaha. I suppose the cat's out of the bag now. As you can see, I was slacking off! However, it turned out to be great exorcism practice! You would not believe how many spirits this reef had attracted."
"Parker."
"Yes?"
I smiled.
"Thank you. You did everyone a service."
Parker scooted backward until his back was to the railing.
"You can't just praise me openly like that! It's embarrassing!"
"I'm serious. The demon army's goal is to save demons everywhere. As the Demon Lord's vice-commander, it would set a bad precedent if I didn't commend you for your actions."
"B-But, even after negotiations failed I remained here instead of returning as per orders!"
Wow, Parker really doesn't handle compliments well, huh. Guess I better compliment him more.
"Don't worry about that. How could I not be proud of what my wonderful older brother has achieved?"
"R-Really? Well, at any rate, we really should return to negotiating with the mermaids."
"I aspire to become as admirable a man as you, Parker."
"S-Seriously, give it a rest already..."
Parker squeezed himself into a ball and tried to make himself as small as possible. Finally, I had a way of dealing with him if he started spouting bad puns. I should probably let Melaine know, too. Once I'd silenced my annoying partner, I returned to my conversation with the mermaids.
"So you see, the reason I've come here is because the humans living in Beluza think you're responsible for attacking their ships."
The mermaids started muttering worriedly to each other. Legends had it that mermaids could control the seas and call down curses capable of burying frigates, but I somehow doubted these girls could do that. After all, there were plenty of stupid rumors about vampires and canines too. Humans had overactive imaginations, so they tended to come up with a lot of outlandish tales.
"We haven't attacked any human ships. The most we've done is use our songs to get human fishermen to turn back from our reefs."
"In fact, we believe the humans are the ones who've captured a few of our kind."
What's going on here? Parker clattered to his feet and explained, "If you recall, I used to be human myself. Many human villages believe that mermaids hold the secret to immortality. Mermaids always look young, which is why that rumor started."
That, combined with the fact that they were all women probably gave humans the mistaken impression that they never died. And there were more than a few unscrupulous humans who were willing to kidnap mermaids to steal the secrets of immortality for themselves.
"It's true that our appearances seldom change, but we age just like anyone else. It just so happens that the older mermaids rarely leave their homes. The open sea is too dangerous for the elderly to swim in."
The mermaids looked down sadly as they said that. Though they all looked like they were in their late teens or early twenties, apparently some of the mermaids around us were over forty. Personally, they all looked the same to me.
"Many brutal monsters live in the sea. While we are fast swimmers and can use our songs to evade most creatures, there are some who our songs don't work on."
Which was why as mermaids got older and slower, they retired from an active life and focused on passing down their songs to the new generation and looking after the children. Meaning there were old mermaids, they just never showed their faces. Also, it appeared mermen existed too, but they were more skilled at swimming than singing, so they were often out of the villages hunting for food. It appeared the mermaids had a hard time getting enough seafood to feed their village, so the men were almost always gone.
To make matters worse, many mermen died to monster attacks or went missing, so there was always a shortage of males. As a fellow male, I felt bad for them. At any rate, like all other demons, it appeared mermaids were neither as mysterious or as amazing as humans made them out to be. I understood why Parker had stayed behind to help them now.
"Young mermaids like us are both good swimmers and singers. But quite a few of our generation went missing when we still lived in our old home."
"None of them were particularly solitary mermaids, so we can only assume that they were killed by monsters or captured by humans..."
The mermaids' expressions grew glum.
"We don't possess the strength to fight humans, but even if we did we don't wish to fight. That was why we left our old home in search of a new one."
I see. And that was when this bag of bones found you guys. Previously the mermaids had lived much closer to Beluza, which was why they'd been wary of humans. But the new coral reef they'd found had been haunted by the undead, and their songs hadn't been able to chase those spirits away. The mermaid's old home had been east of Beluza, smack in the middle of one of their sea lanes. Both the humans and the mermaids were claiming that they hadn't attacked the other. If both sides were telling the truth, it meant there was a third party attacking both of them. Chances were, that third party was either some kind of monster, or a group of humans from somewhere else.
"Hey, Parker."
"Yes?"
I thought back to all the books I'd read back when I was training under Master.
"Are there any sea monsters powerful enough to prey on both mermaids and human ships?"
"Hmm... I'm not sure. We know giant monsters exist on land though, so it would not be surprising to see they exist in the sea as well." Parker shrugged his shoulders, then added, "Though, when I was originally searching for the mermaids, there was a time where I wandered into a deep fog."
"A deep fog?"
Apparently on his first journey to find the mermaids Parker had become lost in a fog for a few days.
"The wind and waves died away, and the fog trapped me in its darkness. Sensing something was off, I hid my tiny craft using the illusion magic I'd learned."
However, nothing had happened and eventually the fog had lifted. After that, he'd had little trouble finding the mermaids.
"That does sound strange, but, how do I put this..."
Parker was a skeleton. Even if monsters spotted him, they'd have no reason to try and eat him. Chances were, they'd just leave him be. Either way, it was probably best to keep Parker's story in mind.
"Alright, now that I've got an idea of where you guys stand, I need to go back and discuss this with the humans. If possible, I'd prefer it if some of you would be willing to tag along."
The mermaids exchanged uneasy glances. They looked visibly afraid. I guess it's too much for them.
"Oh yeah, who's your guys' chief, anyway?"
"We don't have one. Since we don't fight among each other, we don't know who's the strongest..."
You could just talk it over and elect one too, you know. Despite being a peaceful race, they still had an oddly demonic mindset. Either way, it looked like I needed to go back and speak with Garsh. Considering how things were shaping up, it might be best to send a message back to Ryunheit as well.
After returning to Beluza I sent off two of my werewolves back to Ryunheit.
"I want you to transform and run back to Ryunheit at full speed. Deliver this letter to Airia, and if the Demon Lord is there as well, make sure you give her my report, too."
"Yes, sir!"
"Leave it to us!"
If there was something strange happening at sea, it was entirely possible it was more than I could handle alone. I needed help just to investigate this. I made Parker my liaison, tasking him with relaying events to the mermaids.
"Am I imagining things, or are you trying to get rid of me?"
"You're imagining things. Now hurry up and get going."
"Very well... but only after telling you this amazing joke I came up with."
"Get out of here already!"
There was a slim possibility the mermaids actually were up to something, so I needed someone to keep an eye on them. Though, personally, I doubted they were behind this. Unfortunately, my position demanded that I be more distrustful than I would like. Naturally, this meant I had someone keep an eye on the humans as well. This, too, was more a precaution than anything. However, I still tasked Monza's squad with monitoring Garsh.
"Keep watch and make sure he doesn't do anything strange."
"Yeah, yeah. You got it, boss. If he does do anything strange, can I kill him?"
"No."
"Awww."
Pout all you want, I'm not changing my mind. That being said, when did she learn to act so cute? Right as that thought crossed my mind, Lacy brought her face to Monza's ear and whispered, "That's not how you do it, Monza. You have to emphasize how hard you're working for his sake."
"Ahhh, I see now."
Oh boy.
"Lacy, I'm glad that you're getting along with my werewolves, but please stop teaching them how to murder with a cute face."
"I-I'm sorry. I just wanted to be useful to you, Sir Veight..."
Lacy pulled a cute pouting face. Are you really trying to pull that on me right after you told Monza to do the same thing? Do you really think that'll work?
"That's not gonna work on me. As punishment, you have to learn how to swim while you're here."
"What!?"
There was a reason I'd picked this punishment. Teaching Lacy how to swim might come in handy later. I forced her to change into a swimsuit and start practicing swimming.
"S-Sir Veight, I'm a northerner. I can't swim!"
"That's why I'm teaching you. I thought you wanted to be useful to me?"
"NOOOOOOOOOO!"
I only gave Lacy a light shove on the back, but she screamed and jumped off the pier. Her actions reminded me of a certain comedian I used to watch back in Japan.
Of course I didn't want Lacy to drown, so I'd assigned her some personal lifeguards. I turned to the Garney Brothers—who were currently splashing about in the ocean—and shouted, "Oi, you two! Stop messing around! You better look after Lacy properly, you hear!?"
The younger Garney brother shouted back, "We're not that great swimmers either, you know! We just swam a little in the river when we were kids!"
"I taught you the breaststroke before, didn't I? You can teach her that at least!"
When I was still young, I'd taught all the kids I played with how to do the frontstroke and breaststroke. Which was why most werewolves of my generation knew how to swim decently well. The Garney Brothers had been pretty poor swimmers back then, and I'd actually been pretty happy at discovering one of their weaknesses. That being said, werewolves had far more stamina than a regular human, so even if they weren't very good, they could still swim well enough in a calm bay like this. Just in case, though, I decided to stick around and keep watch. If things got hairy, I could always use my magic to help out.
I sat down at the edge of the pier and started reading through a magic grimoire. I wanted to brush up on all the spells I might need. In this world, it took more than just chanting a few words and waving your hands around to cast a spell. You needed to understand the underlying principles behind the magic you were casting. On top of that, you needed a lot of concentration to manipulate mana. With the exception of the most basic ones, spells required time and preparation to cast.
If you wanted a spell to be ready to cast anytime in case of an emergency, you needed to practice it enough that you could store the formula somewhere in your subconscious. Then, by completing the incantation and cantrips needed to cast a spell ahead of time, you could hold it in reserve, ready to cast whenever. It was similar to how in MMOs you could put your most-cast spells on your hotbar. A mage's combat potential was determined by how many of those hotbar slots they had. In a fight, it didn't matter how many complex and powerful spells you knew if you couldn't fire them off instantly.
Personally, I could hold about five or six spells to use at once. For an experienced mage, that was the average number. Though Lacy could use extremely complex illusion spells, she too could only hold around that many for instant use. The fact that she was clumsy probably didn't help. Parker and Melaine had spent more time studying magic, so I assumed they could use more. Meanwhile, Master could probably instant cast more spells than I could count. She was on a completely different level than all of us.
At any rate, that was why I was currently trying to decide what spells I would need at sea, and what spells on my hotbar I should swap out for them.
"I can't get rid of my muscle strengthening, reflex strengthening, and recovery strengthening magic, so that just leaves..."
"Sir Veight! Please at least let me go somewhere my feet touch the ground! I need to learn the basics before I—"
Lacy flailed around in the water while the Garney Brothers watched apprehensively.
"Don't worry, it's not that deep! Hmm— I don't really want to take out my defense-boosting magic either, but... should I add the spell that lets me walk on water? Wait, I should add a proper healing spell in, too."
There were a number of new spells that Master had taught me that I was itching to try out. In the time I spent agonizing over my spell slots, Lacy had learned to swim. When I looked up, I saw her gracefully swimming through the sea.
"Whoa! I-I think I'm doing it! Look, Sir Veight!"
"Oh, uhh, nice job! Uh— I guess the spells that don't need to be cast instantly I can take out..."
I shouted some half-hearted encouragement to Lacy and got back to work. Since I was a support type caster, I had to take the duration of my spells into account as well. Buffs that lasted half a day or more I could cast ahead of any potential fight, but those that were only active for a few seconds I'd want ready to snapcast. Man, picking spells is hard... Lacy seemed to have mastered the breaststroke and was now swimming around excitedly.
"I did it, Sir Veight! I really did it! I can swim now!"
"Yeah, you picked up on that faster than I thought. Good job, Lacy. I'm impressed."
"Ehehe."
Now it was time for part two of her training.
"Next, learn how to dive. I want to see you pass underneath those boats over there."
"What?"
"Keep your eyes open while you're swimming too. I want to know what the undersides of those ships look like. Once you get used to swimming underneath those smaller boats, try some larger ones."
"Huh? Wait."
Sorry, Lacy. But I've got a good reason for making you do this. Good luck, fake priestess.
* * * *
—Head Honcho Garsh's Ramblings—
Where'd that kid run off to? Oh, he's at the harbor? Make sure to keep a close eye on him. Don't let him out of your sight for even a moment. He probably knows we're watching him, so don't get too close. Keep an eye on him, but keep yer distance too. And don't do anything suspicious. That kid's no fool, he's probably keeping an eye on us as well. God, it's giving me the creeps. I know he's watching us, but I can't tell where any of his scouts are.
Anyway, that kid's a real piece of work. What? You don't know what I'm talking about? You seriously think he's just some gloomy-looking kid? You fucking morons. Guys that act tough and pretend they're hot shit are never as important as they try to sound. After all, if you've gotta always talk about how strong you are, you're not that strong. Do sharks howl at their prey? Of course not, because you can tell they're strong just by looking. But those shitty Senate bastards aren't like that. They're all bark no bite. Just a bunch of yappin' pups.
If the demon army had sent someone like that to negotiate, then I wouldn't even have given 'em the time of day. But that guy you just called a gloomy-looking kid never once tried to threaten me or shove his weight around. I heard the rumors that he's a monster who slaughtered 400 of Thuvan's soldiers in a single battle. Oh come on, you don't really believe it's 4000, do ya? That's an exaggeration I'm telling you. Besides, Thuvan doesn't even have 4000 soldiers. But that kid doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd kill for fun.
He's definitely a bonafide monster with the skills to match, though. You know what that brat Aram told me? When they were meeting for the first time, that Veight kid was able to tell how many guards Aram was hiding, and where they were. I believe those rumors that say he killed the Hero. So you louts better not try to take him out. Don't touch his men, either.
Anyway, you see my point now? That kid's done some amazing things, but he never once talked about any of them. That means he thinks racking up achievements like that's so normal it's not even worth mentioning. After meeting him, I realized. That kid's a shark, not a pup. Like all sharks, he doesn't look flashy, he just sneaks up on you and before you know it, you're trapped in his jaws. And once he's done eating you, he goes back to looking like nothing happened. He probably doesn't even remember how many people he's killed. That's just the kinda guy he is. If we piss him off, he'll probably wipe Beluza off the map. I'd bet my ship on it.
But ya know what's really scary about that kid? How good a negotiator he is. Did you see how he ate our raw fish!? No hesitation at all! And either he's one hell of an actor, or he actually liked it! Even the chef said he'd never seen anyone eat his dishes with that kind of gusto. That kid's a demon, but he sure knows how to make his hosts happy.
He'd never had raw fish before, but he didn't even hesitate to wolf it all down. All his other men looked scared, so he's probably the only one who's like that even.
Not only that, but he even brought out some seasoning we'd never heard of and used it on our cooking. I thought he was crazy, but that sauce tasted great. It's perfect to use with fish. You guys gotta try it next time, seriously. I'm telling you, that sauce is gonna revolutionize cooking in Beluza.
Man, this sauce is gonna make us a killing in the city. But yeah, there's no doubt he brought that sauce out to make negotiations go his way. He pretended like it wasn't planned, but it totally was. He doesn't use threats, but he dangles all these incentives in front of us. All while pretending like none of it's planned.
That kind of natural smoothness isn't easy to master. I still can't do it. Hell, I end up messin' up and getting too forceful all the time. That's why I started using this tough guy persona in front of others. Anyway, that guy's a master of the cultural arts and a great merchant to boot. After seeing him I finally realized that Beluza's falling behind in military and cultural and diplomatic power.
If we mobilized all of our forces, maybe we'd be able to stop a single invasion by the demon army. But do any of ya have the courage to fight Veight, Hero Killer and the butcher of 400? I sure as hell don't. Fighting him isn't bravery anyway. Us sailors know real courage comes from caution. Right now, the smart move is to not make an enemy out of the demon army. I'd rather have those pansies from the north breathing down our necks than the demons.
At least that kid promised us he'd leave our trade routes open. If we ask for any more concessions he'll probably get pissed and kill us all, so I'm fine with taking that much. That kid's seriously scary. I'm serious. I know I acted calm, but I was about to piss my pants back there. I was just as scared as you guys. I only managed to keep talking cause I knew it was my responsibility as viceroy.
I bet that kid must have thought I was pathetic. A big guy like me, quaking in my boots. But he didn't make fun of me even once. He kept treating me like an equal the whole time. Can you believe it? I guess that's just the way the strong act.
Actually... that kid probably doesn't care at all about who's stronger or who's weaker. I can't really explain it, but I feel like he's different. Like he sees the world in a totally different way. Different how? Hell if I know. I was too busy trying not pissing my pants to figure that out.
What's that kid doing right now anyway? Playing around in the water? And that Lacy lass is in a swimsuit? What the heck, he's just goofing off with girls then? What's Veight doing there? Reading a book? Concentrating really hard? So he's not even paying attention to the girls in swimsuits and he's just reading a book at the pier? Okay, I have no clue what he's doing then. But whatever it is, there's probably a reason for it. Remember, don't get in his way. Just watch him from afar. Oh, and chill some beer for me, will ya?
* * * *
After a few days, information started trickling in, and the picture of the situation grew clearer.
"This is... from Bernheinen..."
"Good work. Let's see what they have to say."
I took the bundle of documents Seishess held out and broke the seal right away. Considering how slow Seishess spoke when he wasn't talking about fighting, it'd be faster for me to read the report than have him explain it.
This world was filled with numerous unknown monsters and unexplained phenomena. However, humans were about the onlyore, someone was bound to have recorded the details of that attack. And the ancient city of Bernheinen was said to have the largest collection of books on the continent. There were even tomes that dated back to when the residents of the south had first come to this area. And this was precisely why I'd asked Melaine to investigate the royal library for me.
Back in Japan, I could have just googled "What monster lives in the sea and hides in the fog" and gotten an answer right away, but this world wasn't nearly as convenient.
"Perfect, looks like my hunch was right."
There was one record which detailed an incident similar to what Garsh was dealing with now. When the residents of the south had first crossed the ocean on their way here, they'd been attacked by a similar monster. Said monster had attacked both humans and mermaids indiscriminately. Furthermore, whenever it had appeared, the wind would stop, and a fog would descend. From what Parker had told me, the same exact thing had happened whenever the mermaids were attacked.
"An Island Kraken, huh?"
They were called Island Kraken because apparently each one was about the size of a small island. Though they had a slightly ridiculous name, they were no joke. Island Krakens were the most dangerous creatures at sea. There were a few other monsters that could be the cause of all these attacks, but none of the others fit the mermaids' descriptions quite as well.
The other possibilities were all flying monsters, and flying monsters would more likely attack humans than mermaids. There was a slight possibility a ghost ship manned by undead spirits was the cause, but if that were the case, Parker would have noticed them from miles away. Besides, undead who weren't summoned by necromancers tended to attack only their own race. While the mermaids had been afraid of the human spirits haunting their reef, said spirits hadn't actually attacked them for precisely this reason.
Another possibility was pirates, but only the most vicious pirates sunk ships. In general, though, they knew it was a bad idea to destroy when their goal was plunder. Furthermore, Garsh's ancestors had been pirates, and he'd told me all pirates operated under the Law of Half. The Law of Half was an agreement among pirates to not steal more than 50% of a trade ship's cargo. The reason being, that way merchants would still be able to break even, and therefore attempt another venture. If pirates stole so much that trade routes dried up, they'd be out of business, too. Worse, it might convince merchants to invest into naval armadas and wipe all pirates out.
All of this meant it was unlikely human pirates were behind this incident. After ruling all the other possibilities out, all that remained was the Island Kraken.
When I brought my conclusions to Garsh, he held his head and groaned, "Oi, oi, are ya kidding me? We've got a monster like that in our sea?"
The books that Melaine had compiled her report from were currently being transferred to a vault, so she'd sent her own drawing of an Island Kraken in place of the book's. Her drawing made it look cute, but there was nothing cute about it. The Kraken had its tentacles wrapped around a three-masted ship and was in the process of dragging it under.
"An Island Kraken assaulting the Storm Petrel, one of the first immigrants' ships," her caption read. Garsh's subordinates exchanged terrified glances.
"Ya know, I've heard stories about this thing. They say when our ancestors came to Beluza, this monster sunk half our ships."
"I thought that was just an exaggeration, but..."
"You louts, did you think our ancestors were a pack of liars?"
"I mean, aren't you a huge liar, Boss?"
It appeared stories of the Island Kraken had been passed down here as well. I had no idea if this was the same Island Kraken that had assaulted Beluza's ancestors centuries ago, but I had no doubt it was an Island Kraken behind this incident.
I asked Master to investigate further into the Island Kraken, and she came back with more details. Apparently, while it looked like an octopus, it was anatomically closer to shellfish than cephalopods. It had a boulder-sized shell on top of its head, and often camouflaged itself as a coral reef to attract prey. Small fish would be attracted to the safety the fake reef offered, and larger fish would come to prey on the smaller ones. Then the Island Kraken would prey on those larger fish. It was quite an ingenious hunter.
No one knew why the wind and tides calmed around it, but Master hypothesized that it was related to how the Kraken manipulated mana. Similar to how the werewolves' instantaneous transformation was a unique skill that didn't correspond to the normal rules of magic, many monsters had special powers as well.
As for why a mist always surrounded Island Krakens, Master believed that was because they spewed water from spouts, similar to whales. Chances were, the reef the mermaids had been living in before had actually been an Island Kraken in disguise, which was why so many of their number had gone missing.
The only thing Master hadn't been able to explain was why it was attacking human ships. Even if it could eat sailors, not enough ships passed by for it to make them its primary food source. Besides, ships were much larger and harder to destroy than large marine animals like sharks or dolphins.
Lacy, who'd been reading Master's report over my shoulder, tilted her head and asked, "Are you sure this is what's attacking Beluza's ships?"
"If it attacked Garsh's ancestors, there's at least a precedent for it."
Master's notes had mostly touched on the Kraken's biology, while Melaine's had detailed its history. I mentally compiled all the information I'd received and came to a conclusion.
"I think normally Island Krakens don't attack ships. But the one inhabiting the waters around Beluza acquired a taste for humans after eating them in the past. That's what I think."
Chances were, the first immigrants to Meraldia had accidentally grounded one of their ships against the Island Kraken, and it had decided to eat them because of that. Humans were slower than fish in the water, so it wouldn't have been hard for it to catch fleeing sailors after crushing their boat. While humans weren't the largest animal around, a couple dozen of them made for a filling meal. Since the Kraken was cold-blooded, it likely didn't need much food anyway.
After tasting human flesh for the first time, the Kraken had probably gotten hooked, and started looking for more. In the end, this was all speculation, but I felt like I had a decent amount of evidence to back up my hypothesis. Now we just needed to come up with a way to slay the beast. I figured that would be the simple part, but everyone else in the room looked oddly glum.
"The terror of the deep... I can't believe we've gotta fight that monster."
Lacy turned to Garsh and said in an apologetic voice, "I don't think the demon army or even the Meraldian Federation could handle something like this..."
Even my werewolves were losing hope.
"Claws and fangs aren't gonna be enough for that thing..."
"Yeah, this is too much for us."
Monza and the Garney brothers scrunched up their faces. I hadn't expected everyone to be this scared. Man, you guys are hopeless. I promptly put together a plan in my head.
"It's just a monster, guys. Let's hurry up and kill this thing so the mermaids and the people of Beluza don't have to live in fear."
Everyone turned to me in shock. I guess that was a little extreme, considering the mood. Parker asked the question on everyone else's mind, "Am I imagining things, or are you not scared of this beast? You do realize it's a creature large enough to sink ships, correct?"
"Well, yeah, but it's gotta be weaker than the Hero."
Arshes' strength had surpassed the bounds of mere mortals. I'd been through my fair share of tough fights in my time, but it was only when fighting him that I'd felt real fear. Compared to that, this Kraken was just an oversized octopus. It shouldn't be too hard to cut it up and make takoyaki out of. If we combined Beluza's naval might with the strength of the demon army and its magic, we'd have no trouble slaying it.
"The demon army was able to defeat the Hero. And I don't think this giant octopus is stronger than him. So we should be able to kill it too. I don't see any reason to be hesitating."
Everyone's jaws dropped open, but after a while, my werewolves nodded in agreement.
"Y-Yeah, you're right... If that's what you think, boss, then let's do it."
"We do have the man who killed the Hero on our side..."
I knew I could count on my brave werewolves. However, Garsh was unconvinced.
"Oi, do you really think we can win?"
"Nothing's ever certain, but I do believe we have a chance. I have a plan. And just in case, I've come up with an alternate strategy if we're up against something that isn't an Island Kraken. However, the demon army possesses no boats. We'll need to borrow some of yours."
Garsh folded his arms and muttered, "Ships, huh? Truth is, we built some new warships without Meraldia's permission cause we thought we might have to fight you guys."
"Then we'll use those."
Warships in this world were about as advanced as ancient galleys. In other words, they were oar-powered. Garsh gave me a troubled smile and replied, "To be honest I thought we'd be fighting you in those, not giving them to ya... Well whatever, it doesn't look like we'll be fighting anymore. You can have the whole arsenal. But you better bring my ships back in one piece, ya hear?"
"I can't promise they'll return intact, but I'll do my best. I'd also like a few of your trade ships, if you don't mind."
"For someone who's offering to help, ya sure are greedy. What're you gonna use them for?"
"I was thinking of loading the demon army's latest weapon onto them."
Most trade ships were powered by sail, but they could hold more cargo. Garsh contemplated my request for a few minutes. Finally, he smiled.
"Well, why not. If you can clear up our trade routes for us, a few ships is no big deal! Take whatever ya need!"
What a generous fellow. Warships and trade ships were far more expensive than fishing boats, so I knew Garsh was investing a lot into me.
"Though, if possible, I would prefer to at least get my warships back in one piece, okay?"
Well, even he doesn't want to throw money away. While Master's notes had given me a great idea, I needed a few other people and some specialized equipment to make this plan work.
"Contact Thuvan's factories and Ryunheit's ballistae team. Also, Lacy, I'll be training you personally."
"Why me!?"
"Your illusion magic will be the key to victory. I'll be whipping you into shape until the day of the operation."
"Oh no..."
Sorry, Lacy, but I'll need you if I want to bring Garsh his warships back. I'm counting on you.
While Garsh was getting his ships ready for us, the people and equipment I'd asked for started arriving.
"Yoooo!"
The first to appear was none other than the demon army's strongest kentauros. Firnir arrived with such a bang that her clothes nearly fell off. Literally.
"Heeey, Vaito! I'm here!"
"Why the hell are you here!? You're supposed to be Thuvan's viceroy!"
Firnir clopped over to me, with a unit of 200 handpicked elites following after her. She raised her spear with a beaming smile and replied, "I left Seishess in charge of Thuvan. It'll be fine. Probably."
Wow, she just pushed everything off onto him, huh? I'd actually been planning on making Seishess the commander of the kentauros squad I'd asked for, but this would work just as well. Still smiling, Firnir showed me her front hooves.
"Look, I had Master make them just as you asked!"
"Let's have a look."
I'd asked Master to create enchanted horseshoes that would let the kentauros walk on water. Though they didn't last long, they'd be invaluable for the upcoming battle. Back when I'd first learned how to cast the water walking spell, I'd discovered that large bodies of water were like wide open plains, tactically speaking. Meaning if I could get cavalry to walk on top of it, they'd have ample room to charge.
Had I been working with human cavalry I'd have to worry about what might happen if the human riders fell off their horses, but with kentauros that wasn't a problem. So long as they could maneuver freely, they'd be a valuable asset. Not only were kentauros mobile, but they were skilled in all manner of weapons, from spears to swords to bows. Plus, they were fearless.
"How well do they work? Do you think you'll be able to fight like you were on land?"
"Yeah, no problem! Though if we fall, we end up flipping upside-down."
Oh yeah, cause the enchantment only affects your guys' horseshoes. Ideally, we'd have enchanted all of their equipment, but we didn't have the supplies or the time.
"In that case, why don't you guys start practicing rescuing each other in case someone does get flipped around? We'll need to be ready when the time comes."
"Aye-aye, Vaito!"
Firnir and the others had also brought with them the weapons I'd ordered from Thuvan. Each and every one had been specially-made.
"Here's the ballista you asked for. But is this really gonna be any use?"
"Hopefully."
It didn't have much range, but it had a lot of power. Even if we weren't up against an Island Kraken, this would come in handy.
"I brought the catapult you wanted too, but is flinging rocks at a sea monster really gonna do anything?"
"Fear not, it's not rocks we'll be throwing with that."
I'd come up with two possible uses for the catapult, but if I explained one of them I knew everyone would object, so I'd keep that one to myself for now. I can't wait to see the looks on everyone's faces when they see a werewolf flying.
That afternoon, the canine ballistae team I'd sent for arrived from Ryunheit, along with some of their engineers.
"Sir Veight, it's been far too long!"
"I can smell the sea breeze!"
"I wonder what fish tastes like!"
"Look at all that water! May we swim in it, Sir Veight!?"
I didn't call you here so you could take a vacation! Well, at least I know these guys aren't scared to be fighting a giant sea monster. I'll be counting on you. While all this was happening, the ships were being readied.
"Alright, I want the engineers loading all these weapons onto the ships!"
"Yes, sir!"
Warships in this world were generally more like large transport ships filled with soldiers. Naval warfare amounted to little more than warships crashing into each other and then soldiers fighting on deck. However, we'd never be able to beat a sea monster using such ancient tactics.
I was planning on having the warships hold the kentauros. We had 5 in total, so I could split them up into 40 a ship. As for the trading vessels, they'd be holding my weapons. While merchants ships lost out on durability compared to warships, they had much more space. It made sense, considering they weren't designed with ramming in mind.
The ballista would be armed with whaling harpoons. Though they were heavy, I figured we needed something sturdy to damage a monster the Island Kraken's size. I'd brought a few backup ballistae as well, in case the first one broke. Between the ballistae and the catapults, the trading ships looked more like warships than the actual warships. Well, I guess now that they've got makeshift cannons on board, they're no longer plain galleys. What did they call ranged warships again? If we had internet here, I could just look it up. There were times I missed the convenience of my old world. As I was lamenting the lack of modern amenities, Garsh walked up to me and yelled, "Oi, your stupid mutts are destroying my ships! Make them stop!"
"Oh, they're not destroying them. They're just remodeling them to make it easier for kentauros to fit inside."
"If you take that much of the structure out, we won't be able to put them back together again!"
I could understand why he didn't want me changing too much.
"I debated just using human soldiers, but they won't be as useful on the open sea. Also, they have a harder time balancing on top of water. Sorry, but I've gotta do this."
"Do you have any idea how much it cost me to build those beauties?"
Garsh grumbled to himself for a few minutes, but he recovered surprisingly soon. I guess he's the kind of guy who can adapt easily.
"Well, no use crying over spilled milk. You better kill the terror of the deep for us though, or there'll be hell to pay."
"I can't make any promises, but I'm pretty sure we'll be able to handle this."
"Man, nothing ever fazes ya, does it?"
I'd have been more worried if we were up against some unknown creature, but I had a good grasp on this octopus' ecology. There was nothing scary about how it looked either. Besides, I was a former Japanese. We were basically octopuses' natural predator.
A few days later, the dragonkin combat engineers I'd asked for arrived, along with their Azure Knight guard. Kurtz saluted me, then said with a stern expression, "Sir Veight, please follow our instructions this time."
"I know, I know."
Unsatisfied with my lackluster reply, Kurtz repeated himself, "In all matters regarding Dragon Breath, you are to obey our commands."
I know I hadn't given him much reason to trust me, but he really didn't have any faith in me. If I was being fair though, I didn't have much faith in me either. Logically, I knew it was better to be safe when handling gunpowder, but every time I transformed I tended to go overboard. I decided to drop that particular subject for now.
"Did you bring the items I requested?"
"They're used in the production of Dragon's Jewels so we were able to procure enough stock, however..." Kurtz glared at me. "These items' manufacturing process is a secret even more confidential than the existence of Dragon Breath. We cannot disclose it even to you."
They'd probably used electrolysis. The old Demon Lord had been a pretty accomplished scientist, and I'd seen Master using electricity spells from time to time. That was why I figured they'd be able to make this in the first place. It was probably best not to mention that, though. However, Kurtz seemed to read my thoughts as he sighed and said, "Though it appears you are already aware of it... I should have expected as much from Lord Gomoviroa's greatest disciple."
If anything, I had my science classes to thank for this, not Master. Kurtz scrunched his eyes against the sea breeze.
"At first I feared you were going to ask us to pack Dragon Breath into barrels for you again."
"The previous Demon Lord banned me from messing with fire after that."
"Strange to think that feels nostalgic now. However, I am warning you now that what you asked for is just as dangerous."
"I know. I'll leave handling this stuff to the experts, don't worry."
I had no idea how good the dragonkin engineers' waterproofing abilities were, so I couldn't rely on gunpowder here. If I could use desiccation magic I'd be able to dry the gunpowder right before we had to use it, but sadly I knew no such magic.
Thank God I'd paid attention to my science club friend back during my school days. I bet he never dreamed the stuff he taught me would be used to kill a giant octopus in another world. If you ever reincarnate into this world, I'll treat you to some sashimi. You'll have to eat it without wasabi, though.
It took about half a month to complete our preparations, but now we were finally ready.
"Attention!" I looked at the demon soldiers and Beluzan sailors lined up before me. "This will mark the beginning of the joint campaign between the demon army and Beluza's navy. You've rehearsed the plan dozens of times already so you don't need me to repeat it, I'm sure. Barring any unforeseen difficulties, this should be a smooth operation. Just remember your training, and stay calm."
I was downplaying the danger a bit. We had no idea what the true strength of our foe was. But I had to act confident to calm everyone's nerves.
"Our foe is just some oversized octopus. He's no match for our elite squad. Besides, if things go south, I've got three separate trump cards ready."
That was a total lie. I only had one. But it was one hell of a trump card, so it wasn't too much of an exaggeration to count it as three.
"And even if all my trump cards fail, we'll be able to fit everyone on the five warships we're bringing and row to safety. Don't worry about failure and focus on hunting the enemy before us!"
Even if there was no wind or tide, so long as we had oars we'd be able to move.
"This will be the first-ever joint battle between humans and demons. Let's show the world that together we're unstoppable!"
"YEEEEEAAH!"
The kentauros banged on their metal quivers as they cheered.
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
Their cheering got the canines fired up, and they started barking as well. Alright, let's do this!
"Parker, if you'd be so kind."
Parker's undead skeletons would serve as the rowing crews for the five galleys. If we used human teams, there was a possibility they'd panic and abandon their posts if the battle went unfavorably, and that was something I wanted to avoid at all costs. The normally cheerful Parker chanted in a cold voice as he called forth spirits from the underworld.
"Arise from the dark Gates of Gevina, my sworn friends."
The space around us warped, and skeletons popped into existence all around the harbor. Judging by their uniforms, they were sailors who'd died in Beluza.
"I grant thee the opportunity to sail the deep once more. Come, join me on our fateful voyage."
The skeletons responded to Parker's voice and clacked up the gangway onto the galley he was on. Beluza's sailors watched the scene with mild apprehension.
"H-Holy shit..."
"So this is what a demon mage can do..."
Parker was one of the demon army's best mages. After he was done commanding his undead army, Parker wiped a bead of nonexistent sweat off his skeletal brow and said in a bright voice, "Summoning undead sure gets the blood pumping."
"Uh-huh. Thanks."
"Not that I have any blood!"
I ignored his stale pun.
"Vampire squad, you're in charge of controlling the undead on each ship."
I'd borrowed ten vampire sorcerers from Melaine. They were Master's disciples too, so that technically made us fellow students. I'd split them up to two a ship, and they were in charge of relaying the ship captain's commands to the undead. Since the skeletons were utterly obedient, we wouldn't have to worry too much about coordination.
"Now then."
"Yeeees?"
"How come you're here too, Melaine?"
Melaine, who was wearing a Beluzan-style dress, grinned.
"Why shouldn't I be? Bernheinen's functioning perfectly fine under the puppet viceroy's rule. And I wouldn't want to miss whatever fun adventure you've cooked up for us, Veight."
"It's not going to be some 'fun adventure.'"
Why did everyone assume I was traipsing around the world enjoying myself? Well whatever, let's just set sail. If I took any longer to set off, I'd probably get even more unwanted hanger-ons. Of the five warships, I'd designated the newest one to be our flagship. Or rather, Garsh had forced me to designate it our flagship. As a fleet's flagship was usually put in the most secure spot, Garsh had probably wanted to keep his most expensive one safe. Unfortunately for him, I didn't follow standard military theory.
"Welcome to the flagship Friedensrichter, admiral."
Garsh, who was wearing a pirate's outfit, greeted me with a grin. Incidentally, I'd insisted on being allowed to name the ship as part of our negotiations.
"Leave piloting the ship and fighting on deck to me and my mates. You just give commands safely from the backline, kid."
"Thank you for your cooperation. You can leave slaughtering that octopus to us."
"I'm looking forward to seeing what ya got."
All told, the combined demon army and Beluza fleet had 11 ships. The warship that served as its flagship was the Friedensrichter, as Garsh had mentioned earlier. I'd outfitted it with a single catapult. The other four warships served as transport vessels for the kentauros, as well as rescue ships in case anything went wrong. As for the six merchant vessels, I'd retrofitted them with weapons. They'd be using their ballistae to provide long-range support. I'd wanted to install more weapons onto the galleys as well, but between the soldiers they were carrying and the undead oarsmen, there was no space left. I'd had to move even the spare equipment to the cargo ships.
Beluza's citizens cheered us as we set sail from the harbor and into the bay. We kept our bearing east, following the same sea lane traders did when they were heading to Lotz. Before long, we arrived at the rendezvous point. The sailor on watch looked down from the crow's nest and shouted, "Admiral Veight! The mermaids are here!"
"Oh good, they came."
I looked out to sea, and indeed mermaid heads were popping out of the waves. There were about 20 of them. I'd been worried they wouldn't come.
"Hello, Mr. Veight. There may not be many of us, but we came to help."
"Please, let us assist you on your endeavor."
The human sailors on board were captivated by the pretty, young mermaids waving at us.
"No way, a real, living mermaid!"
"They're all beauties... I wish I could be down there."
"This is my first time seeing a mermaid..."
Garsh alone kept his gaze fixed firmly forward, and he rebuked his gawking men.
"Stop leering, you louts! If ya want to impress those lasses so badly, show your courage in battle!"
"Y-Yes, sir!"
Despite his words, I caught him sneaking a few glances at the mermaids later, when he thought no one was looking. You should just be more honest with yourself, old man.
Thanks to Parker's persuasiveness, I now had a score of mermaids under my command as well. I had them act as our fleet's scouts. If the Island Kraken attacked us from below, we'd need to retreat and regroup. So long as we could avoid that scenario though, I had confidence in my plan. I'd also asked them to help rescue any humans or demons who fell overboard. In other words, they were basically mermaid lifesavers. You know... I probably can't blame anyone if they fall in on purpose just to get saved by a mermaid.
As luck would have it, both the tide and the winds were in our favor. Both our wind-powered merchant ships and our skeleton-powered warships made steady progress. I kept an eye on our progress as I doled out orders.
"Have the trading ships spread out up ahead and scout our surroundings. Our warships are our emergency rescue vessels, so I want to avoid getting them sunk at all costs."
Each trading ship had at most 50 people on it, so even if all 6 of them sunk, we'd be able to pack everyone on them onto the remaining warships. Worst come to worst, we could dismiss some of the skeleton rowers to make space for more living people.
A few hours after our departure, around noon, we took a short break for lunch. The Sea of Solitude—the southern sea's formal name—was surrounded on most sides by land and had relatively calm waters, hence its name. It reminded me of the Seto Sea which I'd visited back in my old life. The gentle waves and refreshing sea breeze helped calm my demons' nerves before the fight... or would have, if they weren't all getting seasick. Thanks to them, I was stuck running around curing everyone with magic. Guys, I'm not a ship's doctor you know. Around the time I'd seen to the last puking patient, one of the men on watch shouted a warning, "Admiral Veight! There's a fog up ahead!"
I pulled out my telescope and peered through. Far in the distance, I could see a dense fog. Bullseye. According to the sailors, the scope of the fog was unnaturally small. Around the fog, the wind was blowing normally, eroding its edges. However, if the reports were true, there would be no wind inside, meaning the sailing ships would be unmaneuverable. There was still quite a bit of distance between us and the fog. Now was the time to prepare.
"All hands, prepare for battle!"
The flagship hoisted a signal flag to alert the other ships, while Kurtz fired off a signal flare for the demons. The people aboard our warship sprang into action. Firnir held up her spear and rallied her kentauros.
"We will be the first kentauros warriors in history to fight atop the sea! Never again will such an honor be bestowed upon us! Fight well, so that your name is remembered for generations to come!"
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
They were a noisy lot, but I was glad the kentauros had high morale despite the abnormality of the situation. They were the group that would take the most casualties, but I wanted as many of them to survive as possible. Praying for their safety, I gave the order to charge.
"Let's do this! All ships, charge! Trading ships stay upwind of the fog and await my signal! Stick to the plan, everyone!"
"Show this monster what Beluza's made off, you louts!"
"Charge, warriors! May the spirits of our ancestors bring victory to the demon army!"
"Woof! Woof!"
Human and demon cheers mingled together as the five warships plunged into the fog. The moment we entered the mists, the wind came to a halt.
"The hell is going on here!? This isn't anything like the sea I know."
Garsh's confusion was understandable. The surface of the water was as flat as a mirror; it felt more like a lake than the sea. So far, everything was matching the reports I'd read.
"Mr. Veight. The sea is full of fish that normally live in the shallows," one of the mermaids said as she swam close to the ship's deck.
If there were shallow-water fish living here, that meant there had to be a reef nearby. However the fog limited visibility, and I couldn't tell where that reef might be. And if we were up against an Island Kraken like I suspected, then that reef was actually the octopus in disguise. If we rowed into the reef, our ships would end up grounded, so I had the mermaids continue scouting the area around us.
"Report every minor detail you find! And let me know if you see a reef."
"We've split up to search, but so far all we've seen is open sea."
At the very least, this meant the Island Kraken was smaller than the radius of the fog it released. The fog was surprisingly thick though, and I couldn't even see the ships to either side of us. I was expecting to be hit by a surprise attack at any moment. While I had absolutely no knowledge on medieval naval warfare, I'd read up a little on modern naval warfare. If this were a normal naval battle, now would be the time to send out fighter planes to pinpoint the enemy's location.
"Kentauros squad, I want you to split up and search for the enemy. Do not, under any circumstances, stop moving. Make sure each squad takes a mermaid with them so you can be forewarned of any attacks coming from underwater."
"You got it! Leave everything to us, Vaito!"
Firnir shouldered her two-handed spear and gave me a reassuring grin. Please don't be too reckless... The 200 kentauros warriors filed out of their respective ships and formed a column behind Firnir. She brandished her massive spear and passed down my orders.
"Split up and look for the enemy! Do not under any circumstances engage if you find the target! Come back and report to me! Our mermaid comrades are keeping watch underwater for us, so don't worry about an ambush!"
The kentauros nodded and unslung their weapons. I guess not cheering is their way of trying to be stealthy. The kentauros split up and cantered off in every which direction. I waited for their return with bated breath, every second feeling like an eternity. We were up against a monster feared as the Terror of the Deep. As much as I wanted everyone to make it out of this alive, I feared there might be casualties.
Finally, after what felt like ages, the kentauros returned. Firnir galloped up to the flagship and shouted in a panicked voice, "We've got trouble! There's another ship out here!"
"What!? Did you find any reefs!?"
"Nothing yet, but we're still looking!"
So there was another ship out here besides ours. There was still a slim possibility an Island Kraken wasn't behind these attacks, so this was something that needed to be investigated thoroughly. At the same time though, we needed to be cautious.
"Call the kentauros back! We'll be switching to decoys now!"
It was Lacy's time to shine.
"Lacy, make us an illusory ship, please."
"Y-Yes, sir!"
Lacy steeled her nerves and started focusing.
"My will becomes manifest, an incarnation of the imagination that deceives sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing."
She moved her hands through the air, as if sculpting an invisible statue. After a few seconds, a ship formed on the water's surface in front of her. At first, it looked blurry, indistinct. But as time passed, it grew clearer, until eventually it resembled the real thing. Her ship was a magnificent, triple-masted sailing ship modeled after the ones she'd seen in Beluza's harbor. It even had a fake crew manning the ropes. If I hadn't known it was an illusion, I would have mistaken it for the real thing. There was a rather elaborate crest engraved onto the main mast, but that was a small enough detail that I was willing to overlook it.
"By the way, what is that?"
"It's a wolf."
That's supposed to be a wolf crest? It looks more like a dog to me. Next to me, Garsh let out a sigh of wonder.
"That lass is one hell of a mage... Even a sailor like me can't tell the difference between that and a real ship. It's perfect."
"It's not just the part above water that's perfect either. Lacy's good enough to have reproduced the part that sits underwater too... I hope."
That was the reason I'd had her dive underneath ships over these past weeks. In fact, she'd come complaining to me the other day: "I've been staring at the underside of ships for so long that I've started having nightmares about them. I'm chained to the bottom of one while everyone screams 'Holy Priestess! Holy Priestess!' and you're just looking on and laughing the whole time, Mr. Veight. Though you do save me in the end."
I wonder, what exactly does Lacy see me as? Maybe I should ask her.
Our fleet continued advancing, with Lacy's illusory ship at the helm. She'd made sure to slow its speed and make it look like it was cruising on past inertia.
"You're pretty good at filling in all these little details, Lacy."
Lacy smiled bashfully as she adjusted the illusion with a wave of her fingers.
"A good imagination and strong observational skills are a requirement to becoming an illusionist. No matter how skilled you are at magic, you can't create something you don't understand, or can't envision."
That made sense. I had the feeling Lacy would make a good artist if she ever felt like going down that route. Now if only our octopus friend would oblige us by trying to eat this illusion, we'd be able to attack without suffering casualties. Octopuses normally used sight to hunt for prey, so this one should end up fooled by the illusion. Just as I'd thought that, one of the lookouts shouted, "I think I see a ship up ahead!"
That was probably the one the kentauros had spotted.
"What's its make? Can you tell where it's from?"
The lookout answered Garsh's question immediately.
"I-I... think it's the Eraanya Company's Rainbow Clam, Captain!"
"What!? But that ship went missing months ago!"
That wasn't a good sign. I watched as the ship slowly came into view. It looked surprisingly normal, for all that it had been missing for months. One mast was tilted, but that was about it. Naturally, this meant we had to approach with utmost caution.
"A-Admiral, we have to rescue them! If they stay here much longer, they'll be killed!"
The Beluzan sailors began to panic. I shook my head sadly in response. There was no way anyone could have survived this long in a monster's territory.
"It's too late for them. Don't approach carelessly."
Though it was faint, I could sense a malevolent flow of mana in the air. There was something nearby.
"Lacy, send your illusion closer to that ship. Make it look like it's coming to help."
Lacy skillfully manipulated her illusion. Despite changing course, the fake ship still moved slowly, as a sailing boat without wind should. The moment it grew close to the Rainbow Clam a massive tentacle rose up and tried to wrap itself around Lacy's illusion. It was thicker than the mainmast, and many times longer than the ship. Countless suction cups dotted the tentacle's surface. Normally the tentacle would have slipped right through the illusion, but Lacy was skilled enough to have given it substance. However, every time the octopus thought it had latched on, its tentacle slid right off the ship.
"Eeeek! Waaaaaah!"
Lacy, who had never seen an octopus in her life, was terrified by the tentacle's grotesque shape. If she got any more freaked out, her illusion would shatter, so I grabbed her firmly by the shoulder and said in a steady voice, "Calm down, that's just what octopuses look like. I know it looks disgusting, but it's just an oversized fish."
"B-But..."
"Trust me! We need your illusion to protect everyone, Lacy!"
My pep talk got through to her, and Lacy recovered from her panic.
"O-Okay! I'll do my best!"
"Don't worry, I'll protect you. So just stay focused on keeping that illusion going."
Lacy wasn't the only one who'd been terrified by the tentacle's appearance. Human sailors and demon warriors alike were trembling in fear. But if they lost to that fear, our fleet would be wiped out. Before the terror could seep too deeply into their soul, I ordered the attack.
"Kentauros, charge! Cooperate with the mermaids to find the reef that makes up the core of its body! If its tentacles are here, it has to be close! Engineers, fire off the signal flares telling the merchant ships to advance!"
The flares were bright enough that they were dimly visible even through the thick fog. I had no idea if the ships waiting outside had been able to make out the entirety of the order or not, but hopefully they'd at least charge toward the light. Just in case, I sent off a few kentauros messengers to relay my orders directly.
The Island Kraken now had three tentacles wrapped around Lacy's fake ship. Thanks to its obsession with the illusion, the kentauros warriors were safe. However, there were still five other tentacles to contend with. And there was no telling when our octopus friend might start using them. It'd be a problem if it went after the kentauros, but it'd be an even bigger one if it targeted the ships.
Right now, my biggest concern was the merchant ship up ahead. The Island Kraken was ignoring it entirely, despite the fact that it had assaulted Lacy's illusion the moment it got into range. In fact, it seemed almost as if it was waiting for us to approach the ship. That thought gave me an idea.
"Have the mermaids on standby investigate the underside of that ship! But tell them not to get too close!"
My hunch turned out to be correct. There was a huge hole in the hull of the Rainbow Clam. The ship and its crew had long since fallen prey to the Island Kraken. Normally it would have sunk to the bottom of the sea, but the Kraken had wrapped a tentacle around it to keep it afloat. The beast had learned that if it made the ship look like it was still intact, other ships would try to rescue it. It was using the ship as bait. Damn, I forgot how smart octopuses were. However, thanks to this, we knew where half of the Kraken's tentacles were. I readied the catapult as I waited for our merchant ships to join us.
After a few minutes, I spotted the merchant ships' silhouettes through the fog. They'd planned their approach well, and had managed to rendezvous despite the lack of wind. Garsh's sailors knew their stuff. However, now that they'd arrived, they were trapped in this windless, tideless expanse. If our assault failed, we'd have to move the crew onto our warships and abandon those vessels. We were committed now. Even I couldn't help but be a little nervous.
According to Melaine's notes, the Island Kraken's tentacles were powerful enough to lift a ship out of the water. But from what I'd seen so far, they didn't look quite that strong. They were, however, the perfect thickness to maneuver through tight spaces while still being able to crush a human with ease. If one of those got around anyone, they were done for. Just then, the kentauros squad returned from their mission. Firnir galloped up to the flagship and shouted, "Vaito, we found the reef! It's further in!"
"Well done, Firnir!"
"Be careful! There's tentacles guarding the reef! We already lost two men!"
"Don't worry, we'll avenge them! Have your squad retreat!"
Octopuses used their tentacles to swim, as well as hunt their prey. So long as the Kraken was using all its tentacles to fight, it wouldn't be able to move.
"Have the warships tow the sailing boats! Dragonkin engineers, load the catapult's first barrage!"
Sailors hitched the merchant ships to the warships, and we rowed around the tentacles attacking Lacy's illusion. We needed to get closer to be able to see the reef through the fog. But if this octopus was smart enough to use ships as bait, chances were it'd realize the ship it was attacking was fake pretty soon. If we didn't hurry, we'd become its next target.
The mermaids started singing, and used the echoes bouncing off the reef to measure not only its size, but to pinpoint its location. I was pretty surprised, but apparently they had built-in sonar capabilities.
"Mr. Veight, the reef is about this big."
The mermaids formed a ring in the water to give me an approximation of the reef's size.
"Damn that's huge..."
Their circle was roughly the size of two tennis courts.
"Lacy, how many more ships can you make?"
"If all you want them to do is sit there I can make maybe 10-20 more, but I can only control one at a time. Moving them takes up all of my focus," Lacy replied apologetically. So our decoys are limited.
"Alright, leave your ship to its own devices for now. Start preparing the next illusion."
"Yes, sir."
Considering four of its tentacles were in sight, I doubted its main body could be that much further. As expected, the reef came into view after barely a minute of rowing. The fog was thickest here, which was why we hadn't been able to see it until we got much closer. If it weren't for the kentauros and mermaids scouting for us, we might never have found it. But now we had this octopus bastard in our sights. While a decent chunk of the reef jutted out of the water, most of it was still underwater. Using what was visible as a base, I tried to guess what the rest of the Kraken looked like underwater. I'd seen plenty of octopuses in aquariums back in Japan, so it was easy enough, even for a guy with no imagination like me. Alright, let's start with this spot. I turned to the engineers and gave the order to fire.
"Target the section of sea right in front of the reef! Fire!"
The dragonkin relayed the order back, and with practiced movements the crew took aim.
"Target acquired! Firing the first barrage!"
Garsh turned to me with a smile, his earlier nervousness gone.
"So that's yer famous secret weapon, huh?"
"Something like that."
The catapult swung forward, launching a barrel into the air. It traced a neat arc through the air, and splashed into the sea right where I wanted it. The force of its fall sent it down a few feet, but then it floated back to the surface. And sat there. Garsh watched in disbelief for a few seconds, then rounded on me.
"O-Oi! Nothing's happening!"
"Calm down. That was just a calibration shot."
I only had one actual round of ammunition. I needed to make sure it hit, or we were screwed. On the other hand, as long as this landed, victory was a foregone conclusion. Hence why I was being cautious with my shots.
"Load the next shot! Prepare to fire the Silver Lightning!"
A nervous current ran through the engineers. However, Kurtz remained professional and relayed my orders.
"Roger, loading the Silver Lightning!"
He brought out a marked barrel and carefully lowered it into the catapult. While the Kraken's tentacles could turn onto us at any moment, it wouldn't do to rush this step. If this went off on the ship, it'd be a bigger problem than any tentacle. Unable to contain his curiosity, Garsh asked, "Is that it?"
"Yep, this is it."
Honestly, even I was terrified of our weapon.
"All mermaids and kentauros, retreat behind the flagship! Don't stay in the open water!"
After making sure our allies had evacuated, I gave the order, "Fire the Silver Lightning!"
The catapult arm shot forward, the frame's wood creaking with the strain. Like the last barrel, this one too shot through the air and came to rest in the water before the reef.
"Oi, this isn't any different from last time!"
I had no time to deal with Garsh right now.
"Lacy!"
"I'm on it!"
Just as we'd rehearsed, Lacy created an illusion around the barrel. In seconds, it had been transformed to look like a human flailing in the water. More specifically, it looked like Lacy flailing around in the water. Her flailing movements resembled the way she'd splashed around when she'd first started learning how to swim.
"Is it just me, or is that an illusion of you?"
"It's easiest for me to make a moving image of myself, so..."
I get that, but now you're going to have to see an illusion of yourself get eaten, you know? Tired of grappling with a ship it just couldn't seem to get a grip on, the Island Kraken changed targets to fake Lacy. It wrapped one of its free tentacles around her, and dragged her under. Even though I knew it was an illusion, it still hurt to watch.
* * * *
—The Terror of the Deep—
The Terror of the Deep was frustrated. He'd thought that if he put one of those creaky shell-things on the water, more creaky shell-things would come. And they had. Dozens of them. But something was different this time.
The creaky shell-things were supposed to have tasty meat-blobs on them. They were slower than fish, and much warmer. And they had all these stick-things for gills that they flapped around with. But most of all, they tasted great. They had no scales, or shells, just soft, soft skin. Nothing gave the Terror of the Deep more joy than eating them.
Yet this time, none of the meat-blobs were falling into the water. Keeping the creaky shell-thing afloat took a lot of energy, and made him too tired to swim. How dare those weak creatures force him to work this hard! He would make them pay for this. Insolent prey such as them needed to be taught who was the ruler of these seas. Never once had the Terror of the Deep tasted defeat. So he had nothing to fear. He would teach these meat-blobs a lesson.
Just then, one of them started splashing around in the water. Finally, the Terror of the Deep would be able to enjoy a meal. First he would eat this one, then he would devour the rest. He extended a tentacle, and carried the hapless meat-blob to his mouth. However, something felt off...
* * * *
"Oi, what's going on?"
I was just as worried as Garsh, so I didn't even know what to say to reassure him. Still, I was the commander of this operation, so I had to look confident.
"Everything's going according to plan."
Just as I plastered on a fearless grin, an explosion rocked the sea. A huge pillar of water shot out of the center of the reef and rained down on us. Flickering yellow lights dotted the inside of the sea, and the water began to boil. All of the Island Kraken's tentacles retreated back to the reef. In doing so, they abandoned the Rainbow Clam, which started to sink.
"Perfect!" I shouted, elated by our success. Seeing Garsh giving me a blank look, I decided to explain. "The thing we threw down there is one of the demon army's secret weapons. It explodes when it touches water."
"Holy shit... that's insane."
"Not only that, but it also turns the water around it into poison that melts flesh."
"You guys are monsters!"
"No, we're the demon army."
Even if we weren't really evil, we had to at least act the part. The barrel I'd fed the Island Kraken had been packed full of metal sodium. Back in high school, my science club friend had shown me a video of what happened to pure sodium when it touched water. It exploded. On top of that, it polluted the water due to the chemical reaction caused by exposure to water, so it was perfect for killing aquatic monsters. However, an element as unstable as sodium was liable to explode just being exposed to water vapor in the air, so on Earth it was normally packed in oil. It wasn't the kind of thing you tended to find in nature. Naturally, that held true for this world as well. The sodium Kurtz had fired had been made by the old Demon Lord and Master. Before he'd died, the Demon Lord had experimented to see how much of the science he'd learned on Earth applied here. I'd only learned about it afterwards when reading his notes.
There were plenty of things that weren't exactly the same across worlds, so many of the Demon Lord's experiments had produced unexpected results. In truth, I wasn't even sure if the substance I'd used just now was actually sodium. It had the same properties, so I'd just figured it was. I guess since it did what I wanted it to, it doesn't really matter what it is. While that was enough to satisfy me, Kurtz sighed as he watched the water roil.
"To think the previous Demon Lord's legacy would be used in such a way... Sir Veight, why is it that you seem to adore explosions?"
"Not sure... Maybe because I'm a soldier?"
I could feel the engineers giving me angry glares, but considering how helpful this would be in combat, I hoped they wouldn't mind me doing this again. In response Kurtz said, "While I am glad this has proved an effective weapon, I hope you realize we will not be able to make yellow Dragon's Jewels for a while now."
"I know. Sorry about that."
The yellow color in fireworks was made by burning sodium. That was the same reason dropping table salt into a fire turned it yellow.
"Actually, could you not substitute salt into the Dragon's Jewels?"
"Salt absorbs moisture, and water makes Dragon's Breath useless."
So it's not gonna work, basically. I thought back to the chemical formulas I learned in school. Umm, Sodium's Na, while water is H2O. If you put the two together, you get an exothermic reaction that makes sodium hydroxide, which I think is alkaline. And that molecule's NaOH, so the extra hydrogen atom becomes... Ah, that must be the gas that gets released. So that's why there's an explosion and not just heat. I'd never really thought about why sodium and water exploded when they came together, but now it made sense. Science sure is interesting.
My guess was right now, the Island Kraken was suffering from some pretty bad burns. Its tentacles were thrashing about wildly, churning up the water. One of them slammed into the sinking Rainbow Clam, knocking its mast clean off. I'd been prepared for a rampage, but this was more violent than I expected.
"Don't get close, you'll get caught up in its tentacles! The water around it's been turned to poison so just wait it out!"
While I'd love to charge right away, I needed to wait for it to weaken some first. The magic the Island Kraken used to still the wind and waves wasn't something it controlled consciously. The ability worked on instinct, so it couldn't turn it off. Which was why it couldn't just escape with the tide, or use it to wash away the sodium hydroxide. The longer it bathed in the alkaline solution, the more its body melted away.
Now then, while everything was going according to plan, I couldn't relax just yet. Normally the Island Kraken lay in wait and attacked anyone who got too close, but now that it had been injured this badly, I suspected it would try to flee. Monster or not, it was still an animal with animal instincts. If it escaped deep underwater, we wouldn't be able to chase it. So we needed to capture it while we still had the chance.
"Ballista squad, begin firing!"
The moment the signal flare went up, the six merchant ships started loosing long shafts at the reef. The canines on all six ships ran to and fro, fetching replacement quarrels and rewinding the ballistae's strings. While it made for a comical sight, they worked with exceptional efficiency. Their small builds worked to their advantage, allowing them to navigate the crowded deck without running into each other. The ballistae had been outfitted with bolts as thick and long as spears for this fight, so while the quarrels didn't travel far, they had a lot of power. The arrowheads had also been barbed, so any that hit, stayed stuck in the Kraken. On top of that, each bolt had a length of rope tied to its end. Any bolts that missed still tangled around the Kraken, and those that flew completely off their mark could easily be recovered. I'd basically turned the ballistae into harpoon-firing machines. The problem now was figuring out where to focus our attacks. The reef was too hard for our bolts to penetrate, and the tentacles were thrashing around too much to aim clearly at. However, the Kraken's main body was safely underwater. Thinking about it, the Kraken had a pretty solid defense too. No wonder humans call it the Terror of the Deep. However, I knew cephalopods had pretty low stamina. In fact, few creatures could keep fighting for as long as mammals and birds. I was relatively certain this octopus didn't have much stamina either. Besides, it was fighting in a bath of corrosive acid. I guess we can wait and see.
"The third merchant vessel, Surging Seas, has taken a hit on its mainmast! The fourth warship, Pirate Queen, has suffered some damage to its starboard side!"
It appeared some of the ships had gotten too close to the tentacles. But seeing as we really had no idea how far they could reach, it was understandable.
"Tell all ships to retreat a short distance! Surround it in a semicircle, but hold your fire!"
While a few ships might have gotten hit, so far we hadn't had any additional casualties. I wanted to keep it that way.
"Admiral, what now!?"
"This isn't looking good!"
Seeing the sailors start to panic, I leaned against the gunwale and scratched my head.
"Don't look so worried. Take a short break until it tires itself out."
"Are ya kidding me!?"
"This guy's got nerves of steel..."
Sorry I'm a failure of an admiral who's improvising things now.
Once the Island Kraken appeared to calm down somewhat, I ordered the merchant ships to resume their bombardment. While the ballistae didn't have much accuracy, the canines made up for it with their tenacity. They kept on firing relentlessly, and before long the Kraken's tentacles were riddled with harpoons. The ropes of the harpoons were tied to the ships, so if the Kraken tried to go anywhere, it'd have to drag six ships with it. As things stood, I doubted it could flee underwater. It might have been able to drag six ships at full strength, but right now it was likely exhausted.
"Recover any bolts that missed and fire them again! This is our only chance to reel in that monster octopus!"
"Yes, sir!"
The nearby canines waved cheerfully to me as they acknowledged my command. After repeating the process a few times, all our harpoons were either embedded into the Kraken or broken; meaning the ballista squad's work was done. That damn octopus was bound to six ships, so it wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. On top of that, half its tentacles were tied up. Furthermore, the explosion and resulting acid bath should have done a lot of damage to its vitals.
However, the Terror of the Deep proved to be a far more fearsome foe than I had anticipated.
"Admiral, look over there!"
One of the engineers pointed to the surface of the water. A few of its tentacles were wriggling ominously. There were a total of three of them visible. The same three we'd shot harpoons into. Shit. I'd totally forgotten octopuses could cut off their own tentacles in emergencies. However, the fact that it was willing to sacrifice its tentacles meant we had it cornered. After detaching its tentacles, the Island Kraken attempted to flee. It was clearly desperate. Garsh turned to me with a look of panic.
"Oi, admiral! Shouldn't you be sending your kentauros out right now!?"
"I can't, the water around it's been turned to poison. We won't be able to attack it until it leaves this area."
Besides, the kentauros had no way of attacking the parts of the Kraken that were underwater, and the mermaids weren't fighters. If I'd had another sodium bomb, I could have used that. Our only option now was to chase it and keep harrying it with the kentauros until it slowly bled to death. I'll chase you to the ends of the Earth if I have to. You're not getting away from me, you octopus bastard! Just as I thought that, the air around us suddenly grew cold.
"Is it just me, or did it get colder?" A sailor muttered. The fog around us began to sparkle, then dispersed. No, not dispersed. Froze. The frozen dew particles dropped into the sea, causing the fog to clear up. Weather like this was unthinkable in the southern sea. Kurtz's breath came out in white puffs as he muttered, "Sir Veight, is this..."
"Yeah, it is."
Our beloved Demon Lord had arrived. No one else could create this phenomenon. Not that anyone asked you to show up.
"It would appear I arrived in time after all."
Gomoviroa descended from the sky, landing lightly on the flagship's deck. While everyone else was shivering from the cold, she looked perfectly warm despite the thin dress she was wearing. I supposed that made sense, since she was the one absorbing all the heat.
"Master! Hey, Master!" I whispered furiously. She turned to me and floated over.
"What is it?"
"Are you sure you should be out on the front lines like this?"
Overprotective as she was, I'd expected her to show up, but that didn't make her entrance any less surprising. Master grinned and replied, "Right now I am nothing more than a wandering old sage."
Who do you think you are, Gandalf?
"I will eventually need to reveal my identity to humans. If such a reveal is inevitable, it would be better to make a grand entrance."
"Are you sure you're not just trying to copy the wizard in the story I told you a while back?"
"For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
"Now's really not the time to quote cool-sounding lines."
The Island Kraken was still trying to flee. Master floated off the flagship and alighted atop the sea.
"You shall not escape me."
Master tapped her staff to the water, and the sea began to freeze.
"Wh-What in blazes..."
"So this is a demon's magic..."
"Holy shit, I've never seen so much ice in my life!"
"Is she a fairy?"
I guess if you live this far south all your life, ice would be a pretty rare sight. Entranced by Master's performance, the sailors forgot their fear of the Island Kraken. At the end of the day, Master's specialty was necromancy. She wasn't very good at other forms of magic. Freezing this much water this fast would be impossible if she were using normal magic. However now Master had become a thermodynamic vacuum, capable of sucking in any and all forms of energy. She was converting the sea's heat energy to mana, and then using that mana to cast a cooling spell. The heat that was lost thanks to the cooling spell was then absorbed by Master, giving her more mana. Thanks to that infinite loop, Master could freeze as much of the sea as she wanted. Once she was finished, our esteemed Demon Lord turned to me with a smile.
"I had always wished to try this at least once. Theoretically it was possible, so I wished to make sure it could be done in practice."
"You sure are devoted to your research..."
Just don't go overboard, or you'll plunge the world into an ice age, Master.
The field of ice spread out in a circle, with Master at its center. The Island Kraken's reef and our ships were both trapped in a sheet of ice. Meanwhile, the octopus' tentacles were trapped below. There was nothing it could do to protect its head, the reef. This was our chance to finish things.
"Kentauros squad, charge! Smash that reef to smithereens!"
Firnir led her men down the gangway and charged. As she galloped forward, she pressed a small switch on her spear, and a sharp blade popped out of one end. It appeared she'd installed some gimmicks into her weapon. That folding blade looked like the work of Thuvan's engineers.
"Let's do this, guys!"
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
From the looks of it, the other kentauros had all switched out their weapons for axes, which they whirled over their heads as they ran. I remember Firnir had told me axes were the kentauros' traditional weapon.
"Wait, Firnir! I told you not to strip in public!"
I really wish she would do something about that bad habit of hers. At any rate, the kentauros surrounded the Island Kraken and started hacking it to death.
"DIEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"FOR MY ANCESTORS!"
Axes rose and fell, cutting off chunks of the reef. Any section that fell to the frozen ground was then kicked away by a kentauros hoof. Fired up as they were, the kentauros were avatars of destruction. I watched the reef grow progressively smaller through my telescope. Though I called it a reef, it was more like the octopus' shell. And from the looks of it, it was made of the same material as a clam's shell. While everyone else was hacking off chunks, Firnir was running around stabbing her spear into the Island Kraken's more vulnerable spots. Still, this Kraken was a tough nut to crack. Right around the time the kentauros' war cries were growing hoarse, one of their messengers came up to me.
"I bear a message from Chief Firnir! She says that the core of the monster's shell is too thick for the kentauros' weapons to break through!"
"What!?"
I hadn't expected its shell to be that strong. Looking over, I saw that a good portion of the kentauros were standing off to the side to catch their breath. If those muscle-bound freaks were that exhausted, that meant we'd need a bomb or something to punch through that shell. As if sensing my thoughts, Kurtz turned to me and said, "We have no more explosives."
"I see..."
We'd brought only a small amount of gunpowder with us, and that gunpowder was needed to light signal flares. We were also out of ballista bolts, so there was only one option left. I flipped through my grimoire and double-checked the spell I wanted to use. I then turned to Beluza's sailors and said in a voice quiet enough that Kurtz couldn't hear, "Alright, I'll handle this myself."
"Are you serious, admiral!?"
Though the sailors looked shocked, it was standard among demons for the general to show off their valor at the very end.
"I'll be using magic, don't worry. Anyway, I want you to launch me using the catapult."
"What!?"
"Look, just hurry up and do it!"
If the demons caught wind of what I was attempting they'd stop me for sure. I clambered into the catapult's bucket and transformed.
"I'll adjust myself in the air, so you don't need to worry about aiming. Just launch me at full force. As long as you get the direction right, I'll be fine."
"A-Aye-aye, sir!"
The sailors readied the catapult and bent the arm back as far as it would go. Just then, Kurtz, who was readying another signal flare, glanced back. The moment he saw me his expression froze.
"What are you doing!?"
Crap, he saw me! I turned to the sailors and yelled, "Do it!"
"Aye-aye!"
They released the rope, and I shot through the air. It felt similar to when an elevator dropped sharply, but with the sensation dialed to eleven. It was like I was floating. I crossed my arms and legs to reduce the amount of friction caused by air resistance and loosed a war cry, "AWOOOOOOOOOO!"
While the speed and pressure made me a little dizzy, it actually felt good to fly this fast in my werewolf form. Now then, I better cast the spell before I crash.
The spell to walk on water was a derivative of body strengthening magic, and to use it, one first had to know how to control their weight. There were other techniques incorporated into the spell as well, but manipulating weight was the most important one. In order to learn how to walk on water, aspiring mages first learned how to change their weight. However, the spell to manipulate one's weight put a lot of strain on the user's body, so it wasn't very useful by itself. That being said, what if a mage decided to multiply their weight to a few hundred kilograms while they were hurtling through the air? Wouldn't they make for quite a powerful cannonball? Assuming, of course, the technique didn't kill the user.
As I flew, I used hardening magic, muscle strengthening magic, and damage enhancing magic on myself. With this, I'd be able to withstand the impact without causing undue damage to my skin or joints. Plus, this magic made my kicks and jabs stronger. I made minute adjustments to my trajectory by changing my posture as necessary. All that was left now was to make sure I magnified my weight right before impact. As I reached the height of my ascent, I took aim at the Island Kraken's head and dove.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter32.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
The kentauros had spotted me now. I could see Firnir looking up at me in shock.
"GET CLEEEEEAAR!"
As I shouted that, I increased my weight to the maximum my strengthened bones could withstand. With how much mana this drained, I'd only be able to maintain this state for a few seconds. Back when I'd first become Master's apprentice, I'd used this spell to kill a boar monster, so I knew it worked. As I fell, I heard Firnir shouting something to me, "Vaito, what the heck are you doing!?"
Just a little physics experiment.
"AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
I shot my leg out for a kick the moment I fell onto the Island Kraken's shell, hitting it with maximum force. My abnormal weight, the speed of my fall, the power of a werewolf, and the added strengthening magic I'd used all came together to strike the octopus at a single point. With how much destructive force I'd packed into my attack, I doubted anything on Earth could withstand it. The shell the kentauros couldn't break no matter how hard they tried shattered in an instant. Before my might, it was as fragile as an eggshell. All of my senses went momentarily numb as pieces of the Kraken's shell rained down around me. When they returned, I realized I'd sunk waist-deep into what was left of the outer parts of the reef, and was standing on something squishy. Thanks to my strengthening magic, my legs were unharmed. My neck stung a little, but it wasn't a huge deal. The squishy thing I was standing on was likely the octopus' body. I guess this is it's weak point, since it tried so hard to defend it. It was time to end this octopus once and for all.
"DIE!"
I sunk my talons into the Kraken, cutting into its soft skin. The moment I pierced its body, it started thrashing about. I can't believe it's still got this much energy left. I heard Firnir yell something from above me.
"You really are crazy... Men, follow Vaito! Let's finish this!"
"UWOOOOOOOOOH!"
"Support the Vice-Commander!"
A one-sided slaughter followed. The Island Kraken writhed in pain as the kentauros hacked away at it. My attack had cracked its shell beyond repair, and even the kentauros' hooves were enough to shatter the rest. As time passed, the hole in the reef grew larger, until finally the Kraken's entire head was exposed. Without its sturdy defenses, the Kraken was helpless against the horde of kentauros.
"Ancestors guard me!"
"This is for my friend, you monster!"
"Die, you damned octopus!"
As we continued pounding on the helpless Kraken, my eight werewolf guards joined the fight. Since the sea was frozen, they'd been able to walk across it. The Garney brothers were the first to arrive, and they shoved me aside so they could start ripping into the Kraken.
"Oi, Veight, we're here to help!"
"Leave this to us!"
I was grateful they were eager to assist, but the octopus' head was cramped enough with all the kentauros, so I really didn't need more helpers.
"Shut up! Stop trying to hog the spotlight! Go clamming over there or something!"
"Hey bro, what's this clamming thing Veight's talking about?"
"Hell if I know! Get outta my way, Nibert!"
Next to arrive was Monza.
"Boss, you know Fahn's gonna chew you out for this, right?"
"Don't you dare tell her what happened! I'll knock your lights out if you do!"
"Haha, my lips are sealed!"
We jostled each other around as we continued gouging out the Kraken. Unfortunately, our rampage ended up indirectly damaging the fleet. Though the Kraken was still trapped in the ice, it managed to break a few tentacles free and started lashing out.
"Firnir, you take care of those tentacles!"
"What!? Come on!"
Firnir pulled a face, but I put my foot down.
"Your spear's better suited to cutting up those tentacles than anything we've got! Now hurry it up!"
Firnir reluctantly shouldered her spear and rounded up a few of her men.
"Fine, if you say so! First platoon, on me! Let's cut those tentacles down to size!"
Firnir and the 40 men she'd handpicked to join her on the flagship galloped back toward the tentacles.
It took another half hour to finish the Island Kraken off. Finally though, the infamous Terror of the Deep breathed its last, and its bloated corpse lay limp in the water. Blue blood and black ink spilled from its body in rivulets, staining the shattered ice around it. It smelled repugnant and looked worse. After a while though, the tide began to return, and it washed away the octopus' fluids. A breeze swept past us, blowing away the putrid stench. I gulped in a lungful of air, savoring the sea air's salty tang. The Island Kraken's magic had been completely dispelled.
"Looks like it's finally over. We did it, everyone!"
The werewolves and kentauros around me nodded in satisfaction, then cheered.
"Woooooooo!"
"Long live the Demon Lord!"
"Thank you for this blessing, ancestors!"
Monza and the Garney brothers smiled and shook their heads.
"Haha, that monster was nothing!"
"I guess werewolves really are the strongest!"
"That's great and all, but I really want to take a bath now. I'm covered in monster blood."
I was glad to see my werewolves were in high spirits too. The octopus had lost its buoyancy after death, and half of it was already underwater. From what I could tell, its shell had served as its air bladder as well. Without it, it sank. At this point, this section of the sea had become so polluted with various substances that I didn't want to touch any part of it.
"Alright, guys, let's go back. Be careful, though. Sharks might show up to feed on this thing's corpse."
I cast water-walking magic onto my werewolves, and we all trekked back to the flagship. On the ship, everyone was twirling their cap or bandana, or whatever they had as they cheered us on. We'd won. That realization finally hit me. Kurtz glared down at me from the deck. He clearly wanted to say something, but I pretended I didn't notice.
As always, the clean-up looked like it would be the hardest part. While preparing for battles might be fun, cleaning up after them wasn't.
"Dragonkin engineers, collect samples of the water around here! After we've discovered how far the poison's spread, pour in the antidote!"
In case of accidents, we'd brought a sodium hydroxide neutralizer with us. We wouldn't be needing it, so I figured it'd be more eco-friendly to fix the damage we did to the sea. The remaining ice would melt in time, so we didn't need to do anything about that.
"I want Beluza's sailors working double time on ship repairs! Meanwhile, all canines work on recovering all the harpoons and rope we can!"
Canines loved picking up trash, so I'd left that task to them. They slid joyfully across the ice, retrieving everything within their reach.
"We've completed testing and detoxifying the water, sir."
One of Kurtz's engineers brought me a few strips of purple cloth as he said that. The cloth worked in a similar manner to litmus paper. Going off the color this dragonkin was showing me, the sea was mostly neutralized. We wouldn't be able to completely erase the effects of our battle, so this was good enough. If anything, the Island Kraken's fluids were more polluting to the sea right now than anything we'd done. If it had been a squid, I could have retrieved at least its ink to eat, but octopus ink tasted nasty.
"By the way, Sir Veight, what shall we do with the Terror of the Deep's corpse?"
I guess if we just left it, it'd become a hazard, huh? Maybe I should have Master disintegrate it. Though I felt like even if we left it, other fish would eat it soon enough.
"I'm still thinking on how to deal with it, so if you have any ideas I'm all ears."
One of the novice engineers timidly said, "Sir, Beluza's viceroy is saying he'd like to take it back with him if possible."
"Seriously!?"
What did he want with a giant octopus? Don't tell me you're planning on eating it!? The engineer's voice grew tinier as he added, "He wants to show the people of Beluza proof of their victory."
"Oh, that's what it was."
In that case, I didn't particularly mind. Showing your people the proof of your might was important for any leader. Besides, this would make for great advertisement for the demon army. If we froze the whole thing it'd float again, and it'd be easy to tow.
"In that case, ask Lord Gomoviroa if she would be willing to freeze the Island Kraken's corpse for us. We'll tow it back with us."
"Yes, sir!"
Though if we were going through all the trouble of preserving it and taking it back, it seemed a waste to just throw it away after we were done showing it off. Its tentacles, at least, have come out of the battle mostly unharmed, so... Hmm...
After finishing emergency repairs, we hooked the Island Kraken to our eleven ships and sailed back to Beluza. Master sat atop the Kraken's corpse, which she'd frozen into a hunk of ice. The body of a famed sea monster made for a surprisingly good throne for our Demon Lord. The mermaids rendezvoused with us on our way back, though they kept their distance from the Kraken's corpse.
"Holy shit, you demon army folks are crazy! Especially you, kid! But thanks to that, I guess our sea lanes are safe again." Garsh said with an astounded smile. Now was the time to put on the finishing touches.
"That monster ruled the nearby seas, but now that it's gone, a new ruler of the deep might emerge."
Whenever the top of the food chain was eliminated, there were huge changes to the local ecosystem. For example, if wolves were removed from an area, deer would multiply to unsustainable levels, and eat all of the nearby vegetation. While we'd only taken out a single monster, it was possible this would still have a huge impact on the monster ecosystem. Garsh seemed to understand that as well, and he folded his arms thoughtfully.
"That doesn't sound good. So what are we supposed to do?"
"That should be obvious."
I flashed Garsh a charming smile.
"Have the demon army protect you."
Garsh understood the implications behind my words. He shrugged his shoulders, his expression troubled.
"You sound like a pirate now, kid. 'We'll guarantee your safety, so pay us a toll.'"
That was basically what I was saying. But after a few seconds, Garsh smiled.
"Well, I've never been one for fancy diplomatic talk! At least I know how to deal with scoundrels like you, kid! Looking forward to working with ya!"
"Likewise."
To be honest, monsters were as much of a problem for us demons as they were for humans. Unlike humans, we couldn't even have a rational discussion with them. In the past, demons had been forced to fend off both humans and monsters. Even if we managed to make peace with humans now, we'd still need to fight monsters. As fun as being a werewolf cannonball was, I should probably look into creating a dedicated monster extermination squad.
The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon when we returned to Beluza's port. The sky to the east was midnight blue, while in the west it blazed orange.
"Launch the victory flare!"
At my command, Kurtz fired off one of the night-use flares. These ones were even more like fireworks than the others. Upon seeing the fireworks, the engineers stationed at Beluza launched their own congratulatory fireworks. They made for quite a stunning display, what with the light reflecting off the water and all. As we drew closer, the men at the harbor started to shout and point when they saw the giant frozen Kraken we were towing. Beluza's main port was where most of the city's citizens worked. Many of them were either dockhands, shipwrights, or fishermen. Quite a few of them even lived on their boats. Which explained why half the city seemed to be at the port even at night.
"Whoa! That's the Terror of the Deep!?"
"All hail the demon army! Long live Beluza's navy!"
"Thank you so much! Now we can trade safely again!"
Cheers filled the air, extolling both us and Garsh's soldiers. Garsh seemed to be used to the praise, as he casually walked to the front of the ship and waved at the citizens.
"There's nothing out there that can handle Beluza's navy! Especially not when we've teamed up with the demon army!"
The people's cheers grew louder. Some of them climbed up the masts of their ships to get a better view. Garsh turned back to us and said with a smile, "Look, the crowd loves you guys."
I guess we should show our appreciation for their gratitude. This is part of politics too, after all.
"Attention!"
I had my eight werewolves line up on the deck.
"Transform and let them hear you roar!"
We transformed simultaneously and shot our fists into the air.
"AWOOOOOOOOOO!"
Our deafening roars scared the nearby Beluzan sailors witless. Once we were done howling I yelled, "The demon army promises to keep your city's trade routes safe! We won't let anyone disrupt Beluza's prosperity!"
Garsh picked up where I left off and added, "This is the man who cracked open the Terror of the Deep's head! Show this reckless brat yer appreciation, lads!"
"Yeeeeah!"
"What a hero!"
"The savior of Beluza!"
I was showered with applause so loud it sounded like thunder. I called Firnir and the others over too to join in. Blushing slightly, Firnir trotted over and held her spear up high. Melaine elegantly waved, while Kurtz gave the people a demon army salute. Master, on the other hand, sat atop the Kraken's corpse and cradled her knees. The mermaids swam around her, occasionally popping their heads out of the water.
Still in my wolf form, I wrapped one arm around Garsh's shoulder and waved to everyone with the other. Firnir then wrapped her arm around my shoulder, and soon enough the canines and dragonkin joined in as well. The cheering continued for what seemed like ages. I guess Beluza's residents love to celebrate.
Ever since I'd reincarnated, humans had always feared and attacked me. And aside from Ryunheit's residents, that was still generally the case. So it was really moving to have people I didn't know cheering me like this.
"It sure feels nice being welcomed by humans," I muttered.
"Ya say something, kid!?" Garsh hollered. I smiled and yelled back, "Looking forward to working with you, Garsh!"
"Same kid, same!"
The two of us laughed loudly. Parker sidled up behind me and asked, "Why did you not ask for me to come with everyone else?"
"Why don't you try asking your heart that question?"
Parker placed a hand on his bony ribcage and said, "Oh my, it appears I have no heart!"
"Seriously!?"
"Oww! That hurts, Veight!"
This was exactly why I hadn't wanted to call him over. Still, he had been instrumental in the operation. I wrapped my free arm around his shoulder.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter33.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
That evening, Garsh personally took a hammer to the door of his wine cellar and hosted a lavish feast for the whole city. Apparently, it was customary for informal parties like these to be started with the viceroy breaking open their own wine cellar. For that reason, they'd come to be known as "Hammertime Festivals." Garsh had changed into a bonafide pirate costume, and he swung his saber in the air as he yelled, "None of ya are going back to work until every single one of these casks is empty, ya hear me! Now get to drinking, lads!"
The Garney brothers each lifted a cask of wine and started drinking straight from the barrel. The sailors around them placed bets on who'd be the first to fall. Oh, looks like Firnir's joining in the fun. In the end, Firnir's stamina proved greater than either of the Garney brothers. She gulped down alcohol like a horse would water, so it was barely even a contest. She didn't even look tipsy, but the poor brothers were lying unconscious on the floor. While everyone was partying, I decided to have my own fun.
Even before I'd reincarnated, I'd always wanted to eat giant octopus tentacles. Octopus had some of the best texture of all the seafood. Fortunately for me, we'd managed to kill this Kraken with most of its tentacles intact. Even better, the harpoons sticking through them made for perfect skewers.
This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Though the tentacles had a rather unappetizing appearance, I had to at least try one. Ideally there'd be wasabi to season it with, but I still hadn't been able to find a good wasabi substitute. Also, while I was okay with eating fish raw, there was no way I was eating this thing raw. If I was going to cook it anyway, it'd be best to make takoyaki or tempura out of it. The reason I was doing this away from the party was because this monster had killed more than a few Beluzan sailors. I doubted the other residents would want to see me cooking it.
Since I didn't have too many seasonings, I decided to just grill it and drizzle on some soy sauce. I borrowed a deserted bonfire and secretly started grilling a tentacle. Before long, an appetizing smell wafted through the air, and the tentacle started browning and curling up. I took it off the fire and applied a soy sauce glaze. Now then, let's see how this tastes... Mm... That wasn't what I was expecting. It still had the same pleasant texture all octopuses did. While I'd grilled it so long it had gone from crisp to hard, that was perfect for a werewolf like me. Transformed, my fangs could tear right through it.
The problem was the taste. I hadn't been expecting it to have much of a taste, but this was even blander than I'd predicted. The Kraken was lacking in umami, and tasted like chewed-up gum. I didn't know if that was just how it was supposed to taste, or if we'd ruined the meat's flavor by making it suffer so much before killing it. Either way, it wasn't very good. The only way this would be edible was if I stewed it in sauce. Do I have to eat all of this? As I was lamenting the hole I'd dug myself into, Firnir spotted me and staggered over. She had another wine barrel in her hands.
"Heeeey, Vaito! Just so you know, I'm not druuuunk."
"That's what all drunks say."
"Oh, is that an octopus tentacle? Why're you eating that?"
Firnir hugged me from behind and rubbed herself against me. I wonder if this is how zookeepers feel. Cheeks flushed, Firnir gazed at me with unfocused eyes. Suddenly, she clapped her hands together and said, "Ah, I get it! I see now!"
What exactly do you see? Just then, Garsh showed up. He was smiling, with his arms wrapped around the Garney brothers.
"What're ya doing here, kid? You're the guest of honor! Now drink up! ...Hm? Is that the Island Kraken's tentacle?"
Why can't people just leave me alone? Smiling, Firnir turned to Garsh and explained, "This is one of those, you know, rituals. Vaito's eating his defeated foe and absorbing its strength. Us kentauros do that allllll the time."
Garsh and the Garney brothers exchanged glances.
"I didn't know you wanted strength that badly, Veight..."
"No wonder he's so strong, bro."
"Oi, are all you werewolves like this?"
"Nah, he's just special. I mean think about it man, no normal werewolf shoots themselves out of a catapult."
"Oh yeah, you've got a point there. That kid's insane."
And now everyone's jumping to conclusions. Afterwards, Garsh and the others spread the story that I was eating the Kraken to gain its strength. Before long, my nickname went from "The werewolf who crushed the Terror of the Deep" to "The werewolf who ate the Terror of the Deep." I would have preferred the former though, it sounded like a much cooler title for a mage.
The night wore on, but the party showed no signs of stopping. For Beluza, which relied on its fishing and maritime trade, keeping the seas safe was its top priority. Fortunately, the residents had learned the mermaids weren't their enemy, and their true enemy, the Island Kraken, had been defeated. Even better, the party had been a great icebreaker to bring the demon army and the city's populace closer together. Looks like things are going well. Guess I'll drink a bit too.
I couldn't afford to overdo it though, so I ended up retiring from the party early, and headed to the viceroy's manor. There, I began planning our next course of action. I should probably make doubly sure the routes to Lotz are 100% safe. If it turned out there was another Island Kraken terrorizing the sea, we'd be in trouble. Besides, this was a good opportunity to build relations with the fishing city of Lotz as well. As I lounged on the living room sofa, Garsh walked in. Surprisingly, he didn't look drunk at all. He wiped his face down with a damp towel and looked at me with clear eyes.
"Yo, Veight. Good work back there."
"You too, Garsh."
Despite his gruff nature, he was a dutiful viceroy. He knew that those in positions of power needed to be ready to act at any time. He turned to one of his burly maids and ordered her to bring some food up. Looks like I'll get to enjoy some more sashimi.
"I'm guessing ya like quiet meals more than wild parties, huh, kid?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
I'd just been getting hungry too. The maid brought an assorted plate of raw fish, on which there was surprisingly also some raw octopus.
"You guys eat octopus in Beluza too?"
"Catches recently have been bad, so it's become a bit of a delicacy, but yeah. Most fishermen who manage to nab one eat it themselves though, so you rarely see it on the market. You looked like ya wanted to try it, so I got some for ya."
Ah, so that's why they didn't have it before. This octopus sashimi had all the umami I'd come to expect, and tasted just as good as the stuff I'd had in Japan. I ate my way through the plate while I discussed my plans with Garsh. After explaining my plan to sail the sea route to make sure it really was safe, I asked, "Are you close with the viceroy of Lotz?"
Garsh swallowed the fish in his mouth, then said with a smile, "Course I am. Old man Petore's like a father to me! If ya want a recommendation, you've got one! Assuming the old fart hasn't kicked the bucket, that is!"
Though his words were irreverent, it was clear he respected Lotz's viceroy.
"It's been twenty years since I became viceroy, and that old man still getting on my case. Always complaining about how I don't act dignified like a viceroy should, or that I need to be more diplomatic."
"He sounds like a stubborn old man."
"You bet he is! Ya won't find anyone else that stubborn in Beluza or Lotz! But he's saved my hide more times than I can count, so I'm indebted to the old fart, much as I don't like it."
I was starting to understand the kind of relationship they had. It reminded me a little of how my relationship with the old Demon Lord had been. I bet he would have loved to try this sashimi. Knowing him, he would have eaten it while gazing out at the harbor, with a bottle of sake to wash it down. I could already imagine how our conversation would go down.
"It looks just like the Seto Sea, doesn't it, sir?"
"Indeed, it is quite a nostalgic sight. This is the perfect place to relax and forget about my duties."
"How're you liking the sashimi?"
"It's quite high-quality. It would be nice if we could make sushi out of it."
"I don't see why we can't. I hear they grow rice around here, too."
"Splendid. As I suspected, we should spread rice cultivation across the land. Let us organize a survey team to see if it's possible to get the required amount of water from the nearby rivers."
"Can't we leave talking about work until tomorrow?"
"Hahaha, my apologies. I couldn't help myself."
I must have been making a strange face, since Garsh gave me a funny look.
"Did I say something weird?"
"Oh, no. Don't worry about it."
Garsh smiled ruefully.
"Hahaha, no need to brush me off. I can tell, you were remembering someone close to you, weren't ya? Was it your dad? Grandpa?"
"No. Both my father and my grandfather passed while I was a baby. I couldn't remember them even if I wanted to."
In this life anyway. As for my past life... I'd rather avoid thinking about my dad if I could. He wasn't a bad person, but I never really liked him. That was just how our relationship had become. In this life, there was at least someone who'd taken the place of my father. But we were keeping his death a secret from the humans, so I couldn't tell Garsh I was recalling my memories of the old Demon Lord. So instead, I answered, "We weren't connected by blood, but... someone who was like a father to me passed away recently. I was remembering him."
"I see."
Garsh's expression grew solemn. He didn't pry any further. Sensing it was a sensitive topic, he changed the subject.
"Ya know, I always thought demons were way scarier."
"Oh? Really?"
"Yeah, even you. I mean in terms of pure strength, you're a monster. You've got skills, and the guts to back it up."
In all honesty, I just happened to know a lot about octopuses. I didn't say anything though, and Garsh added with a smile, "But even a monstrously strong brat like you tears up when he's reminiscing about his family. Just makes me realize yer not too different from us."
Wait, tears up? No way. Garsh skewered a small piece of octopus and held it up to me.
"Go on, eat. Unlike that monster, these tentacles are actually good."
"You're not wrong there."
"Did that old man of yours like octopus?"
Since he'd talked about eating it back in Japan, I'm pretty sure he did.
"I'm not sure... but I get the feeling he would have loved it."
"He must have been an interesting fellow. What kinda person... err, werewolf was he?"
"Actually, he was a dragonkin. He was a real handful. All he thought about day and night was work."
I looked out of the window as I reminisced about the former Demon Lord. Outside, humans and demons were carousing together. If only you could have seen this. Feeling nostalgic, I griped a little more to Garsh.
"Both of us were busy with work so we only got to see each other occasionally, but every time we did, all he'd talk about was work still."
"Hah, now that's a riot. I don't know anyone like that. Tell me more about this guy."
"With pleasure. You should tell me more about that Petore guy too."
"You got it, kid."
Looks like it's going to be a long night.
* * * *
—Monza's Ramblings—
Oh, what're you doing here, Lacy? You want the boss? He went back to the viceroy's manor. I'm not sure, but he's probably doing business with the pirate guy or something. Why does everyone think I always have all the answers? I don't spend my whole life tailing people you know. Anyway, best not bother him while he's working. You can see the entrance from here, so let's just kick back and relax until he comes out. Ahaha, yeah, it's a habit of mine. When we go on hunts I'm always the lookout, so I've just gotten used to always keeping watch. Oh, I don't drink. Alcohol tastes like crap, and it makes you dumb.
Our boss is a pretty interesting guy, don't you think? It doesn't matter how crazy something is, if he says he can do it, I get the feeling he really can. Plus, he actually does it every time he says he will. Like this fight. Everyone thought he was insane for going after that Terror of the Deep, but he really killed it. What a guy. He does all these crazy things without batting an eyelid, like it's totally normal. But he doesn't even boast about it. Once he's done he just goes on to do the next crazy thing. It's like he loves danger or something. He's a weird one, our boss.
Huh? Oh no, I'm pretty sure I'm not in love with him. Though, I haven't really ever been in love with anyone so I couldn't tell you for sure. Besides, I'm pretty sure he isn't interested in me at all. If anything, you're a lot closer to the boss than I am, Lacy. You're both mages, too. Well, I guess I'm a werewolf like he is, though. Ufufu.
If anything, I guess I kinda respect how reckless boss is. There's no telling what he's gonna do next, and whenever he decides on something there's no telling how it's gonna turn out, so I never get bored following him. Though in hindsight, he's always succeeded. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing where he takes us next. Wherever it is, it'll be interesting for sure.
Course there's no telling when he might screw up big time and get us all killed. Honestly, it's a miracle none of us have died yet. But I don't mind. Because the danger's what makes it fun. And if there ever comes a time that the boss ends up dying, that'll be when I die too. I'm pretty sure the rest of us werewolves feel the same.
Back when we were hiding in our tiny village, our lives were miserable. We were scared of humans, and all we could do was cower in our forest. We were all alive, but we might as well have been dead. Compared to that, our lives now are way more fulfilling. Sure, we're flirting with death, but thanks to that we get to do amazing things like kill giant octopuses. I'm glad I chose to follow the boss. We even started getting along with humans. And we got to try seafood for the first time. I didn't know it was this delicious.
Oh, but I hope we don't become friends with all the humans out there. Boss needs to leave a few bad guys for me to kill. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I guess to you guys we're scary, but we're just born hunters. We can't help but want to hunt. Don't worry though, Lacy. You're one of our pack now. If anything happens to you, we'll protect you.
Oh hey, it's Garbert. Hm? Yeah, of course I can tell them apart. The one who looks all "Graaah" is Garbert, and the other one's Nibert. You don't understand? Well, don't worry about it. They're basically the same person anyway. Oi, Garby! What's wrong? You're making a weirder face than usual. Boss did what now? He ate the Terror of the Deep? Wait, you're asking me why? How the hell would I know? Haha, he's an incomprehensible guy alright.
* * * *
"Alright, this looks perfect."
I nodded to myself as I looked down at the small shrine I'd had the canines build. It was a shrine honoring the deceased Island Kraken. We'd lost two kentauros and one mermaid to the Island Kraken. While casualties had been kept to a minimum, they hadn't been zero. For those three demons, this mission had brought an end to their lives. Furthermore, plenty of Beluzan sailors had been killed by the Kraken before we'd killed it.
We'd created a separate memorial epitaph honoring the dead and celebrating our victory over the Island Kraken already, but I'd also wanted to make a small shrine for the monster. The Japanese part of me wanted to at least pray for every creature, even our enemies. There was also a superstitious side of me that was worried the Kraken would come back to haunt us if we didn't honor it. Hence why I'd asked the canines to make a shrine for it. Though while I called it a shrine, it was really just a small box I could carry in my arms. I wasn't expecting anyone to understand my beliefs anyway, so I'd had the canines design it like a shinto shrine. Though my memories of shrines were a little vague, so I wasn't sure how accurately I'd reproduced it. As for the spiritual symbol that needed to go into each shrine, I'd used one of the harpoon's arrowheads.
"Lord Veight, what exactly is this?"
The canine who'd made it for me gave me a confused look.
"It's a ritual to pray that the Island Kraken never comes back. I'm not that well versed in religion though, so I guess it's more for my peace of mind than anything."
Alright, I'll call this the Island Kraken Shrine. I dipped my paintbrush in black ink, and wrote on the small signboard "Island Kraken Shrine." Rest in peace, you damn octopus. If you get reincarnated, I recommend being a werewolf next time.
Once I was done praying, I boarded the warship Friedensrichter. The ship was back under the Beluzan navy's command. I was no longer an admiral, but a simple passenger. Honestly, I was glad to be free of the responsibility.
"Admiral! We're ready to depart anytime! Are these all the men you're bringing?"
I'm not an admiral anymore, you know. Well, whatever. I turned to the sailors and shouted, "This is everyone! I'm only taking my werewolves and a few of my trusted men this time!"
"Aye-aye, admiral!"
Seriously, I'm not an admiral anymore. Since I was going to Lotz to negotiate, I'd only brought a few guards and a few other people I trusted. Specifically, I'd brought eight werewolves, Lacy, and, because I had to, Parker.
"Am I imagining things, or are you thinking something rude about me right now?"
I ignored Parker's outburst.
"By the way, Veight. Are you certain it's wise to leave rowing to the Beluzan sailors? If you need manpower, I can summon as many undead as necessary."
Garsh smiled and said, "Don't worry, Beluza's got soldiers to spare too!"
Lacy tilted her head quizzically.
"But according to the Senate's documents, Beluza's population is only two thousand. They've only allotted a hundred soldiers for the city's protection... though I can see you've obviously recruited more men than that."
As Lacy had said, Beluza's garrison was clearly larger than 100 men. The city had grown to the point where buildings crowded the bay, and its busy streets were patrolled by burly men armed with sabers. Those men had been recruited by Garsh, and it was their job to solve disputes by force. Looking down, Parker muttered, "The city's population appears to be more than ten thousand, and I believe its garrison numbers a few hundred."
Garsh's grin grew wider.
"Your documents aren't wrong, lassie. Beluza's population is two thousand. That is, of course, assuming you only count the bit on land as part of the city. We just happen to have a lot of moored ships, and some of them just happen to have buildings on them."
"So everyone just lives on those boats, huh?"
Garsh shook his head smugly.
"Not at all, kid. I'm sure they'll weigh anchor as soon as the wind and the tide's right! Ya can't blame them for waiting for the right opportunity."
The sailors guffawed. Even among the southern cities, Beluza's hatred for the north was exceptional. Meraldia had purposely stunted Beluza's growth by limiting the number of residential districts it could build, and building walls around them to stop them from expanding. However, they hadn't been able to stop Beluza from expanding seaward. By claiming that the ships were just anchored here temporarily or in for repairs, Beluza's viceroys had been able to build houses onto the man-made island while skirting Meraldia's regulations. Hence why everyone pretended the ships were going to leave someday.
"Thanks to that, we've gotten a bunch of immigrants coming to the city. But hey, they're all really just passengers waiting to depart."
It appeared all of the southern cities had population limits forced onto them by Meraldia. The northern cities didn't want their southern rivals growing in power. Because of that, whenever any of the other cities grew too crowded, their people immigrated to Lotz or Beluza. The Senate's power was weaker this far south.
"My grandpa came from Shardier, you know."
"Yeah, my old man's from Ryunheit. His cousin's still in Ryunheit's merchant's guild."
"Oh, I'm from Thuvan. I moved here a decade ago with my family."
Beluza's sailors took this opportunity to introduce themselves to me. It looked like almost everyone was from somewhere else. Garsh added, "Since we take in any vagabond who comes to our gates, our city's got a bit of a public safety issue though. We've got houses popping up all over too. But thanks to our increased population, the Senate's making us maintain an army of six thousand."
"Six thousand!?"
Lacy glanced around in shock.
"That's what they asked us to do, at least. Technically it might be a bit more than that."
The fact that Beluza was supposedly raising troops for Meraldia meant they hadn't completely cut ties with the north. Though in truth, every member of the "army" was actually just a fisherman or shipwright who'd signed on to be a soldier on paper. Amazed, I shook my head.
"You guys are scoundrels alright."
"We're pirates, remember?"
Garsh grinned and shouted to his sailors, "Alright, ya louts, it's time to set sail! Set our course for Lotz!"
"Aye-aye, captain!"
The ships' respective drummers began pounding out a rhythmical beat, and the rowers got to work.
As we left the bay, a few mermaids swam over. After the Island Kraken operation, they had started to meet regularly with the demon army.
"Hello there, Mister Veight, Mister Parker."
"Where are you two headed?"
"If you would like, we can accompany you to your destination."
I saw no reason to refuse, so I gratefully accepted their proposal.
"I was thinking of going to Lotz, while making sure that the sea route's actually safe. If you don't mind tagging along, I'd be grateful for the assistance."
"A journey like that is no problem for us. We'd be glad to."
Having the aquatic mermaids with us would make confirming the sea lanes' safety much easier. With a galley this size, the trip to Lotz would take around two days. Rowing ships like these were slower than sailboats and needed to stop at regular intervals to let the rowers rest; in exchange, they could travel even when the winds weren't in their favor. Though sailboats could too, by zigzagging through the headwind.
"Are you certain you don't want my undead doing the rowing instead? They can work all day and all night without rest."
I firmly shook my head.
"Garsh offered to take charge of negotiations for us. The demon army is still feared in the other cities, so we have to make this look like we're just part of his retinue."
"Humans sure are troublesome creatures."
"You used to be human yourself, you know."
Parker smiled sadly and shrugged his shoulders.
"I no longer need to eat or sleep, and I have long since forgotten the sensations of pain and love. Whatever humanity I once possessed has faded away."
"Oh, I see..."
It was easy to forget, but Parker's circumstances were far from enviable. However, Parker's frown quickly disappeared, replaced by his usual frivolous smile.
"But thanks to that, I can come up with new ways to toy with you even as you sleep."
"Seriously, how many times have I told you to stop that!? Do you want me to stick oranges into your eye sockets!?"
"Oh, that sounds like a wonderful idea. Would you mind if I used that for my next joke?"
Do whatever you want, I don't care anymore.
Two days later we arrived at our destination. I could see Lotz's harbor in the distance. Garsh folded his arms and grinned.
"Men, prepare your landing parties!"
A group of fierce-looking men piled out of the cabin. They were all either bald or had mohawks, and they were all equipped with large maces or battleaxes.
"You got it, cap'n!"
"Hahahaha, is it finally our time to shine!?"
"I can't wait!"
Did these guys come from the wrong century?
"Oi, Garsh, who the hell are those guys?"
Garsh shrugged.
"If you're trying to convince that stubborn bastard Petore to do anything, ya gotta bring at least this much negotiating power."
"This is what you call negotiating power?"
Seems more like brute force to me.
"Don't worry, just leave things to us. We owe you a debt, so the least we can do is make diplomacy easier for ya. Let's go, boys!"
"Woohoo!"
"URAAAAH!"
Is it really okay to leave things to these guys? Despite my misgivings, I decided to wait and see for now.
As we approached Lotz's harbor, a score of four galleys that had been moored there unfurled their sails and headed toward us. All four them bore Lotz's official crest.
"Tch! That damn old geezer's eyesight's as good as always," Garsh cursed cheerfully and barked out commands to his men. "Listen up, you louts! Right now we're allies of the demon army! Lotz's troops are nothing before our new might! Slaughter anyone who gets in our way!"
"Oi, wait."
But before I could say anything the situation grew even more incomprehensible. Lotz's ships continued closing in on ours. Naval warfare in this world was mostly conducted by ships lining up next to each other while boarding parties tried to eliminate the other ship's crew. Are those guys seriously trying to board us? Right as I thought that, I heard a yell from Lotz's flagship.
"Garsh, you fucking braaaat!"
It was loud enough that I could hear it even over the waves and the wind. Undaunted, Garsh yelled back, "Shut up, you damn geezer!"
"What was thaaat!? I can't hear you, kid!"
"You sure as hell can, you old fart!"
What kind of comedy skit was this? As Lotz's ships grew closer, I could see an old man lounging on their flagship. What little hair he had left was white, but he was surprisingly spry for his apparent age.
"You fucking braaaaat! Beluza's only allowed four warships! Who d'ya think you are, building one extra!?"
"Shaddap! I ain't listening to anything those northern fucks say anymore! You should join the demon army too, you stubborn old man!"
"Don't fuck with me, the demon army's got nothing on us!"
The two viceroys were screaming at each other. The Beluzan landing party, which looked like a bunch of delinquents from the nineties, raised their crossbows. On the other side, Lotz's hardened sailors readied their throwing spears. Were they seriously trying to spear us to death? If this is the welcome we get, I can see why we need a bunch of soldiers as "negotiating power." In order not to get mixed up in their brawl, I took Lacy and the others to the back of the ship where it was safe. The viceroys were still in the middle of their shouting match.
"Ya damn moron! I thought ya finally settled down some, but now I hear ya went and joined up with the motherfucking demon army!?"
"Yer the one who's gone senile, ya old mutt! I can't believe you've become the Senate's lapdog! I can't believe they used to call you Lotz's Great White Shark!"
"Stop getting ahead of yerself, kid! Yer still a brat who's wet behind the ears! Just you wait, I'll kick you off that mast and drop ya into the sea!"
"What's an old man with one foot in the grave gonna do to me, huh!?"
This could hardly be called negotiating. Fortunately, despite my exasperation, things didn't escalate any further. No one fired any shots, and both fleets were able to peacefully enter Lotz's harbor. Once the ships were moored, we were finally able to disembark into the city of Lotz. Seriously though, what the heck was that?
I, Lacy, Parker, and my werewolf bodyguards followed Garsh's party down the gangplank. He led us straight to the viceroy's manor. While Beluza had grown famous due to its unorthodox housing methods and its leniency towards pirates, Lotz was a more traditional port city. The buildings had the same Mediterranean architecture that Beluza's had, but this city seemed much safer. It was the kind of place you'd want to go sightseeing. The viceroy's manor was impressive too. Judging by how ostentatious its decorations were, the city was doing well financially. We were led to the manor's audience hall and found ourselves face to face with Petore, Lotz's viceroy. He scrutinized us carefully, examining each face in turn. At a glance we all looked human, so his eyes shouldn't have been able to tell who was a werewolf and who wasn't. But when he reached my face he straightened up and said, "I am Petore Orio Fikartze, Viceroy of Lotz. I take it you're the demon army's representative?"
I'm surprised you could tell. The Garney brothers looked stronger than me, Monza had an air of confidence about her that made her seem like a leader, and Parker had the look of an official. His insight had shaken me a little, but I kept my cool and responded, "I am the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, Veight."
Petore nodded, confirming his suspicions.
"The Demon Lord's vice-commander, eh? I see they sent over quite the big-shot."
"I'm impressed you could tell, old man," Garsh interjected.
"It's easy enough to tell who everyone defers to by looking at their posture and mannerisms. This man may not act self-important, but it's clear he holds power."
"Oooh... impressive," Monza muttered. It was rare for her to be impressed by a human. However, Petore didn't seem to think much of the feat and urged everyone to sit.
"Settle down, you lot. I'll bring out some tea for you."
It appeared this viceroy was quite experienced as well. Garsh started off the negotiations by explaining recent events.
"And that's why the demon army helped us slay the Terror of the Deep. These guys keep their promises, and I saw with my own eyes just how strong they are. We can trust these guys, old man."
However, Petore wasn't moved at all by Garsh's heartfelt speech.
"Pah! I don't have time to listen to a youngster who can't even secure his own trade routes!"
"It's not like you were able to secure them either, you damn geezer. What'd Lotz's navy do to stop that Kraken, huh?"
Garsh's counterarguments didn't get through to Petore at all.
"Beluza's the one who needed those routes to be kept safe the most. Lotz trades mostly with the east, so the loss of a sea lane to Beluza's no problem for us at all."
"Grr..."
So Beluza's more dependent on Lotz than Lotz is on Beluza. That aside, Petore was being surprisingly harsh. While their quarrel looked more like an argument between father and son than a serious fight, as Beluza's ally I should probably intervene here.
"I've heard that both Beluza and Lotz are essential strongholds of Meraldia's southern sector. Of the two, Beluza has already agreed to ally with us. Would you not at least consider allying with us as well?"
I made sure to keep my tone respectful, since I was dealing with someone much older than me. Petore folded his arms and scowled at me.
"I can consider it all you want, but what do you plan to do if I refuse?"
Any demon other than me would have instantly replied "Conquer you." In fairness, that was my plan as well. But forcing people to submit via force only bred resentment. While I was considering how best to reply, Garsh butted in and said, "Beluza'll take ya over, of course. If you won't join the demon army, then you're our enemy."
Damn it, Garsh, I'm trying to settle things peacefully here. As I'd feared, Petore glared at Garsh.
"Oh, you really think you can do it, kid?"
There was a sharp glint in his eyes. But Garsh didn't back down.
"Course we can. I brought five hundred men with me, and if you don't give us what we want we ain't leaving without a fight."
Oi, seriously, cut that out. But I'd been left completely out of the conversation, and could only watch as Petore grinned and replied, "You truly believe you can kill me, kid?"
Garsh responded quietly, "I'm Beluza's Viceroy. If it's for the sake of Beluza, I'll kill anyone, even you. Don't think I won't do it just cause you were a father to me. Don't worry, I'll make sure to govern Lotz well in your place."
With how the conversation was progressing, my werewolves were growing eager as well. They were ready to transform at any time, and if I gave the order they'd rush Petore. Garsh's subordinates silently gripped the hilts of their weapons as well. Naturally, Lotz's armored troops responded in kind. They'd lowered their centers of gravity, and had their hands on their weapons. This could turn violent at any moment. But then Petore roared with laughter, breaking the tension.
"Looks like ya finally grew a pair! Bwahahahaha!"
"Wh-What!?"
Garsh's eyes widened in surprise, as did his men's. Petore got to his feet and clapped Garsh on the shoulder.
"Now that's how a viceroy should act! Glad to see ya finally grew up! I can finally brag about what a great viceroy ya are to Grasco's spirit. He can finally be proud of his little boy!"
"O-Okay?"
After his sudden fit of laughter, tears welled up in Petore's eyes.
"It's been what, seventeen... no, eighteen years since ya took over your father's post? I wanted to make sure you grew up into a respectable young man before I joined your old man."
"I never knew you were that worried about me, geezer!" Garsh exclaimed, shocked.
"Course I was, ya damn brat! The Great White Shark of Lotz and the Black Whale of Beluza were a combination so terrifying even the Senate was scared shitless of us! I couldn't possibly leave this world knowing Grasco's only son was a lazy good-for-nothing brat!"
I'd really like to know what part of Garsh looks like a lazy good-for-nothing. Sniffling, Petore heaved a long sigh.
"A viceroy must always be putting the safety and prosperity of his city above all else. Even if that means fighting his own brother. I'm glad ya finally have some backbone in ya, Garsh."
"...Thanks."
Garsh looked away, embarrassed, and stroked his beard. Petore then turned to me.
"It looks like you helped my best friend's son out quite a bit. You seem like an interesting fellow, so I'll hear you out at least. So what's your story, kid?"
Petore sure switched gears fast.
I told Petore about the demon army's current condition, our alliance with Ryunheit, and our relationship with the other southern cities. I finished my speech by saying, "The Demon Lord wishes to form an alliance with all of Meraldia's southern cities. He is aware of the rift between the north and the south, and is willing to aid the southern cities in improving their infrastructure since the north will not."
Petore absorbed everything with a calm expression, a stark contrast to his earlier boisterous attitude. After careful consideration, he asked, "You make it sound like an appealing proposition, but this will mean we will have to cut ties with the north."
As I'd expected, he didn't buy my initial sales pitch that easily. Guess we'll have to do this the usual way. I grinned wickedly.
"You appear to be mistaken."
"How so?"
"You won't be cutting ties with Meraldia because the demon army intends to wipe Meraldia off the face of the map."
"What!?"
Naturally, I meant Meraldia as a nation. I wasn't planning on physically obliterating all of its cities.
"The demon army wishes for the southern cities to declare independence from Meraldia and ally with us instead. Our goal is to build a new nation where humans and demons can live together in harmony."
A hint of nervousness flashed across Petore's expression.
"That's quite the bold claim. Do you understand the chaos your actions could bring?"
"The only ones who'll suffer from that chaos are those in the north. From what I understand, the southern cities do not wish to see Meraldia survive."
"Hmm..."
Petore wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead and asked, "What will you do once you've unified the south?"
"Our eventual goal is to force the northern cities to accept our authority as well, and unite all seventeen of them under a single country that welcomes humans and demons both. Considering the time and effort such an endeavor would require though, I suspect it will be my successors who see it to completion."
After how many civilians the second regiment slaughtered, I doubted anyone currently alive in the north would be welcoming of demons. It would take a lot of time to erode those memories of bloodshed, and I doubted I'd still be alive when the eventual unification happened. Depending on how things went, it could take as long as a century.
"Hmmm..."
Petore wrinkled his brows and ruminated on my words.
"I believe I understand your position now. But before I give you my reply, there are two things I must confirm. Firstly, your capabilities. Secondly, your trustworthiness."
Those two certainly were important to know. Petore continued, "Regarding your abilities, I've heard much from the various scouts and spies I have scattered across the nation. Your control over Ryunheit appears solid, and the people do not resent your rule, so I am willing to believe you're capable."
"Wait, you've got spies, old man?"
Petore turned to Garsh and sighed.
"If you don't know what's happening in the room next to yours, how can you sleep peacefully? I even have spies in Beluza."
"Seriously?"
Petore shook his head and turned back to me.
"As for your trustworthiness, I believe you are more likely to keep your word than the north. It's clear Meraldia's Senate is hiding something from us southerners. Despite that, they unilaterally request our support. And that rubs me the wrong way."
Fortunately, the demon army had Airia to vouch for its trustworthiness. The fact that she'd been willing to cut ties with Meraldia proved how much faith she had in us. However, there was still some suspicion in Petore's gaze.
"That being said, if we throw our lot in with you, us southern cities will inevitably be drawn into a conflict with the north. We will be forced to spill blood to maintain our alliance. When that time comes, what will you do?"
That was a difficult question to answer. In terms of just resolve, we were of course resolved to fight together with the south. But at present, the demon army had few troops left. If the war front grew too large, we wouldn't be able to cover it all. Depending on the situation, some areas would have only humans fighting. Which was why I couldn't just promise we'd extend a helping hand.
I knew this was devious of me, but my only real choice was to dodge the question. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I finally replied, "We plan to try negotiating with the north first. Military might is just another facet of diplomacy, one we can use as a threat rather than a promise. And it just so happens that's what demons are best at."
Werewolves, vampires, and giants were all races the humans feared. We could use their own imagination against them, and spread the seeds of terror without lifting a finger.
"Naturally, if the north insists on fighting, we will show them no mercy. Razing a city to the ground is a simple task for the demon army."
While it would take a lot of preparation and cost us a lot of lives, we could do it if we really had to. I doubt we'd be pushed that far though.
"The demon army... no, not just them. All us demons want from you humans is a place to live in peace. We just want warm food, a roof over our heads, good friends, and not have to fear a human army will come to eliminate us."
Petore looked somewhat surprised, but I kept going.
"But if we want all that, we need to integrate ourselves into human society. Fortunately, Ryunheit has begun to accept demons into its walls. I'm sure that if Meraldia's southern cities welcome demons with open arms, both humans and demons will prosper. So please, I beg of you, open Lotz's gates to us."
Petore once again asked, "Allow me to ask you again: If the north were to invade, you won't just stand idly by and watch as we're overrun, will you? As Lotz's viceroy, this is something I must be sure of."
"Don't make of light us, Petore. We're demons."
I snapped my fingers, and the werewolves standing behind me transformed. Lotz's soldiers trembled as they saw eight werewolves tower over them. Smiling confidently, I said, "You have no idea how much effort it takes to keep these guys from going wild. They would never miss an opportunity to go to war."
Unlike his soldiers, Petore remained calm. He nodded and said, "I see, so you've got the bite to match your bark."
"Of course. But no matter how sharp our fangs or how savage our claws, they won't grant us a warm place to live. Which is why we plan to act with integrity, and build a bond of trust between demons and humans. I swear to you now that we will never betray our allies."
As I finished my speech, the werewolves behind me turned back into their human forms. I was glad their training was finally paying off. Petore scrutinized my expression for a few minutes, then finally nodded.
"I can tell you're a man of your word. Everything you told me matches the information my spies brought. Besides, if we were to refuse you, Lotz would be surrounded by enemies. You've already won the nearby cities over. Truth be told, we have no choice but to join you."
"Thank you. As for the details of the alliance, I'm sure we can come to a deal that both parties are satisfied with."
Petore gave me an uneasy smile.
"Unfortunately, there are a few things that still worry me. But with how much you've helped keep our seas safe, I can hardly refuse you out of hand."
I suppose it'll take some time before you really trust us. Don't worry, we'll show you we're handy to have around.
Afterwards, we started discussing the particulars of the alliance. All Petore asked for was that Lotz remain free to fish and trade as it saw fit, so I granted all of his conditions. In return, he offered to open his residential areas to demons, and if necessary, send military aid.
"Lotz's official population is around five thousand, but we've actually got more than twenty thousand people living here. In addition to the official garrison, we've got a thousand veteran fisherman who can double as harpoon throwers."
Apparently if we ever needed help, Petore would send his harpooners. Since they were masters of ranged weapons, they'd actually prove quite useful in defending city walls. Furthermore, Petore could muster 3,000-4,000 militia at short notice, so he was a dependable ally to have.
Negotiations wrapped up smoothly, and Petore invited me to eat lunch with him. While I doubted he'd try to poison me at this point, it didn't hurt to be careful. But when he brought out a steaming plate of seafood pasta with olive oil and garlic sauce drizzled all over it, all thoughts of testing for poison flew out of my mind. The appetizing scent of spices and grilled seafood filled my nostrils. An extravagant meal like this would easily run me over 2,000 yen back in Japan. But that wasn't all Petore had to offer. He also brought out a fish bouillabaisse, and then an assorted tray of grilled fish. The crowning jewel of the meal was wine-cooked crab. I couldn't believe all these fancy dishes were being served just for lunch. Grinning, Petore said, "This is Lotz's traditional fare. We're a far cry from those country bumpkins in Beluza. Eat as much as you want, we've got lots more."
"The fuck you just say, old man!?"
Petore and Garsh started arguing about the respective merits of their dishes. Personally, I was fond of both so I didn't care either way. Since I wouldn't be able to enjoy food like this once I returned to Ryunheit, I made sure to eat my fill. I went through five plates of pasta before I realized I should probably have some of the crab too. While everyone was enjoying the feast, Parker looked forlornly down at the food. Since he was a skeleton, he couldn't eat. Though he made an effort to converse with the people around him, he eventually stood up to leave.
"I'm going to see how the mermaids are doing. You don't mind if I leave, do you?"
"Yeah, go ahead. They probably want some company too."
Petore broke off his argument and turned to me.
"Did you just say mermaids?"
His expression was serious. Uh oh, is there something wrong? I grew momentarily worried, but when I explained the situation to Petore he grinned happily.
"So you even saved the mermaids, huh!? The Fikartze family, nay the entirety of Lotz believes they're guardians of the sea, you know!"
Seriously?
"Our ancestors were only able to make it safely to this continent because mermaids assisted them. Not only did they show us which routes were safe, they used their songs to keep monsters away."
Petore's grin grew wider.
"You know, a mermaid saved my life back when I was young."
"No way!? First time I heard that, old man!"
Garsh shot Petore a dubious look, his mouth full of crab. Petore puffed his chest out proudly and said, "I'm quite the lady-killer, I'll have you know."
It was possible he was handsome back in his youth, but right now I doubted he was slaying any ladies. Garsh looked down and muttered to himself, "Man, if I'd known that, I wouldn't have worried mermaids were attacking our ships..."
Petore slapped Garsh upside the head.
"Of course they wouldn't attack ships, ya addlepated moron! If mermaids were dangerous, I woulda told ya when you were a child!"
"Owww! You could have told me they weren't dangerous too, you know!"
"You should decide for yerself whether someone's dangerous or not on your own, and not trust other people's words for it!"
"So then I was right to be wary of them!"
"Shut up, ya blockhead!"
There they go again. While the two viceroys bickered, I continued devouring the food. As I was washing down my meal with a cup of black tea, Petore grew tired of bickering with Garsh and turned to me.
"Veight, do you think you could let me meet with those mermaids, if it's not too much trouble? I'd like to know what happened to the one who saved me all those years ago."
"Sure, I don't see why not."
A chance to put Petore in my debt had just fallen into my lap.
When we arrived at the pier, Parker seemed to be in the middle of telling the mermaids another one of his horrible jokes.
"But you see, Veight mistook the quantity of medicine he was supposed to use, and..."
I'd thought he was telling a joke, but it turned out he was telling them something much worse. I ran over, picked Parker up, and threw him to the Garney brothers.
"Get rid of him."
"O-Okay."
"W-Wait! Right as Veight was about to mix the ingredients together, Melaine walked in and—"
The Garney brothers hauled Parker away before he could complete his story. Petore looked down at the mermaids, stunned. After a few seconds, he walked reverently to the edge of the pier.
"Excuse me, young ladies. Do any of you remember who I am?"
The mermaids exchanged glances, then shook their heads.
"I'm sorry, but we don't know who you are."
"I see... I suppose that ain't too surprising. It was almost fifty years ago now."
Considering the mermaids' average lifespan, I guessed few lived that long. But Petore wasn't about to give up just yet.
"I am Petore the sailor. Do any of you know a mermaid named Reena?"
One of the mermaids raised her hand.
"Reena is my great aunt, mister."
"Oho."
Petore walked over the mermaid and asked her, "Is she doing well?"
The mermaid shook her head and said sadly, "She died of illness when I was young. That was around twenty years ago."
"Oh..."
Upon hearing Petore's despondent reply, the mermaid added, "But she told me all about you, Mister Petore. She said she met a brave young human sailor in the middle of a fierce storm."
Petore stared into the mermaid's eyes for a few minutes, then nodded to himself.
"I see... so she still remembered."
It appeared there was a story here.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter34.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
Garsh gave Petore a suspicious look and asked, "Oi, geezer! What happened between you and that mermaid? Is it something I need to tell ma?"
"Fool! This happened back when I was still single! And a young brat to boot! You better not tell Tanya a thing, ya hear?"
This probably wasn't a story for our ears. It looked like Petore had a lot he wanted to talk about, so we decided to give him some space. As we left, I looked back and saw Petore deep in conversation with the mermaids. Though he was smiling, there was a tinge of sadness to that smile. After a while, Petore came over and joined us.
"Good grief, I never thought I would be regaling them with tales of my heroic deeds for that long. But thank you, Veight."
"Heroic deeds, huh?"
Petore puffed out his chest and said, "When I was still a youngster, I threw my name around quite a bit. The prince of the Fikartze family was quite well known back in the day, I'll have you know."
"I take it these heroic deeds are ones you can't tell your wife."
"Yep. Please don't tell her about this. Though she knows half of my escapades anyway."
I didn't think he'd admit it that readily. Petore waved at the mermaids on the pier, then closed his eyes.
"To think she remembered the young man she met only once fifty years ago, and did nothing but cause her trouble. You demons are a lot more human than those cold-blooded monsters at the Senate."
Petore turned to me.
"I see you've been taking good care of those lasses. If even the mermaids like you guys, you must be trustworthy. I have no misgivings about allying with you now."
"Don't worry, we won't betray that trust."
I grabbed Petore's wrinkled hand and gave him a firm handshake.
Petore and I returned to his manner to exchange information and discuss our plans going forward. After we'd been talking for a while, Petore asked, "By the way, Veight? What're ya gonna do after this? Go back to Beluza?"
The people I'd left behind in Beluza had likely all returned to their respective cities. A few kentauros had remained to serve as messengers, but that was all.
"We'll be returning to Ryunheit. I've been away from my post for too long. I also need to convince the remaining southern cities to join us."
"Yeah, best to hurry if that's the case."
Petore opened his desk drawer and pulled a sheaf of documents out.
"From what my spies tell me, the northern cities are still in chaos. The loss of their Hero Ranhart seems to have hit them hard."
"Oh, that fake Hero."
I hadn't heard that name in a while. Petore continued his report.
"According to those who knew him, Ranhart came from Krauhen, the city famous for its salt mines. While I don't know the full details, it appears there's some kind of civil dispute happening there now."
I glanced over at Lacy. She gave me an apologetic look. I signaled with my eyes that she should keep quiet, and she nodded in acknowledgment. Petore noticed our little exchange and said with a sigh, "You did something to that city, didn't ya? Krauhen's position has grown precarious in the north."
I didn't do anything on purpose. I just respected Lacy's wishes and had her letter delivered. Well, I guess I may have spread some propaganda that could lead to a revolt while I was at it.
"Furthermore, the three cities the demon army attacked, including Bahen, are dissatisfied with how little aid Meraldia's been giving to help with the reconstruction. Meraldia's control over the north is starting to wane."
It seemed the north was in no position to mount a counterattack. Despite the good news, Petore's expression was grim.
"But ya know, even those morons at the Senate aren't so incompetent that they'll keep letting this bog them down. No doubt they'll try something soon."
Petore sighed. It was precisely because the Senate threw out hasty plans one after another that they were such a pain to deal with. Lacy nodded emphatically in agreement, but she stopped after a look from me. Still, looks like I can't afford to take it easy.
"Thank you for the information, Lord Petore. I'll do my best to finish negotiating with the remaining two cities as soon as possible."
"You better, Veight. The cities closest to the north are the ones who are in most danger, so if you want to make them your allies, ya have to act fast."
Now I had even more of a reason to hurry back to Ryunheit. Before I left, I went to the pier to say my goodbyes to Garsh.
"Garsh, you were a real lifesaver," I said as I shook his hand.
"It's only natural for allies to help each other. Come visit whenever you're free."
I smiled. Garsh and I had grown pretty close over the past month or so. I then turned to the dangerously dressed thugs behind me and asked Garsh, "So what're these guys here for?" They were from the group of soldiers Garsh had brought with him. Smiling, Garsh replied, "They're all immigrants from Ryunheit, or descendants of immigrants. I figured it'd take time to send reinforcements if ya end up needing them, so you can take 'em with you. Think of it as a symbol of our friendship."
He was just handing them out like one might extra vegetables left over from the harvest.
"I hear rumors that you're expanding Ryunheit and building a new set of walls. I'm sure you'll be able to handle a few extra people. Don't worry, I'll be the one paying their salaries still."
"That's not really the problem here..."
We weren't anywhere close to done building the expansions. Plus, if we had hooligans like this loitering around, it'd ruin Ryunheit's public image.
"Don't worry, I promise these louts are law-abiding citizens."
"I'm not sure I can trust your promises when it comes to that."
"Hahahaha, I suppose not!"
Never mind, I'm sick of this old man. As I was trying to figure out how to best turn Garsh down, one of the hoodlums stepped forward. He was a giant of a man, easily two meters tall, and all muscle.
"Don't worry, Bossman Veight! We're Cap'n Garsh's loyal men! We would never do anything that would bring shame to his name!"
The huge man shouldered his mace as he said that, his mohawk swaying in the wind. How the hell can I believe you when you look like that!? However, Garsh backed him up.
"I knew I could count on my lieutenant. Oi, you lot, introduce yourself to the Demon Lord's vice-commander!"
"Aye-aye!"
The mohawk-man stomped on the ground, sending tremors across the floor, and swung his mace in a huge arc.
"I'm the Commander of Beluza's landing forces, Grizz! They call me the King of the Harbor!"
Never heard of you. Since I didn't say anything, the other hoodlums started introducing themselves as well.
"I'm Gonzas the Netter! They call me Master of the Stormy Seas!"
"I'm Barossa the Mast Smasher! No one beats me when it comes to pure strength!"
"I'm Vashka the Eel! My knife skills will leave you speechless!"
"Oi, I'm the eel! Espeo the Eel!"
"No, I am! Chalza the Eel!"
Why does everyone want to be an eel so bad? Wait, don't tell me I have to listen to all five hundred introductions?
"Alright, enough. I get it. You can all be eels. I'll take you with me, so please just stop."
"Aye-aye, Bossman Veight!"
In the end, I was forced to take these 500 gangsters with me. Though they did seem well-disciplined and well-trained.
"Bossman Veight, when are we raiding those northern bastards!?"
"If we're going north, we better stock up on pelts!"
"Yeah, we won't be able to last up there with just these shoulder pads!"
For the love of god, just wear normal clothes. Things had been bad enough when the Garney brothers had been the only muscleheads I had to deal with.
* * * *
—Petore's Heroic Deeds—
Yo, Tanya, finally back? Our guests are about to leave. Good grief, they were a real handful. That damned brat Garsh is hanging out with good-fer-nothing scoundrels again. Give him a scolding for me, will ya? Honestly, I shoulda never let him marry Merida. Least he coulda done was bring me a grandkid to spoil.
Oh, the demon army? Yeah, it was just some werewolves and mermaids that came this time. According to Garsh, they've got lizard-people and horse-people too. They're a rowdy bunch, alright. Make a good match for Garsh. Oi, don't lump me together with those uncultured lot. Sheesh, everyone just likes to make fun of me, huh?
Yeah, I allied with 'em. I mean, it wasn't much of a choice. Compared to those rotten bastards at the Senate, these guys are a hundred times more sincere. Course I'd pick them! The demon army even helped Beluza slay the Terror of the Deep so they could get their sea routes back. When I begged those crusty Senate fucks for help they didn't give me the time of day, but that Veight fellow helped Garsh out without even asking fer a reward.
If my choice is between two scoundrels, I'd rather take the demon army than the blasted Senate. No really, that's the only reason. I'm telling ya, that's all. Seriously. Yeah, that's right. Oh, could ya get me a cup of tea?
Hm? Mermaids? How come ya always ask me about the stuff I don't wanna talk about? No, course I'm not hiding anything from ya. Really. Umm... Well... So you see... Look, this happened when I was still a young brat who didn't even have his own ship. One of my relatives set sail during the wrong season cause he couldn't control his greed. Thanks to that we got swept up in a huge storm, and our boat sank. Everyone else drowned, but I managed to tie myself to a plank and stay afloat. Still, that storm nearly killed me. Thought I was a goner fer sure. Worse, sharks sniffed out all the blood and started closing in. Ya know, when sharks are around yer not supposed to move. If you splash around, they can find ya even easier.
So there I was, waiting fer the end to come, when a mermaid saved me. She used her song to drive the sharks away, and protected me till the storm passed. She even carried me back to port. I dunno why. But she told me her name was Reena. She told me all about her people, and suddenly I realized why she'd saved me. Hm? Isn't it obvious? It's the same reason ya fell for me, ya dork. Man, it's tough being popular. Hahaha.
Ah, Tanya... Would you like to go to Veira and see one of their outdoor plays? I've got business with Viceroy Forne anyway, so we might as well. We can get you a new dress while we're there too. Can't have the wife of a viceroy looking plain, can we? Sure, yer old, but that doesn't matter one bit to me. If anything you've gotten even prettier since when I first met you.
What? What's so funny? Well I mean we're gonna be there anyway. Good grief. I guess as long as yer happy, that's all that matters.
* * * *
I left Lotz, with Beluza's landing force, Lacy, Parker, and my werewolf bodyguards in tow. Our party was so large and well-armed that no bandits dared attack us.
"Woohoo, I can't wait to slaughter some bandits!"
"We'll teach those fuckers that pirates are stronger than bandits!"
"They'll never dream of attacking travelers again!"
To be honest, these 500 hoodlums were way scarier than any bandit group. After a few days of traveling, I arrived at Ryunheit's familiar gates. Oh? Looks like they finished the wall already. An imposing wall circled the city, protecting it from outside threats.
"From what Azul told me, I thought it'd take a little longer..."
I cocked my head and strode through the gates. Airia was waiting for me inside.
"Welcome home, Sir Veight."
Behind her stood the city's garrison. That much was normal, but behind them stood a row of giants. There were ten in total, and each stood a few meters tall. I'd heard the remnants of the second regiment had been reincorporated into Ryunheit, but I hadn't known they were serving Airia. The Beluzan fighters standing behind shrunk back in fear.
"G-Giants..."
"Holy shit, they're real..."
"O-Oi, those guys are our allies, right?"
Even the way they got scared reminded me of gangsters from the 90s. I returned Airia's greeting, then asked about the wall.
"Lady Airia, I see the walls have finished ahead of schedule. You also seem to have made some new giant friends."
Airia smiled and replied, "The giants assisted in the construction, pushing it ahead of schedule. They were able to build the wall in a flash."
That made sense. Giants were as dexterous as humans, but like five times the size. They made for the perfect laborers. Still, it was impressive Airia had managed to win them over so fast. I turned to the giants and said, "So you were responsible for finishing the walls? Well done."
Blushing, one of the giants replied, "We just did as we were told..."
"When we helped the humans here, they thanked us lots. It's not like the north was."
The giants here were gentler than most. That was because it was only the least aggressive ones who'd survived the rout. Most of the hot-blooded ones had died fighting the Hero and Meraldia's forces. The survivors had been so traumatized by the battle that a few had even come to fear humans. But now they were working for a human, and they even seemed happy living here. Airia's smile grew wider.
"After completing the walls, these wonderful giants helped us build new houses and repair the roads. They've done Ryunheit a huge service."
The giants scratched their heads in embarrassment. Just then, a few canines trotted over. One of the canines who looked like a terrier appeared to be a foreman. He brushed down his fur and shouted, "Oi, it's time to get to work!"
The giants turned around, surprised.
"Yes, sir!"
"Excuse us, Lord Veight, Lord Airia."
They bowed to us then lumbered after the canines. As they caught up, they lifted the cute creatures and carried them on their shoulders.
"Alright, Dwaaji and Groat, help lay the foundations for the barracks over there. Zuv and Grunge, please start carrying over lumber from the lumberyard."
"Understood, sir."
The giants nodded amicably, and the canines got themselves pumped up to work.
"Let's make the new city the greatest city there is!"
"Yeaaah!"
In all my life as a demon, I'd never seen anything like this. Tiny canines and weak humans ordering giants around. Most worksites had humans working at them as well, and plenty of humans and demons both came to see how things were progressing. Everyone was smiling, and they all spoke casually with the giants, as if they were friends.
"Look, guys, the giants are here!"
"Whoa, they're even huger up close! And man, they're strong!"
"Thanks for the help, Mister Dwaaji, Mister Groat!"
Children and adults alike marveled at the giants' strength. Airia chuckled to herself.
"They've become the talk of the town you know. Quite a few of the residents know them by name."
"Now that's a surprise."
I'd been hoping they'd learn from their defeat, but I hadn't expected the giants to transform this thoroughly. No doubt Airia's leadership skills and assistance from the demon army's upper management helped accelerate that transformation.
"You're really living up to your title of Demon Ambassador."
Airia chuckled again and shook her head.
"That's not true. This is all thanks to your achievements, Sir Veight."
"What did I do?"
I mean I did give them a few seminars on human behavior, but that was all. However, Airia's tone was serious.
"You're the one who taught them how to interact with humans, aren't you? They all learned because you led by example, Disciple of the Great Sage. Oh, they also call you the Hero-slaying Weremage and the Demon Lord's Right Hand."
She had a point, but I felt like I'd just been struggling to solve one problem after another so I hadn't really actively tried to set a good example or anything.
"No, I think suffering defeat changed them. They learned from that experience and grew wiser."
"That's certainly true, but..."
Oh, who cares who deserves credit for this. What matters is that they learned. Airia sighed.
"You truly are a strange man, Sir Veight."
"Really?"
Maybe it seemed that way because I'd been a human before. Well, as long as I was doing a good job I didn't care too much. After all, there was always more work to be done.
As I walked back to the viceroy's manor with Airia, I discussed my plans with her.
"Beluza and Lotz are both willing to join the demon army's alliance. That just leaves two other southern cities."
"The labyrinth city, Zaria, and the city of craftsmen, Veira. Lord Aram is good friends with the viceroy of Veira, so I've asked him to negotiate on our behalf."
"Are you sure we can entrust it to him?"
I was a little worried about leaving it all in his hands. Airia nodded and said, "Rest easy. Veira and Shardier are strongly linked via trade. I'm certain he will be able to negotiate a favorable deal, so long as the Demon Lord is willing to accept their conditions."
That reminds me, the glass Aram showed me when I first met him came from Veira, didn't it? That was some good stuff.
"Alright, I'll trust him. What should we do about Zaria?"
At that, Airia's expression clouded over.
"Zaria is the city that the Senate tries to exert the most control over. During the unification war, it was the site of a gruesome battle."
According to Airia, Zaria had been thoroughly sacked, and its walls reduced to rubble. While the city had been rebuilt after the war, Meraldia had refused to let them build new walls. However, that meant they were eternally exposed to bandits and monsters. When I asked Airia about that, she answered, "Zaria's streets are designed like a maze, they twist and turn in random directions, with plenty of dead-end walls. All of the city's residents live in three-story buildings or higher, the entrances to which are cleverly disguised."
"So instead of walls, they use a maze to confuse their enemies and eliminate them from above?"
"Correct. Most of Zaria's residents are skilled huntsmen and know how to use bows and traps. They show no mercy to their enemies, which is why the city is actually feared by bandits."
I get that they needed to go that far to survive, but it was still impressive how thorough they were. However, I had a feeling it'd be difficult to negotiate with hardened veterans like those.
"Guess I'll have to be the one to go."
"In that case, allow me to accompany you. I have been communicating in secret with Zaria's viceroy, and they wish to meet me directly."
Surprised, I attempted to dissuade her.
"It'll be dangerous, you know? In case you've forgotten, you're Meraldia's number one enemy. Being out in the streets is dangerous enough, I cannot allow you to put yourself in peril."
"However, Zaria will be a difficult city to win over. Because of their proximity to the north, their situation is extremely precarious. If you mishandle the negotiations, it's possible they'll strengthen their ties with Meraldia instead. Furthermore, the things I wish to speak with Zaria's viceroy about are classified. I cannot send anyone else in my place."
Though I was still a little worried, it was true that Airia was a skilled negotiator. She'd be reassuring to have around.
"Can't you invite Zaria's viceroy to Ryunheit?"
"Unfortunately not. Officially, Zaria is Ryunheit's enemy. If its viceroy visited the demon army's headquarters and the Senate discovered that visit, Zaria would be in a politically tight spot."
"True that."
Beluza and Lotz had allied themselves with us so easily that I'd forgotten that we were still technically inhuman invaders to a human land. That put us in a pretty bad position to be negotiating for peace. Meaning it might be best if Airia joined me. If I went alone, it's possible Zaria's viceroy would be intimidated.
"Is there any possibility Zaria's viceroy might be luring us into a trap?"
"There is. The city is the perfect place for an assassination," Airia replied coolly. She then added, "However, I doubt Zaria would wish to make an enemy of the demon army. Labyrinths may work for human enemies, but a city without walls wouldn't stand a chance against werewolves and giants."
"True, tricks like those don't work on demons. So are those guys smart enough to realize that?"
I was relieved to know Zaria was someone we could negotiate with, but it seemed Airia thought I was foolish to have worried at all.
"Zaria's viceroy, Melgio, is an exceedingly cautious man. In fact, he has to be, or he wouldn't be able to remain viceroy."
"Let's just hope he's not too cautious."
"That is one fear we share. But that is also precisely why I wish to visit in person, to show that we are resolved to our cause."
So we'll be able to negotiate, but it'll be tough. Before I could worry about that though, I needed to solve the difficult problem of choosing who'd serve as Airia's bodyguards.
Preparing for our secret meeting with Zaria's viceroy proved more troublesome than I expected. I couldn't afford to assign normal humans to be Airia's bodyguards, but I couldn't pick most demons either. They stood out too much, and this was meant to be a covert meeting.
"I guess this means I'll have to ask my werewolves again..."
In retrospect, our race sure had a lot of useful traits. At this point, Ryunheit was protected well enough that the loss of some werewolves wouldn't hurt its defenses, so I decided to take them all with me. I called Fahn to my office and told her, "Fahn, I want you to make a unit of all women. I think Airia will feel more at ease if she has other women guarding her. It'll also make our negotiation partner less wary of us."
"Yeah, we can pretend to just be her maids or something. We've got seventeen women total, so we can make four squads."
Since nearly the village's entire population had enlisted into the demon army, my werewolf force had a higher ratio of women than most other sections of the army. There were quite a few other divisions who were jealous of our abundance of women, but a good number of them were old grannies like Mary. In truth, all our women were either old like Mary, or young and unmarried, like Fahn. Incidentally, my mom had pushed herself too hard a while back and was now living a peaceful, retired life back in our village. My parents' generation was the one who'd suffered the most living in that remote village, so a good number of them were too frail to fight now. Of course, if I started giving my own men impossibly difficult missions, they'd end up that way before long too. It was precisely because I wanted my race to have a bright future that I was being especially careful with the tasks I gave my men.
"It's possible we might be attacked while we're in our human forms, so take that into consideration when picking your guards. Also, this is going to be a covert mission, so we can't take too many people."
"In that case, I'll pick our youngest elites and make a squad out of them. I'll be the leader of the squad, right? Also, you don't mind if I poach Monza for a while, do you?"
"Yeah, feel free."
I decided to keep my nose out of girls' affairs and let Fahn take care of everything on that side. There was too much about girls I didn't understand, and I didn't want to accidentally offend anyone.
While Fahn was organizing her team, I went to find some bodyguards for myself. I'll want people with sharp wits over those with sharp claws, I think. If we're beset by assassins, quick thinking will save more lives than brute strength. In which case, Hamaam's a good choice. Like Monza, he was skilled at tracking and stealth.
Hamaam had come to our village from the desert, but before that he'd been part of a bandit crew. There was no one better at setting up ambushes than him. Furthermore he was one of the few werewolves skilled at fighting in his human form, since he knew how to handle swords and bows.
His squad had picked up a few tricks from him, and they'd become skilled ambushers in their own right. In fact, Hamaam's squad had been come to be known as the assassin squad. While most werewolves were good at laying ambushes, Hamaam in particular was skilled at spotting them as well. Alright, that settles it. I'll have Hamaam's squad be my guards for this mission. One squad was also a small enough force that it wouldn't seem out of place as a guard retinue for a viceroy traveling incognito. With this, we had two werewolf squads coming with us. The guys would look like actual guards, while the women would pretend to be attendants.
For a secret visit, this was probably as large an entourage as we could feasibly hope to bring with us. Besides, these eight werewolves were more useful than an army's worth of human guards. With them around, we'd be able to handle even two dozen assassins with ease.
As for the rest of my werewolves, they'd just be accompanying us on the road to the city. Once we reached Zaria they'd remain outside, keeping our path of retreat secure. Of course, if we got ourselves too deep into trouble, I could also call them in to help us. Since they looked no different from humans normally, I doubted they'd raise much alarm. Perfect, that's one thing figured out.
Normally, my werewolves earned their keep by patrolling Ryunheit's streets. If I was taking all of them with me, I'd need someone else to take over their jobs for a short while. I went out into the city to look for Baltze, who was in charge of the city's safety. The Azure Knights also patrolled the city on a regular basis, so they were my first choice.
As I expected, I found him in the city's main guardhouse. He was surrounded by a few of his dragonkin soldiers. But something was off. He looked like he was carrying something with great care.
"Sir Baltze, what's that you have there?"
I called out to him, and Baltze turned around.
"Ah, Sir Veight. You came at the perfect time."
To my surprise, the thing he was cradling was a human baby. It was fast asleep. From the looks of it, it was old enough to crawl, but not yet old enough to walk. Baltze looked awkwardly down at the baby in his arms.
"One of the townspeople asked me to look after her hatchling."
"Err, why?"
"Her neighbor suddenly collapsed, so she needed someone to look after the child while she went to help them."
While Ryunheit's original garrison had also functioned like the city's handymen, I hadn't expected the residents to treat the demon guardsmen the same way. Though, personally, I thought it was a good thing that the people were starting to see the dragonkin as no different from the rest of the city watch. Baltze kept his gaze fixed on the baby's face, his expression serious.
"Sir Baltze, is something wrong?" I prompted.
"Oh, no. There's nothing wrong... It's just, I was thinking his face resembled the previous Demon Lord's."
"Really?"
Though I was surprised, I remembered that the idea of reincarnation had become something of a fad among demons recently. Originally, demons hadn't believed in reincarnation. Most of them either believed that the spirits of their ancestors were protecting them from afar, or sleeping peacefully in the afterlife.
However, humans did believe in reincarnation. They thought that the soul was immortal and indestructible, but while souls were reincarnated into new bodies, memories from their past lives weren't preserved. After living together with humans, a few demons had converted to that way of thinking as well. Thanks to that, the astrologer Mitty was seeing a lot of demons visiting her for divinations as well. They all wanted to know what had happened to the souls of their dead friends or family. In general, most dragonkin had little interest in magic or spiritualism, but the thought that their beloved Demon Lord had reincarnated somewhere held a lot of appeal for them.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter35.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
I smiled at Baltze and said, "If he was reborn, wouldn't he be reborn as a dragonkin baby?"
Though since a human like me had class changed into a werewolf, it was possible Friedensrichter had ended up a human this time. Baltze shook his head.
"According to the astrologer Lady Mitty, the reincarnation of souls can transcend species. Considering the previous Demon Lord's star sign, it's possible he was reincarnated into a human."
"Hahaha, no way."
I laughed off Baltze's words, but privately I wanted to believe they were true. Baltze's expression grew lonely and he said, "I still don't fully trust humans. After all, it was a human Hero who killed our beloved lord."
You've got a point there. There had actually been quite a few demons who'd come to resent humans after the Hero had killed Friedensrichter. However, Baltze quietly added, "Alas, when I think about the possibility that the Demon Lord's soul now rests in this infant's body, I can't help but pray he lives a happy and fulfilling life. It's strange, don't you think?"
As I groped for a reply to that, a young woman came running over to us.
"Sorry about that! Looks like the old man next door's fine! He just had a seizure, is all!"
Baltze turned around with a look of relief.
"That's wonderful news. Here, your son."
Baltze held out his arms, and the woman held out a package of her own.
"Thank you so much for looking after him. We've heard that dragonkin love smoked chicken, so the old man told me to give this to you as thanks."
"Oh, I was only doing my duty. There's no need to thank me..."
Baltze seemed lost, so I decided to help him out a little.
"That's just how happy she is you agreed to help, Sir Baltze. It's customary among humans to thank each other for favors, so you should just take it."
"I-I see. In that case, I humbly accept your offering."
Baltze couldn't figure out how to take the package and let go of the baby at the same time, and began to panic a little. None of the dragonkin around him had ever held a baby before either, and they hesitated to lend a hand. Wow, you guys are hopeless. Alright, I'll help, then.
"Would you mind letting me hold him for a second?"
While I hadn't had any siblings in my past life or this one, I'd helped take care of a lot of babies back in the werewolf village. At the very least, I knew how to hold one. The tiny human baby passed from a dragonkin to a werewolf, then finally to his mother.
"My. It looks like he was sleeping quite soundly in your arms."
Baltze breathed a sigh of relief as his burden was lifted.
"I'm glad nothing happened to either your son or the old man."
"Sorry for pushing that onto you so suddenly. And thank you."
The woman bowed to us a few times, then went back up the street she'd come on. The dragonkin all slumped, drained.
"To think being surrounded by an army of hundreds of humans didn't make me nervous, but dealing with a single child did."
"You did well. I'm sure that kid will grow up to be a brave warrior after the time he spent in your arms, Sir Baltze, Commander of the Azure Knights."
"It would be wonderful if he did. Incidentally, did you think he looked somewhat like the old Demon Lord as well?"
How the hell would I know?
"I'm afraid I couldn't tell you."
Please don't tell me he's going to start asking me that every time he sees a baby.
I didn't even give myself time to rest, and I, Airia, and my 56 werewolves left Ryunheit the same day. With the exception of Airia's secretary, I'd forbidden any other humans from traveling with us this time. If we were attacked, I wasn't confident I'd be able to protect them all. As the ranking officer in charge of this mission, it fell to me to decide who to prioritize guarding in the event of an ambush. And if we did fall into one, I'd likely tell my men to keep Airia safe at all costs, even if it meant letting all other humans die.
The authority to decide who lives and who dies was a heavy responsibility. For that reason, I wanted to take as few humans as possible. No one wanted to be told they weren't as important, and thus expendable. Nor did I really want to end up in a situation where I had to say that. It'd leave a bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, because of my position, I'd have to if it came down to it.
Which was why I'd had as many humans as possible stay behind. I'd probably have to keep it that way for all of my trips in the near future. Having Lacy come with us would have been a huge boon, but I couldn't expose her to danger. Especially since she was a wanted traitor. The further she was from the north right now, the better. Honestly, since her illusions improved the more she traveled and experienced new things, I'd wanted to take her everywhere with me, but her safety was more important.
My first impression of Zaria was that it was a weird place. The city itself was located in the middle of a wasteland, and as I'd heard, it had no walls. This was the first large city I'd seen in this world without walls. I guess unless you've got the Senate explicitly forbidding you from doing it, there'd be no reason not to build walls around your city. Every single one of the city's buildings was three to four stories tall. The first two stories of all the buildings were made of sturdy stone, but the upper floors were made of brown, sun-dried bricks. A city with this kind of architecture was a rarity in this world.
I had most of my werewolves stand by in the nearby wasteland while I, Airia, and our eight guards headed to the city. As we drew close to the entrance, Airia explained some more about the place.
"The lower floors of most buildings serve as storehouses, and they're made of stone to prevent enemies from breaking in. On the other hand, the upper floors are all residential areas, and they're made of brick, which is easy to rearrange in case someone wants to remodel."
"I see. So the lower floors serve the function of a city wall."
The thick stone walls that made up the buildings' foundations were strong enough that I doubted even a werewolf could break them. As we walked through the streets, the irregularity of the city grew more apparent. Though it was noon, the alleys were dark. Furthermore, they were so windy and twisting that it was impossible to tell where you were going. Especially since there were no landmarks to tell the different intersections apart.
"This really is a labyrinth..."
Though there were buildings everywhere, I hadn't seen a single door. While a few of them had windows, they were fitted with metal bars and were only on the upper floors. Because of how narrow the streets were, it would be impossible to deploy troops effectively here. Cavalry would be practically useless.
We spotted no one on our way, but I could tell there were people here. Their scents, voices, and footsteps were all over the place. Airia smiled ruefully and said, "This is the labyrinth that earned Zaria its moniker. No bandits or monsters have been able to harm this city's residents in decades."
"Makes sense."
Small groups of monsters or bandits wouldn't stand a chance here. They'd keep running around in circles and get picked off. However, if an army brought catapults with them, they'd be able to devastate the city with ease. Maybe that's what Meraldia was really after by forbidding Zaria from building walls. This way they can crush the city if it tries to revolt. No wonder Zaria's viceroy has such a hard job. One of the city's officials came out to greet Airia, and led us to a small staircase hidden between alleys.
"This way, please."
The official took us to what looked like a normal house's back entrance. As I stepped inside I realized it really was a back entrance, and that we were inside a kitchen. A series of pots could be seen hanging from hooks on the wall. The official picked up a wooden pestle and banged the pots in a specific order. Once he was done, a part of the stone ceiling slid away, and a voice called out from above.
"Who goes there?"
The official glanced back at us, then replied, "The Blue Lily Flower and the Black Half Moon. Two by eight."
After a moment of silence, a ladder dropped down.
"Lady Airia, Lord Vice-Commander, please ascend."
Just in case, I asked Hamaam to go up first. As he climbed the ladder I smiled to Airia and said, "I guess that earlier exchange was some kind of secret code. In which case, I suppose you're the blue lily flower?"
"Meaning you are the black half moon."
She smiled back, and the two of us climbed the ladder after Hamaam. The ladder led to a small room filled with doors. In a quiet voice, the official said, "The fake doors are booby-trapped. Be careful not to touch them by mistake."
"Understood."
I felt like I'd walked into some kind of secret base. The official led us through a series of doors until finally we arrived at what I assumed was the viceroy's manor. The stucco walls had complex patterns painted on them in bright colors, and the manor's furniture had a west-Asian flair to it. Unlike the other buildings we'd walked through, this one didn't smell of people. Meaning it wasn't used often. I guess they only come here for meetings. I eased into a sofa and murmured, "I see Viceroy Melgio is as cautious as the rumors claim."
The official bowed respectfully and replied, "Lord Melgio changes the location of his office at regular intervals. It is customary for Zaria's viceroys to keep their location a secret."
"Understandable."
Though if you're that secretive, isn't it hard to get anything done? The official stepped out of the room and returned a few moments later.
"My lord wishes to speak with the demon army's representative before negotiating with Ryunheit. Vice-Commander, if you would please follow me."
That's odd.
"Are you sure it's not Lady Airia he wishes to speak to first?"
"No, my lord's orders were clear. He wishes to first meet with the famed demon general Veight."
"My apologies, but I will have to refuse. The demon army and Ryunheit are one and the same now. Please inform him that we decline to negotiate separately."
The official's request struck me as unnatural. But even if it hadn't been, I didn't want to leave Airia alone. The official hesitated, and Airia took the opportunity to say her own piece.
"Seeing as this is an informal audience, I would like to be present as well."
"I'm not sure..."
Before the official could refuse us, Airia added, "Or do you mean to imply that there would be a problem with me, the Demon Ambassador Airia Lutte Aindorf, being present for a negotiation meeting between the demon army and Zaria?"
"Perish the thought."
Overwhelmed by Airia's forcefulness, the attendant shook his head.
"Very well, Lady Airia, Lord Veight. I shall inquire if the viceroy will be willing to receive you for an informal introduction before we begin official negotiations."
Airia and I exchanged glances, then got to our feet.
"Guards, attendants, remain here. 'Relax, and take this time to rest.'"
Hamaam saluted me and replied, "As you wish, 'exalted vice-commander.'"
You guys aren't the only ones that use secret codes. We do, too. "Relax, and take this time to rest," was code for "Assume we're in enemy territory. Remain vigilant. I grant both squad commanders the authority to engage hostiles at their discretion." Hamaam's reply meant that he understood and would obey. No one had made any overt moves, but I couldn't shake the feeling that that official was suspicious somehow.
Airia and I were led down a long, narrow corridor. The official stopped before the door at the far end and turned to us.
"Lord Melgio awaits."
The official bowed and made to take his leave.
"Hold a moment."
"Is something the matter?"
I grabbed his shoulder as he turned around and said, "I smell blood and vomit up ahead. Just what state is Lord Melgio in?"
The official whirled around and tried to dash away. You won't escape me! I transformed into my werewolf form and tightened my grip on him.
"I believe I asked you a question."
I dug my claws into his shoulder. I was still holding back, but my grip was tight enough to hurt now. The official screamed in pain and shouted, "Gaaaah! I-Intruders!"
Loud footsteps thudded down the hallway. That was the sound of armored soldiers. So that's how you want to play?
"Alright, I understand what's going on now. For now, let's put you to sleep."
I socked the official on the jaw, knocking him unconscious. A few of his teeth were knocked loose from the force of the blow, but I had no obligation to hold back anymore. While I could fight here, the hallway was too narrow for me to move freely, and I was still worried about whatever might be behind the door the official led us to.
"Lady Airia, stick close to me."
"Okay."
Airia nodded nervously and drew the saber at her waist. Realizing the hallway was too narrow to swing it in, she got into a thrusting stance. I howled to my werewolves, telling them to attack, then kicked down the door behind me.
Inside the room a man lay on the floor, covered in blood. His three guards lay next to him, also bloodied. Considering how much blood there was, and the fact that it was dry, it was clearly too late. They were all dead. I sniffed around for assassins, but smelled no one else.
"That's Sir Melgio," Airia declared as she looked down at the man. Remaining vigilant of my surroundings, I knelt next to the corpses. The viceroy and his guards had all had their throats slashed. There were also a number of parallel gashes on their chests. The assassins had wanted to make it look like a werewolf's claws had killed the men.
"It appears these assassins wish to use your reputation against you, Sir Veight."
Sighing, I got to my feet.
"It irks me that they're trying to make such a shoddy job look like my handiwork. I won't let these guys get away."
My guess was the Senate was behind this. Meaning that Meraldia had judged Zaria's viceroy a foe. The only reason I could they would want him dead was because he'd been planning on allying himself with us. It's a shame he had to die. Though we'd never met, it pissed me off that someone I could have forged a bond with had been killed. For his sake too, I'd send these assassins to the afterlife.
Unfortunately, I couldn't be sure if the soldiers the official had called were on the viceroy's side, or his. If they'd been bribed by the Senate, or were Senate soldiers disguised as the city garrison, I could kill them without reservation. But if the assassins had wanted to make this look like I'd done it, it was possible the soldiers were still loyal to the viceroy. In which case, the last thing I wanted to do was kill them. Though I had no hints to go off of, I couldn't afford to get this wrong.
Maybe I should just take Airia and run? No, that won't work either. I needed to secure the crime scene, or the blame for killing the viceroy would automatically fall on me.
"Lady Airia."
"What is it?"
Though she was pale, Airia tried to put up a brave front. In my gravelly werewolf voice, I said, "Sorry, but I'll need to carry you for a bit."
"Huh!?"
I apologized preemptively, then picked Airia up.
A few seconds later, a knot of soldiers burst into the room and discovered Melgio's corpse.
"Lord Melgio!"
"M-My Lord!? Someone, call a doctor!"
"The captain's been slain too! Raise the alarm!"
The soldiers drew their swords and scanned the room.
"Where is the demon army's vice-commander and Ryunheit's viceroy!?"
"Are they the ones who did this!?"
"Look, those wounds look like claw marks!"
Well, I guess that's the natural conclusion. Judging by their reaction, I doubted they were the Senate's soldiers. Just then, a young girl flanked by a brace of guards strode into the room. She had short hair and a boyish face. A jeweled dagger hung at her waist, and she was dressed in fine clothes, so I assumed she was a noble of some sort.
"Lady Shatina, you mustn't be here!"
"It's too dangerous!"
The girl called Shatina shook off her guard and ran to the viceroy's corpse.
"Father!? Father!"
Crap, she's the viceroy's daughter. I'd heard that Zaria's viceroy had a single daughter who was his heir. And it looked like this was her. Because she was in public she held back her tears, but I could tell the death of her father had hit her hard. She clenched her fists and choked back a sob. It would take a lot of courage to show ourselves now, but I needed to solve this misunderstanding fast, or it'd be too late. Still holding Airia, I soundlessly leapt down from the roof beam I'd been hiding on.
"Who're you!?"
"A-A werewolf!?"
In my most dignified voice, I said, "I am the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, Veight, and this is Ryunheit's viceroy, Airia. I swear to you that we were not the ones who killed Zaria's viceroy."
The men readied their weapons, but Airia leapt down from my arms and stopped them from attacking.
"Please wait! We're innocent!"
Airia's sharp glare caused the soldiers to falter. But then Shatina got to her feet and glared at us, her expression a mixture of fury and sorrow.
"As if I would ever believe a werewolf!"
The loss of her father was causing her to act rashly. Considering how young she looked, I couldn't blame her. Though she didn't seem the least bit interested in hearing us out, I really did need her to. I wasn't the greatest of mediators, so I decided to defuse the situation the only way I knew how. Using intimidation. I gathered my mana and howled, casting Soul Shaker. The air in the room crackled from the force of my shout.
"Eeek!"
"Uwaah!"
"Kyaaa!"
My howl penetrated their souls, striking fear into their hearts. It also shattered the vases lining the wall and the mirror off to one side of the room. Sorry about that, guys. I walked over to the paralyzed soldiers and brought my face close to Shatina's.
"Shut up and listen."
Though she was trembling in fear, the anger in Shatina's gaze was as strong as ever. However, she was directing her hatred toward the wrong target. I shook my head and said, "If I was the culprit, I would have killed the lot of you already. Besides, look at your father's corpse."
"What do you..."
"I'll admit that Zaria is an arid place. But even then, would a person's blood dry this fast?"
As I said that, a gust of hot wind blew through the room.
"Well..."
Shatina faltered, and I pressed further.
"Besides, if all of those wounds had been inflicted on the viceroy while he was alive, his blood would have splattered the walls. However, it's all pooled here, underneath him."
If a living person was cut deeply, their blood spurted pretty far. But if their heart had already stopped pumping, then the blood just dripped out.
"Someone cut your father's corpse after he was already dead to make it look like a werewolf's claws had killed him. You can see traces of vomit in the blood, so it's clear he'd been poisoned to death, not slashed. And I'll have you know, werewolves don't use poison on people," Airia added, supporting my case.
"Sir Veight is a ferocious warrior, it's true, but the rumors about him are mistaken. However, the assassins used those rumors to their advantage and attempted to frame him as the murderer."
Airia frowned apologetically.
"You're still young and lack experience, Lady Shatina. Because of that, the assassins underestimated you. They believed you would mistake us as your father's murderers, and thus destroy any possibility of an alliance between Zaria and the demon army."
Shatina exchanged a silent glance with her guards.
"So then, you aren't the ones who killed my father?"
"Naturally."
I heard a faint noise coming from one of the walls, and walked over to it.
"There's one other, very big discrepancy. You see, humans killed by a werewolf's claws don't end up looking like that."
Shatina gave me a puzzled look.
"They don't?"
"That's right."
I nodded and laid a hand against the wall. Right about here, I think.
"Watch closely. This is what happens to people shredded by a werewolf's claws."
I cast strengthening magic on my arm and raked my claws across the wall. There was a huge puff of dust as I sliced the wall apart.
"GRAAAAAAAAH!"
Blood sprayed everywhere. A second later, something thudded to the ground.
"Someone was hiding in the walls!?"
I nodded in response to Shatina's question and looked down at what I'd slashed. The corpse of a man, cut in half by the force of my claws, lay on the floor. Half of the rope he'd been hanging onto dangled from the ceiling, swaying slightly. From the looks of it, he'd been trying to eavesdrop. I ran my hand across the section of wall I'd cut up, then turned to Shatina.
"I heard people jumping across the rooftops, so I destroyed the entire wall to stop them from coming."
Of course, my claws alone hadn't been long enough, so I'd created mana blades that extended further out from them. I'd seen Master use a similar spell before, so I'd wanted to try it out. But man, I didn't think it'd make my claws hurt so much. I think I'll only use this when I need to show off. I ignored the pain and said quietly to Shatina, "I understand that losing your father must be painful for you. But those who stand in positions of power must be able to remain calm even when people close to them die."
As I said that, I thought back to when the old Demon Lord had died. I certainly hadn't acted very calmly back then. Honestly, I had no right to be saying this. So in return for saying such irresponsible things, I decided to protect Shatina.
While Shatina still hadn't sorted out her feelings, she was slowly coming to understand that I wasn't the culprit. As the effects of my Soul Shaker wore off, I held out a hand to her. She hesitantly took it and got to her feet.
"So then you really aren't my father's... my enemy?"
"That's for you to decide. But whether you believe me your enemy or not, I'll protect you."
"Protect me from what?"
I moved so that both Shatina and Airia were behind me, then said, "There are still plenty of assassins left."
"Th-There are!?"
"Since they failed to trick you, they've likely decided to kill you."
There were a few people on the roof above, and a few others coming in from the hallway. Furthermore, there were a few people running around the adjacent buildings' rooftops. Shatina seemed too shocked to think, so Airia started giving out orders.
"Soldiers, protect Lady Shatina! Keep an especially close eye on the door and windows!"
Just then, I heard a commotion from the hallway.
"Enemy attack!" Someone shouted, then another group of soldiers spilled into the room. The moment Shatina's guards saw the soldiers' faces, they began to attack.
"Imposters!"
"Do you truly believe you can pass as part of the garrison!?"
Personally, I couldn't tell them apart at all, but it was obvious there were two factions since the garrison troops were fighting amongst each other.
"How dare you wear our honorable uniform!"
"Be careful everyone, the enemy has disguised themselves as part of the regular garrison! Don't let anyone suspicious near Lady Shatina!"
"Cut down anyone who tries to enter this room!"
From the looks of it, Shatina's guards were able to tell apart the intruders by sight. Unfortunately, I'd just gotten here so I had no clue.
With how muddled things had gotten, I had no way of telling who was friend or foe. It was far too dangerous for Airia and Shatina to stay here. Just as I thought that, another three assassins dropped in through the open window. They were wearing masks and carrying daggers. I pushed Shatina behind me, kicked the first assassin out the window, and sliced the other two in half using my claws. While the assassins were clearly dexterous, they had little skill with the blade.
"These guys have no manners, barging in through the window like that."
"Sir Veight, you do realize..."
Airia gave me a reproachful look. She had her saber in one arm, and Shatina in the other. Oh yeah, come to think of it, I did the same thing. I'm surprised you still remember. Wait, now's not the time to be waxing nostalgic. From the looks of it, there were still plenty of assassins left.
Another assassin in the next building over readied a crossbow and aimed it through the third story window. But I'd spotted him a while back, and I already knew he was trying to take advantage of the confusion to sneak a shot in. The moment he loosed, I stepped in front of Shatina.
"Wha!?"
In response to her surprised shout, I showed her the poisoned arrow I'd caught. So long as we knew it was coming, us werewolves had fast enough reflexes to catch arrows in midair.
"This arrow has the same odor as your father's corpse. They're probably using purple osier poison."
In this world, there was a species of tree known as purple osier. It grew in the north, and its leaves and bark contained poison. As winters in the north were long, most herbivorous hibernating creatures tended to eat everything they could get their hands on, so the only trees that had survived were those that evolved to be poisonous.
The poison caused severe vomiting, and was lethal when taken both orally, or injected. It was popular in the north among hunters, demon slayers, and assassins. I'd been on the receiving end of this poison before too. There was a similar species of purple osier that grew in the south, but that wasn't poisonous, so no one in the southern cities used it.
These assassins had just given themselves away. This arrow would serve as proof who the real culprits were. I really should thank that archer for this. Just as I thought that, blood sprayed from his chest and he slumped to the ground.
"Sorry we're late, boss. Leave things here to us!"
Hamaam walked into view and gave me a salute. He, along with his squad, were in the process of hunting down the snipers.
"Well done. Some of the city's garrison are traitors, but the rest are on our side. Since we can't tell them apart, don't lay a hand on them."
"Yes, sir."
Hamaam nodded and then walked out of sight.
The room had devolved into a melee between people all wearing the same uniforms, so I had no idea who to be wary of. To make matters worse, there were still a few snipers left. It really was too dangerous to remain in this room. Besides, the assassins were after Airia and Shatina. If they managed to kill Shatina, the Senate would be able to strengthen their hold on the city. My guess was their plan had been this:
First, they'd assassinate Zaria's viceroy, who was sympathetic to the demon army. Then they'd pin the blame for the assassination on me. Shatina would then swear vengeance on the demon army, and Zaria would invade Ryunheit.
But since Shatina had learned the truth, the Senate's plan had ended in failure. So they'd switched to plan B. Instead of just assassinating the viceroy, they'd eliminate the viceroy's entire family and try to make it seem like the whole thing was my fault. Then they'd appoint their own lackey as viceroy, giving them full control of the city. They'd then reorganize Zaria's military and invade Ryunheit as originally planned.
In some ways, the Senate had probably been hoping for this development. If anything, pulling this off would give them more control. These guys sure are underhanded, though. This world had no internet or printing press. Even major events spread only as rumors through word of mouth. Furthermore, because of the vast authority Meraldia wielded over its cities, it could easily control the flow of information. Framing the demon army for a slaughter at Zaria would be an easy task.
The only way to stop that from happening would be for me to keep Shatina safe, and bring her over to our side. If she was willing to testify my innocence, then it'd be impossible for harmful rumors to spread. For that reason, I needed to defend Airia and Shatina with my life. Meaning I no longer had the leeway to try and protect the loyal members of Zaria's garrison still fighting here. I needed to get Shatina and Airia out of here. While I despised ranking some lives as more or less important than others, as the commander in charge, I had no choice. Sorry guys. I hope you make it out of this alive.
"Lady Airia, Shatina, we're escaping. Grab on to me."
Airia grabbed on right away, but Shatina hesitated.
"But my father... and my men..."
For someone as young as her, abandoning her father's corpse and the soldiers who were fighting to protect her was more than she could stomach. Unfortunately, I didn't have time for her sort her feelings out.
"If you die here, what do you think will happen to Zaria? You'll only be bringing the people who love you sorrow while the whole city suffers."
"Ugh..."
Shatina bit her lip. However, it took her only a few seconds to overcome her reluctance. She looked up at me, her gaze resolute.
"Sir Veight, please take me to safety!"
"Good, that's the kind of determination a viceroy should have."
I lifted Shatina up and dashed toward the window. As I ran, I turned back and saw one of Shatina's loyal guards fall to the ground. Blood started pooling underneath his stomach. I'm sorry I couldn't save you... But I swear I'll keep your lord safe. I tightened my grip on Airia and Shatina, then leapt out the window.
"Hyaah!"
Shatina screamed as we fell. I couldn't blame her, this was the fourth floor. Normal people would die if they fell from this height. While Airia managed to hold back her scream, she still clung to me for dear life. I sailed over the street below and flew neatly into the window of the next building over. This one looked to be a normal house. I'd been worried someone would shoot at me while I was in the air, but it looked like Hamaam's squad had managed to suppress the snipers. I breathed a sigh of relief as I got to my feet.
However, it seemed the assassins noticed we'd escaped right away. I put my ear to one of the walls and heard a group of people thudding up the stairs. I turned to Shatina and said, "From here on, I'm going to assume any human we meet is our enemy, and if they're carrying weapons, I'll attack. If any of them happen to be allies, tell me right away."
"U-Understood."
Blushing slightly, Shatina nodded. At the same time, two men kicked down the door to the room we were in. Like the other assassins, they were wielding daggers. Shatina remained silent, so that confirmed they were enemies. They ignored me and headed straight for Shatina and Airia. Looks like they're not even trying to fight me. You guys know I'm as mortal as the rest of you, right?
"You fiend!" Airia screamed as she gallantly drew her saber and slashed at her foe. Come to think of it, she had the courage to try and face me alone. A few assassins probably won't scare her. Shatina hurriedly drew her own short sword, but she was clearly unused to fighting. Airia realized that as well, and moved to cover Shatina.
Unfortunately, Airia was no expert with the sword herself. She wasn't able to match a group of professional assassins. I couldn't allow the battle to drag on, so I quickly dispatched the two men. One I stabbed through the heart with my claws, while the other I kicked into the wall. He slammed into it so hard that the wall shattered along with his spine, and he coughed up a lungful of blood before falling lifelessly to the ground. The battle lasted only a second.
The assassins were lightly armored, so they weren't much of a threat to me. Furthermore, they had to get within range of my claws to use their short daggers, making my job even easier. The problem was I needed to keep Airia and Shatina safe while I fought. I picked up one of the assassin's daggers to see if it, too, was poisoned. After discovering that it was, I turned to the two girls and said, "I'm going cast detoxification magic on you two. To do that, I'll need to touch the right side of your stomach."
"Understood."
Airia nodded without hesitation and rolled up her tunic. I placed my hand on her abdomen, now only covered by her undershirt, and willed my mana into her liver. For as long as my spell lasted, Airia would have increased resistance to poison.
"Shatina, you too."
Shatina twitched when I addressed her.
"Y-You need to touch me?"
"The right side of a person's stomach contains an organ that protects you from poison. I need to inject mana into it to strengthen its abilities."
"I-I see. Very well. Give me a moment."
Shatina sucked in a deep breath. Then she closed her eyes and grabbed the hem of her shirt.
"There!"
She lifted it up, revealing her bare skin. Uhh, you didn't have to roll up your undershirt too, I just need to have decent contact. I tried to calm Shatina down while I placed my hand on her stomach and willed my mana into her.
"Alright, that should do."
"Th-Thank you."
Shatina gave me a dazed look, but then shook her head and composed herself.
"L-Let's go! I can guide you out!"
"Alright, I'll be counting on you. The rest of my werewolves are waiting outside the city. Leaving through the city's south gate would be best, but if that's impossible we can detour around."
"Okay, leave it to me!"
Where'd she get all that energy from?
We dashed through Zaria's labyrinthine streets, following Shatina's directions. Strictly speaking, Zaria had two mazes, one on the ground and one up above. Most buildings were connected to each other via aerial walkways, or had their balconies within jumping distance of each other. As the upper paths had been made mostly by the residents for convenience's sake, and were rerouted all the time, they were actually more confusing than the maze that was the city's streets.
"Umm, so after you clear plum foof, you need to climb the red rat stairs and... no, wait, you have to cross rust hatchet street first."
Shatina was having a hard time giving directions. To make matters worse, Zaria's laws forbade streets or intersections from having names or distinctive landmarks. So without Shatina's guidance, I couldn't tell them apart. And the assassins had already realized we were trying to flee. Hamaam had howled a few moments ago that some of the enemies had escaped his squad. If they'd left the battlefield, it meant they were tailing us. Since they were more familiar with the area than I was, they were also able to head us off despite my superior speed. Anytime my ears picked up any suspicious noises, I told Shatina the direction they were coming from, and she adjusted our course accordingly. But no matter how much we weaved, our pursuers kept catching up.
A barrage of arrows shot toward me as I sprinted down a skywalk connecting two buildings together. While I managed to strike them all down, I was once again reminded of the fact that my opponents were exclusively targeting Airia and Shatina. Before the assassins could reload, I leapt onto the roof and slaughtered them all. Four cowardly snipers fell to the ground, blood spilling from their chests.
That makes 23... no, 24. Man, there's so many of them I can't keep track. Just how many assassins are there? For some time now, all the assassins we'd encountered had been equipped with either bows or crossbows. Those were the weapons I hated dealing with the most, since my only long-ranged attack was my howl. In the case of the other werewolves, they didn't even have that, so these assassins made for troublesome enemies. I debated signaling the rest of my werewolves to come help, but in a twisting city like this where it was impossible to tell who was friend or foe, they'd have a tough time fighting to their full potential.
"Damn, there are enemies here too."
I used the mirror I'd picked up along the way to see what was beyond the next corner. Shaking my head, I turned back to my companions. At the end of this corridor were two buildings, and on each building were two snipers. Though their uniform bore no affiliation, they were obviously enemies. While I'd be able to run past safely if I was on my own, it'd be harder while carrying these two, nor could I afford wasting time killing them. There was no way to dispatch them all simultaneously, and unless I did that they'd call for reinforcements and we'd be surrounded.
Still holding her saber, Airia wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead.
"They seem intent on killing Lady Shatina."
"Well, she is the viceroy's heir."
The position of viceroy wasn't one just anybody could attain. Being a skilled governor wasn't enough. You also needed influence, popularity, and a measure of trust from your citizens. Furthermore, you also needed to be well-versed in local culture, history, and geography. For that reason, the usual candidates for a new viceroy ended up being the old viceroy's heir or disciple. Which was why Shatina was such an important person to Zaria.
At this rate, escaping to my werewolves waiting outside the city would be impossible. Because all of Zaria's buildings were made tall to double as watchtowers, no matter where we ran we'd be found eventually. Not only was Zaria's maze a measure to prevent intruders from causing too much damage, but it also kept intruders from escaping alive. And even if we did get lucky and escape, the moment we left the city we'd be in even more danger. Past the city was a barren wasteland, and there'd be no cover. After weighing my options, I decided against escaping the city. It was too risky.
"Shatina."
"Y-Yes?"
I looked down at her and said, "As the future viceroy of this city, I need you to tell me if there's anywhere in the city that meets the criteria I'm about to outline. And if there is, I need you to guide us there."
"O-Okay."
We once again began weaving our way through the maze-like city. After going down a series of progressively narrower streets, we finally stopped in front of a door. At a glance, the door seemed to lead to just another house.
"Is this really the place?"
"Yes. It fits all of the criteria you asked for, Sir Veight."
"Alright, then let's settle things here!"
Together with Shatina and Airia, I entered the building. Once I cast the necessary magic on them, I had them hide nearby. Now then, it's all up to me. Just in case, I cast detoxification magic on myself as well. For my peace of mind, I also cast an arrow warding spell.
Whenever something approached at high speed, the spell would unleash shockwaves of mana to divert the approaching object. It functioned similarly to how reactive armor did back on earth. However it burned a lot of mana and was only good for stopping a single bolt so I couldn't rely on it for much. Depending on the speed and angle of the arrow, it might not even deflect it at all. Trusting it to save me wasn't a good idea.
Lastly, I cast sound dampening magic on myself. So long as it was active, I, along with things near me, ceased making noise. The downside was that I couldn't cast any spells that required a verbal incantation, but I rarely used such spells to begin with. Once I'd completed my preparations, I waited for our assailants to appear.
After a few minutes, the door was kicked open. In order to protect the documents stored within from sunlight, the place we'd holed up in had almost no windows. The few windows near the ceiling had all been boarded up with thick planks, and the storage room was pitch dark. Because of that, the assailants stopped to light a few torches before walking further into the room. Everything was going according to plan.
I scooted backward, hiding in the shadows. I'd asked Shatina to find me a dark, enclosed space. Preferably one with a complex layout. And this building fit the bill perfectly.
It was Zaria's library. The building was as large as a gymnasium, and tall bookshelves filled most of the space. The library's interior was more labyrinthine than the city streets. However, in this world that lacked advanced printing techniques, it should have been impossible for a poor city like Zaria to own this many books. The existence of this building was unnatural.
In truth, most of the books contained here were fake. While the shelves appeared to be packed, they were actually just disguises to hide secret rooms and cupboards. This library was actually an escape route made for Zaria's viceroys. It was also a convenient place to lure enemies to finish them off. This place was also known as Zaria's Fangs. Only the viceroys and their family knew the true nature of the library. Zaria's viceroys were known for being tight-lipped, and when they did open their mouths it was to reveal their fangs before devouring their foes.
Once the advance party confirmed there was no immediate threat, they signaled behind them and another group entered the building. They appeared to be ordinary traders and pilgrims, but no normal person would come here. I kept an eye on the entire room from atop a bookshelf, making sure to keep myself shrouded in darkness. The group of assassins split up and began their search. Because of how narrow the aisles were, they'd probably decided it wasn't a good idea to stick together.
Time to hunt. Hunting was, after all, a werewolf's specialty. Among the maze of shelves, there was only one route that didn't lead to a dead end. But that route was circuitous, so I decided to focus on killing the enemies closest to me before tackling the ones that had chanced on the correct path. Besides, if I left corpses on the fake paths, more enemies would be drawn toward them.
I silently dropped down behind a man who was dressed like a pilgrim. A second later I'd parted his head from his shoulders, and he crumpled soundlessly to the ground. The torch he'd been carrying was extinguished with his own blood. I then once again slipped into the shadows.
* * * *
—Shatina's Darkness—
Right now, I'm hiding in the darkness while being chased by a horde of assassins. Father, you were always so careful and cautious. Why did you have to die? I hate myself for being so weak that I cannot even get revenge on your killers. In fact, I'm being hounded by them right now. Not only do I have to hide, I'm stuck being protected by people I just met. I truly am pathetic.
Compared to me, the viceroy of Ryunheit, Lady Airia, is so much braver. Though the Senate calls her a traitor to Meraldia, she's a very sincere person. Not only that, even though she wears men's clothes and wields a saber, she looks so pretty.
When we'd been running around the city earlier, she hadn't hesitated at all. She'd even saved the werewolf from the demon army from assassins a few times. Is she used to fierce fighting?
Lady Airia must have noticed that I'm staring at her, since she gives me a smile.
"Don't worry, Lady Shatina. Everything will be alright."
"How... How can you be so sure?" I can't help but ask. Her smile grows wider and she replies, "Sir Veight is a very reliable man. He's strong, wise, and possesses a virtuous heart."
There's no hesitation or fear in her voice.
"But Lady Airia, even if he is a werewolf, there's too many..."
Before I can finish, Lady Airia puts a finger to her lips. I instantly fall silent, and Lady Airia covers our lamp. It seems our enemies have arrived. I'm about to draw my sword when I remember we need to stay quiet, and I stop. Now I wish I'd drawn it earlier.
We're hiding in a secret room hidden behind a bookshelf. I can hear people on the other side. The noises are faint, since they're professionals, but they can't erase the sounds they're making entirely. There's a faint swishing noise as one of them waves their hands. If we make even the slightest sound, they'll find us. I don't know how many of them there are, but I hope that werewolf general, Sir Veight, can handle them.
Overcome by worry, I look up at Lady Airia. But it's pitch black, and I can't see her face even though she's inches away from me. Suddenly, something soft envelops my palm. Lady Airia's holding my hand. I can feel the kindness in that gesture. Even though I only met her moments ago, I feel safe with her.
After a while, I notice something strange. I can't hear any sounds anymore. It's so quiet it hurts... No, that's not quite right. It's not quiet, my ears just can't pick up any sound. What's going on? I'm scared.
I try to stand up, but Lady Airia pushes me back down. There's still no sign that anyone's found the hidden entrance to this room. I suppose it would be wiser to remain here. After a while, sound returns to the world. I can hear the faint sounds of Lady Airia's breath and the rustling of clothes again. Lady Airia quietly gets to her feet and places her ear against the wall. A few seconds pass. She comes back and uncovers the lamp. Dim light illuminates the tiny room we're in.
"Sir Veight defeated the enemies near us. Let's keep hiding here for a while longer."
"O-Okay."
How is she able to trust Sir Veight so completely? Though I can't deny the only reason we're still alive is thanks to his efforts. Dozens of assassins came after us, but we're still safe. Now that I think about it, it's obvious he wasn't the one who assassinated my father. He really is an amazing person... or werewolf, I suppose. I'm sure someone with his abilities will be able to make the Senate pay for killing my father. I slump back down into my seat and look up at Lady Airia, who's smiling confidently.
* * * *
I chased after a pair of assassins who'd happened upon the correct route to the hidden room. They were dressed as merchants, but considering their speed and skill, they were obviously not merchants. Damn, that was a close one. By the time I reached them they were in front of the hidden room. While the bookshelf disguised its entrance pretty well, I still didn't want them anywhere close to it.
I jumped down and crushed the first assassin's skull and collarbone with a dropkick. Enveloped in my silence magic, he fell soundlessly to the ground. However, his companion sensed something was off, and turned around. Before he could even register what he was seeing, I sliced his head off.
Around the time I'd finished off half of the assassins, they finally realized that there was someone attacking them. However, it seems they'd expected retaliation, as they weren't surprised even when they found their comrades' corpses. Rather than panic, they simply called in the men they'd stationed outside on standby. From the looks of it, they were planning on overwhelming us with numbers. They reorganized into small squads and began verbally signaling each other. It looked like they'd abandoned stealth and were relying entirely on their numerical superiority.
Unfortunately for them, this was a cramped place. Whenever a group found a dead end and attempted to backtrack, they had to shuffle around. And at that moment, they were vulnerable.
"Squad five reporting! It's another dead end!"
"Squad two here! We've discovered Yajim's squads' corpses! The werewolf got to them!"
"Squad three, come in! What's your status!?"
Every squad I attacked attempted to hail their comrades. But so long as I was in the vicinity, their screams were nullified. As time passed, the assassins began to panic.
"This is squad one! Are there any squads left alive!?"
"Squad six is still alive! We're looking for squad four's—"
Their voices cut off.
"Hey, what's wrong!? Hello!? Anyone there!?"
No matter how many times the first squad called out, there was no response. Nor would there be, since I'd just killed them all.
"A-At this rate we'll be wiped out! Retreat!"
"We can't, this mission is—"
The library went silent.
I hopped up onto one of the bookshelves and surveyed the carnage I'd caused. Forty-odd assassins lay in pools of their own blood. You reap what you sow. Despite that, I still prayed for the souls of these pawns of the Senate. I then put my ear to the wall and listened. As far as I could tell, there was no one inside the library or outside nearby. I returned to the hidden room where Airia and Shatina were waiting.
"We're the only living people left here. So for now, I think it's safe."
Shatina crawled out of the hidden passage and sucked in a deep breath.
"D-Does this mean... you killed them all!?"
"Yeah. Sorry I got your library drenched in blood."
"That's fine, it's just..."
Since becoming a werewolf I'd become pretty inured to gore, but this might have been too shocking a sight for a young girl. Shatina's expression grew grim and she hung her head.
"If I'd been as strong as you, I could have protected my father."
"You're overthinking things."
I guess my actions had left her shocked, but not in the way I was thinking. Rather than terrifying her, they'd made her frustrated at her own weakness. In some ways, her personality was rather extreme. Thinking about it, since she's a viceroy's daughter, she's probably seen a few corpses already anyway.
I heard a howl in the distance. That voice sounded like Fahn.
"Wh-What now?"
Shatina gave me a worried look.
"Don't worry, that's one of my comrades' howls. She's on her way here."
Thank God, Fahn should be able to help me figure out how to act around Shatina. And I'd be freed from escorting her and Airia.
"Veight, are you in here?"
Fahn stepped into the library a few minutes later. She was together with Pia, a young werewolf who was her squad partner. However, I didn't see Monza or her squad partner anywhere.
"Yeah, I'm with Lady Airia and Zaria's viceroy's daughter. Where's Monza?"
Fahn swept her gaze across the sea of corpses as she replied.
"She spotted a group of suspicious people leaving the city so she's tailing them. They were marking walls with circles or Xs, and that got her curious."
That definitely sounded like they were assassins. Locals would have the topography memorized.
"Those marks are probably to guide Meraldia's army when they come to invade. If we have the time, we should record them and erase them."
Fahn gave me a blank look, then clapped her hands together in realization.
"Oh, I get it. Humans can't just remember routes by their smell."
To be honest, I wasn't very good at that either. But other werewolves seemed to have no problems recording things via smell. According to Fahn, the group that had fled the city had consisted of maybe ten people at most. I turned to Pia and said, "Let the rest of the werewolves into the city. We can't move from here as long as there are still assassins around, so have all the squad leaders secure the area."
"Aye-aye, sir!"
Until the city was safe, I had no intention of leaving the library. Though I was worried about sending Pia off on her own, I needed Fahn to help guard Shatina and Airia. I couldn't guarantee their safety on my own.
After Pia left, Fahn took up a lookout position at the entrance. Thanks to that, I could finally talk to Shatina uninterrupted.
"Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am the Demon Lord Gomoviroa's Vice-Commander, Veight. I'd wished to meet with Lord Melgio, so it's a shame he passed away. You have my condolences."
Shatina responded in kind, and gave a formal introduction.
"My name is Shatina Stahl, daughter of Melgio Yewm Stahl. My father..."
Shatina tried to keep herself together, but when she mentioned the word father she broke down and started crying. She covered her face with her hands and slumped to her knees.
"F-Father... Why... Why did this happen..."
She kept bawling for a few minutes. If I recall correctly, she has no other family. Not only did she lose her only parent, now she has to bear the burden of Zaria's future. I don't blame her for crying. I looked over at Airia and saw her wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. She must be remembering the time her own dad died. Like Shatina, Airia had been forced to become viceroy after her father's sudden death. Airia squatted down next to Shatina and gently laid her hands on Shatina's shoulders.
"Lady Shatina, we are your allies. If there's anything I can do to help, just ask."
Still crying, Shatina nodded a few times. She was still in her mid-teens. While she'd be considered an adult in this society, that was still far too young to bear such a heavy burden. After she'd cried her heart out, Shatina muttered, "Father always used to say that Zaria was stuck in a difficult position. He wanted to improve the city's defenses, but he knew doing so would earn the Senate's wrath."
Airia nodded and rubbed Shatina's shoulders.
"The north sees Zaria as a dagger pressed against their throats. Lord Melgio did well to protect the city until now."
The cities closer to Meraldia's northern section, Bernheinen, Thuvan, Zaria, and Veira, had always been worried about their relationship with the Senate. Bernheinen had tried to pass itself off as a harmless city which only preserved old relics, while Thuvan had developed its industry and sold its tools to the north. Veira did something similar, and sold its exceptionally high-quality handicrafts to the north and built economic and cultural ties with the north's residents.
However, Zaria had been devastated by the unification war, which had hampered its development. Merchants didn't want to do business in a city without walls, and the area around it was too barren to harvest resources from. But because it had fought the hardest during the unification war, the north was wary of it. I could imagine just how precarious a position Zaria's viceroy must have been in.
As I was trying to figure out how to console Shatina, Monza popped into the library.
"Is the boss here?"
"Yeah. Everyone's safe too."
To my surprise, Monza sounded nervous.
"Boss, we've got bad news. When I was trailing those guys who ran, I spotted a huge army heading to Zaria."
"What!?"
"Oh, but don't worry. I wiped out all those assassins before they made it back to their army."
Monza flashed me a wicked grin. I knew I could count on the werewolves' best hunter. If the assassins were heading toward the army, it meant that force was under the direct control of the Senate. During wartime, Meraldia could conscript the garrison or militia into the regular army, at any time, and place them under their chain of command.
"They have about two thousand infantry, of which half are spearmen and bowmen. And they've brought about seven or eight catapults disguised as wagons."
"Did you say they brought catapults!?" Shatina screamed. "What do they intend to do with those!?"
Monza shrugged in response.
"I'm guessing they think your tall brick buildings won't be too hard to smash with catapults."
As all of the upper floors of Zaria's buildings were made with baked bricks, they weren't very sturdy. Even the famed city of labyrinths stood no chance against the power engineering and physics. I smacked Monza's head, admonishing her.
"Don't be rude. But you're right, they're likely after Zaria. It's not like catapults would be any use against werewolves."
Shatina already knew it was the Senate who had assassinated Zaria's viceroy. So now it was only a matter of time before Zaria left the Meraldian Federation. Since none of the assassins had returned to the army Meraldia had stationed outside, the Senate was probably aware that their covert operation had failed. Which was why they were planning on launching a preemptive strike against Zaria before the city could rally. While their tactics were a little sloppy, it was clear they'd been planning this for a while now. It was for this reason they hadn't let Zaria rebuild its walls, after all. Even without a watertight strategy, they had more than enough firepower to take down the city. Airia's expression grew grave.
"We don't have enough soldiers to fend off two thousand men. Zaria's garrison is exhausted from eliminating the traitors in its midst, and it's possible Meraldia still has a few spies in the city."
"All I brought with me were my werewolves. Two thousand is more than we can handle."
The army was practically at Zaria's gates. While there were 500 kentauros stationed in nearby Thuvan, they wouldn't make it in time. Nor was 500 enough to handle an army this size. And while undead soldiers were perfect for defending cities, their slow speed made them unsuited as reinforcements. Shatina bit her lip in frustration.
"If only we could do something about the catapults, Zaria could withstand an assault from just two thousand soldiers."
Uhh, I know your maze is good and all, but I don't think even the labyrinth city can handle 2,000 professional soldiers. However, Shatina had a point. Removing those catapults was of paramount importance. While my werewolves might be able to hold the streets, they wouldn't last long if catapults were bombarding the nearby buildings. I put a hand to my chin and weighed my options.
"Alright, send a request for reinforcements to Ryunheit, Thuvan, and Shardier. Until then, we'll have to hold out on our own."
Airia turned toward to me in surprise.
"Do you have a plan to survive that long?"
"Yeah. I'll be heading out for a bit."
"Huh?"
Airia, Shatina, Fahn, and Monza all gave me an incredulous look. A moment later, Airia shouted, "Someone, stop him!"
"On it!"
"Gotcha!"
Fahn and Monza grabbed me by the shoulders and held me in place. Shatina watched them both with a confused look on her face.
"U-Umm, Lady Airia, what are you doing?"
Airia replied in a threatening voice, "I'm aware that you've achieved more heroic feats on the battlefield than any of us can count, Sir Veight, but without fail, you've recklessly put yourself in mortal danger each time. So I'm restraining you."
Now that's just not fair.
"Name one time I acted recklessly, Lady Airia."
"Every single battle so far!" Fahn, Monza, and Airia yelled simultaneously. I still didn't buy it, but now wasn't the time to be arguing.
"It's fine, I promise I won't do anything dangerous this time."
"You say that every time, too."
Fahn was pretty tough, and with her pinning me down I couldn't escape.
"Just calm down and listen. I'm one of Demon Lord Gomoviroa's best disciples, and have learned many of her secret spells. So long as I use deflection magic, I should be able to repel the catapult shots. I'll buy us some time, so evacuate the citizens. I promise I won't be in any danger."
Frowning suspiciously, Monza brought her face close to mine. Holy crap, that's way too close.
"You mean it?"
"I mean it."
I didn't mean it. The most deflection magic could repel were crossbow bolts. It was practically useless against large stones. But right now, I needed to convince everyone to let me go.
"We don't have much time. Shatina, get me the most impressive-looking Zarian outfit you have. Also, some food."
"D-Did you say food?"
There was more I needed to prepare, so I didn't have time to explain.
"Also, have the werewolves congregate on the northern buildings' rooftops in squads once they've finished securing the city."
This time Fahn gave me a confused look.
"What's the point of putting us on the rooftops? We can't fight from there."
"Don't worry about it. Oh yeah, it doesn't matter if it belongs to Zaria or the demon army, but hoist every single flag you can find."
Looks like things are about to get busy.
I returned to the viceroy's manor and scarfed down every dish Shatina brought me. While it looked like I was slacking, that wasn't the case at all. I was planning on sortieing alone for the upcoming conflict. Once I headed to the battlefield, I wouldn't be able to refuel until this fight was over. While I could replenish my stamina using magic, that didn't change one fundamental fact: Both stamina regeneration and healing required nutrients.
If I didn't have enough proteins in my body, regenerative magic wouldn't be as effective. And if I ran out of carbohydrates, my strengthening magic would wear off faster. Which meant I needed to store as many calories as possible while I still had the chance.
One of Shatina's attendants timidly brought be a whole roast sheep, and I wolfed it down in seconds. Meat was the best source of protein. Of course, I made sure to get in plenty of fruit too. Sugar was just as important. Next up the servants brought me some kind of bean paste. No clue what's in it, but it looks like it's got protein. Pastes were also easy for the body to digest. But this still wasn't enough. I needed more.
"What's this?"
I pointed to a strange white lump, and Shatina's servant jumped with a start.
"I-It's goat cheese, milord."
Goat cheese? That's got protein and calcium! Perfect! Calcium would come in handy if I broke any bones.
"Works for me. Bring me more."
"Y-Yes, milord."
While I was busy preparing for the harsh battle to come, the others apparently had the free time to gossip about me.
"What's the boss doing? The enemy's gonna reach us any minute now."
"He said he's stocking up on energy before the fight."
"That's way too much to just be 'stocking up.'"
Vodd smiled gently at the other werewolves.
"We've only got two thousand men to kill. All you need to prepare for a skirmish like that is a hearty meal. If anything, it's reassuring to see young'uns these days still have an appetite."
"Only two thousand?"
"Well I guess compared to crushing the Hero, two thousand soldiers is nothing."
"You said it."
Stop just making up whatever explanations you feel like! Thanks to their muttering, the servant felt compelled to bring me alcohol too.
"W-Would you like some grape liquor or pear liqueur, milord?"
So they've got wine, huh? While alcohol was dense in carbohydrates, I didn't want to tax my liver right now. It'd be a waste of the strengthening magic I'd already cast on it. So I politely declined the servant's offer.
"Thank you, but I'll refrain from now. I'll enjoy it later, after the battle's over."
"U-Understood."
As the servant backed away, the other werewolves once again came up with outlandish reasons for my refusal.
"I can't believe it, Veight plans to end this in one go."
"Knowing the boss, he might take down all two thousand humans by himself."
Seriously, guys, that's not it! No one understands my suffering.
Once I was done eating, I borrowed Shatina's father's armor and cape. The cape had Zaria's crest embroidered into it, so it served as a symbol of the viceroy's status. Honestly, I wasn't sure I deserved to borrow something this important.
"Are you sure I can wear this Shatina? Isn't it important to you?"
Shatina gave me a determined look and said, "I want you to get revenge for my father while wearing his crest. Show those cold-hearted men of Meraldia Zaria's pride and anger."
"Well if that's what you want, then I'll strike fear into those Meraldian mongrels' hearts!" I said without thinking. I regretted a second later as I realized how much more pressure that put on me.
After I finished my preparations I went out to the wasteland north of the city and started stretching. As I stretched, I methodically applied strengthening magic to my muscles. Each muscle possessed different amounts of stamina and force, so I needed to customize the amount of mana I applied to each. While strengthening myself this way took much longer than just applying strengthening wholesale to large swathes of my body, it lowered the strain on my joints and bones, and also reduced the amount of stamina I consumed while fighting. I never thought health class and all those biology documentaries I watched back on Earth would come in handy here. Lend me your strength, soleus muscle, trapezius muscle.
Before long, I spotted Meraldia's army crest on the faraway hills. At a glance, they certainly did seem 2,000 strong. And while 2,000 seemed a daunting number, it was easier to visualize if I just imagined them filling twenty 100-person-capacity storage rooms. In truth, all 2,000 of them barely filled one corner of the wasteland.
Trailing behind the soldiers was a small group of huge, lumbering wagons. I could see pieces of wood sticking out from them. It seemed they brought the catapults in parts that were easily assembled on-site. The catapults of this world were all loaded using manpower and used ropes to launch their arms. Back on Earth these would be classified as man... What was the word again? Mandrills? Mandarins? No, that doesn't sound quite right.
At any rate, they were similar to that form of catapult. I'd seen similar designs in classic war games. Since these were designed to be built on-site, they weren't very mobile once assembled. If they were erected on the wrong spot, they became effectively useless. And if one wanted to take it down and rebuild it somewhere else, they had to reload all the parts into wagons and move to the new site, all while taking enemy fire. In general, it was more trouble than it was worth. Of course, all of this knowledge was something I learned from a game, so it might have been wrong, but from what I could tell this world's catapults weren't too different from medieval Earth's.
I was hoping to take advantage of those catapults' weakness. Now then, let the battle begin. I think I'll make use of the rumors you've been spreading about me, Meraldia.
"Veight, the Killer of four hundred!"
"Veight the Destroyer!"
"The Bane of Schverm!"
"The werewolf who ripped apart the Hero!"
"The Demon Lord's right-hand man!"
"The Terror of the Seas!"
Those were all the nicknames I'd heard other people refer to me by. Each and every one of them sounded terrifying. Which meant that once the advancing Meraldian army realized I was here, they'd hesitate. Meaning just standing here was already a somewhat effective strategy. My primary goal was to prevent the catapults from getting too close. If I forced Meraldia to deploy them far away, they'd be useless.
While I imagined the infantry had been brought to occupy Zaria, they'd likely stick to defending the catapults at first. None of them wanted to die in the infamous labyrinth city. Chances were they'd hold off on the main assault until the city was in ruins. In which case, if I pulled this off, I'd be able to keep the entire army at bay for a while longer. Of course, our opponents were no fools; I'd need more than just my infamy to keep them from closing in.
In order to confuse them, I cast the Phantom Mist spell I'd prepared beforehand. This was a spell that combined illusion magic and strengthening magic, and summoned a fog around the caster. The fog's primary purpose was to make its caster difficult to see, and thus difficult to target with ranged attacks. That alone would be vital for the upcoming battle, but that wasn't the reason I cast it.
For whatever reason, whenever I cast this spell, it wreathed me in illusory flames instead of a fog. While the fake fire did a decent job of hiding me as well, it was far too flashy to be as effective as fog would. According to Master, the reason I summoned flames instead of fog was because I was still inexperienced with illusion magic. Though it irked me, she was probably right.
Still, I was grateful for my defective version of the spell right now. Because now, the Meraldian army was staring down a jet-black werewolf clad in a viceroy's armor and surrounded by purple flames. I looked like an evil overlord. My appearance, combined with my reputation, should be enough to scare Meraldia's troops a little. Honestly, when I'd tested this spell out in front of the mirror I'd terrified even myself, so there was no doubt it'd work on humans. Though it was possible they wouldn't be as scared because of how far away they were. Two thousand troops was a terrifying number to face on your own, but if I could scare them even more than they scared me, it'd be my win. This was a game of chicken.
Steeling my resolve, I poured mana into my vocal cords. I was using strengthening magic that amplified my voice. Once I'd boosted my voice to max volume, I said in the most villainous voice I could muster, "Bwahahahaha! What are those pathetic toys you've brought with you? Do you really believe you can conquer the great labyrinth city of Zaria with such trifles? Especially knowing that it is under my, the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander Veight's, protection?"
The Meraldian army halted their advance, their formation wavering. I'd shaken them more than I'd expected. Maybe their morale wasn't all that high to begin with? A gust of wind caused my cape to flutter imposingly, and I sneered at the terrified soldiers.
"Dogs of the Senate, you made a mistake in coming here!"
My magically enhanced hearing picked up a few cries of "Shut up, demon!" and "So what if you've killed four thousand!?" From this distance, even my enhanced hearing could only pick up shouts, so if they were muttering other things, I couldn't tell. So I've been upgraded from killer of 400 to killer of 4,000? You guys really need to stop upping the numbers every time. But since they were kind enough to exaggerate my achievements, I decided to roll with it.
"Do you truly believe a mere two thousand soldiers are a match for my power? Foolish mortals!"
Though I sounded confident, I was inwardly terrified they'd start lobbing arrows at me any minute. While I had cast deflection magic on myself, if they fired an entire volley I'd need to guard with more than that. Fortunately, no one shot at me. Guess I should keep going for as long as I can.
"You curs have neither strength, nor cause! You are nothing more than maggots crawling through the dirt!"
In response I heard a few shouts of "Our cause is justice!" and "Don't listen to him! We came here to liberate Zaria!" I wasn't certain, but it sounded like the commanding officers who were shouting back. Oh don't worry, I'm not done yet.
"Listen well! Your cowardly Senate assassinated Zaria's viceroy, the noble Lord Melgio! Not only that, they even attempted to assassinate his daughter, the young Lady Shatina! Your treachery will not go unpunished!"
My voice grew louder as anger welled up within me. This wasn't part of the act anymore, I really was going to make these bastards pay for what they'd done. My words seemed to cause a stir among Meraldia's troops.
"It can't be!"
"The Senate assassinated Zaria's viceroy!?"
"Commander, is this true!?"
I'd expected that reaction. There was no way the Senate would have told their rank and file soldiers what dirty deeds they'd ordered behind the scenes. Once the soldiers realized their cause wasn't just, their morale would plummet. Which was why I needed to take advantage of this opportunity.
"You refuse to believe me? Very well then, perhaps you will believe Lady Shatina!"
Shatina stood up on the roof of a nearby building and shouted at the top of her lungs. I'd cast the same vocal chord strengthening magic on her earlier, so it carried loud and clear.
"I am Shatina Stahl, daughter of Zaria's viceroy, Melgio Yewm Stahl! Sir Veight spoke true! The loyal viceroy of Zaria, Lord Melgio, died at the hands of Senate assassins!"
Most of the soldiers should have been able to tell that that was Shatina's voice. As the daughter of a viceroy, she'd often made public appearances to strengthen her and her father's position.
She continued her speech, her voice trembling with anger, "My father devoted his life to bringing peace and prosperity to Meraldia, and he was rewarded with an assassin's dagger! I will never forget this injustice for as long as I live! I swear here and now to eradicate every last one of you northerners! Your souls will be my offering to my late father!"
I get that you're mad, but you really shouldn't swear vengeance on an entire people. If Shatina was planning on inheriting the position of viceroy, she'd need to learn to act with prudence. I'll give her a lecture on that later. For now, let's see what else she's got to say.
"As my father's successor, I hereby declare independence from the Meraldian Federation! From this moment forth, Zaria will be allied with the demon army! Together with the Vice-Commander Veight, the demon army's strongest general, I shall massacre you all!"
Though she was Melgio's daughter, naming herself his successor without the Senate's permission was an act of treason. Declaring independence on top of that was paramount to a proclamation of war. The fact that she was willing to go that far proved just how angry she was. But at this rate, there was no telling what she'd say next. I'd really prefer it if she stopped there. Fortunately, it seemed my prayers were heard, as Shatina said nothing more. She was a real handful, that girl. Now then, it's my turn.
"Cowardly dogs of the Senate, prepare to die! Even if you beg for mercy I will not spare a single one of you!"
More like, I wouldn't even hear you if you beg for mercy. Even now, I was preparing to flee. Despite all my big talk, 2,000 men was way more than I could handle alone. Fortunately, it seemed Shatina's speech had been effective. The Meraldian soldiers were wavering. As I'd suspected, their morale hadn't been too high to begin with.
In truth, I'd had good reason to believe this army hadn't been too eager to fight. Complex pieces of machinery such as assemblable catapults needed skilled engineers to operate them. Scholars versed in construction and ballistics. Of course, those weren't formal fields of study in this world, so that knowledge was passed down between craftsmen, but the point remained. The engineers in charge of these catapults weren't fighters. Since the Meraldian Unification War, siege weapons hadn't been used at all, so while men were technically soldiers, they had no combat experience.
Naturally, they held drills and occasionally did demonstrations during military parades, but that was all. Being hit with the brunt of Shatina's righteous anger was more than enough to rattle them, regardless of whether or not they believed her.
Though the engineers in charge of the catapults remained rooted in place, the archers began to advance. For them, their superiors' orders were more important than whether or not their cause was just. These guys were professionals. Mere words wouldn't faze them. I strained my ears, waiting for the command to open fire. Archer squads were trained to fire in unison, so I only needed to draw out my full strength the moment they loosed.
"Fire!"
The moment I heard that word I cast all of the strengthening magic at my disposal on myself. I raised my perception and reflexes to the maximum while hardening my fur as much as possible.
A torrent of arrows descended upon me. Because of how far I was from the archers, they'd had to angle their shots upwards to reach me. But while firing at an angle increased an archer's range, it decreased their accuracy. Only a tiny fraction of the archers' volley actually reached me.
"Futile!" I shouted, and swept aside the few arrows headed for me. A werewolf's kinetic vision could easily track an arrow in flight, especially when it had been shot at an angle. But while I'd weathered the first wave, the archers weren't done. They launched a second, which I desperately fended off as well. Arrows were a werewolf's worst nightmare.
"Bwahahaha! Shoot all you wish, but you won't be able to hurt me!"
For all my grandstanding, I knew if they kept this up I'd be in trouble. Fortunately, seeing me weather two volleys unscathed had shaken the archers. They stopped firing. In the lull that followed I surveyed my surroundings. The Earth around me had been turned into a pincushion. Archers were most effective when they were raining arrows into a large force. In that respect, these archers were quite skilled. However, none of them were trained in sniping a lone werewolf at the very edge of their effective range.
Terrified of me, the archers retreated. Going by standard theory the spearmen should have charged next, but they didn't. They seemed rather wary. Not of me, but of the city behind me.
Because of how tall all of Zaria's buildings were, their rooftops made for perfect platforms to position archers on. I was standing only a hundred or so meters in front of Zaria's northernmost buildings. More than close enough for the archers standing atop them to cover me if the spearmen charged.
On the other hand, Meraldia's archers would need to get past me in order to reach the rooftops with their arrows. Naturally, that was impossible. Which meant if the spearmen charged now, they'd be running headlong into a hail of arrows without any supporting fire to cover them. On top of that, they'd still have to contend with me. That wasn't the kind of situation they were eager to throw themselves into.
In truth, Zaria had few troops left in fighting condition. But since we'd killed all of the assassins, the Meraldian army didn't know that. In the following silence, I was able to make out the voices of soldiers arguing with each other. Though I couldn't make out all of the words, it seemed the commanders of the spearmen, the archers, and the engineers were quarreling. My guess was the spearmen's commander was angry that the engineers hadn't started bombarding the city like they were supposed to. In my infinite benevolence, I decided to wait for them to finish bickering.
Finally, the spearmen got into formation and held up their shields. That wasn't a charging formation, but a defensive one. Archers covered them on both flanks, ready to intercept any attack. Behind them, the engineers started unloading their wagons and began assembling the catapults.
The engineers were setting up the catapults quite far from the city. While at that distance Zaria's archers couldn't reach them, their own catapults would barely be in range. If they used lighter stones they might just manage to hit Zaria's northernmost buildings. Perfect, just what I was hoping you'd do.
From the looks of it, assembling the catapults would take more time than I'd initially expected. The engineers needed to drive stakes into the ground and fix various pieces in place. Wait, don't tell me this is going to take another hour... The longer they took the better it was for us, but I was beginning to get a little bored. Ah well, maybe I'll provoke them some more. Now that they'd decided on the location of their catapults, the Meraldian army couldn't move until they were built. So I'd be fine no matter what I said. Probably.
"Puny humans. I suggest you do not keep me waiting."
I was just spouting whatever clichéd lines came to mind, but the moment I said that, the spearmen instantly leveled their spearheads at me. It seemed they really thought I might charge them alone. I couldn't help but laugh at their excessive caution.
"Hahaha..."
Crap, I'm still using voice amplification magic. However, it seemed the soldiers interpreted my chuckling as derisive laughter. The spearmen faltered, and their commander started shouting at them, telling them about how high the bounty was on my head, and how proud Meraldian warriors didn't flinch in the face of the enemy. But no matter what he said, no one stepped forward. At this point the soldiers doubted the Senate would even pay a bounty, considering they'd ordered the assassination of a viceroy. And of course, there was nothing to be proud of in serving an employer who would do something like that.
To my surprise, the engineers finished assembling the catapults faster than I expected. As they began loading stones into the baskets, I thought back to the time I'd been launched by a catapult. Thanks to that experience, I had a better grasp of ballistics now. I'm sure I can handle a few catapults no problem.
There were eight catapults in total, and it took two hundred men to operate them. Because of the huge distance between them and their target, the engineers could only load the catapults with light stones. Heavier ones wouldn't reach the buildings.
The head engineer gave the order, and the eight catapults launched their payload. Or rather, seven of them did. One of them appeared to have misfired. That one's stone flew only a short distance through the air before landing among the infantry. I knew it, these guys are inexperienced. Stopping shots like these'll be a piece of cake.
I backed up a few steps and observed the trajectory of the incoming stones. From what I could tell, five wouldn't even reach Zaria. Of the remaining two, I decided to deal with the one with the more accurate trajectory first. Using my magic-enhanced muscles, I jumped as high as I could. A normal werewolf could easily jump three stories high. With my magic, I jumped higher than a five-story building.
I soared through the air, heading straight for the rock. While it would be cool to punch right through the stone, that would also hurt. All I needed to do was make sure the stone didn't hit any buildings, so I decided to knock it to the ground instead. I put my weight behind a powerful roundhouse kick and knocked the stone away. You're not reaching Zaria on my watch.
I landed elegantly, striking a pose as I did so. I kinda feel like I've become an action game character. Anyway, time for some more taunts.
"Is this the best human weaponry can do? Pathetic."
In response, the engineers fired a second wave of stones. This time only four catapults fired. It appeared they were planning on launching alternating shots, four at a time. This volley was more accurate than the last. But the stones were also lighter than before. I could tell because their trajectories were different.
However, I only needed to stop any shots that would reach any of the buildings' upper floors. Because it was only the upper stories that were made of brittle brick. All of the buildings' lower floors were made of sturdy stone. Both so they could support the upper floors, and so that they wouldn't get damaged during any fighting that occurred in the city. They wouldn't break easily.
I leapt into the air and caught another stone, which I summarily threw onto the ground. The rest wouldn't hit anything fragile, so I left them alone. I know I'm buffing myself with magic, but this is still easier than I thought it'd be. Perhaps I was being a little overconfident, but this was easy as playing catch. The stones Meraldia had fired this time were about as light as Airia. As for how many kilograms that was, I tried not to think about it, for her sake. Whoops, almost forgot to throw in some more taunts.
"Do you truly believe such puny pebbles will be able to topple the legendary city of Zaria?"
Naturally, the only response was a third wave of stones. These guys sure are persistent. Fortunately, I was getting better at reading trajectories with each successive wave.
While a catapult had a lot of power, it wasn't stronger than a werewolf buffed with strengthening magic. You know, if I used both legs I might be able to kick these back at the enemy instead of straight down. I raised both feet and kicked diagonally down at the next stone I needed to deflect, executing a perfect dropkick. A dropkick was the best choice to utilize all the strength in my muscles. As I applied pressure on the stone I also cast another strengthening spell, Power Burst. This spell momentarily raised my strength exponentially, but because its duration was so short, it was difficult to utilize effectively in a fight.
"You can have this one back!"
My boosted dropkick sent the stone flying back to the Meraldian army. Please reach... I somersaulted backwards to absorb the recoil of my kick and landed on my feet. The stone I'd kicked away crashed among the spearmen's front ranks. Men shouted in surprise and the unit's formation grew disordered.
It seemed no one had been careless enough to get hit, but the spearmen seemed to be yelling something still. From what I could make it out, it seemed they were telling the engineers to stop firing. First they wanted the catapults firing, now they didn't. Those spearmen sure were a temperamental bunch. Of course, I had no intention of letting this chance slip past.
"Is this the extent of your power? Your pathetic display has left my warriors bored!"
I raised a fist, and the werewolves I'd had hide on the roofs all rose to their feet. At least, I hoped they did. I couldn't see, since I was facing away from them, but I imagined they did as we'd rehearsed. Like me, they were all wearing capes with Zaria's emblem emblazoned on them.
If it came down to it, I'd planned on having them throw those capes at the oncoming rocks to deflect them. Most of Zaria's citizens had evacuated to the lower floors of the southern buildings. If any stones had managed to fly that far, my werewolves would have needed to stop them with those capes. But since they hadn't, they were wearing them instead. Thanks to that, they looked even more imposing than usual. After the werewolves rose, Zaria's soldiers raised all of the flags Shatina had been able to find. Smiling confidently, I shouted, "Come, throw as many stones as you wish. But once you've had your fun, know that it will be our turn. When that time comes, I hope you're as willing to provide us your flesh as you are your stone. Mwahahahaha!"
It was true that werewolves loved flesh. But we preferred our meat drained of blood and properly cooked, not raw.
In the end, the Meraldian army decided to stop firing their catapults. I kind of wish they'd fired another wave. I would've made sure to hit someone with the next stone I deflected. Well, I guess that's exactly why they stopped. But now the Meraldian army was out of options. Because they'd set up their catapults too far back, they were of little use. And even if their shots did reach the city, I'd just send them right back. However, invading the city while it was still intact would lead to massive casualties. In truth, the Meraldian army still held an overwhelming advantage, but they didn't realize that.
The soldiers' formation began to break down. The archers on the flanks started to back away. While the spearmen were still holding their ground, their shields were trembling. And while they maintained formation, they were clearly beginning to panic.
"We marched toward Zaria, and as ordered attempted to wear down the city with stones and arrows before invading. However, our strategy was rendered ineffective because one of the demon army's werewolves repelled our ranged attacks. Due to that, we deemed the plan a failure and judged it impossible to successfully conquer Zaria."
If the soldiers gave a report of that nature to the Senate, they likely wouldn't be punished for their failure. And it was for that reason I believed they'd retreat. Most of the rank and file soldiers were already on the verge of deserting. Though their commanders were shouting at them to show some grit, it was too late. Finally, one of the officers seemed to get fed up with his men, and rode out alone toward Zaria. He was a knight clad in thick armor, and he had a massive greatsword strapped to his back.
"Whoa, look at that sword! Could he be—"
"It's Sir Volsaav! The great demon hunter!"
Judging by the excited shouts coming from the Meraldian soldiers, this guy was famous. The knight unsheathed his greatsword and lifted it high above his head.
"My name is Volsaav, Hundred-Man-Commander of the Meraldian regular army!"
That's not really an impressive rank... Most of the army's higher-ranked generals were wizened old men, so the only people you saw demanding single combat were middle-ranking officers like these.
"Don't, you'll only be throwing your life away."
I'd planned to mutter that under my breath, but I ended up saying it loud enough for everyone to hear. I'm pretty sure there's a way to temporarily turn off my voice amplification, but I can't remember it anymore. Volsaav's face was covered by his helmet so I couldn't make out his expression, but his tone was furious.
"You mongrel, who do you think I am!? I'm Volsaav the Boar Slayer!"
"Never heard of you..."
That wasn't meant to be an insult. I just really hadn't heard of him. I wasn't very good at conversing with humans I didn't know, so I decided to appeal to the whole army instead.
"If this is the strongest warrior you have, you might want to send a few more people to fight me."
"How dare you! I am the Master Fencer Volsaav, the man who placed first in both Wilheim and Aryoug's tourneys! Even you ignorant southern savages must have heard of me!"
I mean there's no internet or TV here, so it's kind of hard for news to spread. This guy looked like he wouldn't quit no matter how many times I told him I didn't know him, so I decided to change the topic.
"Foolish human, you've grown drunk on your meager successes. But you have no hope of besting me. Go home."
Volsaav really would just be throwing his life away if he fought me, so I'd prefer it if he gave up. Unfortunately, I still had to keep up the merciless werewolf act, so my warning came out more as a taunt. As I feared, Volsaav didn't like that. He dismounted his horse and held his sword close to his chest.
"As a soldier of Meraldia, I challenge you to a duel!"
Honestly, I didn't want to fight him, but I was a demon army general. I couldn't refuse. However, I could try warning him one last time.
"Do you believe yourself more powerful than a catapult?"
"Wha!?"
I was trying to subtly hint that he should reconsider, but thanks to the persona I was acting out, my message didn't get across. Enraged, Volsaav charged forward.
"My sword has cleaved wildeboars in two, a werewolf like you is no match for it! Die!"
Werewolf children hunted wildeboars for fun, the two weren't even comparable. While it was impressive that a human had managed to defeat one with just a sword, that wouldn't be enough to take out a werewolf. That being said, I couldn't just ignore him. He'd challenged me to a duel in front of my men, and I was the commander of this battle. Mercy on the battlefield was a luxury I couldn't afford.
"Know that I did warn you."
I brushed aside Volsaav's swing and thrust my claws into his head. I punched through his helmet with ease, and chunks of it flew through the sky along with his flesh. I then ripped his head off, and Volsaav's corpse fell to the ground. The battlefield fell silent. Though he'd brought it upon himself, killing him still left a bad taste in my mouth.
"Who wishes to die next?"
I took a step forward and the line of spearmen took a step back. The Meraldian army's morale had hit rock bottom. Neither arrows nor stones had worked on me. And if the army tried to charge, they'd have to contend with both a hail of arrows, and my werewolves. The one knight with the courage to challenge me to a duel had been beheaded in one slice. Right now, the Meraldian soldiers were probably terrified.
In reality, if they pushed forward with their army of 2000, I'd be crushed in a heartbeat. However, the first few dozen men to attack me would, without a doubt, die. No one wanted to be part of that first wave. Not with morale the way it was. Of course, I was pretty scared of an army this big myself, but if I wanted to come out of this safely I needed to act brave. I flashed the soldiers a feral grin and howled, "I ask you again. Who wishes to die next?"
I continued marching forward, as if the mass of 2000 infantry didn't intimidate me at all. Seeing my reckless actions, my werewolves began howling.
"Oi, Veight, what the hell are you doing!?"
"Stop! Get back here right now, Veight!"
"The boss is trying to charge in alone, someone stop him!"
"Dammit, we've gotta follow him, guys!"
"Aye!"
My comrades cursed my foolishness as they reluctantly followed after me. But while I could tell what they were saying, humans couldn't understand the howls of werewolves. To the Meraldian army, it sounded like my men were eager for blood. My battalion of werewolves arrayed themselves behind me, their capes fluttering in the breeze.
"Boss, are you seriously planning on charging all of them!?"
"I know you're strong, Veight, but this is madness! We've gotta turn back!"
"Wait, look. The enemy's retreating!"
"How's this possible?"
God, you guys are so noisy.
"You guys, get back! It's too dangerous to come with me!"
Unfortunately, it seemed no one wanted to listen to me.
"If it's dangerous, then that's all the more reason we can't let you go alone, boss!"
"Hey Veight, didn't you just tell me you wouldn't charge in alone? Well?"
"When will you realize a commander can't just rush in recklessly like this!?"
"How many times do I have to tell you not to put yourself in danger!? I hope you're ready for a scolding when this is over!"
Me and my big mouth.
Fortunately, from Meraldia's perspective, it appeared as though a knot of 50 werewolves were howling battle cries as they steadily advanced. The soldiers' morale was already as low as it could get, and the thought of facing a battalion of werewolves terrified them.
"Th-These guys are monsters!" came a shout. That shout signaled the collapse of the Meraldian army.
"The devil of Ryunheit's coming for us! Run!"
"Th-This isn't what I signed up for!"
"As long as that monster's guarding the city, we can't capture it!"
The archers on the flanks slung their bows and started sprinting away from us. As for the engineers, they'd already abandoned their catapults and were running as fast as their legs would take them. At this point, there was no reason for the spearmen to hold their position. They no longer had ranged support to bolster their formation.
"Get back here you cowardly archers! Dammit! Drummer, signal the retreat! Have the spearmen fall back!"
The commander of the spearmen ordered a retreat, and the drummer beat out a steady rhythm. Now that an official order to retreat had been given, the spearmen had no reason to fight. They threw down their spears and shields and beat a hasty retreat. The faster they could run, the safer they'd be. Which was why they dumped all their heavy equipment like weapons and shields.
"Everyone, run! Now!"
"Retreat! Retreeeeat!"
"Waaaaaaah!"
The spearmen wearing full sets of armor started to panic. Even from this distance, I could tell they were way slower than their lightly armored counterparts. Hamaam walked over to me and casually asked, "Should we give chase, vice-commander?"
I smiled mischievously at him and replied, "There's no need to waste our energy. If we let them return alive, they'll spread more tales of our terrifying might."
"Understood."
I continued approaching the Meraldian troops at a brisk walk, and they scattered in every direction. Aren't you guys a little too scared of me? They were running away twice as fast as they'd marched here. After the last soldier vanished beyond the distant hills, I stopped and scratched my head.
"That was honestly kind of a letdown."
The werewolves around me grinned. Must be nice to be so easygoing. Had we actually fought, most of them would have died. It's only thanks to the fact that they ran that we ended this with zero casualties. I doubted we'd be so lucky next time, but at least I managed to buy us some time. It'd be a problem if they found their nerve and returned to fight, so I decided to make that a bit harder.
"Since the enemy was kind enough to gift us all these weapons, it'd be a waste to let them rot. Collect everything, including the catapults. Dismantle them and bring them into Zaria. If it turns out they're too hard to disassemble, smash them up."
"Leave the catapults to my squad, boss."
Jerrick the blacksmith walked up to me. All the people in his squad were either blacksmiths, stonemasons, or carpenters. They were definitely best-suited to handling machinery. In the meantime, I should probably bury that knight. Hm? Wait a second, I can feel some mana coming from his sword. It's not a lot, but his sword's definitely enchanted. Normally a mere hundred-man-commander shouldn't have had an enchanted sword. Curious, I decided to investigate.
Upon returning to Zaria, I gave back Shatina's father's armor.
"Your father's armor protected me. It was this armor that chased away Meraldia's forces."
I was exaggerating somewhat, but I wanted Shatina to feel proud. Seeing as tears were welling up in her eyes, my plan must have worked.
"Thank you, Sir Veight. I..."
She trailed off, at a loss for words. I could tell she was trying to say something proper and viceroy-like, so I gently patted her head.
"It's okay, you don't have to force yourself to act dignified."
Shatina hung her head, clutched her father's armor, and started sobbing.
Once she'd calmed down, we worked together with the city's garrison to complete the arduous task of rooting out all the spies hidden in Zaria. While the fake official I'd beaten up had told us everything he knew, it was possible there were other teams he hadn't informed us of. As I'd thought, we found a few other suspicious soldiers the official hadn't informed us about. We threw them all in jail and left interrogating them to the city's troops. While we were running about the city, someone snuck into the official's cell and poisoned him. My guess was one of his own comrades had killed him to keep him from spilling any more secrets. He deserved the death he got, but I wish I'd been able to interrogate him some more before he was killed.
"That traitor! He betrayed the trust my father placed in him when he appointed him to that post! I wish I'd been able to slit his throat with my own two hands!" Shatina shouted, her eyes burning with hatred. I quietly warned her, "I suspect he was working for the Senate to begin with, so in that respect, you can't exactly call him a traitor. Besides, you have more important matters to attend to than personally dispatching every single underling involved in your father's death. Don't forget, your real enemy is the Senate."
"Yet..."
"If you get too heated up, you'll only end up hurting yourself."
At that, my werewolves gave me an incredulous look.
"I don't think you've got any right to say that, boss..."
"You're the most hot-blooded soldier in the demon army."
"No one else charges enemy armies alone like that."
I turned back to Shatina with a rueful smile.
"See what I mean? This is what I get for being too hot-blooded. I work myself to the bone for these guys and they just complain."
At that, Shatina chuckled. She'd been looking down since the battle ended, so I was glad she was regaining her vigor. After she got her laughter under control Shatina glared reproachfully at me.
"Sir Veight, that was just mean."
"First I'm too hot-blooded, now I'm mean? I just can't catch a break, huh? No matter, right now we need to focus on restructuring Zaria's defenses."
Just as I said that, one of Zaria's soldiers ran up to Shatina.
"There's another army approaching us from the east, my lord! This one's comprised entirely of cavalry and is almost a thousand strong!"
"A thousand!?"
Shatina began to panic.
"Wh-What is their affiliation!?"
"They're flying Meraldia's flag, my lord!"
Shit, are we gonna have to fight another army? Before I could give out any orders, Airia returned and clarified the situation.
"It's true that they're flying Meraldia's flags, but the soldiers are also flying Shardier and Veira's flags as well. At least one portion of that army belongs to Shardier."
"I suppose that means Aram's negotiations were a success."
I was thinking of sending a scout to observe the situation for a while longer just in case, but then another messenger burst into the room.
"Veira's viceroy and Shardier's viceroy have sent reinforcements! Veira has sent us six hundred cavalry, while Shardier has brought two hundred horse archers!"
Looks like I won't have to play volleyball with another round of catapults after all.
I welcomed the allied Veira-Shardier army into Zaria without incident. With this, we were safe for now. Shatina and Airia were currently talking to the two viceroys who'd come with the army. I waited until the customary pleasantries and condolences were likely over with, then hurried over to the audience hall.
"My apologies for arriving late, ladies and gentlemen."
"It's been a long time, Sir Veight."
Aram didn't look too different from when I'd last seen him, but he had lost some weight. He must be having it rough. Veira's viceroy appeared to be a young man in his late twenties. He was both handsome and tall, and his intricately patterned armor complimented his figure. However, when he spoke, his voice surprised me.
"My, what a pleasure it is to make your acquaintance."
It sounded surprisingly feminine. But at the same time, there was a depth to his voice. He seemed unconcerned by my reaction and casually introduced himself.
"I am Forne Fom Foenheim, Viceroy of the city of beauty and craftsmanship, Veira. It is an honor to meet you."
There were so many fos in his name that all I heard was fofofo. Also, his speech style didn't match his appearance at all. A little put off, I nonetheless courteously returned his greeting.
"Nice to meet you. I am the Demon Lord Gomoviroa's Vice-Commander, Veight."
Now that the demon army has begun to interact more with humans, we decided that we would make the position of Demon Lord hereditary. For that reason, we'd begun referring to the Demon Lord as Demon Lord Gomoviroa when speaking about her to other people. In doing so, we reinforced the idea that even after she retired there'd be someone else after her to inherit the title. It was a message to other humans that no matter how many Demon Lords they killed, there'd always be another to take their place.
Fortunately, since the old Demon Lord had been quite secretive, we'd never publicly referred to him as Demon Lord Friedensrichter. Furthermore, he'd had almost no contact with humans. Thanks to that, most humans were unaware that a Demon Lord by the name of Friedensrichter had ever existed. Nor were they aware that the current Demon Lord had inherited her position. I was planning on eventually recording Friedensrichter's name in history books, but for now his existence was being kept secret.
That aside, this effeminate viceroy had quite the presence. However, it wasn't fair to judge him based on first impressions, and regardless courtesy was a virtue.
"It's an honor to meet the viceroy of the famous city of craftsmen. You have my deepest gratitude for coming to Zaria's aid."
Forne's expression clouded over when I mentioned Zaria.
"When Lord Aram told me that Lord Melgio was in peril, I rushed over as quickly as I could. However, I was unable to make it in time. You have my humblest apologies. 'Tis a shame Veira's beautiful honor guard missed their time to shine."
"This is an honor guard?"
From what I could tell, they were just regular knights. While it was true their equipment, from their armor to their harnesses, looked needlessly flashy, their weapons seemed anything but ceremonial. Furthermore, the troops looked seasoned. It was hard to believe they just stood and looked important all day. In fact, they seemed the best-equipped unit I'd seen out of any of the human armies. They were also the unit that best matched my mental image of medieval knights. Seeing my confusion, Aram smiled knowingly.
"Veira is only officially allowed a garrison of two hundred men, but they have recruited hundreds more by claiming the rest are a ceremonial honor guard. They sometimes hire out their extra forces to cities who need them."
And Meraldia lets them get away with that? Forne smiled and added, "By allowing Veira's elegant honor guard to perform parades at ceremonies, Meraldia can advertise their magnanimity. Furthermore, it is Veira which designs the Meraldian nobles' crests, mansions, and clothes."
I see now, they can't afford to anger Veira because of how important it is culturally. No wonder they let the city get away with having a few hundred extra soldiers. In the aftermath of the Meraldian Unification War, Veira opened its doors to all displaced artists and craftsmen, and offered them the workshops and studios they needed to do their work. As a result, famous craftsmen from every trade migrated to Veira after the war. Once he finished explaining all that, Forne smiled.
"While our proximity to the north means the threat of war is always looming, it also means we can attract capable personnel as well. At the very least, that was how the viceroy before last saw it."
Looks like Veira's citizens are pretty hardy too. I needed to make sure Forne understood us demons weren't just a hodgepodge of barbaric monsters.
"While the demon army is a coalition of demons, naturally we also value human culture and art. I would be glad if we could take this opportunity to learn about each other's customs."
Demon societies had plenty of culture of their own, like the canines' silverwork. I'm sure there's something humans can learn from our culture, too. Forne looked me over.
"I'd heard you were a butcher of a werewolf who'd slaughtered four hundred soldiers and ripped apart the Hero with your fangs. To be honest, I was expecting someone far more... ferocious. However, you're surprisingly agreeable, and handsome to boot."
Handsome? I was just a simple country boy who'd come from the forest. Forne paced around me in a circle, appraising my outfit and posture.
"Quite handsome indeed... Leaving your looks hidden behind obscurity would be an utter shame. You should make public appearances more often, as a way of advertising the demon army."
Who does this guy think he is, spouting all this crap? He barely even knows me! My feelings must have shown on my face as Forne smiled apologetically and waved his hand.
"Oh my, how rude of me. My apologies, my job is to sell works of art such as yourself, so whenever I find a worthy specimen, I tend to get ahead of myself."
I sarcastically bit back, "Is it also your job to tell plain-looking boring men that they're agreeable and handsome?"
Forne nodded with a grin.
"Yes, yes indeed! You'll make for a wonderful verbal sparring partner."
Nothing fazes this guy, huh?
"A skilled diplomat must be capable of selling not only art, but also talented personnel. Why do you think I converse in such an exaggerated manner? As the leader of the most artistic city on the continent, I must leave a lasting impression on those I meet, no?"
So it's like how a comedian creates a persona. Though I had a feeling his particular persona wasn't the best choice. Personally, when someone mentioned the words "effeminate man" I thought of those burly dudes who enjoyed cross-dressing and were far more intelligent than their appearance suggested. But in this world, it seemed no such stereotype existed. In a way, Forne seemed to have transcended gender. Either way, we were both men who were forced to create a persona because of our respective positions, so I felt a kinship with Forne.
"As a fellow leader, I understand your struggle."
"Ufufu, splendid." Forne nodded to himself a few times. "If the demon army is willing to help Veira grow and prosper, then naturally Veira is more than willing to do the same for the demon army. As the city's viceroy, I give you my solemn vow that we will repay kindness in kind."
"You have my gratitude. I will do everything in my power to assist Veira's growth and keep it and its culture safe."
Though, uhh, could you tone down the high-pitched laughter? I didn't bother asking him out loud since I knew he wouldn't though. Forne responded with a smile, but a second later his expression clouded over.
"However, I suppose this means Veira's art will only be appreciated by the southern half of the continent now."
Oh, you were worried about that?
"Oh no, you're free to continue exporting goods to the north even after declaring independence from Meraldia. My goal in allying with you is to protect your interests, not restrict them."
"Huh!? Are you certain!?"
"If Veira stops supplying goods to the north, one of the northern cities will inevitably rise up to take its place. If that happens, Veira's influence over the north will wane, and that would be bad for us as well."
If the north began developing its own culture, it would weaken the influence of Veira's. And that wasn't something the demon army wanted.
"The demon army wishes for Veira to remain the cultural center of all Meraldia. I know full well that sometimes art can be more powerful than swords."
Forne's eyes lit up in excitement.
"So you do understand! I see you are a man of culture as well! I am overjoyed that Veira's allies have such foresight!"
"Could you please let go of me?"
Being hugged by such a handsome and flamboyant man made me fear for my chastity. Yep, culture's scary, alright.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter36.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
* * * *
—The Senate's Clandestine Conversation—
"Let us begin this top secret meeting of Senate officials. Gentlemen, take your seats."
"How did the Zaria operation fare?"
"Melgio has been dealt with. I'm sure that stubborn fool is regretting his decisions in the afterlife."
"His daughter, Shatina, should be easy to control. Driving a wedge between her and the demon army will be no trouble at all."
"Pinning the assassination of Melgio onto the demon army should be an easy enough task."
"And if our assassins fail to effectively frame the demon army, then they simply have to erase Shatina as well. After all, it is the Senate who holds the power to appoint new viceroys. We have plenty of loyal puppets ready to take her place."
"However, isn't it possible that the citizens of Zaria might revolt and join the demon army?"
"It is, but we sent our army to the city to strengthen our hold on the city."
"The fortress city Vongang's catapults should have no trouble silencing Zaria's residents should they choose to revolt."
"Conquering a city that has no walls is child's play."
"Permission to take the floor? I've received a new report from the squad that infiltrated Zaria."
"Splendid. What have they done with Shatina?"
"It would appear... the demon army successfully protected her from our assassins, and she escaped with her life intact. After receiving that report, our scouts lost contact with the spies we planted in the city."
"What is the meaning of this!?"
"If she escaped, that means she is aware we orchestrated the attempt on her life."
"But we dispatched over a hundred assassins to the city! How could our scouts have lost contact with all of them!?"
"It's highly unlikely that they defected to the demon army. Meaning they were all..."
"Impossible!"
"Do not be so quick to dismiss the notion. The diplomat the demon army sent is that infamous werewolf."
"His name is Veight, correct?"
"That werewolf is a heinous monster."
"What are you all so afraid of? Our army has already departed for the city with catapults in tow. If Zaria has fallen into demon hands, we need simply raze it to the ground to set an example for the rest of the south."
"Will conquering the city truly prove so simple if that werewolf is defending it?"
"I have already prepared countermeasures for him. I take it you gentlemen have heard of the Master Fencer Volsaav?"
"The man who uses that massive greatsword?"
"He was considered as one of the candidates for the Ranhart plan, was he not?"
"Correct. I bestowed upon him the enchanted sword Werewolfsbane. He has orders to hunt down the werewolf vice-commander if he sees him on the battlefield."
"But Werewolfsbane is Krauhen's viceroy's prized heirloom. How did you convince him to loan it to you?"
"I didn't. I used the Senate's authority to requisition it from him."
"Don't you think that might have been... somewhat rash?"
"Whatever do you mean? Viceroys are servants of the Senate. It would not do for them to forget that fact."
"Hmph. Well, if things go well I suppose we can just return the sword once the battle is over. If necessary, we can confer an award onto the viceroy to smooth things over politically as well."
"I bear urgent news!"
"What could possibly be so urgent that you need to interrupt this meeting!?"
"Our army failed to capture Zaria!"
"What!?"
"Unbelievable! I demand an explanation!"
"According to the report I received, a lone werewolf by the name of Veight repelled our forces. Supposedly neither catapults nor bows could harm him, and the army was forced to retreat."
"Ridiculous! A mere messenger like you may not be aware of this, but werewolves are hunters by nature. They shouldn't possess the strength to face an army of two thousand in a direct confrontation!"
"Yet..."
"Besides, what happened to Volsaav!? A man of his caliber should have been capable of besting any werewolf in single combat!"
"A-About that... Master Volsaav died in combat. He challenged Veight to a duel, but was slain in a single blow."
"Incompetent bastard! Tell me you at least managed to recover his blade!"
"I'm afraid not. When the army retreated, they left most of their equipment behind, including the eight catapults. We believe the demon army recovered most of that equipment."
"What a farce! Strip the commanders of their positions!"
"Calm yourself. Now is not the time to be punishing our allies. Our plan has splendidly backfired, and we need to formulate countermeasures."
"You're right. We must reorganize the army and prepare another campaign. Do we own any more catapults in working condition?"
"Of course not! How many decades do you think it's been since the unification war?"
"Then I suppose we must conscript more soldiers from the northern cities."
"You're being unreasonable. The cities are still reeling from the demon army's attack a few months ago. Those on the northwestern edge haven't even finished reconstruction!"
"And Krauhen to the northeast will be unwilling to cooperate. Not only has the city grown more resentful towards us, but we've lost its viceroy's heirloom. He will not be pleased to hear that."
"Then we have no other choice. We must ask Veira and Shardier to organize a strike force."
"Do you truly believe those two cities are still allied with us? Shardier at least has likely capitulated to the demon army."
"Considering their past, I have no doubt Beluza and Lotz have rebelled against us as well."
"We cannot trust any of the southern cities."
"Then perhaps we should conjure up another patriotic hero. Not only will that raise morale, it will attract recruits and donations from all over."
"Did you already forget how badly the Ranhart Project backfired on us?"
"Our citizens aren't fools. The same strategy won't work for another few years at least."
"The demon who defeated Ranhart was the same werewolf, was it not? Why must he always get in our way?"
"Regardless, recruiting more soldiers will be difficult."
"Perhaps we should tell the south about the Northern Peaks incident after all?"
"And then demand their cooperation? Don't be ridiculous. We can't afford to show any weakness to the south right now."
"Just so. It's possible informing them will galvanize them to invade, and we'll be pincered between then north and the south."
"Any possibility of reconciliation vanished when we rose to the position of Senators. Regrettable though it is, it's too late to undo our actions."
"Then should we send a messenger across the Northern Peaks?"
"Wha-!? That would be tantamount to suicide!"
"Have you forgotten why our ancestors fled to this land!?"
"However, at this rate, all of the southern cities will fall into the demon army's hands!"
"Still..."
"Now, now, let's not jump to conclusions. For now, let us observe what actions the demon army takes next."
"What for?"
"Think about it rationally. There is simply no way a band of uncivilized demons will be able to cooperate with humans."
"You have a point. Not only are southerners stubborn, but they also reject authority. On the other hand, demons are prideful and violent. Their alliance cannot possibly hold."
"Precisely. Given time the southerners will realize the error of their ways, and come crawling to us for help."
"Of course, how did I not realize?"
"Once the demon army and the south's alliance collapses, we can send our armies in. Not only will we be able to push back the demon army, we'll be seen as liberators."
"In which case, the south will be more willing to submit to our authority."
"That being said, simply waiting for our enemies to self-destruct is foolhardy."
"Then we should focus our efforts on eliminating that werewolf known as Veight as soon as possible. The spectre of his power has terrified our troops and rendered them useless."
"This incident has made it clear he cannot be allowed to roam free."
"But our plan to frame him for the viceroy's assassination already ended in failure."
"Then we should assassinate him directly... No, the assassins we sent out were already defeated..."
"What should we do?"
"Is there anything we can do?"
"Wait, if this man known as Veight is so intent on spreading his fame, he must be hungry for power."
"And considering the fact that he tours the front lines with his men, he clearly hasn't been granted much authority within the demon army."
"You mean to say he's been ostracized by his own lord?"
"I believe so. After all, the Meraldian Federation occasionally does the same with its own talented generals."
"With how outstanding his achievements are, his superiors must be worried he's aiming for their position."
"Those that shine too brightly blind everyone around them. And those who stare at that light cast long, dark shadows."
"The greater one's ambitions, the easier they are to destroy."
"Especially when they aren't rewarded in proportion to their achievements."
"I see now. We simply have to bait this werewolf to overextend himself, then let him fail of his own accord."
"Quite. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, as the saying goes. If Veight falls, the demon army will suffer a serious blow."
"In that case, let us concoct a plan to lure Veight to his doom."
* * * *
In the following days, reinforcements continued to arrive.
"Firnir the Swift Gale, first of the requested reinforcements, has arrived!"
"Actually, beautiful, you're the second to arrive."
"Wh-Who's this weird human!?"
Firnir shouted as she looked over at Forne. She'd come with a large contingent of her kentauros warriors.
"Arrr! Beluza's raiding crew's here to wreak havoc on your foes, boss!"
"The demon army's imperial guard, the Azure Knights, reporting for duty! We will secure the perimeter at once!"
"Ah, Sir Veight! I brought the giants and canine combat engineers with me!"
"We brought stones with us, Lord Veight!"
A hodgepodge of soldiers had come from Ryunheit. While the immediate threat was gone, since they were here, I decided to have them help construct Zaria's wall.
"Naturally, the labyrinth city would be incomplete without me, Parker the Labyrinthine. After all my title..."
I'm just gonna ignore this guy.
"Though, surprisingly, I wasn't born in this city. Of course, when I was alive, Zaria looked nothing like this."
I'm not listening, lalalala.
"Umm... Veight? I'll summon seven hundred undead soldiers for you, so will you please stop ignoring me?"
"I'll think about it if you can call up a few more."
Once the city's immediate defenses were seen to, we held Melgio's funeral. Shatina's memorial speech was so emotional that it scared some of the members in attendance, but that showed just how angry she was at his death. Still, she needs to do something about that emotional streak of hers or she'll get taken advantage of... Forne promised to take care of mentoring Shatina, so after the funeral I left a few reserve troops in Zaria and returned to Ryunheit with Airia.
A few days later, Airia summoned all of the southern cities' viceroys to Ryunheit. The first to arrive was Thuvan's viceroy, Firnir.
"I can't do this anymore. Human society's too complicated for me... I should have never said I'd be viceroy..."
"If you're going to call yourself a leader, you have to take responsibility."
For all her grumbling, I knew Firnir was happy in Thuvan, since she was able to test out new equipment all the time.
"Look at this, Vaito! Thuvan's engineers smelted a new set of armor for me! It's way easier to move around in than my old one!"
"I see... it looks good on you."
Not that it mattered how it looked, since she'd be removing it when she fought anyway.
Next to arrive after Firnir was Melaine, who was standing in for Bernheinen's viceroy.
"Wait, Melaine, why didn't Bernheinen's viceroy come?"
"In his words: 'I finally got to become a vampire and you want me to continue working as a viceroy!? I refuse!' He's just maintaining the royal library now."
Bernheinen's viceroy traditionally also served as the custodian of the royal library. Now that this generation's viceroy had become a vampire, not only was he immortal, he could subsist off of just blood. Thanks to that, he could focus completely on his research and ignore the outside world. Though, I'm surprised Melaine allowed him to offload all of his viceroy duties onto her.
"You're the viceroy's clan master, aren't you, Melaine?"
"I am, but that doesn't mean he's forced to obey my commands. I have about as much control over him as a mother does over an unruly child."
"I'm afraid I can't relate to that analogy."
After Firnir and Melaine, all of the human viceroys started trickling in.
"Thank you for your assistance the other day, Sir Veight."
Shatina bowed politely to me as she walked through Ryunheit's gates. Though she looked a little haggard, her eyes still glimmered with determination.
"I hope you will continue assisting me in the future."
"Of course..."
I could tell from the glint in her eyes that she planned on using me as a tactical weapon against her father's murderers.
"Ahoy, Veight. I see you managed to win over that girly-boy to your side too!"
The pirate city Beluza's captain, Garsh, arrived after Shatina. Forne walked up behind him and folded his arms menacingly.
"And just who are you calling a girly-boy? Despite how tough you act, I know you're a sensitive soul deep down, so I'd prefer if you didn't insult me like that."
"I ain't listening to a thing you say until you drop that creepy high-pitched voice!"
Petore walked over and broke the two of them up.
"Cut it out, ya morons! Yer ancestors would weep if they saw ya now, ya brats! Viceroys these days are too fond of acting, I tell ya. That's not what it means to put on the mask of a leader, ya know!"
Shardier's viceroy, Aram, waded into the fray and tried to calm everyone down.
"Both Sir Garsh and Sir Forne have been serving as viceroys for over a decade. They aren't 'brats.'"
Petore rounded on Aram.
"Yer the one I'm most worried about, kid. Ya tried to act like a schemer like yer grandfather and got yer arse handed to ya for it. If you're gonna put on an act, at least pick an act you can do!"
"He has a point, Sir Aram. If you adopt a more feminine voice the way I have, you'll be able to say what you wish without fear of reproach."
"Moron. The last thing ya want is people underestimating you. If you wanna be heard, you've gotta act tough."
Sighing, I guided the group of bickering viceroys to Airia's manor.
"If you wanna coach him on how to act, do it when you're in Shardier. Now get inside."
Our first order of business was to officially crown Shatina Zaria's viceroy. Normally it would be the Senate that would perform the ceremony, but since Zaria had broken away from the Senate, that was no longer necessary. Instead, Airia, viceroy of the demon capital, did the honors.
Shatina stood nervously as Airia read out some of some old, ceremonial tome. Then, on behalf of all the southern cities viceroys, Petore then officially recognized Shatina as Zaria's viceroy. All that was left was for someone to place Zaria's diadem onto Shatina's head. As I was watching the proceedings with disinterest, Forne turned to me and asked, "What are you waiting for? It's your turn."
"What do you mean?"
"The Demon Lord is the most important member of our alliance, so as her representative, it falls on you to perform the coronation."
"Oh, I see."
"The ceremony officially cements you as her guardian as well."
"Wait, I didn't hear about this."
Shatina looked up at me, her cheeks red.
"S-Sir Veight!"
"Y-Yes!?"
Surprised, I looked down to see tears welling up in Shatina's eyes.
"P-Please guide me!"
Why do I have to do this!? Seeing my reaction, Shatina desperately added, "It's only thanks to you that I'm still alive! You protected me and Zaria, both! I don't have the strength to protect Zaria on my own yet! So please, teach me how to be a viceroy capable of leading others!"
She bowed low, her head practically scraping the ground. Well, when you put it like that, I can hardly refuse... Sighing, I took the diadem from Airia.
"You certainly do need a mentor to guide you, Lady Shatina. And seeing as my responsibilities are the lightest among the viceroys, I suppose I can fill that role."
"Th-Thank you so much, Sir Veight! No, Master Veight!"
"Could you please not call me that!?"
"But you'll be imparting your wisdom onto me! Great Master Veight!"
I was planning on doing everything I could for Shatina, but I really didn't want to be called "Master." As I was trying to get her to drop the title, Forne butt in.
"If you don't accept your new title, she's only going to come up with even crazier ones."
Shatina gave me a serious look and said, "A mentor is like a paternal figure. I-If you wish, I'm even willing to call you father. How does that sound... F-Father?"
Now things were just getting awkward.
"I'd feel as if I were doing your late father Sir Melgio a disservice if I let you call me father. I'm not ready to bear such a huge responsibility, so Master is fine."
"Wonderful! Thank you so much, Master!"
Forne grinned as he watched Shatina jump for joy.
"My, how splendid. Now that he's your master, you can be sure Sir Veight will never abandon Zaria."
"Yep! Thank you so much, Sir Forne! I promise I'll fulfill that request for you!"
"Umm, now's really not the time to be bringing that up, dear."
You son of a— You got me good, crossdresser. It seemed I'd been used by Forne as a bargaining chip to strengthen relations between Zaria and Veira. This guy's a crafty one. However, now wasn't the time to complain. Shatina bowed before me and said, "Master, I look forward to your continued guidance!"
"Alright, alright, settle down so I can put this diadem on you."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter37.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
I turned around and saw Firnir staring at me.
"Hmm. Master, huh?"
I don't like the sound of that one bit. I better stop her before she gets any funny ideas.
"We're both fellow disciples, so I can't be your master."
"You're right! Good point, Vaito!"
Why're you so happy about that!? Shatina turned to Firnir and said, "That may be true, but I am Master Veight's first disciple, Lady Firnir."
"Gwah!? Damn, that does sound nice..."
"You are more than welcome to become his second, of course."
"Oh, that's not a bad idea."
Please stop making yourself into my disciple. Shatina and Firnir's strange rivalry was ruining the solemnity of the ceremony. The other viceroys were all grinning now too. This felt more like a gathering of friends than a dignified ritual. I guess it's up to me to discipline our problem children.
"You two children stop bickering and get along now."
Firnir and Shatina turned to me and said simultaneously, "We're not children!"
Riiiiiight.
The ceremony concluded, and Zaria now had a new viceroy. With this, all eight southern cities had viceroys. Though two of them were demons. Finally, with all of the preliminary formalities were out of the way, Airia could make her proclamation.
"I hereby declare that our eight cities, along with the demon army, are now part of a new nation, the Meraldian Commonwealth!"
The eight viceroys all signed the document Airia presented. Once they were done, I signed as the demon army's representative. With this, the southern half of the Meraldian continent had officially become its own nation. A nation where demons would be able to live in peace.
Airia then explained what kind of government this new nation would have. In order to fight the unified Senate, we needed to be just as unified.
"Henceforth, the viceroys of each city will also be councilors on the Meraldian Commonwealth's governing council, and together we will decide this nation's laws and policies. All motions will need Her Majesty the Demon Lord's approval before they will be implemented, and similarly, the demon army's policies will be reviewed by us before approval."
What was most important was communication. Master's policy was to make decisions only after consulting with her human counterparts. Incidentally, the one who'd come up with this model of government was the old Demon Lord. To be honest, Master wasn't a very good politician, so this was probably for the best. However, there was just one thing about this new council that didn't sit well with me.
"Lady Airia, why must I be on this council as well?"
"The council needs someone to represent the demons' interests."
Melaine and Firnir were representing the people of Bernheinen and Thuvan respectively. In other words, they couldn't speak for demons as a whole. Their position demanded they put the interests of their citizens first, and I was planning on making sure they did. Though, of course, that meant the demons needed their own representative. Since Master was ostensibly the demon with the most authority in this new nation, it fell to her aide—me—to represent her and her interests in the commonwealth's newly formed council.
That much I understood. However...
"Could you please stop giving me so many responsibilities? I want to remain a simple vice-commander."
Airia grinned in response.
"Within the demon army, you will of course be nothing more than the Demon Lord's vice-commander. But outside of the army, we would like you to be one of our councilors."
"If you insist..."
Looks like there's no getting out of this one.
"All members of the council, regardless of whether they own land or not, shall be granted the title of Baron. Baron Veight, I hope you will work together with us to bring prosperity to Meraldia's southern cities."
"Fine..."
How did it come to this? I just wanted to live a quiet life with my friends. How come the harder I work, the more work I get?
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/copyright.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
Copyright
Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
by Hyougetsu
Translated by Ningen
Edited by Meiru
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Hyougetsu / Nishi(E)da
Illustrations by Nishi(E)da
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2016 by Earth Star Entertainment
This English edition is published by arrangement with Earth Star Entertainment, Tokyo
English translation © 2019 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property.
J-Novel Club LLC
j-novel.club
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: November 2019
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/extra.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
Guardians of the Labyrinth
The labyrinth city of Zaria had two labyrinths to its name, one upper one lower. At least, that's what most people thought. But in reality, there was one more. One only I, viceroy of Zaria, had been informed of.
"Whoa... this is awesome," the kentauros general, Firnir, muttered in awe. Her voice echoed through the underground chamber until eventually the darkness swallowed it up. This was Zaria's third labyrinth, the underground maze.
"Zaria was actually founded atop the ruins of an ancient city."
I lit a lamp to banish the darkness, and handed a second one to Firnir.
"Make sure you do not lose this. There are no other sources of light down here, so if we lose these two lamps, we'll be stranded in darkness."
"Gotcha. Wait, but then what am I gonna do about my spear and shield... Oh wait, I know."
Foolish girl, don't hang your lamp from your spearhead!
"What are you doing!? If you have to fight anyone with that spear, one thrust will shatter the lamp!"
Firnir turned back to me with a worried frown.
"Wait, there's enemies down here?"
"There might be."
To be honest, I wasn't sure myself.
Together with Firnir, I continued down the long stone pathway.
"Originally, there was just a permanent camp built near these ruins, but that camp grew until it became the city of Zaria. In truth, my ancestors who built this town had wanted to settle further north, but they couldn't explore any further so they built here."
My father told me that before he died. I will never hear his kind voice or hold his gentle hands again. But I can't continue to dwell on that fact.
"The upper layers of the ruins are used by the residents as graveyards or warehouses. So we should be safe here at least."
While people didn't come here often, this floor was still technically developed land.
"The problem is we don't know what lies deeper in the ruins. No one has delved that far down before... Or if they have, they haven't returned."
"What the heck, that's terrifying!"
Firnir shrunk back a little. For how tough she looked, she sure scared easily.
"Sh-Shatina, don't you think we should bring some guards with us if it's this dangerous?"
"Master Veight showed me how powerful demons can be in enclosed spaces. Firnir, you're a demon as well, aren't you?"
Among the kentauros, Firnir was lauded as a Champion. I was certain she could handle any threat that might show up. But to my surprise, Firnir shook her head, her legs trembling.
"Please don't put me in the same category as Vaito! He's on a totally different level! He's the strongest demon in the demon army! And it's only werewolves who are good at fighting in enclosed spaces!"
"So where do you rank, Firnir?"
"W-Well... I'm a kentauros, so we like the open plains. But I'm pretty strong still, really!"
"Really?"
"If I can get a running start, I can trample anything. It's just a little hard to run in tight spaces like this."
She's surprisingly timid, considering how eager she was to explore when I told her about these ruins.
"You aren't having second thoughts, are you Firnir?"
"Of course not!"
In order to show just how not scared she was, Firnir raised her spear, the lamp still dangling from the tip.
"I'm one of the demon army's greatest generals, Firnir of the Swift Gale! The Champion who captured Thuvan and became its viceroy!"
"Didn't Master Veight do most of the work that battle?"
"Maybe so! But I was still the commander of the siege! I mean sure, Vaito might have blown open the gates and forced the garrison commander to surrender, but still!"
I tried to calm Firnir down, as she was starting to become hysterical.
"Shall we head back? I'm nowhere near as good with a blade as my soldiers are, and it seems like you're not confident you can handle this either."
Firnir turned to me, tears in her eyes.
"I'll be fine! I'm the Demon Lord's disciple, I won't lose my nerve that easily! Let's go!"
"Are you sure?"
I'm starting to think it might be better if we went back.
After talking it over, we decided to map out the first strata of the ruins, then head back. The upper floors should be safe. Besides, mapping out the top floor will come in handy when we eventually do explore the entire ruins.
"So why are we exploring this place anyway?"
"I told you when we came down here, remember? We need to investigate the ruins so we can figure out where to put walls and buildings. We can't build on top of hollow cavities, or the ground underneath will collapse."
Now that Zaria had declared independence from the Meraldian Federation, it was free to expand as it pleased. We could build new walls and houses wherever we wished. But before we did, we had to make sure the ground was solid enough to build foundations on. Which was why I was inspecting these underground ruins beneath the city.
"Though, originally I had planned on hiring someone else to survey these ruins..."
Unfortunately, when I'd told Firnir, who'd come to visit, about my plans, she'd ended up convincing me to investigate them together with her. In secret, of course. This girl really doesn't think before she acts, does she? Though I guess it is a little exciting to be exploring underground ruins with just the two of us. We just had to finish exploring before our aides realized we were missing, and they would be none the wiser.
The ruins' buildings were all composed of very sturdy stone, so Zaria usually harvested its building materials from down here. There were no quarries in the region, so we could only use as much stone was down here. That was why most upper floors were made with brick, which was more common.
"How long does this passage go on for?" Firnir grumbled. To be honest, I was beginning to get annoyed by its length as well. We were measuring distance in footsteps, and were using a large piece of parchment to record the map, but these ruins were larger than I'd anticipated. Judging by the numerous branching corridors, these ruins spanned the entire length of the city.
"This is more than amateurs like us can handle," I sighed. Considering the scale of these ruins, I'd need to hire a full team of surveyors to map them out. "Let's head back, Firnir."
"Yeah, I'm getting tired of doing this anyway. Oh, by the way, you can just call me Fir."
"I'd rather not."
"Whyyy!?"
Though we both agreed to turn back, we continued walking forward. Eventually, we went so far that my charcoal pen reached the edge of the parchment, and I ran out of room to keep drawing. I turned to Firnir and asked, "By the way, where are we?"
"You don't know?"
It seemed we were lost.
"Like I said!" Firnir poked the map. "The more tired you get, the smaller your steps become! That's something every soldier knows!"
"Well, I'm not a soldier..."
It appeared marking distance in steps had led to a greater margin of error than I'd expected. Because of that, the map I'd made was inaccurate and we no longer knew which passages were where.
"Even if we only go off by a step every hundred steps, that's still a pretty big gap."
"I know."
I nodded, ashamed of my mistake. Firnir sighed and added, "You realize we've probably walked more than ten thousand steps right?"
"I know."
Meaning my most recent measurements were at least off by a hundred steps. And since we'd been getting more tired the further we went, the mismeasurements were probably worse for the more recent additions to the map.
"I see, so you can't use footsteps as a unit of measurement for maps... I'm sorry."
While I was sorry, there was something nagging at me.
"But why did you push all the mapmaking onto me in the first place, Firnir?"
"Cause I'm really bad at this kinda stuff."
You can't be serious.
"Important tasks like these are supposed to be checked over by multiple people to make sure no mistakes have been made!"
"I'm only your guard! I'm doing my job just fine!"
"What job!? There are no enemies down here!"
"Yes, there is!"
"No, there isn't!"
"There definitely is!"
We continued walking as we argued. But after a few steps, I felt the ground crumble underneath me.
It seemed I'd momentarily blacked out from the fall.
"Owww..."
I heard Firnir groan through the darkness. Red and purple lights danced at the edge of my vision. Thank goodness, it seems she's safe too.
"Oof..."
I struggled to my feet and examined my surroundings. A faint light shone underneath my feet, but aside from that, there was just darkness.
"What happened to our lamps?"
"They broke."
Firnir's voice came from right next to me. It seemed the light at my feet was the dying glow of our lamps. The oil that had spilled out from them was still burning.
"Oh no, the fire's going out! We need something that can burn, now!"
"On it!"
Firnir pulled off her shirt and handed it to me.
"Are you sure you don't mind?"
"Yeah, now hurry up!"
"A-Alright... if you say so."
I suppose I am the only one who can see her. Impressed by her decisiveness, I dipped her cotton shirt into the puddle of oil. It caught fire immediately. Thank goodness it's cotton, my hemp clothes wouldn't burn that easily.
"But I can't carry it like this."
I wrapped the burning shirt around my scabbard, making a makeshift torch. It wouldn't last too long, but we needed to keep this fire burning or we'd be blind. I then collected the broken lamp's wick and transferred the flame onto it. Firnir glanced up and muttered, "We fell a long way..."
I raised the torch overhead, but its light wasn't able to reach the ceiling.
"I'm amazed I wasn't hurt worse from a fall like that."
As I muttered that, I realized something. I'd fallen a good story or more. If I'd actually landed on the stone floor, I should have broken a few bones at least. I looked over at Firnir, who smiled.
"Nice to see you're not hurt."
Did she save me? Firnir said nothing more and silently started gathering our scattered belongings.
"This is a pretty big room, so we might find something that could help us."
"Ah, hey!? If you move around too much—"
Firnir clopped off, and I hurriedly jogged after her.
There were two exits in the room we'd fallen into. Both were pitch dark, and I couldn't make out what lay beyond them. Let's leave exploring for later. While the room we were in had no staircase, there were plenty of wooden splinters and broken boards everywhere. From what I could tell, they'd originally been pieces of furniture. But now they were just dried out shattered chunks of wood. Wait, did these break our fall?
"These look like they'll burn."
"Wait, you want to set these on fire!?"
I hadn't even considered burning the things we found in the ruins. What if they were precious artifacts?
"What are we going to do if it turns out they were important relics? We might get cursed, or worse..."
Firnir gave me a reassuring smile and started gathering up broken pieces of wood.
"We can worry about that if it actually happens. Right, now we've gotta hurry, or the fire's gonna go out."
She had a point. Her shirt was close to burning up completely. After debating it for a few seconds, I came to a decision.
"Our safety takes top priority right now. Let's burn this wood."
"You got it."
Firnir took out her hatchet and chopped the wood into cylinder-shaped pieces. She then stuck the ends of the cylinders together, creating a radial pattern that spiraled outward.
"What the heck's with that shape? Don't you think that's a weird way to organize the wood?"
Firnir set fire to a stick in the center and said, "Just watch. This is how kentauros do things."
Firnir's fire started out tiny. Among the sticks she'd laid out, only the ones in the center caught fire.
"Hmm, I might have made it too strong."
Firnir pulled out one of the few burning sticks. With a significant portion of its fuel gone, the fire grew even weaker. I was starting to grow a little irritated at how small she was keeping it, but Firnir just nodded in satisfaction. She beckoned to me and said, "This should be good. I'm kinda tired, so let's rest for a bit."
"A-Alright..."
The fire wasn't too hot, but still large enough to light up our surroundings. Firnir continued adjusting the position of the sticks to regulate the fire.
"It's not that cold down here, and we're not cooking anything, so we don't need to make the fire big yet. This is how kentauros make the most of the wood they have."
"I see... I get it now."
She had a point, we didn't need a fire any stronger than this if we were just going to rest. When I realized that, I felt a little embarrassed.
"You're absolutely right, Firnir. There's a limit to how much wood we have. I'm sorry for doubting you. I would have just wasted all of our precious light."
As I'd been born the daughter of a viceroy, I'd never once had to worry about saving firewood. I'd never even realized other people would want to use it efficiently to make the most of what little they had. The firelight illuminated Firnir's open smile, and I felt even worse for being so foolish.
"Firnir, did you collect your own firewood before you became viceroy?"
"Yep. I used to burn anything I could get my hands on actually! When you're living on the plains, kindling's hard to come by."
Though she smiled so cheerfully, I could tell from that statement alone that she must have had a much harder life than me. In fact, compared to her, I was just a sheltered little girl who didn't know anything. Feeling useless, I started digging through my pack. I fished out a crushed loaf of bread. It had actually been flat to begin with, so the fall hadn't altered its shape much.
"You haven't eaten anything since we came down here, right? Would you like some bread?"
"Yeah, thanks!"
"Hey wait, don't eat it all! What kind of person even does that!?"
Firnir, who'd just taken a huge bite out of the bread and was about to take another, tilted her head quizzically.
"Thish washn't jusht for me?"
"It was for the both of us, dummy! Give me half!"
I'd forgotten kentauros ate way more than people. I guess it made sense, since they were as big as horses. Even if I have the right knowledge, unless I utilize it, I won't be able to do everything perfectly like Master does...
"I'm glad the air isn't super musty or anything."
After finishing her half of the bread, Firnir took a few small sips of our precious water supply and flashed me a smile. I'm amazed she can smile in a situation like this.
"Should it be?"
"Yeah. Generally, air that's been trapped underground for ages smells musty. It's bad for your body, so it's better not to spend too much time in places like that, like caverns or mine shafts."
"I see..."
"In some places, the air's been stagnant for so long that a single breath can kill you. That's what my clan head told me."
I ate through half of my own portion of bread and wrapped the remainder up in a clean cloth before putting it in my bag.
"By clan head, do you mean your father?"
"Nope, I'm the clan priestess, so the head can't be my dad."
Firnir folded her legs underneath her and rearranged her pattern of sticks.
"I was born with more mana than usual. That's why I'm stronger and faster than the other kentauros. And it's why I'm our priestess."
"Priestess?"
I had heard that even though she was around my age, she was the leader of the kentauros race. I guess in kentauros society, the priestess holds the most power.
"So you worked your way up to the top by proving yourself. Unlike me, who just inherited her father's position."
"We're not actually that different, you know."
Firnir shook her head and pushed a few of the longer sticks together.
"I wasn't doing anything with my talent, so the clan head started getting annoyed. Then before I knew it, he'd started forcing me to learn martial arts, strategy, and everything in between. Then when I finished his training course from hell, he made me become the Great Sage Gomoviroa's disciple."
"Gomoviroa is... the Demon Lord, correct?"
I hadn't met her myself, but apparently she was Master Veight's master. He'd said that her powers were so great they rivaled the gods'. Firnir smiled bitterly.
"Yeah, but the problem is, I can't use magic at all! I'm too dumb to master any of it!"
"Seriously?"
"Still, she taught me how to read and do numbers. Kentauros don't have a written language, so I'm one of the few literate kentauros out there!"
"I-I see... It seems you went through quite a lot."
Even if that didn't sound impressive to me, it must have been hard for her to learn. As I thought that, I absentmindedly muttered, "You're amazing, Firnir."
"Huh? Wh-Where'd that come from!?"
"Oh... don't worry about it."
I took off my sword belt and laid down atop my cloak.
"I'm going to take a short nap."
Sleeping would refresh my thoughts and help me think clearly. At least, Master Veight said sleep was good for that. Right now, it was important for me to regain my composure. And sleep would help with that.
"I won't sleep for long, don't worry. Once I get up we can start searching for a way out."
"Sounds good. I'll keep a lookout while you sleep."
"There's no one here, so I doubt that's necessary."
Despite my protests, Firnir didn't put her spear down.
"It's better to keep watch, just in case. Besides, it's a habit of mine."
"If you say so... In that case, I'll sleep first and go on watch when I wake up so you can rest. Good night, Firnir."
"Mhmm. Night, Shatina."
* * * *
—Firnir's Light—
After Shatina fell asleep, I moved some sticks to trim the fire. Firewood's a precious resource, after all. If we ran out of things to burn, we'd never make it out.
But you know, I'm amazed Shatina can sleep in a situation like this. I heard that Meraldia assassinated her dad and tried to kill her too, but she got away with Vaito's help. Seeing how calm she is, I can see how she managed that. I could never be so calm in a crisis like this.
Even though Shatina's not a good fighter, she knows a lot. Plus she's really diligent and has a strong sense of responsibility. She gets angry easily, but I think that's because of how much she cares about others. In a way, she kinda reminds me of Vaito. Meanwhile I still just rush in without thinking.
I'm pretty sure the floor crumbled because I was too heavy. While kentauros aren't as heavy as horses, they're still heavier than people. If I'd remembered that back then, could I have done something to prevent this predicament? Well, I guess it doesn't matter now.
At least I managed to catch Shatina when she fell. Thanks to that I hurt my leg, but... I'll probably be fine after a little rest. No wait, I can't just think baseless things like that. How do I become wiser, like Vaito? Maybe I should ask Shatina when she wakes up, she thinks before she acts. But first... I need to protect her until she does.
* * * *
"Shatina, get up!"
I'm roused from my slumber by Firnir's firm voice. While she was perhaps overly energetic at times, I knew she wasn't the type of person to wake someone for no reason. This must be an emergency.
"Wh-What's wrong!?"
I scrambled to my feet and belted on my sword. Meanwhile, Firnir gathered our things and explained, "We need to move. Something's closing in on us."
"What!? Who!?"
"I don't know."
Firnir's expression was grim. She didn't look anything like her usual, cheerful self. She picked up a makeshift torch she'd made by wrapping sticks together with a string made from the remnants of her shirt. She must have done that while I was asleep.
"Shatina, hold on to this for me."
"Understood."
I lit the torch using the campfire. In the distance, I heard a strange sound.
"Iite... Avec..."
It sounded like a voice, but not one belonging to a human. There was a chilling quality to it, like the sound of wind blowing through the trees at night.
"Firnir, what is that?"
"No clue. But I think it's best if we never find out."
Firnir slung our packs over her shoulder and beckoned to me.
"Let's get out of here before we run into whoever that voice belongs to. I think my leg's healed now, so we should be able to go fast."
"Healed? Does that mean it was hurt before?"
"Oops."
Firnir made a face that made it clear she hadn't intended to let that slip. But then she smiled awkwardly and said, "Kentauros' legs get hurt easily. I just landed badly when we fell. But I'm good now, it doesn't even hurt."
I felt a twinge of guilt as she smiled at me. As I was now, all I could do was sit there while Firnir protected me.
"I'm... sorry."
"Huh!? There's nothing you need to apologize for, Shatina! Come on, let's go!"
"A-Alright..."
Still feeling guilty, I nevertheless hurried after Firnir.
"Iite... Avec..."
I heard that same voice again, but this time from further away. Whatever it was, we were outpacing it.
"This is a weird place," Firnir said. She was examining the walls around us as we jogged away from the voice. "Look, there's all these carvings on the walls. They're all really elaborate, too."
"You're right."
I stopped for a moment and took a closer look at the walls.
"These look like they were made by the old dynasty. If they're real, they must be centuries old."
"Now I'm worried they might collapse..."
"I feel like we have more important things to be worrying about right now!" I shouted. Firnir cocked her head and asked, "What could be scarier than a cave-in?"
"The old dynasty was responsible for conducting all manner of strange magical experiments. I heard they even tried to give birth to a strange species that was a cross between man and beast."
"You realize I'm half-human half-beast too, right?"
"Th-That's not what I mean."
Firnir didn't seem to understand what I meant when I said "give birth to." But as I opened my mouth to explain, I realized how embarrassing it would be to say that out loud and stopped myself.
"Umm... they also researched how to raise the dead, and how to curse lands with plague. They were very dangerous people."
"Really?"
"You're the disciple of the Great Sage, aren't you!? Why don't you know this!?"
"Huh, you're right. Why don't I know this?"
How would I know!?
"Regardless, we should hurry. If the creature emitting that strange sound is one of the old dynasty's creations, it's likely dangerous."
"If you're saying that, it probably is. Got it, I'll be careful!"
Firnir flashed me a confident grin. Had it been Master Veight smiling at me, it likely would have assuaged my fears, but I couldn't say the same for Firnir. That being said, if it weren't for her I would likely have lost my wits long ago.
"Let's go. We may as well see how far this corridor goes."
After a long distance, the passageway turned to the right, and then again to the right after another long trek.
"These carvings are really smooth."
I hadn't noticed it before, but Firnir was right. The details of the carvings were fuzzy, the ridges and grooves smoothed out. Human faces especially had been eroded to the point of being indistinguishable from one another.
"It's like they took sandpaper to the carvings, but kept sanding them for too long."
I wasn't sure how that observation would help us in our current situation though. I tried to get a closer look to see if maybe there was some clue I'd missed, but stopped when I heard a faint voice in the distance.
"Iite... Avec..."
Whirling around, I saw only darkness behind me. It seemed the owner of the voice was still far away.
"L-Let's go, Firnir."
"Yeah."
After a while, the passage once again turned to the right. Worried, I muttered, "Was that turn at a right angle?"
"What's a right angle?"
"Uhh... actually, never mind, it's fine."
I should have known better than to ask Firnir. When it came to architecture and geometry, I knew far more than her. I was, after all, the viceroy of the labyrinth city. By my estimation, all three turns had been right angles. And this passage seemed to go straight.
"Firnir, stop for a second."
"What? Something wrong?"
Firnir came to a halt and turned around.
"Shouldn't we hurry? Won't it be bad if we stop here?"
"I know, but hold on a moment. We just turned right three times, didn't we? Meaning..."
I pulled out the parchment I'd been using to draw a map and pointed to its corners. Firnir gave me a puzzled look, but after I'd pointed to the third corner, realization dawned on her.
"We're going in a circle!?"
"That's what I'm afraid of."
I folded up the map and glanced back. We hadn't heard the voice in a while.
"Of course, it's also possible this is a square-shaped spiral if the distance between each turn isn't uniform. In that case, we wouldn't really be going in circles, but I have no way of measuring the distance."
"Umm, so what should we do?"
Firnir was being surprisingly hesitant. Unfortunately, I didn't know what to do either. If this really was a square, then we'd just be retracing our steps over and over. But in that case, there was no point in turning back either. However, if this was a spiral, then we'd eventually end up somewhere. After saying as much to Firnir, I pointed forward.
"Either way, we have no choice but to hope this is a spiral and keep going."
"I see."
Firnir nodded, then grinned again.
"If it's not a spiral, then I'll fight whatever's chasing us. Don't worry, I know I look unreliable but I am still Firnir the Swift Gale, General of the demon army."
Though our situation was still precarious, her words reassured me. I had no one else to rely on, of course, but even so, she seemed dazzlingly dependable. Firnir readied her spear and peered into the darkness.
"Alright, be ready to fight at any time! Both flanks, be wary of ambushes from the sides!"
"We don't have any flanks..."
"Think of yourself as a one-person army. That's how I see myself too."
"Very well."
But even so, I don't think it's possible for us to be ambushed from the sides. Since there are only walls on either side of us.
We continued down the straight path, the walls occasionally glinting in the torchlight.
"You can't hear the voice anymore either, right?"
Firnir turned around and strained her ears. I wiped a bead of sweat off my brow and nodded.
"No, I can't. At the very least, it doesn't seem like it's catching up to us."
All of the patterns on the wall looked unfamiliar. I couldn't be certain, but it didn't seem like we were going in a circle. Feeling somewhat relieved, I stopped to study the carvings some more.
"It looks like this stretch of wall depicts an army of undead sieging a castle."
"Whoa, you're right. Those skeletons look just like the ones Master summons."
"By master, you mean the Demon Lord?"
Something about that statement nagged at me, but I was too focused on the wall to give it much thought. The undead appeared to be led by a warrior wearing a crown. He held aloft a massive claymore in one hand, and in the other a shield with an engraving of a tower on it. Behind his army lay the smoldering ruins of numerous towns and castles. To be honest, the scene wasn't very pleasant. But as the story progressed along the wall, a great number of magicians appeared and sealed the undead army underground. They then burned the warrior who summoned them alive, and finally the last part of the mural depicted his grave.
"I guess that's the story of how a tyrant met his end?"
Firnir nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, I think so. Do you think maybe that voice belongs to the tyrant they killed?"
"It just might."
Since he'd been leading an army of undead, I assumed he'd been a necromancer. And I'd heard that powerful necromancers oftentimes turned immortal.
"Maybe they couldn't actually kill him, and instead just sealed him here."
"If that's true, he's not someone we can handle."
It would be nice if the owner of the voice wasn't hostile toward us, but considering the story the mural told, I didn't have much hope.
"These carvings might give us some clues as to what we're up against. Let's see if we can find anything... Huh?"
The corridor came to an abrupt end, leading into a spacious room.
"Isn't this room..." Firnir trailed off. I didn't like the look of this one bit. The center of the room was covered in scorch marks, traces of a recent campfire.
"Oh no..."
Firnir and I both groaned in despair.
"It was one big square..."
As I'd feared, it was a loop. There was no exit. We'd been trapped inside this floor. Together with some strange creature.
"Iite... Avec..."
This time, the voice came from close by.
"Fir!"
"On it!"
I transferred the torch to my left hand and drew my sword with my right. Firnir moved protectively in front of me and lowered her spear.
"I am a General of the demon army, Firnir of Swift Gale! Whoever you are, if you have even a shred of honor, I demand you name yourself!"
Her sharp voice cut through the darkness like a knife. I never knew she was this brave. A harsh scraping sound, like that of rusted iron grinding against itself, reached my ears.
"Iite... Avec..."
When the creature ambled into the torchlight, I nearly screamed. It was wearing rusted brown armor, and carrying a shattered sword. In its free hand, it held a chipped shield with a tower pattern engraved on it. And on its head was a broken crown. But most terrifying of all, its face was nothing but bones.
"Eek!" I nearly dropped the torch, but caught it at the last second. "F-Fir!"
"This looks like an undead soldier, but the fact that it can speak means it's not normal!" Firnir shouted as she kept the skeleton at bay with her spear.
"Who are you!? If you possess intelligence, then speak! If you refuse to name yourself, I will strike you down!"
The skeleton warrior fell silent. After a moment it raised its shattered sword and said, "Vaw Moona Yuni Dei!"
"Wh-What? Is that your name?"
Firnir faltered, so I screamed from behind her, "Idiot, it's obviously angry!"
"Huh!? Oh, s-sorry!"
"What point is there in apologizing to a corpse!?"
The fact that the skeleton could speak, but not in words that either of us could understand, seemed to have left Firnir at a loss. Heedless of our confusion, the skeleton warrior raised its shield and yelled, "EEMAGENCE!"
The skeleton's rotted shield emitted a strange noise. What's it trying to do? Firnir was the first to realize what was happening.
"Shatina, we've got twenty more enemies coming from the front!"
A group of skeleton soldiers, these only equipped with weapons, appeared from behind the one with the crown. These were smaller than the first, so I assumed that one was special. The skeleton soldiers pointed their swords and spears at us.
"Dieeee!"
Firnir's spear shot out. Normally spears were ineffective against the undead, but her thrusts hit as hard as a warhammer. Her thrust shattered the skull of the skeleton closest to her.
"I'll kill you allllll!"
Firnir swept her spear to the side, mowing down an entire row of skeletons. She's strong. Really strong. I'd heard that undead warriors were about as skilled as the average living soldier, but Firnir was sweeping them aside like they were nothing. But no matter how many she defeated, the enemy's number continued to grow.
"Fir, fall back to the hallway! At this rate, you'll be surrounded!"
"G-Good point!"
Firnir cut down the skeletons closest to her, then wheeled around and galloped for the corridor. I hurriedly ran after her. The passageway was just wide enough for an adult to lie down. The ceiling was low as well, making it difficult to swing a spear around.
"Fir, can you fight here?"
"Don't worry, I'm not a spearman, I'm a warrior!"
Firnir smiled and patted the hatchet strapped to her waist.
"Though I guess I'm best with a spear!"
"Sorry."
I worried I might have led her to a more disadvantageous spot. Still, at least she wouldn't have to worry as much about protecting me. They wouldn't be able to circle around her in such an enclosed space.
Wait, circle around? I turned, looking at the dark passage behind me. The corridor was an enclosed square, with a single room at this spot.
"Fir!"
"What is it this time!?" Fir shouted, smashing the shields and skulls of any skeletons that got too close. She didn't have the leeway to turn around.
"Let's run to the corner! This is a closed loop, meaning the two passageways leading out of this room are connected!"
"Oh yeah!"
Firnir wheeled around and held her hand out to me.
"Climb on!"
"On where!?"
"Onto my back!"
I assumed she meant the horse part of her back. It was small, but still large enough to accommodate a single rider. It feels wrong to ride on a friend's back, but I suppose now's not the time to be worrying about whether it's disrespectful or not.
"Very well! And sorry!"
I'd been trained in horseback riding, so I had no trouble jumping onto Firnir's back. There was no saddle, or stirrups, or reins though, so it was hard to keep my balance.
"U-Umm, Fir..."
"I'll carry the torch, you just hang on tight."
Firnir took the torch from me and I sheathed my sword. I then wrapped both arms around her stomach.
"Hyaah!? That tickles!"
"S-Sorry!"
"Oh, don't worry about it. Hang on, I'm gonna dash!"
Firnir sped up and galloped down the corridor. Unable to keep up, the skeleton soldiers soon disappeared from sight. I breathed a sigh of relief, glad we finally had some time to regroup.
"Let's set up a defensive formation at the corner. Even if the enemy has ranged weapons, they won't be able to hit us if we duck behind the wall. And if they try to circle around us, they'll hit us from the flank instead of from behind, so they'll be easier to deal with."
"Makes sense. I knew I could count on you, Shatina."
I didn't really feel like I deserved Firnir's praise, since I was just following Master Veight's advice. He was the one who'd taught me, "Always try to bring the fight into terrain that's advantageous for you." According to him, location alone could change the outcome of a battle. Since I'm bad at fighting, I should at least do the strategizing for us. I wanted to protect Firnir the same way she was protecting me. I wanted to be able to prove to her that I wasn't dead weight.
Once we reached the corner, we could finally rest for a bit. I got off Firnir's back, took the torch from her, and drew my sword.
"If they come around from the side, I'll let you know."
"Gotcha. I'll focus on fighting... and try to whittle down their numbers."
Though she gave me a smile, I knew why Firnir had hesitated to say that second part. Were their numbers something we could whittle down in the first place? The enemy was clearly a mage, and they seemed capable of summoning as many undead as they wanted. No matter how strong Firnir was, her stamina wasn't bottomless. She couldn't last against an endless wave of skeletons. However, there was no time to think of a different strategy. This was the only option left to us.
The skeletons finally appeared, marching double-file through the corridor. They'd put their spearmen in front to guard the back line.
"Don't think you can beat me in a spear fight!"
Firnir brandished her own spear, taking on four spearmen at once. I know I keep saying this, but she really is strong!
"RYAAAAAAH!"
Sparks danced through the dark corridor as Firnir smashed the skeletons around her. Not only was she effectively using a spear in this enclosed space, she was doing so without relying on her greatest asset—her speed. The terrain was against her, but Firnir continued burying the skeletons with ease. The mass of skeletons melted before her wrath.
"If you want to beat me, you'll need to bring out a famous general! These foot soldiers can't even scratch me!"
Despite her boasts, I could tell that Firnir was slowly growing tired. The skeletons' assault was endless. Is she going to be okay fighting for this long? Worried, I squinted down the corridor, trying to see how many skeletons were left. They were more stubborn than I thought.
If they'd sent a force to circle around it would still take quite some time for it to arrive, but I didn't think we'd be able to annihilate the army coming from the front in that time. And because of how big Firnir was, it took time for her to turn. Exhausted as she was, I doubted she'd be able to fight on two fronts.
In that case, should I scout out our rear? No, we only have one torch, I can't leave on my own. Calm down. Think. There has to be a better strategy than this. Remember Master Veight's teachings.
First of all, it's obvious this battle will be drawn out. If we keep fighting here, we'll likely be pincered soon. In which case, it would be better if we moved before that happens. But where to? The only direction we can go is behind us. And if there are enemies waiting for us to our rear, then... We'd be dead for sure from the impending pincer from staying put. I can't think of a perfect strategy for this situation, so we're just going to have to take a gamble.
"Fir!"
Making up my mind, I called out to my friend.
"At this rate, we'll be caught in a pincer attack! We have to retreat!"
"That's fine, but what if there's enemies behind us too!?"
"Then we'll run right through them! You can handle that, right Fir!?"
I knew how unfair it was of me to ask this much of Firnir, but I did anyway. I had no other choice.
"We'll barrel right through all these foot soldiers and head back to the room we started in! I'm guessing that skeleton general didn't leave too many guards to protect himself! If we hit him with a surprise attack, we might be able to defeat him!"
If we defeated the skeletons' general, hopefully the foot soldiers would vanish. Firnir pushed back the skeletons' spears and shouted, "Climb on!"
"Okay!"
I once again straddled Firnir's back, and she galloped into the darkness. As I'd feared, the enemies' flanking force had gotten quite close. We ran into them after only a few minutes of dashing. Fortunately, they hadn't raised their weapons yet.
"Fir!"
"Leave it to me! I'll show you what I can do when I gallop full speed!"
Firnir tucked her spear under her armpit and send up.
"Swift Gale!"
Firnir accelerated so fast I nearly fell off.
Firnir was no ordinary kentauros. She had a special power known as Swift Gale. All it did was make her faster than any other kentauros. However, because she wrapped herself in a veil of mana to accelerate to herself to such speeds, no one could stop her once she started charging. Her entire body became a weapon, and anything she hit got blown apart. It was for this reason she was known as Firnir the Swift Gale.
"F-Fir, how long can you keep this up?"
Firnir responded without slowing down in the slightest.
"No clue!"
"You don't know?"
"Don't worry, I know I can keep it up long enough to do a full lap at least! Hang on tight, I'm about to round the corner!"
Unlike the skeletons we'd been fighting before, these didn't raise their weapons. It seemed they could only follow simple commands and lacked the ability to adapt to changes in their situation. Furthermore, the flanking unit was smaller than the main one, and it didn't take us long to dash through all of them. I was worried this plan wouldn't work, but it seemed we managed to break through the ambush squad without incident. All we had to do now was follow this corridor back to the room, and kill the skeleton general.
"Alright, let's do thiiiiiis!"
Firnir charged into the room we'd started in. It was empty save for the skeleton warrior with the busted crown. Perfect, everything's going according to plan. I leapt off Firnir's back, took the torch from her, and drew my sword.
"Fir, be careful! He's calling his skeletons back!"
"I know!"
Firnir raised her spear and charged toward the skeleton king.
"Take this!"
She swung her spear down. The skeleton king casually raised his broken sword and parried. Sparks flew as the two weapons clashed. Despite the force behind Firnir's blow, the king's sword didn't budge an inch.
"Whoa, this guy's tough..."
I could barely follow that last exchange, but it seemed Firnir had been able to grasp the extent of her enemy's strength during it.
"Shatina, this guy's a skilled fighter! Don't get close to him!"
"U-Understood!"
Firnir rained down a flurry of fierce blows, but the skeleton king easily blocked them all with his sword and shield. On the other hand, when he counterattacked, Firnir was forced to back up.
"Wha!? Damn you!"
Firnir met the skeleton king's sword with her spear, and the two struggled back and forth. As their battle continued, I started to hear sounds in the distance. Looking around, I saw that the skeleton foot soldiers were starting to pouring through the room's two entrances.
"Fir, they're here!"
"N-No way! Alright, get over here!"
Still trading blows with the skeleton king, Firnir slowly moved to one corner of the room. I hurried after her and hid behind her back. In seconds, the room was nearly full of undead soldiers. And that wasn't all. Every time the skeleton king raised his shield, he summoned another undead warrior from the darkness.
"Fir, he keeps summoning more!"
"I know, but what do you want me to do about it!?"
It was taking everything she had just to fend him off.
"Shatina, what should I do? How do I get us out of this!?"
"U-Umm..."
How could we turn this situation around?
"I can't think of anything..."
Firnir was the only one of us who could fight. And even her full strength wasn't enough to defeat the skeleton king. Now that we'd been surrounded by his soldiers, we couldn't run either. My own strength wasn't sufficient to break through the encirclement.
"Ngh!"
One of the skeleton king's blows finally connected, and Firnir staggered backward. His rusted sword didn't look too strong, but it was apparently powerful enough to drive Firnir to her knees.
"Wh-What the... It's absorbing my power... I can't..."
"Fir!"
Still desperately swinging her spear, Firnir turned to me and smiled.
"Run..."
"Idiot!"
I dropped into a stance and covered Firnir. I knew what I was doing was pointless. We were both dead. But if I was going to die anyway, I at least wanted to die protecting my friend. There was nothing more shameful than dying cowering behind someone. I swung my sword wildly and shouted, "My name is Shatina Yewm Stahl, Viceroy of Zaria! If you want to kill my friend, you'll have to get through me first!"
A second later, something unbelievable happened.
"AWOOOOOOO!"
A bestial roar shook the air and sent the skeletons flying. A werewolf blacker than night shot out of the darkness and punched the skeleton king.
"Outta my way!"
With just that one blow, he crushed the skeleton king's armor and shattered its bones. Its broken pieces of rusted armor flew through the air and slammed into the wall. Ignoring the rest of the skeletons, the werewolf turned to us and sighed.
"Don't worry me so much."
"Master!" I shouted in joy. But a second later I stiffened up. "Why're you here!?"
Veight eyed the skeleton soldiers, which hadn't disappeared with their king's death, and said, "I'll explain later. First, let's get rid of these skeletons. Master, where are you?"
"I'm right here, boy. Don't rush me."
A young girl floated down from the ceiling. She swung her staff and chanted, "Rest, lifeless bones. The banquet has ended, and the peace of the afterlife beckons. Still thy bloodlust and sleep forevermore."
The skeleton warriors filling the room vanished. Is that what necromancy looks like? The girl turned to me and smiled.
"I am the Demon Lord Gomoviroa. Thank you for taking care of my disciple, Veight."
She's the Demon Lord!? Next to me, Master Veight grumbled, "I'm the one taking care of her, Master."
Afterward, the Demon Lord created a number of floating lights and healed Firnir.
"Your mana has been drained. Any normal demon would have lost their life after being hit by that cursed sword. You did well to survive."
Firnir blushed and said, "I was so focused on protecting Shatina that I didn't even notice!"
"Indeed, friendship is a wonderful thing."
Master Veight muttered, "That doesn't sound nearly as impressive coming from an antisocial loner like you, Master."
"Must you be so cantankerous?"
The Demon Lord began to sulk. Master Veight awkwardly scratched his head and turned to me.
"We got a message that you two had gone missing, so I asked the Demon Lord to bring us to you."
"But even if the messenger had gone by horse, they shouldn't have reached Ryunheit so fast..."
Master smiled ruefully at me.
"It's easy to lose track of time when you're underground. You might not have realized this, but it's been three days since you disappeared."
"Three days!?" Firnir shouted.
"I thought it'd only been half a day at most."
"That's the scary thing about being underground."
Master manipulated one of the lights the Demon Lord had created and had it follow him as he walked into the corridor.
"It looks like this place is exactly what you predicted it to be, Master... Master?"
"Surely you have no need of an antisocial loner such as myself."
The Demon Lord pouted, looking more like a little girl than a ruler. I'd heard she'd lived for hundreds of years, so I was surprised to see that she was this immature.
"Master, stop sulking. You're the only one qualified to explain this."
Sighing, the Demon Lord began to talk. Despite her outward reluctance, she seemed happy to explain.
"These ruins are likely the resting place of the undead lord, Ugsfortis. During the last days of the old dynasty, he traveled to the faraway land of Ezakenow and defeated the double-headed tyrants Epero and Viata..."
"You know what, maybe I'll explain after all."
Master hurriedly butt in and said, "Basically, this is the grave of a necromancer tyrant who lived long ago. He was a pitiful man who failed to become either a Hero or a Demon Lord."
Master picked up one of the skeleton king's gauntlets.
"He was famous for his ability to expertly command vast hordes of undead, but in the end, he wasn't able to achieve much. Not only did he fail to unlock the final mysteries of necromancy, but his brutal ways earned him the hatred of his people."
"I almost feel sorry for him."
He'd had talent, but no one had recognized it. However, Master shook his head.
"You reap what you sow. He grew conceited, oppressed his own people, and suffered for it. You would do well to learn from his story, Shatina."
"Me?"
"Yep. I understand you're in a hurry to prove yourself, but if you keep overextending yourself, you might end up like him."
Master examined the carvings on the walls, then told me more about the necromancer king. Apparently this tomb had been built as a monument to his life. The carvings on the walls were his biography. The reason the corridor had been built as one big loop was to seal his soul here for all eternity. It seemed the people of his time had truly hated him.
"After Ugsfortis was buried alive down here, he used necromancy on himself to transform into an immortal demon. But the magic he used cursed him to be bound to this place forever, and he wandered the looping corridor for eons, tracing the events of his life over and over. He was likely clinging to the memories of his past."
Master showed me the skeleton king's gauntlet. The metal around the fingers and palm had been completely worn away. So the reason the carvings are so smooth is because he dragged his hand across the walls for centuries? The words he'd repeated over and over "Iite Avec" meant "My will has not yet faded" in the sorcerers' language. With his soul trapped in his rotted body, he'd had no choice but to keep repeating those words, or he would have lost his mind completely.
He'd spent centuries here in the darkness, all alone. The thought sent a shiver down my spine.
"I'll be careful not to end up like him."
"Great, that's what I want to hear."
Master smiled and patted my head. While he wasn't my father, it still felt nice to be patted by him.
Still smiling, Master heaved a weary sigh.
"I'll let you off the hook this time since it turned out to be a valuable lesson, but don't do anything reckless like this again."
"I-I won't. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
"As long as you understand. A viceroy has many responsibilities. You cannot just go off on your own... and..."
Master trailed off, and turned back to the Demon Lord.
"Umm, Master? Is there something you want to say to me?"
"I wonder, is there?" The Demon Lord giggled, then cleared her throat. "At any rate, let us return. This entire incident only occurred because these ruins were secured with unnecessary safety devices. Fear not. Despite what my foolish disciple might say, this was not your fault, Shatina."
Master nodded and pointed to the hole in the ceiling.
"The people who sealed the skeleton king away feared he might reawaken, and so set a pitfall trap on the floor above. It's set to only activate when someone with large quantities of mana steps on it."
"Wait, doesn't that mean it's my fault!? If I hadn't tagged along, none of this would have happened!?"
"Well... I suppose not."
I hurriedly came to Firnir's defense.
"B-But if Fir hadn't been with me, I wouldn't have survived down here! Besides, thanks to that I learned about what lies underneath Zaria and she helped eliminate a potential threat! You don't have to feel bad, Fir! As viceroy, I guarantee that you did the right thing!"
"Uhh, i-if you say so." Firnir looked surprised, but her shock quickly gave way to joy. "Thank you, Shatina. Also, it looks like you're calling me Fir after all!"
"H-Huh?"
Wait, she's right. When did I start doing that? Master Veight and the Demon Lord exchanged glances.
"It's nice to see demons and humans getting along."
"That it is. Scenes like this give me hope for future generations." The Demon Lord grinned and raised her staff. "Now then, let us return to the surface and have some tea. These old bones are tired after rushing here so quickly."
"Ah, yes! I promise I'll serve you the best tea Zaria has to offer!"
Zaria's pride is on the line here!
"Let's go home, Fir."
"Okay!"
I squeezed Fir's hand, and the Demon Lord teleported us to the surface.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/signup.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-03-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/toc.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 3
Table of Contents
Cover
Color Illustrations
Characters
Map
The Story So Far
Chapter 3
Extra Story: Guardians of the Labyrinth
Afterword
Bonus Short Story
About J-Novel Club
Copyright
Landmarks
Color Images
Table of Contents
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/afterword.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
Afterword
Hello everyone, Hyougetsu here.
It's been three years since the first volume of Der Werwolf was published. The series covered a pretty big chunk of Veight's life, but we've finally reached the "happily ever after" conclusion. I know this is a sudden change of topic, but if you look through history's list of great figures, you'll notice most of them failed to raise good successors. No matter how good someone is at war or politics, there's no guarantee they'll also be a good parent. (That's hardly surprising, since parenting is a totally different skill set.) However, the titular hero Veight doesn't need to worry about that. He'll be a wonderful father, and he knows how to teach people other than his own kids, too. I hope, anyway. The people he teaches will go on to lead Meraldia to even greater peace and prosperity. I hope, anyway.
In the web novel, everything up to volume 11 is the "main story" and everything after is extra content. I plan to write up until around 15 years past the end of the main story, at which point Meraldia and the surrounding nations will be stable enough that Veight won't need to do anything at all. Of course, these extra stories will still feature Veight running around from place to place, but the tone is going to be pretty different. They're also going to have a pretty heavy focus on his daughter, Friede.
As a result, I decided to take my editor up on his offer, and swap up the artists for the extra volumes. My new illustrator is going to be Teshima-sensei. He's just as skilled as Nishi(E)da-sensei, but his art has a much more lighthearted vibe to it. I feel as though a style like this is more fitting now that Meraldia is at peace.
While this will be the end of my collaboration with Nishi(E)da-sensei, I'm honestly grateful for all that he's done these past three years. His art really brought the story of this humble vice-commander to life. Thank you so very much! Only you could have drawn such an imposing version of werewolf Veight and Demon Lord Friedensrichter, while also giving us such beautiful images of triumph against adversity. I honestly don't think I could have made it this far without you. I can't thank you enough for sticking with me this long.
Of course, I'll be relying just as much on Teshima-sensei for drawing alluring but more lighthearted images from now on. Friede's going to be growing up quite a bit throughout the extra volumes, so I'm looking forward to seeing her go from young girl to teenager. I'll be counting on you, Teshima-sensei.
Incidentally, my second son was born last year. My experiences with him were a good reference for writing the chapter of Friede's birth, and I'll probably be using my oldest daughter as a reference for Friede in her childhood years. She was only a year old when I first started writing, but she's five now. There'll be plenty of scenes with five-year-old Friede, so I'm recording a lot of what she does in case I need it later. Naturally, I also plan to write about ten-year-old and fifteen-year-old Friede as well, so it'd be nice if my daughter grows up faster than usual. That probably won't happen, though, so I'll have to rely on the memories of my time as a cram school teacher. (I used to teach middle school Japanese and science before I became a writer.)
The extra stories up on the web novel version are pretty short and rather truncated, so I'm hoping to expand on them a bit for the published volumes.
May we meet again in volume 12 in the chronicles of the Black Werewolf King.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/bonus.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
Bonus Short Story
From Demon Lord to Demon Lord
My dear friend Gomoviroa,
I am writing this letter to you on the eve of my duel with the Hero. There are a number of things I wish to speak to you about regarding the future of the demon army. This will be a rather long-winded letter, but please bear with me.
All organizations are created with a goal in mind. This holds true for both human organizations and demon ones. People naturally flock together to hunt for food, to better protect themselves, to raise their children, and so on. The demon army is an organization that was created to secure a safe living space for the various demon races. Humans refused to recognize our rights, so we ultimately resorted to violence to win them. We used our superior power to force humans to accept our demands.
Of course, none of this is a revelation to you. I've only stated the obvious. What isn't obvious is that organizations have a tendency to become a goal in their own right. I know you've been away from society a long time so I'll be direct: Organizations eventually forget the purpose for which they were formed and prioritize extending their own lifespan instead. They become a twisted shell of their former selves, and occasionally even work against their original goal. I strongly believe that a good organization must always be reevaluating itself and rearranging personnel to ensure that it is moving in the right direction. I've seen far too many collectives stagnate and wither away because they forgot their purpose.
The demon army now has a strong position within human society. We've conquered many cities, and though the current situation is far from ideal, we are coexisting for now. Honestly, we've achieved a surprising amount. In fact, you could say that we've achieved our initial goal. Of course, the fighting is far from over. If we lay down our arms now, the human institutions still antagonistic towards demons, like the Senate, will annihilate us. We cannot afford to relinquish our military might. War is a necessary evil that we must embrace to fully realize our ideals.
However, there will come a time when our war ends. A time where we've either defeated our enemies or converted them to allies. When that happens, the demon army will have to change. It will need to transform from an organization that values only military prowess, to one that knows how to rule fairly and protect its territory. There are many demons within our ranks that only understand fighting, like our departed friend Tiverit. Our kind does not value those who use their words to solve problems rather than their fists. But now that so many of the more militant demons have died in battle, we have a rare opportunity to reform the demon army. I want to leave this organization in the right hands—to make sure this opportunity isn't wasted.
In truth, I've always been looking for a chance to retire, and I think now is a good time. I'm the kind of person who is only useful on the battlefield. I kill, intimidate, and use fear tactics to build walls protecting demons from humans. It's all I ever learned and it's all I know. But there is someone in the demon army who's been using a different approach to secure our place in human society. I am of course referring to your disciple, Veight. Like me, he slays his foes and uses intimidation and coercion when necessary. But he doesn't build walls or create rifts with his methods. In fact, he does the exact opposite—he tears down the walls between our two species and turns yesterday's enemy into today's friend. There are few demons like this. But you may be surprised to hear that the same is true among humans. One must be extremely thoughtful and patient to get others to trust you. It's a rare skill that takes both innate talent and a great deal of effort to cultivate.
Veight is both a powerful warrior and a skilled statesman who can change up his tactics on a dime to adapt to the situation. He's the kind of Champion we need. I'm sure many demons, yourself included, find it strange that someone like him exists. His way of thinking is too far removed from a normal demon's. He values peaceful coexistence and open dialogue. He even shows respect to humans much weaker than him. However, I know why it is that such actions come so naturally to Veight. It's a secret that I'd rather not divulge without his consent though, so I'll tell you some other time.
Regardless, I believe Veight is the one best suited to be the next Demon Lord. I would have absolutely no regrets in leaving the demon army in his hands. He knows better than anyone the burdens a leader must bear. However, I know that he's too kindhearted to make the hard choices a ruler must. If I make him my successor, I know somewhere down the line his gentle nature will lead him to make the wrong decisions. I cannot in good conscience ask him to take up my mantle. If I defeat the Hero, I'll put off choosing a successor until a better candidate appears. For that reason, I absolutely must win this upcoming duel. However, at some point, I will need to find a replacement. Someone who can build a peaceful nation, unlike me.
— Friendensrichter
* * * *
"And there you have it—the Demon Lord's letter. Combined with what I've learned from my investigation of Wa's Great Torii of the Divine, I believe that both you and him were reincarnated here from a different world," Master said as she finished reading the will Friedensrichter had left her.
"I see," I replied, scratching my head. So you knew all along, huh? I guess I should have expected that.
Master looked up at me and said in a reproachful voice, "Why did you both think you needed to hide this from me? Am I not trustworthy to you?"
"Sorry. It's just that you know more than anyone about life and death, so I was worried..." I admitted. Worried that you'd get fired up to do some crazy research experiments.
Master chuckled and replied, "Fear not. I intend to start by experimenting with animals first. I'll engrave a special necromantic crest on the brains of a hundred rats, and from there I'll see if those crests reappear after..."
"See, this is why I didn't want to tell you."
I knew I made the right call.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
Chapter 11
I'd traveled to the far south to the scorching hot land of Kuwol to help mediate the conflict between the nation's king and the coastal nobles. However, now that the king had been assassinated, I was stuck dealing with the aftermath. The person responsible for this was Zagar, the mercenary captain Birakoya Bahza had employed. If word got out, Granny Birakoya would be in deep trouble. She might not have ordered the assassination, but Zagar was still her responsibility. Seeing as she was our main link to Kuwol, I wanted to avoid getting her in trouble. Of course, since Zagar had impersonated me to lure the king out, I would be considered a prime suspect as well, should news of the king's death leak.
"...Kuwol's king came here under the impression that he would be meeting with me. That means the people in the palace must know I'm in Karfal."
"So he got baited out by the fake messenger, then killed by Zagar," Monza recited, exchanging glances with me. The two of us were sprinting back to Karfal. We didn't have hard proof that was exactly what had transpired, but if that was the case, then we were in for a real mess.
"The king probably told at least one of his aides that he was going out for a covert meeting with someone. He brought some guards along, after all."
"Guess that means everyone's gonna suspect you, boss. Ahahaha."
This is no laughing matter. I needed to find some proof of my innocence in case word of the king's death got out, but in a medieval-era world like this, there weren't many options available to me. There wasn't even a concept of standardized time, so I couldn't craft an alibi. I give up. For now, my best bet was to report all of this to Birakoya and see what she had to say.
The moment we got back to Karfal I wrote up a letter and sent a messenger to deliver it to Bahza. Hopefully, she'd take some kind of action within the next few days. I'd written down everything I'd seen, as well as my hypotheses regarding Zagar. Of course, with the king now dead, his new taxation policies were gone as well. The coastal nobles weren't interested in overthrowing the government, so at this point, they no longer had any reason to fight.
With the monarch now absent, their focus should be on ending this civil war and stopping Zagar. If the war ended, they wouldn't have any reason to keep him employed. Moreover, they could even put a warrant out for his arrest, but if they did that he'd likely start a revolt. There were only 4,000 or so mercenaries, but under his command, they could easily defeat the coastal nobles' forces around Karfal. Besides, even if they did succeed in capturing Zagar, there was no guarantee that the other mercenaries would quietly surrender. At this point, they'd already evolved from a mercenary company to a revolutionary army.
I could have my werewolf squad start hunting down the mercenaries, but there were way too many of them. If it came to a head-on clash, some of my men would likely die. I didn't want to lose any of them, so I decided to proceed cautiously for now.
The next morning, I gathered all my werewolves for a meeting.
"Zagar doesn't know that we've discovered his plot. Things will get messy if we fight him now, so let's wait and see what happens."
"You sure we can afford to take it easy like this, boss?" Jerrick asked, and I nodded in reply.
"We need to gather as many allies as we can while we still have time. Fortunately, Captain Zagar's generous gift will come in quite handy here."
"He gave us a gift?"
"He sure did. Oh yeah, keep the king's death a secret from them for now," I replied. Turning to Fahn, I said, "Please call the three girls in."
Fahn brought over the three former maids of Lord Karfal that Zagar had put in my care.
"These ladies are maids of Lord Karfal. Lady Shura is his chief maid, as well as the trusted aide of his first wife."
The mercenaries seemed unaware of the difference between an aide and a lover, but you needed to be quite talented to serve as the head maid of a noble house. Shura was a lot more capable than Zagar seemed to realize. The head maid for the Aindorf family and her primary assistant were both quite skilled as well. I felt a pang of homesickness, but I quickly shook it off and continued my explanation.
"In order to corner Zagar, I think it would be best to bring Lord Karfal over to our side. For now, I'll prioritize protecting the city's residents. Eventually, I plan to help him return to the city and win him over to our cause."
"We have already sent a missive to our lord. He will no doubt be pleased to learn he has allies in the city," Shura said with a smile. I couldn't smell a lie on her like when she'd been deceiving Kumluk, so I knew I could trust her. According to Shura, Lord Karfal was a lecherous womanizer, but he was at least passably competent as a ruler. I thought back to the conversation we'd had last night...
"Is it really okay to badmouth your master like that?" I asked Shura.
"Of course. His wife complains about his lustful nature all the time," she replied.
I mean, Kuwol nobles are allowed two mistresses, so if you wanna blame someone, blame the law. I shook my head and brought my thoughts back to the present. Karfal's womanizing ways weren't important right now.
"Lord Karfal is distantly related to the royal family, so he'll be helpful to have around when we start negotiating with them."
Naturally, Karfal was unaware that the king was already dead. That was something I'd need to tell him in person.
I gave everyone a pointed look which told them not to say anything unnecessary, then continued outlining my plan, "We also need to forge alliances with all of the river nobles who've surrendered to the coastal nobles. I plan to ask Lord Bahza to take care of that."
Our top priorities were to create an anti-Zagar alliance, and make sure neither I nor Birakoya was suspected for the king's murder. Once both of those were accomplished, we could work on rounding up Zagar and his troops. I wanted to get this done as quickly as possible, but if I made even a single mistake, it was entirely possible Zagar would end up being this nation's new king. He was the last person I wanted to establish diplomatic relations with, so I would much prefer to keep Kuwol in its current state. Preventing Zagar from seizing power was both in the best interests of Meraldia and the Kuwolese people.
Though I tried to proceed with caution, the situation started deteriorating before I could implement even the first phase of my plan. Two days after the king was assassinated, a rumor that he'd fled the country started spreading throughout Karfal.
"Mister General, is it really true that the king ran away?" Miss Paga, the woman whose house I was staying in, asked.
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Our neighbor heard about it in the marketplace. I asked my husband if he knew as well, and he said he'd heard the news from our son, who was told by one of our guests."
I'd seen propaganda campaigns back in my old world, so I knew exactly what was going on. Chances were, it was Zagar's underlings who were spreading rumors that the king had fled. I could easily see them visiting the local bars and brothels and telling the prostitutes and barkeepers "in confidence" that the king had run away. From there, the rumors spread like wildfire, and now the citizens were hearing the same lie from multiple sources. Since everyone was corroborating the rumor, it felt more authentic.
America had used similar tactics when the Three Mile Island nuclear plant had a partial meltdown. Or at least, that's what I'd read online. Incorrect statistics were spread by the government, then everyone started parroting them. So long as you had decent reach, it was surprisingly easy to spread misinformation. Zagar wasn't just a skilled commander, but also a master at manipulating intel. Beating him wasn't going to be easy.
Dispelling this rumor would be hard, too, since it was an undeniable fact that the king was missing—except he hadn't run away, he was dead. Regardless, since he couldn't appear publicly to quash the rumors, they'd continue to spread. Before long, they'd reach Encaraga and the other nearby cities. Even in death, the king was causing no end of trouble for everyone. Meanwhile, we were forced to lie low, lest we became enemies of the state, and the mastermind behind it all, Zagar, got to continue training his mercenaries without a care in the world. He came to talk with me from time to time too, and I was getting sick of his cheery attitude.
Monza's squad was still keeping an eye on him, but according to them, Zagar hadn't made any suspicious moves as of late. Granted, he had no reason to act, since his rumors were doing the job for him. Pajam the Second was already known throughout the country as an idiotic womanizer who appreciated fine art and had absolutely no interest in politics, economics, or military affairs. It was hardly surprising people believed he'd run away, considering the coastal nobles were almost at his front door.
Honestly, allowing the rumors to propagate helped me as well, since it meant I wouldn't be suspected of killing the king. Man, why do I have to be so worried about a crime I didn't commit?
A few days later, I called Grizz over for a meeting. The fact that he was the only person I could discuss tactics with showed just how bad a position Meraldia's army was in here.
"The big question is how the major players are going to move from here on out," I said, thinking out loud.
"That bastard Zagar won't show his true colors just yet. If he wants to beat the coastal noble alliance he needs the backing of the royal family, but it's too late for that now that he's killed the king. On the other hand, he doesn't have enough soldiers to take over the whole country."
I nodded. "That's true. Four thousand soldiers and a city's worth of plundered loot isn't enough to conquer the rest of Kuwol's territories."
He had enough soldiers to hold the city and its surroundings, but eventually, he'd be worn down by attrition.
Grizz cocked his head and asked, "All that leaves is...the people at the capital, I guess. You got any idea what their plans are?"
"Not a clue. I did get a letter from Lord Karfal, though. He's currently staying in Wajar, a city farther upstream. It doesn't say much though; it's basically just a thank-you note."
In the letter, Lord Karfal had thanked me for keeping the citizens safe and keeping Zagar from defiling his maids. If his writing was anything to go by, he was a surprisingly decent person. At the very least, I wouldn't feel bad about joining forces with him.
"I'm planning on asking the lord about the situation in the capital, and acting as a mediator between me and the nobles farther upstream. He's a distant relative of the king, so he has a representative in the palace."
"Well, that's good news," Grizz said with a wicked grin. The people on my side all looked so stereotypically evil I sometimes forgot we were the good guys. Just then, Fahn walked into the room.
"I'm back Ve—I mean, Captain Veight. I went around with Beluza's soldiers to talk to the locals like you asked."
My werewolves weren't able to speak Kuwolese very well, which was why they'd needed the Beluzan soldiers to come with them as interpreters. This was a problem for our surveillance on Zagar as well, since Monza and the others weren't always able to parse his conversations.
Fahn sat down next to Grizz with a tired sigh. "I didn't expect Zagar to focus on spreading rumors instead of mobilizing his troops."
"Yeah, he was smart to make it look like the king had vanished instead of died."
I'd employed the same strategy when I had opted to exile Yuhit instead of killing him. When the leader of an organization died, someone was immediately chosen to replace them. This was one of the strengths of human society that demons lacked. But if the leader went missing and his status was unknown, it was harder to immediately select a replacement, since there was a possibility the current leader might still return. This was why the capital probably wasn't looking to replace Pajam the Second, at least not right away. For the time being, they'd instead focus their efforts on trying to locate the missing king. I'd explained as much to Fahn.
Folding my arms, I said, "If everyone suspects the king ran away, it's going to harm the prestige of the royal family. They definitely want to avoid that, so if we told them the king is dead, they would almost certainly select a successor immediately. The problem is, either me or Lord Bahza would be the prime suspect."
The fact that Zagar had sent a messenger while impersonating me made things complicated—especially since he'd then killed that messenger. Lord Bahza was the head of the anti-king alliance, and I was the foreign commander aiding her. The other nobles had absolutely no reason to trust me. If I was accused of assassinating the king, it would cause problems for Meraldia as well, which was why I needed to tread carefully.
"Ultimately, we need to make sure Zagar rightfully takes the blame for his crimes. And steer the country back on the right path. In order to do that, we need to build an invisible cage around him before he has a chance to show his true colors."
"Good thing that's your specialty," Fahn said with a smirk, and Grizz smirked as well.
"Yeah, you're the craftiest villain I've ever met."
I know I act the part sometimes, but I'm really not a criminal mastermind, I swear.
* * * *
—The Stirrings of Ambition: Part 3—
The past few days had been full of apprehension for Zagar.
"Are the rumors spreading?" he asked the mercenary who came in to give a report. The mercenary nodded.
"Absolutely, boss. Everyone in Karfal believes the king ran away. He wasn't a very impressive ruler, so I can't say I'm surprised."
Zagar felt a wave of relief wash over him. "...I see. That's great. Now we just have to wait, and they'll start getting exaggerated on their own."
While that was reassuring news, Zagar couldn't afford to relax just yet.
"That was the real king we killed... Right?" he asked.
"There's no way Rafhad would mess up, boss."
"Yeah. Rafhad knew what the king looked like since he saw him before when delivering a report as one of Lord Bahza's messengers. There's no way he'd mistake the king's appearance."
Rafhad had been one of Zagar's most loyal and reliable men. It was a shame he had been forced to kill him to cover his tracks, but Zagar knew it was a necessary sacrifice to keep the truth from getting out—or at least, that was what he kept telling himself.
The mercenary cocked his head and said offhandedly, "Come to think of it, I haven't seen Rafhad around recently."
Zagar smiled and replied, "Rafhad is on another covert mission for me. He's the best man for those kinds of jobs."
All of Zagar's men were quite competent; he was blessed to have a cadre of capable followers. Still, he couldn't allow himself to get complacent. His biggest worry right now was that foreign general from the north. There was a possibility that crafty werewolf had caught onto his plans.
"You're still keeping tabs on Lord Veight, right?"
"Yeah. He hasn't been doing much... Oh right, the other day he was teaching the old man who runs the fish stall a charm to keep his fish from rotting."
"What kinda charm?"
"I dunno. He was using words I didn't know like 'sterilize' and 'disinfect.'"
Zagar hadn't heard those words before, either.
His subordinate chuckled and added, "The guy's a total rube. I've heard the rumors, but he's the kind of guy who'd die on his first day on a real battlefield."
Zagar didn't agree at all. He had no doubt that Veight was simply pretending to be uninterested in this war and what he was up to. Zagar got to his feet and clamped down on the mercenary's shoulder.
"Gah—"
"Do you really think I'd ask you to keep an eye on him if he was a fool? Do I look that stupid to you?"
"No, of course not! O-Owww!"
The mercenary tried to squirm free, but he was unable to escape Zagar's iron grip. Zagar waited until fear and obedience had permeated through his subordinate's expression before releasing him.
"E-Eeep..."
He looked kindly down at the mercenary and said in a gentle voice, "Thinking is my job. All you need to do is obey. As long as you do that, everything will work out just fine. My plan's success depends on capable guys like you. You understand, right?"
The mercenary nodded furiously, and Zagar smiled cheerfully.
"Good. Keep monitoring Lord Veight. He's only pretending to be stupid to throw us off his trail. Don't let your guard down."
Zagar's subordinate scurried out of the room, and he sat back down with a languid sigh. He couldn't read Veight at all. There's no way he's an incompetent buffoon—that guy conquered the entire northern continent. The more Zagar researched Veight Von Aindorf, the more he came to realize the Black Werewolf King was a monster beyond human comprehension. More importantly, Zagar's instincts were telling him that Veight was dangerous.
At the same time, though, Zagar was confused. It doesn't make sense. He's popular, crafty, and wields vast authority. Working your way up to a position like that as a commoner should require tremendous ambition, but...I can't sense any desire from that guy at all. In the same way that training with the sword left you with calluses, seizing power often meant the cost of that power was engraved into one's soul. No matter how hard they tried to hide those scars, they always surfaced eventually.
But Zagar couldn't even see any calluses on Veight, let alone scars. He seemed detached from worldly affairs, as if he was already enlightened. Yet, at the same time, he showed no openings. What the hell is that man? What kind of life do you have to live to end up like that? What ideals drive him? What desires motivate him? The real reason Zagar was afraid of Veight was because he couldn't understand him.
Of course, Zagar knew he couldn't let his fear get the better of him. Now that he'd committed regicide, there was no turning back. Even if the person he'd killed happened to be a body double, the fact remained that he'd attempted to kill a king. The only path for him now was forward.
Fortunately, his plan was progressing smoothly. Once rumors that the king had fled reached the capital, the royal family's influence would begin to dwindle. After they were sufficiently weakened, he would capture Encaraga and end this civil war with a victory for Lord Bahza. Naturally, the nobles who held land around the capital wouldn't stay quiet. They enjoyed many privileges thanks to their proximity to the capital, and they wouldn't be happy at having those privileges taken away. Another war would inevitably break out, and once it did, Zagar would be in the perfect position to raise his status and enlarge his army. At the end of it all, he'd become king. When that happened, no one would care how the king of the old dynasty had died.
Until that happens though, I need to be wary of Lord Veight. Again, Zagar's thoughts turned back to the Meraldian General. The problem was, Veight was the biggest unknown. I don't know if he's caught on to my plans or not, but if he has, he definitely wouldn't let me run free. He'd either try to blackmail me, strike a deal, or just arrest me. Since Lord Veight hasn't done any of those things, I guess he hasn't caught on? However, if he's even half the man the rumors claim he is, he must be up to something now that rumors of the king's disappearance have spread.
The word on the street was that he was an elusive whirlwind that struck with lightning speed when you least expected it. Maybe he has realized my plan and is just letting me run free for now? Zagar felt a current of unease. He'd erased all evidence of his crime, and he was fairly certain he hadn't been tailed, but if Veight had discovered he killed the king, he would have to change his plans.
The problem was, changing them would mean openly opposing Veight, and that was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. As far as Zagar knew, Veight had never once been defeated. He was invincible on the battlefield, and his strategies were flawless. On top of that, he was a terrifying schemer. No one had ever opposed Veight and come out on top—that was why he was the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander.
...He doesn't have many troops with him right now, but he's probably come up with a strategy that takes that into account. There's no way he's just relaxing and taking it easy. He bothered to come all the way out to the front lines, after all. Zagar was fairly confident that Veight was plotting something he was unaware of, but the people he'd sent to keep watch on him hadn't reported anything out of the ordinary. It was eerie how little he seemed to be doing.
Damn monster... Every time Zagar met Veight, he was so nonchalant that Zagar was terrified. The scariest thing about him is his eyes. It's like he can see right through you. I always feel like they're telling me, "I can see through all of your plots, and you don't scare me one bit." Suddenly, Zagar thought back to the night he'd killed Pajam the Second. The king had looked at him the same way Veight did. Even though Zagar had held Pajam's life in his hands, the king hadn't begged for mercy. In fact, the way he'd looked at Zagar made it seem like he was pitying him. Despite his best efforts, Zagar had been unable to make the king kneel at his feet. Neither Pajam nor Veight were scared of Zagar.
I'm the fearless legend who slew a king! I'm going to become this country's hero! Why aren't they cowed by my overwhelming presence?! Zagar couldn't articulate it himself, but he felt as though there was something those two possessed that put them on a different level than him. What do they have that I don't? I'm way stronger than Pajam was, and Lord Veight might be strong, but I'm sure I could at least give him a run for his money. Zagar just couldn't understand what separated him from Veight and Pajam.
He took pride in his ability to sniff out danger ahead of time, and right now, Zagar's keen nose was telling him to watch out for Veight. The so-called "Black Werewolf King" was the one person he absolutely could not afford to antagonize. Zagar would have to take the utmost care to keep Veight from learning about his plans.
At some point, Zagar noticed he'd downed the bottle of rum he'd taken out. He prided himself on being able to hold his liquor, but he'd never before drunk this much while still feeling stone-cold sober.
"...God I'm pathetic," he whispered under his breath.
Zagar tossed the bottle away and heaved a weary sigh. The king was dead. Pajam the Second had no children, and most of his potential successors were dead, too. The previous king had gone to great lengths to ensure his son would be the only one fit to inherit the throne when he passed away. The royal family would probably feud for a long time over who the next king should be, but of course, none of them would take the throne, since Zagar planned to kill them all. He was going to start a rebellion so brutal it would drown Kuwol in a sea of blood. He and his mercenaries were hounds of war, and they loved nothing more than a good bloodbath. Mercenaries shined the brightest in times of strife. This was going to be his era.
No way in hell I'll ever work for someone else ever again. From now on, my only boss is going to be me. Zagar walked over and crushed the rum bottle under his heel as he thought back to the humiliation he'd suffered working under others.
* * * *
As the rumors continued to spread, the suspicion that the king had run away turned to fact in many people's minds.
"The king must have really run away if he hasn't said anything, right?"
"Probably. He was never really that involved in politics, so..."
"Yeah, there's no doubt he fled."
"Damn. So who's going to be our next ruler, then?"
Since the royal palace had made no official statement, the people's interest quickly moved on to who the next king would be. I felt kind of bad for Pajam, being forgotten so quickly. Though, I guess he deserves it, considering how bad a job he did running the country...
One night, a small boat arrived on Karfal's shore.
"Is General Veight Von Aindorf present?" A smiling middle-aged man stepped off of the boat and did his best to suck in his potbelly. "I am Powani, Enike's son, and the viceroy of Karfal. I must say, it's a rather strange feeling to be announcing myself in my own city."
Lord Karfal's ample stomach shook as he laughed heartily. A stern, strong-willed woman stepped up beside him.
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lord Veight. I am Powani's wife, Rakesha. Are Shura and the others safe?"
After receiving Shura's letters, Karfal had decided to sneak back into his city. He hadn't brought any of his guards, just his wife. Honestly, I was surprised by how bold he was.
Still smiling, Lord Karfal said, "I rushed back because I wanted to meet the great Hero from the north. I'm a firm believer in first impressions. Letters alone weren't enough for me to grasp what kind of man you are, so I wanted to meet you face-to-face before deciding whether or not to work with you."
I wonder if that's a cultural thing. I thought. Either way, isn't it dangerous for you to sneak back in here just to meet me? I was a bit worried this viceroy might have a few screws loose, but I smiled amicably and said, "Welcome home, Lord Powani, Lady Rakesha. I have done my best to protect your city in your absence."
"You have my thanks for that."
"And you have my gratitude for protecting Shura and the other maids from those uncivilized mercenaries."
The couple thanked me profusely as I led them as stealthily as I could to the Paga family's house. Before, Miss Paga had shown me a route to get to the main square without being spotted, and I used that same route to lead Powani and Rakesha back.
"I-It's the viceroy..."
"...And his honorable wife."
The elderly Paga couple looked on in slack-jawed awe as I brought the viceroy and his wife into their home.
"For the sake of the viceroy's safety, and to bring this city back under its proper ruler, please don't tell anyone what you're about to hear tonight," I told the two of them.
"O-Of course. I'll take this secret to the grave!"
Mister Paga clapped both of his hands over his mouth to emphasize his point. After Powani and Rakesha thanked the couple for letting them use their home. After formalities, we immediately got down to business.
"Lord Veight, where are my precious Suuni and Vivira?"
Shura loudly cleared her throat and said in a pointed voice, "Sir?"
"N-Now hold on! They may just be mistresses, but I care about them. Is it really so wrong to be worried about their safety?"
Oh, so those are the names of his mistresses. But why's he so scared of one of his maids? They work for him, don't they? I looked over and noticed that Rakesha was glaring at Powani as well.
She let out a defeated sigh and said, "Alas. A noble's mistresses are allowed by Kuwolese law, so I have no choice but to overlook my husband's infidelities. But never forget, that law was put into place because otherwise, we would have to jail over half of Kuwol's nobles. It's not meant to be an endorsement of the practice."
"I-I know."
Ah, so that's what the problem is. Well, it's nice to see the women here are allowed to speak their minds.
Rakesha's expression grew more stern and she added, "A viceroy is allowed one wife, one mistress, and one other mistress if they happen to travel for business frequently. You never travel, so why is it that you have two mistresses?"
Powani shrunk back. "But I mean...the judge said it was okay, so I..."
Shura and the other maids glared coldly at him. You should just give up, man, no one's taking your side.
"Surely you have mistresses as well, Lord Veight?" Powani turned desperately to me, but I shook my head.
"I'm afraid I have only a single wife. Monogamy is the norm in Meraldia."
"I-I see..."
Now that he'd brought the topic up, I had the perfect excuse to brag about my wife.
"My wife, Airia, is wise, patient, and thoughtful. I have nothing but respect for her. She's the greatest life partner I could ask for, and even in this faraway land, my love for her is strong enough that I have no need for other women."
I didn't want to sound too biased, so I kept my praise on the light side. Despite that, everyone had fallen silent. Do you guys wanna hear more or something? Before I could continue, though, Rakesha spoke up.
"Behold. Lord Veight is the perfect example of what a devoted husband should be like. You should learn from his example."
"Don't be ridiculous, Lord Veight is practically a saint! I can't be like that!"
If being monogamous makes me a saint, then like 90% of Japanese people are saints.
Powani hung his head and started muttering under his breath, "...His Majesty has dozens of concubines. Compared to him, I'm at least—"
Rakesha cut him off and said, "That's because only male heirs can inherit the throne, but for noble families, women and adopted children can inherit titles too, so there's no problem."
Cold sweat poured down Powani's forehead and he weakly protested, "B-But I mean, look at Lord Mubine. Since the law says nothing about male concubines, he has an entire harem of beautiful young boys. It's not like anyone's actually following the spirit of the law. I'd say I'm a lot better in that regard."
"Dear, following the law is the bare minimum that is expected of you."
"I know, I know! But you could at least be proud of me for being better than the others!"
Oh god, this is going to go on forever, isn't it? Just then, Monza popped in to hand me a report and said, "Don't worry, Lord Karfal, your mistresses are shagging Zagar every night. Ahaha, see you later."
That really didn't help, Monza...
Powani turned to me with a look of trepidation and asked, "Wh-What exactly does 'shagging' mean, Lord Veight?"
Oh boy.
"Zagar is having coitus with your two mistresses every night. Quite loudly, apparently."
Powani looked blankly at me for a second, then balled his hands into fists.
"Raaaaaaah! How dare you! You'll pay for this, you lowborn bastard!"
Okay, yeah, I see why everyone calls this guy a worthless womanizer. Then again...maybe it's not pathetic for men to act like this in Kuwol? Perhaps this is actually considered super manly? Cultural values shifted a lot based on time and location, so it was certainly possible. Remembering that I had a job to do, I chased those idle thoughts out of my mind.
"Agreed... It's reassuring to know you're determined to fight, Lord Powani," I said. "Meraldia has been friendly with Kuwol for generations, and I would very much like to bring peace and stability back to this nation. We cannot allow men like Zagar to run rampant."
"Hear, hear! Don't you worry, Lord Veight, we'll smash that man's ambitions to pieces."
His motives might have been impure, but I was still glad that Powani was fired up. I had an overall positive impression of him, so I decided to let him in on the secret of the king's death.
"Captain Zagar, the leader of the mercenaries, harbors some rather dangerous ambitions. The taxes the king levied on the ports are the least of our concerns right now."
Powani's expression immediately grew serious and he furrowed his brow. "He's the kind of hooligan who ransomed off a viceroy. I can't imagine what ambitions he holds, but I know they can't be good. Wait...don't tell me he plans to revolt against the royal family?"
Powani may have looked like a carefree fool, but he was sharper than he let on. He was quite quick on the uptake, too. In a slightly nervous voice, I explained, "Yes. And it's no normal revolt he's plotting, either. In fact, he's already slain the king, or perhaps someone who was serving as the king's body double."
"H-He what?!"
I summarized the events up until now to Powani.
"By the time my men reached the ruins, the king had already breathed his last. Considering the situation, we couldn't afford to recover his corpse, so we had no choice but to leave it where it was."
That wasn't strictly true, but a little white lie never hurt anyone. The blood drained from Powani's face, and he stared intently at me.
"You... You weren't involved in this plot, right?"
"Of course not. I swear it on the holy Mejire and on the Demon Lord's honor."
Powani scrutinized my face for a few seconds, then nodded.
"I believe you. If you were part of this conspiracy, you would have no reason to divulge this secret to me. Moreover, I can tell that you're someone trustworthy."
"Thank you."
Phew. It's good that he's a reasonable guy. Shura's description of him had been spot-on. Powani's grandmother was of royal blood, which would make Pajam the Second his distant relative. That being said, it appeared they hadn't been particularly close on a personal level and had only interacted in political settings—which explained why Powani wasn't too upset about the king's death.
"Our previous king was a wise ruler, but His Majesty Pajam was...never mind. Regardless of his failings on an administrative level, he was still the rightful ruler of the eternal Mejire. It is truly regrettable that he fell to an assassin's blade."
After a brief moment of silence, Powani pledged to investigate the situation in the capital upon his return. Their first priority would likely be to find Pajam's body, but the ruins were a fair distance from the capital. Furthermore, with how warm Kuwol's climate was, the corpse must have rotted by now. It won't be in an identifiable state, that's for sure.
"Lord Veight, I realize I've asked this multiple times already, but you're certain Lord Bahza does not wish to eradicate the royal family and the nobles who serve it, correct?"
"At the very least, that doesn't seem to be the case based on my interactions with her. Zagar seemed to be acting of his own accord when he slew the king." I chose my words carefully, and paused for a moment before adding, "My peers back in Meraldia sincerely wish for Kuwol to remain a stable nation. Of course, we do not wish for the citizens to suffer, but to be blunt, it would be a huge blow for us if the sugar trade was interrupted. This is why I wish to end this pointless war as soon as possible."
I explained both how I felt emotionally and where I stood politically. Everything I said was the truth, so hopefully it would convince Powani of my sincerity. In order to open all the schools, research centers, and magic academies that I wanted, Meraldia needed a stable source of ample income. The last thing we needed was to spend part of our military budget on this pointless civil war. Fortunately, it seemed Powani believed me.
"If you were truly plotting something, you would have killed me once I was at your mercy. Of course, the reason I came back at all was because I had reason to believe you wouldn't do that."
"I appreciate your kind words," I said with a deep bow. It was a bit strange how easily Powani trusted me, but I had no intention of betraying that trust.
Smiling, Powani suddenly changed the subject, "I am currently staying with my old friend Lord Wajar, and she has a surprisingly vast network of connections. She's also quite the beau—"
Powani cut himself off and looked behind him to see his wife and maids glaring at him once more.
"A-Anyway, she'll be of great help to our cause. I've also heard that an incredibly powerful magician is now staying at her manor."
Oh, she's got a mage working for her? I'd heard that Kuwol wasn't a terribly advanced country when it came to magic, but it was plausible there were one or two sages here, too. The question was, just how good was this mage? If they were just amazing by this country's standards, they probably wouldn't be much help. Doing my best not to be rude, I subtly prodded Powani for more information.
"I see Kuwol has its share of great sages as well."
Powani grinned, and I could tell by his scent that he was withholding something from me.
"Oh, he's a foreigner as well, but he's incredibly wise and virtuous. I believe his name was... Ah yes, Parker."
"Parker?!"
"So you do know him?"
"Yes. Unfortunately."
Oh, do I know him, and he is indeed an amazing mage. Man, what the hell are you doing all the way out there?
In an excited voice, Powani said, "The truth is, I've heard a great deal about you from Mister Parker. The reason we believed you were trustworthy, and the reason we wanted to meet you so badly, was because of him. Isn't that right, Rakesha?"
"Yes. You really are exactly the kind of man Mister Parker said you were. If anything, he sold you short."
I hope you didn't spread any weird rumors about me. Also, get back here already!
It was dangerous for Powani to remain in the city, so he left for Wajar the same night. He couldn't take his boat back since Wajar was upstream, so I had a retinue of werewolves led by Fahn escort him by land. A few hours later, Fahn returned with a smile on her face.
"He's a funny old man. You sure we can trust him?"
"Yeah. Appearances can be deceiving, but I'm pretty confident that he can be reasoned with. It helps that we got to talk in person, too."
When conducting negotiations, it was important to meet the other party face to face, if possible. That was probably why the late Pajam had been willing to leave the palace to meet me. If that really was the case, then I felt even worse for him since his trust had been betrayed. While I was forging alliances, Zagar continued to recruit more mercenaries and increase the size of his army. He had amassed even more soldiers than the 4,000 he'd started with when he attacked this city, and was training his new recruits at a breakneck pace. He was also using the money he'd stolen from Powani to buy weapons and armor for them. It was clear he was preparing for war.
I fished absently at the spot Mister Paga had led me to while pondering my potential options—or rather, I disinfected the fish he caught while getting no bites of my own.
"Mister General, do you know what the inscription on this cutting board says?"
"'Kafi...Naime?' it probably means something like 'I command thee with my meager will, destroy all in my path.'"
There was a small magic circle inscribed on the cutting board. The spell inscribed into its circuits had been trimmed down to just two words. The redacted incantation combined with the wide area this spell impacted meant it was so diluted it lacked the power to kill even a mosquito. However, it was still strong enough to kill viruses and bacteria. This is pretty interesting.
"It's a distilled version of a necrosis curse, Mister Paga."
"Sorry, but I ain't got the foggiest idea what a 'necrosis curse' is. Anyway, you just pour some purifying salt on this thingamabob here. With a little abracadabra, the fish won't go bad for a long time!"
Mister Paga waved his hands as if sprinkling magic from his fingers. The "abracadabra" incantation didn't seem to actually have any magical effects so I probably didn't need to memorize it. From the looks of it, the salt itself was the catalyst that activated the magic circle, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. It was something I'd like to take back to Meraldia for further study.
"Mister Paga, who came up with this process?"
"I got no clue. But rottin' fish has been a problem since the dawn of time. People've been doing this since my great-great-grandpa was alive."
The climate was hot, and the Mejire River wasn't terribly clean to begin with, so sterilization magic went a long way here. I had no idea who had come up with this spell, but it had been simplified to do no more than necessary, which made it easy to emulate while still being effective. Crafting a sterilization cutting board like this would be easy even for a freshly apprenticed mage. Salt served as the catalyst to activate the magic circle, and since it was just a catalyst the salt itself didn't get wasted.
"Wow...this is amazing."
"Isn't it?"
Me and Paga were impressed with this cutting board for entirely different reasons, but it was an undeniably convenient tool.
I looked forlornly up at the river. None of the small boats heading downstream were stopping at the pier. Parker was nowhere to be seen.
"Man, Parker's late."
The reason I was waiting here was because he'd sent a message saying he'd arrive today. Of course, the reason he'd gone into hiding in the first place was because of Zagar and his mercenaries. He was probably taking as many precautions as possible before coming to Karfal. Despite his penchant for clowning around, Parker was way smarter than I was.
I should just focus on fishing so I don't get impatient. Just as I thought that, a lavish barge drifted into view. It was the kind of luxury vessel rich nobles would ride for fun. The center of the boat was structured like a gazebo, and there were a number of sailors, guards, and musicians crowded around it. Thin cloth curtains covered the gazebo, acting as walls and obscuring the inhabitants from view.
From within, I could hear a young woman say in a playful voice, "Okay now, I know you're pulling my leg. Please don't get my hopes up like that."
I didn't recognize her voice, but I did recognize the voice replying to her.
"Hahaha! Don't worry, I'm sure my little brother will love you too! He's got a weakness for beautiful women. In fact, his wife is the most beautiful woman in Meraldia!"
Wait a second.
"Of course, I have no eye for beautiful women. I mean just look at these empty sockets."
"They sure are empty."
Hold on just one goddamn minute. I shot Jerrick, who was also fishing a short distance away, a quick glance.
"Capture that barge. If you can't, sink it," I said.
"You got it, boss."
Jerrick and his squad tossed their fishing rods aside and got to their feet. The ship turned slightly, making its way towards us.
"This ship doesn't belong to me, so please don't sink it," the familiar voice called out to me.
"You better fix your attitude then."
Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused me? As the ship drew closer, I realized everyone on it was undead. The finely dressed musicians with their lutes, the soldiers stringing their bows, and the ferrymen with wide-brimmed hats were all skeletons. This ship wouldn't be out of place in an aquatic Halloween parade. All of them were covering most of their bones with layers of clothing, which was why I hadn't noticed until they drew closer. With how light skeletons were, Parker had probably filled the hold with some manner of weight to make sure the ship was sitting as low as it should when packed with a crowd of people. He was nothing if not thorough.
The undead ferrymen anchored the boat next to us, and a handsome young man wearing traditional Kuwolese clothes popped his head out of the gazebo. Parker was wearing the illusory appearance of himself when he was still alive.
"Hey, Veight, how've you been?"
"I was doing great until you showed up."
In truth, I was extremely relieved to see him safe and sound. Since he was a skeleton, it was impossible to guess his feelings from his appearance or tone, but I'd known him long enough to pick up on even subtle changes in his demeanor. I could tell that he at least hadn't gone through any harrowing experiences.
"You really should be more honest with yourself, you know."
Parker stepped off of the boat and looked behind him.
"We've arrived, Lady Amani. This is Veight."
A non-skeletal figure stepped out of the gazebo. She was a woman in her early-to-mid-thirties. Though she was exceptionally beautiful, there were a number of painful-looking red rashes on her hands. Before I could say anything, she announced herself.
"I am Kishuun's daughter, Amani, and the viceroy of Wajar."
"You're Lord Wajar?! I'm terribly sorry for my rudeness. I am Veight Von Aindorf."
Why do all the nobles here name themselves without warning? Is that just a custom here or something? It's bad for my heart. Powani had mentioned that the Kuwolese weren't very diligent. It was a common saying in Kuwol that if you wanted something done, you had to do it yourself. Nobles hesitated to entrust truly important messages to envoys since they often lost their letters or forgot their messages. It was also why everyone was coming to meet me in person.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11_1.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
I made sure none of Zagar's goons were nearby, then surreptitiously invited Parker and Amani into a nearby thicket. Shade was a luxury in Kuwol, and there weren't many other places on this riverbank that were protected from the blistering sun. My original plan had been to ask Parker what kind of person Lord Wajar was, but now that she'd come in person, I was at a loss. Fortunately, lunch was already prepared, so I could at least give her a proper reception. We'd been salting and grilling the fish the Pagas caught throughout the morning. While the grilled fish tasted great, it had the same muddy stench all river fish did.
I wanted to prod Parker on what he'd been up to, but since Lord Wajar was here, she took priority. Looking relaxed, Parker gazed out at the river. I bet you brought her because you didn't want me scolding you, huh? Sighing to myself, I turned to Lord Wajar.
"Thank you for taking the long journey here, Lady Amani. I was hoping I would be able to meet with you eventually."
"The husband of Meraldia's Demon Lord is here in person. It's only natural that a mere viceroy such as myself come here to meet you," Amani said with a gentle smile.
Come to think of it, I guess I am a pretty important political figure now. I was famous enough that viceroys went out of their way to come greet me. Amani glanced back at the skeleton guards protecting her, then breathed a sigh of relief.
"I heard the details from Lord Powani Karfal. I believe that Lord Bahza and the coastal nobles have no intention of overthrowing the royal family."
"Thank you for trusting in us. This tragedy is solely a result of Zagar's ambitions. We must stop him at all costs."
I looked up at Karfal's walls.
"Those mercenaries are the foundation of his power. In order to stop him, we must sever their connection," Amani replied with a nod.
Amani was a young viceroy who had only just taken over from her father, but Wajar was Encaraga's bulwark, and one of Kuwol's most important cities. An incompetent leader would never be allowed to become the ruler of such a vital location, and as expected, Amani's analysis was spot-on.
"The fastest way to do that is to force Zagar out of Karfal. So long as he has the city, he can continue to gather soldiers and resources," I said.
It was similar to how in SRPGs, units standing on forts regained health every turn. Zagar was popular with both the mercenaries and a section of the city's populace. He had no shortage of willing recruits, and was steadily increasing his forces. If his army was attacked here, the city would end up in ruins.
Amani nodded. "It's exactly as you say. Which is why..."
She suddenly pitched forward, her voice trailing off. I hurriedly stepped forward to grab her before she hit the ground. Initially, I suspected an enemy attack, but I couldn't smell any blood, or sense any foes. Besides, my werewolves were guarding this spot.
"What's wrong?"
Amani smiled weakly at me. "It's fine, I just feel a little nauseous. I've had River Rash since I was a child, so..."
That's that disease brought on by niacin deficiency which is basically pellagra, right?
"Sir Parker's treatment has been quite effective, but he has been unable to cure it completely."
I glanced over at Parker and he awkwardly scratched his head.
"Sadly I'm not an expert on healing magic, nor am I a doctor," he said. "I did try my best, though. You mentioned before that a change in diet would help, right?"
"I did, but Parker, don't tell me you..."
Parker waved his hands wildly and desperately tried to justify his actions. "Lady Amani can't stand the smell of meat or fish, so she rarely ever eats, either. I'm a skeleton so I can't judge smell or taste, and I didn't know what else to do..."
Don't tell me you were missing this whole time because you were trying to help her? Well, whatever, I can grill you about that later. In due time. But first, we need to treat Amani.
"It's best to let a specialist handle this. Someone go get Captain Grizz!" I said, then turned to Parker with a smile. "Helping others is an admirable thing. I'm proud of you, my dear older brother. And I'm glad you're back."
"O-Oh... Umm...well..."
Parker fidgeted in embarrassment and covered his face with the headscarf he was wearing.
"Now, Parker, tell me what happened while you were missing."
"Oh, sure. So, the coastal nobles' army started marching south right after I left for my next investigation." Parker had been wary of the mercenaries from the start, and had wanted to avoid getting embroiled in Kuwol's conflict. "I wouldn't have been able to research anything while the mercenaries were raiding cities, so I traveled further south."
In order to continue his investigation, Parker had gone upstream past Encaraga, all the way to Wajar. He'd assumed there would be no reason for the mercenaries to push past the capital.
"There, I collected rumors of ancient ruins, folktales passed down for generations, and so on. During my investigation, I learned that the viceroy of the city was in poor health. I thought this might be a good chance to foster a relationship with one of the river nobles, so I decided to help."
So you were just trying to build connections, huh.
"The word on the street was that she had River Rash, and I figured that was something even I could cure. However..."
"However?"
"Lady Amani had just inherited the position of viceroy, and she was struggling with the challenges that came with her newfound authority. She reminded me a lot of your wife, and I felt like I couldn't just abandon her."
"I see..."
Well, if that's why you stayed behind, then I can't really get mad, now can I?
"When Sir Parker came to visit, my condition was so bad I was bedridden." Amani Wajar smiled softly at me. "Fortunately, I got a lot better after eating the boiled liver he made for me."
Though Amani looked nothing like Airia, her smile had the same warmth to it.
"Unfortunately, I have a hard time forcing myself to eat meat, and I'm not able to eat much of the liver Sir Parker makes. Of course, if I go too long without eating, my condition deteriorates again, and..."
"I have never hated my inability to taste or smell as much as I do right now. I guess it's impossible for me to help people with this withered body," Parker said with a sigh.
"That's not true at all, Parker. You've already helped alleviate Lady Amani's symptoms."
It must have been really hard for him to properly cook foreign dishes when he couldn't even taste or smell. Going that far for someone else isn't something you could do unless you had a kind heart. Honestly, I respected Parker more than ever.
While we were talking, I spotted Grizz's trademark mohawk in the distance.
"What's up, boss?! I heard ya needed me, are we about to crack some heads?"
"No, but I do need you to crack some eggs."
I introduced Grizz to Amani, then explained the situation to him.
"She came all the way here, so I'd like it if you can cook something healthy that'll also suit her palate."
"I see why you needed me now." Grizz folded his arms and nodded to himself. "Alright, one divine meal coming right up!"
"There's just one condition. You have to use chicken in the dish somewhere."
"But, boss, didn't you just say Lady Amani doesn't like meat?"
"That's why I need you to cook it in a way that she can stomach it. Also, you can't boil it. Boiling it will cause the essential nutrients to leak out into the broth."
"That's a lot of restrictions, man..." Grizz cocked his head, considering his options. "It's gonna be pretty hard to get a meat-hater to eat meat. 'Sides, I'm a meat-lover so I dunno what kinda flavor meat-haters are looking for."
"Sadly, neither do I."
According to Amani, she didn't like the taste, smell, or texture of meat.
"This is gonna be one hard challenge."
"That's why I called you in," I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "This is something only a pro can handle."
"You do know my main job is being a soldier, right?"
"Yeah, but you also run the Beluzan restaurant in Ryunheit."
Grizz grinned at that. "Guess I've gotta give it a shot then. My pride as head chef is on the line."
The grizzled warrior with a mohawk pulled an apron out of his pack. Once he'd put it on, he started skillfully chopping chunks of chicken breast.
"One thing I learned running that restaurant in Ryunheit is that a bunch of people in Ryunheit complained about the 'fishy' smell of seafood."
Beluza was on the coast, but Ryunheit was an inland city. Refrigeration didn't exist yet, and seafood wasn't valuable enough to deliver express, so a majority of Ryunheit residents hadn't tried it.
"Most of the people couldn't even handle dried fish. Like, come on. It caused me a bunch of headaches back when we first opened shop."
After separating the fat from the muscle, Grizz started finely mincing the chicken.
"I tried changing up the seasonings, the ingredients I used, and even the way I prepared the food. I've got a lot of experience with adapting food to fit people's tastes."
"I see."
At this point, Grizz's restaurant was the most famous one in Ryunheit.
"This time, I've gotta do something about the taste, smell, the texture, and even the aftertaste. When you've gotta remove so much, the best way to cook it is to grind it up until it barely even resembles chicken anymore. Ground meat's our best bet."
Normally he didn't look like a chef, but that mohawk seemed oddly fitting as he was pounding the chicken. Once he was done, he started chopping vegetables. This he did with less precision.
"It's better not to chop the vegetables too finely. That'll help them retain their texture and mask the meat's."
It feels weird hearing all this cooking terminology from a guy who looks like a gangster. Grizz then cracked open a few eggs and used the shells to separate the white from the yolk. From the looks of it, he was planning on using the whites as a sort of glue to stick the meat to the vegetables.
As he started whisking the egg whites I asked, "I get how you're camouflaging the texture, but what are you going to do about the taste and smell?"
"Getting rid of the smell is easy. I already bought a bunch of herbs and spices to get rid of the 'muddiness' of river fish. I'll probably use Kuwol orange leaves for this dish—they'll give it a nice citrus smell."
Citrus and meat, huh? I thought.
As he sprinkled the leaves in, Grizz grumbled, "Honestly, I don't like them much, but being a chef is all about making what the person you're serving wants to eat, not you."
Those are some nice words of wisdom.
"The smell of vegetables and citrus should be able to assassinate the scent of meat."
"I see."
"And now for the coup de grâce, I'll cook it all in cider. That'll slaughter any last trace of meat smell that's left."
Do you really have to use such violent words? Grizz furrowed his brow as he concentrated wholeheartedly on his task. You could tell he was using every ounce of talent and experience he had.
"Now we gotta deal with the taste. Best thing for that is a sweet, sugar-based sauce. If I was in a proper kitchen, I'd fry the whole thing too, but we can't do that here."
"Sorry for making you do all this way out here."
"No worries, we're used to it. It's the Beluzan Landing Corps's creed to make sure we can cook good food no matter where we are. We're the strongest in the world because we eat the tastiest food in the world!"
Grizz grinned as he kneaded the ground meat. The tastiest food in the world, huh? He did have a point of sorts. If healthy food didn't taste good, people wouldn't want to eat it.
The biggest problem Grizz faced was the limited preparation methods he had. Niacin was water-soluble, so if he boiled the chicken, it'd dissolve into the broth. Wait a second. In that case, couldn't we just make a soup or something using chicken stock and get the same effect? Also, now that I think about it, it's not just meat that has niacin. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that mushrooms have a bunch, too. I had no idea if the mushrooms of this world also were rich in niacin, but they went well with soups, so it was worth trying at least. My food curiosity was piqued, and I decided to try my idea out immediately. I stole a bit of Grizz's chicken and vegetable meatloaf for my idea and shaped them into meatballs. I'll start by making chicken stock, I guess.
"Incidentally, Lady Amani, do you like mushrooms?"
"Hmm. I rarely eat them, but I don't dislike them at least."
"That's good to know."
I dumped a few dried mushrooms into the makeshift soup I was boiling to give it added flavor. Once the soup was ready, I took the meatballs out of it; now that the niacin was in there, there was no need for the meat. Finally, I added some of the soy sauce I'd brought with me for the finishing touches. It still tasted a bit bland, probably because I'd taken the meatballs out, but that was probably for the best, since Amani didn't like meat. All that was left was to chill it to let most of the smell dissipate. I spread a tablecloth over one of the tables in the shade and called Amani over.
"It took quite a bit of time, but I managed to make something you might like."
"Th-Thank you."
I smiled at Amani, who probably hadn't expected this development.
"This dish should help alleviate your River Rash. You may still have trouble eating it, but I promise it's healthy for you."
I doubted she'd come here thinking she'd be getting diet therapy, but she seemed to be taking things in stride, and smiled sweetly at me.
"Not only did you welcome me despite the surprise visit, but you even went out of your way to prepare this. Thank you ever so much."
I put on my business smile and said, "I just didn't want all the effort Parker put in to go to waste. Hopefully, you can eat this."
Amani timidly brought a spoonful of mushroom soup to her mouth and took a sip. Surprise lit up her face as the liquid slid down her throat.
"The meat smell is almost completely gone. All I taste is mushrooms and...something similar to the fish sauce used in Kuwol, but sweeter."
"It's a seasoning made from fermented soybeans. It does a good job of masking the scent of meat, and it doesn't have the raw smell that fish sauce does."
"I see... I don't think anything in Kuwol has this kind of taste. It's rather nice."
Amani happily drank the Japanese-style soup that I'd made. She also liked the meatloaf that Grizz had made, and she took bites of that in between as well.
"The vegetables do a wonderful job of removing the texture and taste of the meat. The orange leaves give everything a fresh fragrance, and the sweet sauce is delicious. I can probably eat meat if it's prepared like this."
"Glad to hear it. I'll write down the recipe for you later. Your chef should be able to make it pretty easily," Grizz said with a grin as he washed his cookware.
It would be a waste to let this guy remain a soldier, I thought. After finishing everything on her plate, Amani let out a contented sigh.
"That was delicious. I could eat food like this every day, I think."
"Splendid. As long as you regularly include mushrooms and meat into your diet, your River Rash should subside." I smiled at Amani. "Once you're cured, we can go out to eat the things you love, but until then, please try to make these your main meals."
"I'm not much of a gourmand, but this meal was fantastic. I could taste the care that went into preparing it," Amani replied, returning the smile. She looked down at her now empty plate. "I see now why everyone calls you a noble among nobles, Lord Veight. To think you would go out of your way to personally prepare food for someone you have only just met... This is an honor I will never forget."
I appreciate the praise, but isn't that going a bit overboard?
"You think too highly of me, Lady Amani. I may be a noble now, but I was born a commoner. Besides, I was an enemy of humans in the past." Though I was a bit embarrassed by her overblown praise, I still had my job as a diplomat to do. "Parker, I, and all of Meraldia's residents consider our Kuwolese neighbors our friends. If we can help bring peace to this nation, then it was worth making the journey here."
I realized how much that sounded like lip service, so I decided to mention our vested interests as well.
I gave Amani a knowing smile and said, "Incidentally, I would be much obliged if you would be willing to open up more sugarcane trade routes with us. That's all Meraldia wants, really."
We had no intention of expanding our territory, and I wanted to make sure Amani was aware of that. She stared blankly at me for a few seconds, then chuckled.
"You're a strange man, Lord Veight."
"I've been getting that a lot from the people here."
I wonder why.
* * * *
—Amani's Appraisal—
The Vice-Commander of Meraldia's Demon Lord, Veight, is a legendary general and a master magician. Supposedly, once he transforms, he's unstoppable. It's strange to me that he's letting a mere mercenary captain run amok. If he's as strong as the rumors claim, he should easily be able to assassinate Zagar and wipe out his mercenary army. So why doesn't he do that? Of course, I realize the kind of chaos that would bring, but if you weigh the pros and cons, it's still a choice worth considering. I must admit, I'm unsure of this man known as Veight.
The reason why I decided to meet him anyway despite my misgivings is because of Sir Parker. He's done a lot for me, and with how much he talks about Lord Veight, he's clearly quite fond of him. It's rare to see someone so selfless and virtuous, so I can't help but be curious about the man he respects so much.
Now that I have met him, I have to say Parker was right when he said he has no eye for people. That isn't to say Veight was a disappointment—if anything, it's the opposite. He's so much greater than Parker led me to believe. He is of course quite handsome, but of particular note is his gentle smile, and the polite manner in which he interacts with everyone. It's a shame he's already married. Why are all of my ideal men always taken? Well, I suppose that's not important right now.
The other thing that left a big impression on me was the fact that he went out of his way to make a healthy meal I could eat. I came here to negotiate in a diplomatic capacity, but he nevertheless attended to my personal needs. Is this affable, unassuming young man really Meraldia's strongest general? It seemed strange at first, but now that I've given it some more thought, I'm beginning to believe it makes sense.
If all the stories about him are true, he's simply too strong. That means his might is the stuff of legends, and his tactical genius is unparalleled. No one can hope to assassinate him, and any attempts at undermining his power are doomed to failure. Nothing scares him. Even Zagar and his crew are hardly worth fretting over.
On the other hand, he isn't underestimating the harm Zagar could cause to Kuwol. If we don't resolve this situation carefully, it'll leave this nation deeply wounded—that's why he's being so cautious. Despite his overwhelming strength, he cares deeply for the weak. I realize my youth and inexperience may have caused me to misjudge him, but that's the kind of man I think he is, at least.
Now that I've met him, I'm beginning to understand why he's taking all of these actions that seem unnecessary at first glance. If all he wanted was to negotiate an alliance with me, there would be no need to go out of his way to treat my illness. This River Rash won't kill me for a good few years at least, if ever. A temporary alliance doesn't require curing me, but Veight doesn't calculate things based on profit and loss, he dedicates himself to saving everyone he can. Moreover, he doesn't seek out any reward for his actions. Veight truly is a saint.
There are, of course, other nobles as kind and caring as him. Powani Karfal, for example, comes to mind, but Veight was born a commoner, and he warred with humans in the past. His life must have been filled with strife and pain. I doubt he ever received a gifted education that taught him to be virtuous. Honestly, his past probably wasn't too different from Zagar's.
Yet, his demeanor is that of a well-educated noble. I can feel myself letting my guard down even though we've only known each other for a few hours. If you told me he was of royal lineage, I would believe you instantly. It's baffling that someone like him exists. Just who is this mysterious general from the north?
* * * *
Talks with Amani went smoothly.
"When I spoke with Lord Karfal, he said that Meraldia could be trusted. He mentioned that you, Lord Veight, were a shrewd but kind man."
"It's an honor to hear that."
I took a sip of my herb tea and motioned for Amani to continue.
"It would be difficult to build a long-term relationship with someone incapable of understanding both party's interests, but if you were heartless, then we wouldn't be able to trust you. Take Zagar for example. He's shrewd, but he's also utterly lacking in compassion."
"Zagar loves drawing a line in the sand between enemy and ally, then surrounding himself with enemies so his allies look to him for guidance," I replied. "Nobles such as yourselves make easy targets for his disgruntled base."
While observing his recruitment methods, I'd noticed a trend. Zagar refrained from insulting his employer, Lord Bahza, but would rag on about all the other nobles.
"His stance is that the nobles are all incompetent leeches, but that he'll give the people what they want." Amani finished off her biscuit and frowned.
"I can't say I particularly mind if he considers us all his enemy. I wouldn't want to ally myself with him in the first place."
"A wise decision, seeing as the only people he considers allies are those he can use as disposable pawns. I feel sorry for the men working under him."
Kumluk's smiling face popped into my mind. Even though he was working diligently as Zagar's underling, it seemed he had no idea the king had been assassinated.
Amani's expression grew serious and she said, "Karfal and Wajar are two of Kuwol's most important cities, as they sandwich the capital. All cities in Kuwol are situated by the Holy Mejire, so to reach the capital one must capture either of the two."
The Mejire was the main means of transportation for Kuwol's residents. The two cities flanking the capital protected it from any attack via the river. I could see where Amani was coming from.
"Because of that, both Lord Karfal and myself are loyal to the royal family. Unfortunately, if we tried to move our troops now while the king is missing, the other nobles would grow suspicious."
That was the same problem I was struggling with. Right before Lord Bahza's mercenaries attacked Karfal, Powani ordered most of its garrison to go out and patrol the outlying villages. His plan had been to surrender from the start and tell the king his troops had been away when the enemy army came, so he had no choice. Instead, Zagar had launched a full assault, and Karfal fell almost immediately. However, most of Karfal's soldiers were still in the area, and Wajar's garrison was at full strength. If we added in the local guards the villages had, we could muster a force of about 3,000 to pressure Zagar.
The problem was, Kuwol's king was missing—an unprecedented event in the country's history. If any soldiers near the capital made a move, both the citizens and the surrounding nobles would suspect someone was attempting a coup. The lack of television broadcasts and newspapers made it easy for misinformation to spread, even among the well-informed. The speed at which Zagar's rumors had proliferated proved that. He didn't have to think about what political ramifications his actions would have, but we had to weigh each and every action carefully. Fortunately, Parker was back so I could make use of him.
"Parker, I want to make sure the person Zagar killed really was the king. Our future plans hinge on that information."
I was already pretty certain it was him, since the royal family was maintaining radio silence, but I needed confirmation. I also needed to find out what the royal family was up to.
I waited for nightfall to come, then went with Parker to the ruins where the murder had happened. Amani requested to come along, so she was with us too. Slipping past the mercenaries' surveillance net took some time, but we managed to safely make it to the ruins.
"It smells like death."
"The stench is going to cling to my clothes."
My werewolf guards grumbled about the pungency in the air, so I decided to use magic to dull Amani's sense of smell before she could pick up on it herself. She could barely handle the smell of cooked meat—the rot of corpses would be too much for her.
"Excuse me."
I poked Amani's nose and cast the weakening spell. Knowing how to strengthen a sense or muscle meant you knew how to weaken it too, since they were two sides of the same coin.
"You should be fine now."
"Huh? Okay..."
Confused, Amani patted her nose. Her gestures really were similar to Airia's. I see why Parker felt like he couldn't leave her alone. When we reached the well, Parker nodded.
"I can sense a strong hatred lingering here. It'll be difficult to persuade the spirit to return."
"But you can do it, right?"
"Of course." Parker grinned. "My comedy is so divine it even has spirits bursting out in laughter."
"Please don't tell this spirit puns."
"I was just joking."
Were you really? Parker lit a stick of incense and brought out an offering of mead. It was only at times like these that he looked like a proper necromancer.
"Do not be alarmed by my voice. My name is Parker, and I am a necromancer from the faraway land of Meraldia."
Parker's voice was gentler than usual. As the incense spread through the clearing, the smell of death began to fade. Parker then uncorked the bottle of mead and poured its contents into the well.
"I can tell your rage at the unjustness of your death is beginning to fade, but I see your lingering regrets and beseech you to heed my call. I am Parker, the listener of the dead."
I could sense a change in the air. Parker's compassionate coaxing methods were almost identical to Master's. He'd grown a lot since I last saw him.
A faintly glowing fog began to rise out from the old well. A young man's figure flickered in and out of existence within the fog.
"Your Highness?!" Amani shouted, and the fog thinned.
I hurriedly turned to her and whispered, "I'm sorry, I forgot to mention this, but while spirits possess no physical form, loud noises emitted by the living can harm them."
"I-I see, my apologies. But that figure is undoubtedly His Majesty, King Pajam the Second."
A spirit's form was composed of memories. While people occasionally beautified themselves in their minds, most at least saw their own appearance as a rough version of what others did. This proved that it was indeed Pajam the Second who'd been killed.
Parker's expression grew grave and he asked in fluent Kuwolese, "I am Parker, disciple of the great Demon Empress who rules Meraldia. I apologize for calling you out so suddenly."
The faintly shimmering mist answered in a soft voice, "I...do not mind...but...where am I... What happened to me?"
The dead saw a world completely different from ours. Pajam's spirit was currently wandering in the darkness between this life and the next.
"I have heard that mercenary captain Zagar slew you. Is this true?"
The whole time, Parker's voice remained gentle. After a frustratingly long silence, the voice spoke again.
"Yes...I...remember now... I was slain by a ruffian called Zagar. I thought I would be meeting Lord Veight...but I was deceived..."
Black sludge started encroaching into the white fog. Crap, at this rate, he's going to turn into an evil spirit. I stepped protectively in front of Amani, but Parker calmly soothed Pajam's spirit.
"I have brought the real Lord Veight with me. Your Majesty, please tell him what happened to you."
Tell me? Parker ignored my confusion and continued pacifying Pajam's spirit.
"Lord Veight is a Hero among Heroes who has not lost a single battle on the northern continent. He possesses great knowledge, wisdom, and courage. I have no doubt that he can clear away any lingering regrets you may have."
Now hang on a second. Parker's words managed to stop the black sludge from spreading, and the mist turned gray once more.
"I cannot see...where... Where is Lord Veight?"
Guess I can't stay out of this any longer. I knelt in front of Pajam's spirit.
"Your Majesty, Pajam the Second. I am the Vice-Commander of Meraldia's Demon Lord, Veight Von Aindorf."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11_2.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
I'd learned a little bit about how to converse with spirits from Master. So long as the spirit was under a necromancer's control, I could talk to it.
The king's features grew more distinct, and he said, "I wished to meet with you, Vice-Commander. This plot to murder me was not your doing, was it?"
"I would never dream of doing such a thing. The reason I came to Karfal was to mediate a peaceful solution. I intended only to meet in order to warn you against doing anything foolish."
The king cocked his head.
"...Warn me?"
I didn't really want to rag on a spirit, but I knew from experience that it was better not to lie when speaking to one. Honesty was the best policy, since spirits no longer had anything to lose.
I doubled down and said, "Increasing taxes on your ports will only harm your nobles and your citizens. Money does not grow on trees, Your Majesty. You cannot just take the bounty your people have worked so hard to earn."
I could tell from her scent that Amani was growing nervous. She was probably terrified of talking back to her king. I was from Meraldia, though, and a famous demon army general to boot. I had nothing to fear from a foreign king, regardless of whether he was dead or alive.
I grinned wickedly, as befitting of a werewolf general, and said, "I have defeated countless men like you, Your Highness. Originally, I planned to teach you a painful lesson by any means necessary, however..." I sighed, lamenting the fact that it was no longer possible. "...My ultimate goal was to stabilize Kuwol's political situation so that Meraldia's trade routes wouldn't be harmed. Taking your life would only throw the country into further turmoil, which is the last thing I want."
The king mulled over my words for a few minutes.
"I see... So my death was a result of my own folly..."
I nodded, since that was the truth.
"...I believed that if I spoke with you, this crisis would be resolved," Pajam muttered softly. After a brief pause, he began talking about himself.
Pajam the Second was his father's only son. He wasn't a very talented leader, so Pajam the First did everything he could to eliminate his son's potential rivals. Being that only men could inherit the throne, he forced all of his male relatives to become priests, thus removing them from the line of succession. Seeing as he didn't assassinate them all, he'd at least been more merciful than many of Rolmund's nobles. In fact, members of the royal family that became part of the church were usually given preferential treatment.
The problem was, Pajam the Second had no knowledge of politics or economics, and he had no interest in learning how to govern. Apparently, however, he was a master poet and artist, but those skills were of no use in the political sphere. By the time Pajam's father realized that it was too late, and Pajam the Second was the only male available to inherit the throne. Pajam the Second reluctantly became king, and for a time, things worked out as his father took care of most of the day-to-day business of ruling. Things started going south after Pajam the First passed away, though.
"I wanted to leave something of value behind for the generations of rulers who would come after me. I knew I lacked the skill to rule, so I hoped to use my artistic talents to make my mark instead..."
Man, why is everyone so obsessed with helping future generations? Well, I guess I can't talk since I'm funding Meraldia's universities for the exact same reason. I swallowed the lecture I was about to give and continued listening.
Pajam the Second was quite the architect, and he designed numerous buildings for the capital. Unfortunately, he didn't pay attention to how much they would cost to build.
"It made me happy to imagine how the parks and palaces I designed would move people for centuries...to come..."
I know this is none of my business, but I really can't let this slide anymore.
"...Your Majesty, it would have been better to leave behind things that cost less to create."
You could have just, like, composed some songs, or poems, maybe dances, or something. It was an ironclad rule of the universe that if you spent more than you made, you'd eventually go bankrupt. It didn't matter if you were a person, an organization, or a nation.
The king looked down apologetically at my rebuke. It seemed he did at least regret his actions.
"It is too late for regrets now...but you are absolutely correct. In retrospect...why was I so desperate to build so many things?" Pajam's expression grew distant. "I used to believe that a king was nothing more than an empty figurehead... It mattered not who sat on the throne, since they were just a token decoration adorning...the nation known as Kuwol..."
Parker inclined his head towards me. "Hey, Veight, do you get what the king's trying to say here?"
"I can't be certain, but it sounds to me like the royal family has a streamlined system in place—which means that the country can function just fine regardless of who's king, as long as they don't do anything stupid."
Honestly, the royal family was mostly just a mediator between the various nobles, so for the most part, they didn't need to do anything at all. It's not surprising that some kings would start to question what the point of their position even was. The fact that Pajam the Second was one of them proved that he hadn't been as stupid as everyone thought. If he'd been more of a simpleton, he could have just enjoyed an easy, boring life and none of this would have happened. Unfortunately, because he'd been smart enough to question his purpose, he'd ended up burning the country's budget on the one thing he was skilled at, art. And so here we are in this mess.
Rolmund's old emperor, Bahazoff the Fourth, had been similar. He'd been a mediocre ruler, but when he realized his death was near, he ordered the invasion of Meraldia so he could have at least one achievement to his name. Everyone's so obsessed with making their mark on history, huh. Unaware of my inner thoughts, the king's spirit continued talking.
"I became afraid when the coastal nobles went as far as raising an army, but I couldn't rescind my edict... My father instilled in me that a king should never go back on his word..."
Were you worried you'd hurt the dignity of the throne or something? In that case, you should probably choose your decrees more carefully... I didn't want to keep picking out the king's faults, so I decided to keep this particular complaint to myself.
"But then...I heard you'd come to Kuwol, Lord Veight... The Demon Lord's husband had personally arrived on my shore... I thought someone of your noble stature would be able to...understand me..."
I didn't fully understand what he was so hung up about, but I did get that he had his reasons for being so stubborn. From the sound of it, Pajam probably felt like it would be admitting defeat to acquiesce to the nobles' demands, and he seemed to think a king could never admit defeat. Whether or not that pride was something Kuwolese people considered a virtue, it didn't change the fact that he'd been slain as a result of it.
Now that I think about it, the people who can apologize for their mistakes and thank others when they receive help are probably the ones who'll last the longest. I need to make sure our kid grows up to be someone like that. Also, I need to work harder at doing that myself. I reverently bowed my head to Pajam.
"Your Majesty, the fact that you sought out dialogue and tried to avoid bloodshed to the very end proves that you were a worthy king. I swear that I shall carry on your will and protect your honor."
Pajam's wispy lips curled up into a smile. "That...makes me happier than you can imagine... Lord Veight...may the blessings of the Mejire be with you..."
Pajam made some sort of gesture within the fog; it was probably a Kuwolese blessing. Had I been able to speak to him while he was still alive, we probably would have been able to thwart Zagar's ambitions from the start. It was too late for that now, though, and we had to stop Zagar without a king. At any rate, it's probably best to exorcise the king so he can move on to the afterlife. Just as I thought that, Pajam started speaking again.
"I believe you are a true friend, and thus I shall entrust my two most important secrets to you..."
Hm? The way he phrased it, they sounded like terribly important state secrets, but knowing Pajam, it was possible they were completely trivial, too. Either way, I decided to hear him out and motioned for him to continue.
"I do have a successor...though he has yet to be born. One of my wives is pregnant with my son."
"Impossible..." Amani muttered.
At present, there were almost no legitimate successors left in the royal family. There wasn't a single male relative of the king eligible to take the throne, so if what Pajam said was true, that was huge. But does a magically underdeveloped country like Kuwol have any mages capable of discerning a child's gender before they're born?
"Are you absolutely certain your unborn child is a boy, Your Majesty?" I asked.
"I am certain... The royal physician used divining magic that has been passed down for generations..."
That magic was probably a simplified charm like the disinfecting charm on Paga's cutting board. Its applications would be limited, but it was probably a reliable spell. The royal family hadn't been eradicated, after all.
"My wife, Fasleen, evacuated to one of the palaces still under construction when the war began. It's the Fasleen Palace, which I christened in honor of her pregnancy."
Did you seriously commission an entirely new palace to celebrate the birth of your kid? I guess that proves you're a doting dad at least.
Grief filled the spirit's eyes. "My only earthly worry now is for the safety of my wife and son... I'm afraid the ruffians who slew me will target them next... Please, Lord Veight..."
"Fear not, Your Majesty. My wife is expecting our first child soon as well, so I understand how you feel. I shall protect your wife and child as if they were my own," I replied resolutely.
"Ah...that's reassuring to hear... Your sincerity warms my heart... You have my thanks..."
The white fog began to flicker. You could say it was Pajam's way of signaling his relief. It was the equivalent of a living person saying "Oh, thank God!"
"You will need the password we agreed on... When you meet Fasleen, tell her, 'The crimson flower blooms on the misty moon.' Do that, and you will be able to see her most beautiful expression..."
Pajam the Second smiled to himself as he recalled fond memories of his wife.
"There is one more secret I wish to divulge to you, Lord Veight... Enshrined on Mount Kayankaka, the source of the Mejire...is a treasure known as the Valkaan Orb... It has the power to transform humans into Valkaan... The royal library...contains records of it..."
Valkaan, huh? I recognized that word. It meant "War God," and was used to refer to what we called Heroes and Demon Lords in Meraldia. In other words, this Valkaan Orb was another one of those ancient artifacts that had caused us so much trouble in Meraldia and Wa. I figured there had to be one in Kuwol as well, and it seemed my hunch had been correct. We can't afford to leave something that dangerous alone.
Looking up, I noticed that the fog was beginning to fade. Pajam's connection to the mortal plane was weakening.
"Parker, the king's spirit is—"
"I know, but I can't do anything about it. The king himself wishes to return."
Parker made the necromancer's sign over and over in different locations, but to little effect. He looked like an office worker pacing around the building trying to find a spot with cell service. Guess this is it.
In a rapidly fading voice, the king said, "...Lord Veight, you are an honest man... I realize this is selfish of me, but...please take care...of my country... I am too tired to go on... I should have...never...ascended to the throne..."
Your dad worked pretty hard to put you there, you know. Besides, the people need a king. That aside, spirits under a necromancer's control were unable to lie. What he said right there were Pajam's true feelings. Honestly, I could sympathize.
The white fog continued to thin until finally, it disappeared. Parker kept watch for a few seconds longer, then said, "He's gone. At least he was at peace by the end."
"That's good."
I breathed a sigh of relief and wiped a bead of sweat from my brow. Spirits could get emotional over the strangest of things, so it was difficult for non-necromancers to hold a conversation with them. Technically, I wasn't really a necromancer either, so I'd been pretty nervous the whole time. I hope you were able to move on, Pajam.
Parker held a small funeral service for the knights who'd died with their king, then turned back to me with a grin on his face.
"That was really impressive! I guess it doesn't matter whether they're human, demon, dead, or alive, you can make everyone dance in the palm of your hand!"
"Come on, don't be rude. Besides, I just..." I chose my next words carefully. "I just told him what I would have wanted said to me were I in his position."
Parker's expression grew solemn for a few seconds, but then he smiled again. "That's not something just anyone can do, though."
"Really?"
Parker said nothing and offered a silent prayer to the corpses in the well.
"Well, that went swimmingly. You helped the king's spirit pass on, so our job here's done. All that's left..." Parker glanced over to a corner of the ruins. "I sense an incredibly strong resentment from that direction. Do you know what it is?"
"It's probably coming from the mercenary Zagar killed."
He was the one who disguised himself as Lord Bahza's messenger and lured the king out here. After the meeting, Zagar killed him to keep his mouth shut. I got to my feet and brushed the dust off of my knees.
"Let's go check it out. I'd wanted to talk to him, too."
He's probably got some juicy intel for us.
Parker walked into the crumbling building and started searching for the spirit's presence.
"Ah, found it. He's nearly devolved into an evil spirit, are you sure you want me to call him?"
Technically, our job here was done, but since this guy's spirit was still hanging around, I figured we may as well talk to him. After all, he'd been loyal to Zagar, and the only reward he'd received for it was a knife in the back.
"He might know some of Zagar's secrets, so I think it's worth a shot. As long as you're around, we'll be safe, right?"
"I suppose."
As far as I knew, there was no spirit Parker couldn't control. He was the only person in existence who knew the secrets of both life and death—though he didn't look like anything special.
"Alright then, here goes... Oh, this isn't going to work. He's not listening at all. I guess I'll have to forcibly summon him instead." Parker cleared his illusory throat and said in a menacing voice, "Parker be mine name. I am he who wanders the threshold between life and death, friend to the living and king to the dead. Heed my call, o' writhing mass of hatred."
I didn't know enough about necromancy to understand what Parker was doing, but I could tell he was using his mana to complete some manner of transaction with a being we couldn't see. Also, I could tell Parker was negotiating the transaction in a very Parker-esque way.
"Ah, hey! Don't think you can escape from me! I'll drag you out...no matter where you hide..."
He's not a kitten hiding underneath your sofa, man. Don't talk to him like that. I was beginning to have second thoughts about leaving this to Parker, but he was the world's best necromancer, so I didn't interfere. After some time, a black mist began to form, and a depressed middle-aged man's face appeared in the middle of the mist cloud.
"Why... What did I do to deserve this... Damn it... Damn it all..."
"Yes, yes, a tale as old as time. We'll listen to your gripes, so perk up. You look dead on your feet."
Parker taunted the spirit with a lighthearted jab. That didn't seem to elicit any reaction from the spirit, so he switched tacks and laid into his threatening voice.
"Your despair does not even scratch the surface of the deep darkness dwelling within me. If you truly believe your suffering to be greater than mine, then speak!"
His tone had changed, but he was still trying to goad the spirit. Humiliated, the spirit's face twisted in rage.
"All he told me was to disguise myself as a messenger and lure out the king! I did everything he asked! Everything! I didn't harm anyone—not our allies, not even our enemies! So why did he kill me?!"
"To keep you quiet probably," Parker said casually, stirring the spirit up even more. Is this really the right approach? However, my misgivings appeared to be unfounded, and the spirit easily divulged his secrets.
"Killing the king was never part of the plan! The captain said he was going to pretend to be Veight and negotiate with him— that's all! But instead, he went ballistic and killed the guy!"
So Zagar killed the king on impulse, then. No wait, he doesn't trust his men. It's possible he just hid his true objective from these guys and was planning on doing this from the start. While I pondered, the mercenary continued his tirade.
"I was loyal to the captain! I did every mission he asked, no matter how impossible! So why?! Why did he kill me?! Everyone else gets to party and celebrate the birth of King Zagar! How come I'm the only one who has to suffer like this?!"
"King Zagar," huh? Doesn't have a very pleasant ring to it. I was starting to feel sorry for this spirit.
"Parker, is it alright if I talk to him directly?"
"Sure. If he tries to get violent, I'll wrangle him under control."
Relieved by Parker's light tone, I turned to the spirit.
"Can you hear me? My name is Veight. Look at my soul."
Spirits had no physical body, so they could only perceive the souls of living people. The mercenary looked me up and down, then opened his mouth in shock.
"Y-You're..."
"That's right, I'm the real deal. The Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, Veight Von Aindorf."
I looked intimidatingly down at him for a few seconds, then let the tension drain from my shoulders and smiled softly. I was aiming to imitate Zagar's casual geniality. Actually, Zagar's a horrible role model. Let's try and act more like Woroy.
"Now, tell me your name. The two of us have no reason to fight. I simply wish to ask you a few questions."
The spirit stared silently at me for a few seconds, then finally said, "Rafhad. The son of Shariga, Rafhad."
"I shan't forget it. Rafhad, do you hold a grudge against Zagar?"
"I do." Rafhad replied immediately, but then he added in a quieter voice, "...But I also owe the captain a lot. He looked after me, and he gave me work that made me feel proud of myself. Which is why I..."
Zagar's pretty good at manipulating people. Even after being killed by him, Rafhad still felt indebted. I could tell he was uncertain, though, so I decided to take advantage of his hesitation.
"Open your eyes, Rafhad. To Zagar, you were nothing more than a sacrificial pawn. He didn't care about you nor your dreams. Despite the lengths you went to, he just saw you as a liability. There's no reason to feel indebted to a man like that."
Zagar, you bastard. You're running your mercenary company like some kind of soulless corporation. I was even angrier with Zagar now. I get being cruel to your enemies, but at least treat your allies with respect!
As my anger reached a fever pitch Parker softly muttered, "What good will come out of antagonizing him?"
Shut up, this is important.
"You were my enemy, and your mistakes have brought misfortune to all of Kuwol. What you did isn't something you can excuse away by saying you were 'just following orders,' but that's not important right now."
I balled my hands into fists.
"I know how it feels to not be respected as a person by my superiors. So I'll get revenge for you. I'll make Zagar pay for what he did."
"O-Okay..." Rafhad's spirit nodded timidly.
Come on man, put your wispy back into it. You need resolve if you wanna get revenge.
"Zagar needs to learn how it feels to be thrown away by someone after devoting blood, sweat, and tears to help them. You have every reason to be as pissed as you are, but don't worry, I'm on your side."
"Veight! Listen to me, Veight! You're letting your emotions get the better of you!" Parker protested. "That bad habit of yours in sympathizing too much with a spirit is coming out again!"
Shut it, Parker. I understand this man's pain all too well.
"I'll get revenge in your stead. However, in order to do that, I need you to tell me what you know. The information you have will lead to Zagar's downfall."
I shuffled closer to Rafhad, and he nodded, pale-faced.
"A-Alright...I-I'll tell you everything."
"That's more like it."
You'll pay for this Zagar. Mark my words.
According to Rafhad, Zagar had first ordered him to find a way to get in contact with the king and his aides. Once his contract with Lord Bahza was up, he would be out of a job, and it was unlikely that she would extend her contract just for him, so Zagar had hoped to use this war to find some more stable employment. He hadn't told the details of his plan to Rafhad, but it was obvious one option he was considering was defecting to the king's side.
However, the king hadn't been interested, so that strategy failed. As a result, Zagar ended up changing his plans to murdering him and staging a coup. Of course, he hadn't told that to his men, so Rafhad was surprised when I explained as much to him. I didn't know if he'd been planning on killing the king from the start or if he'd had a last-minute change of heart, but it didn't matter. After that, Zagar had told Rafhad that too many people recognized his face, then killed him. Now that's just plain cruel.
I clenched my fists, and in my rage, I started transforming.
"Zagar's treating his men the same way he was treated before... Wasn't the whole reason he wanted to move up in life because he was tired of being a disposable pawn? Why is he treating his men like that if he knows how it feels? It's not right!"
I slammed my fist into the wall, pulverizing the rotting bricks and creating a strong gust of wind.
"Anyone who treats people as if they're disposable doesn't deserve to be king! Don't you agree?"
"Y-Yeah..."
Rafhad nodded hesitantly. You're too soft! You need to hate Zagar more!
Looking perplexed, Rafhad asked, "You're a strange one... Why are you being so nice to me?"
That's...not an easy question to answer.
"I'm already dead. Now that I've told you everything I know, I can't be of any more use to you. You shouldn't have any reason to be nice to me."
Now that you mention it, you've got a point. But even if he had a point, my feelings didn't change. With that in mind, I answered, "I don't really know, but there's nothing wrong with having a few strange people in your life, right?"
Rafhad let out a surprised chuckle. "Hah, yeah, you're weird, alright. I never knew there were nobles like you out there..."
The mist, which had turned white now, began to fade.
"Thanks, Veight. If I had been able to work under you, my life might have gone differently..."
With those parting words, Rafhad's spirit vanished.
Parker kept an eye on the surroundings for a few seconds more, then said, "He's gone. I don't sense any hatred from him anymore. I doubt he'll return to this plane." He turned to me and said in a surprisingly stern voice, "That was far too reckless. The dead are bound by different rules and follow a different form of logic than the living. You have to be exceedingly careful when speaking with spirits. Did you forget what Master taught you?"
"No, I remember."
Parker let out a weary sigh.
"You're too kind to spirits, Veight. Haven't you learned your lesson after what happened that one time?"
"Please don't bring that back up."
I was tired of that old event being dug up every time Master's disciples got together. Granted, what happened back then had been entirely my fault. Necromancers normally approached the spirits they summoned with the same professional attitude a doctor or lawyer would have with their client. They made their differences in position clear from the start, then dealt with the situation calmly and rationally.
In that respect, what I'd done was completely out of line. Had things gone poorly, I might have ended up possessed. In fact, I had gotten possessed once during my apprenticeship. Parker made a quick hand sign and offered a short prayer for Rafhad's departed soul, then turned back to me.
"Master made the right call when she forbade you from studying necromancy. No self-respecting necromancer would have done what you did back there. But..."
"But what?"
Parker's expression softened and he smiled. "It's an undeniable fact that your method saved another soul. I'm proud to call you my little brother."
"I'm not your brother—we're just disciples who studied under the same master," I said in a pouty voice, looking pointedly away from Parker.
As we made our way back to Karfal, I discussed my next course of action with Amani.
"I didn't think Zagar was so ambitious that he'd aim to be king himself. To think he stole His Majesty's life for such a worthless goal..." Amani muttered, a sorrowful look on her face.
I wasn't familiar with Kuwol's laws and customs, so I asked, "Could we make the truth public and have Zagar punished for his crimes? Necromancy would provide all the proof we need."
Amani shook her head. "Kuwol's magic isn't very advanced, so proof derived from necromancy wouldn't be accepted in court. There's no one who could verify the evidence Sir Parker would present."
Fair enough. Seeing as Zagar had gone so far as to kill his own subordinate to hide his tracks, I doubt he'd left behind any physical evidence linking him to the crime.
"I guess that means our only option is finding a pretext to remove him from the post of mercenary captain."
The problem was, I couldn't think of any good ways to do that. If we tried to strip him of his right to command, he'd immediately bare his fangs at us. Any overt means of undermining his power wouldn't work—he'd just turn Karfal into a sea of blood. We needed some roundabout way of separating him from his soldiers. If worse came to worst, assassination was always an option, then we'd mop up his disorganized men, but that would still mean fighting in the city. My men and innocent civilians would get hurt.
I'd rather not go down that route. The 4,000 mercenaries under Zagar's command were all more or less pros. It would be best to avoid incurring casualties among the civilians. I didn't want Powani hating me for wrecking his city, and I didn't want to cause any diplomatic incidents either. Most of all, though, I didn't want good people like Mister and Miss Paga to suffer any more than they already had. After a lot of deliberation, I could think of only one solution.
"We need to convince the mercenaries to leave Karfal and head for the capital. According to Lord Bahza's letter, Zagar's contract with her is almost up. He needs to make his move before it expires."
Even if Zagar was in charge of the troops, they were all under Lord Bahza's employ. Once their contract was done, she would order them to return home to hold a tribunal. If they did as she asked, almost all of them would end up in jail.
"The purpose of this army was to show the king that the coastal nobles were serious about their demands. Now that he's been murdered, there's absolutely no reason to fight," I explained.
The one way this civil war couldn't be allowed to conclude was with the coastal nobles occupying the capital. If they did, that would cause the river nobles to fight back, and a new conflict to break out. The ideal resolution would be to get the coastal nobles' army to back off and let the palace select a new king. From there, Lord Bahza and the others could negotiate with him, and assuming he wasn't a complete moron, he'd rescind the harbor tax.
Amani placed a finger on her cheek and said thoughtfully, "True, for all intents and purposes, this war is over now. But if it's allowed to formally conclude, Zagar will be ruined. This is his last chance."
Right now, Zagar had the soldiers Lord Bahza had lent him and the money he'd stolen from Powani. It was easiest for him to act while he still had control of both. As soon as the contract with Lord Bahza was complete, he'd lose the right to command his troops. He needed to make his move before then.
"I have no idea what Zagar will try once he enters the capital, but if he wants to rule, he'll need some sort of legitimacy. If he enters as a usurper, all the nobles will band together to crush him. It doesn't have to hold up against scrutiny, but he does need some sort of pretext for occupying the capital that other nobles would be willing to accept."
Amani nodded in agreement. "If he's looking for an excuse to justify his actions, then we need to make sure we don't give him one. I'll tell the other river nobles not to move their troops prematurely."
"That will certainly be helpful."
I tried to see things from Zagar's perspective and happened upon a sudden realization.
"If the river nobles raise an army to retake the capital, Zagar will use that against them. He'll claim that the nobles are trying to take advantage of the king's absence to stage a revolt, and say that he'll protect the capital from them."
"I could see that happening."
Zagar was an expert at warfare. Letting him turn the capital into a battlefield would be playing into his hands. He knew how to strategically sacrifice his forces to maintain an overall advantage, and right now he had a lot of fresh blood he could easily sacrifice.
In a worried voice, Amani asked, "In that case, how do you think Zagar will act if the nobles don't move their armies? The royal guard cannot sortie without a direct order from the king, so unless Zagar attacks, they won't fight him."
"If they won't attack, I doubt Zagar will go out of his way to antagonize them. He's a crafty man."
The question is, what will he do? He wouldn't give up on his dreams of ruling, that was for sure. Unfortunately, I couldn't puzzle out what his actual next move would be.
"If he learns that King Pajam has an heir on the way, he'll probably try and capture Queen Fasleen. Furthermore, should word of the existence of the Valkaan Orb reach his ears, he'll almost certainly try to get his hands on it. So long as he's ignorant about both, though, I have no idea what he'll try."
Amani grinned mischievously and replied, "In that case, why don't we leak one of the two secrets to Zagar? He'll be so distracted by this new information that he'll be easy to read."
I didn't think of that. This woman's frighteningly clever. I did feel a little reluctant to intentionally leak a secret that had been told to me in confidence, but I couldn't deny that it'd be effective bait to lure out Zagar. Of course, I wasn't so heartless as to use a pregnant woman as bait, which meant I'd have to tell him about the Hero-making machine. Fortunately, if he went for that, I knew exactly how to deal with him.
"That's a great idea. I don't want to put Queen Fasleen in danger, so let's lure Zagar out with intel on the Valkaan Orb. Do you have any concrete ideas for how to leak it anonymously?"
"Yes, you can leave that to me," Amani said, her smile growing wider. "Wajar is the center of the upper basin, and I have my ways of spreading rumors on the Mejire. We'll become your wolves, and help you corner this mad dog."
Her smile is a little scary. She was someone I definitely didn't want to make an enemy out of.
As soon as we reached Karfal, I saw Amani off. Her ship was filled with armed guards who had stayed below decks until now, so she didn't need Parker to escort her. It turned out that was why her boat had sat low in the water, not because of anything my necromancer comrade had done. She's a lot more cautious than she lets on.
Just in case, I sent a single werewolf squad to guard her as well. If the worst were to happen, they could still carry Amani and run faster than a horse, so they'd be able to take her to safety.
"Farewell, Lord Veight. After I unite the river nobles, I'll make preparations to leak the information to Zagar."
"I'm counting on you, Lady Amani. In the meantime, I'll meet with Queen Fasleen and win her over to our side. If possible, I'll bring her somewhere safe as well."
"I have faith in you, Lord Veight. If you need anything, you're always welcome in Wajar. I'll protect you within the city's walls."
Amani bowed to me, then slipped away under the cover of night.
Now then, time to get to work.
"I'm going out for a bit. I need one squad to come with me. Also, someone bring Parker. He's light, so you can just fold him up and carry him."
"Who do you think you're talking to? Look, I can already fit perfectly inside this sack!" Grinning, Parker opened up the burlap sack he'd brought with him.
I sighed and said, "I'll need a second squad to guard him."
Jerrick's squad and Fahn's squad volunteered to accompany us. Queen Fasleen's palace was still being built, so it was surprisingly easy to sneak in. It was located in the southern section of the capital, close to the river. The walls and one wing of the palace were complete, but the courtyard and most of the smaller buildings were still under construction. There was also a large depression connected to the Mejire River by an irrigation channel that was probably meant to eventually be a man-made lake.
The entire compound had been designed to be aesthetically pleasing rather than defensible, and it was situated on easy to infiltrate terrain. It was probably the worst place to evacuate someone, but considering how little Pajam the Second had understood about warfare, I wasn't really surprised.
"We could just ask the guards to let us meet with Queen Fasleen, but it's possible some of Zagar's spies are in this palace, too. I don't want anyone to know we were here, so we'll sneak in."
"No matter how much time passes, or how many fancy titles you get, you're still the same, boss," Jerrick muttered with a smile.
Fahn nodded and added, "You come up with all these elaborate plans, but once it's time to actually go through with them, you just wing it."
You got me there. Regardless, we waited until nightfall, then transformed and leapt over the walls. There was only a single building that was completely built, so Queen Fasleen was almost certainly there.
"Fahn, you take your squad and scout ahead. I'd rather not scare the queen, so it's better if you and your girls approach her first."
Grinning in the darkness, Fahn said, "Oh, when did you get this shy? Or are you saying this out of consideration for Airia?"
What does this have to do with Airia? Snickering, Fahn ran off. A few minutes later she returned and said, "I found a pretty lady playing some kind of instrument. The only guards are outside the building. There are four or so maids inside, but they're all old ladies, so they probably can't fight."
Pia, Jerrick's girlfriend and Fahn's squad partner, added, "We thought about talking to her, but none of us really know Kuwolese, so we came back."
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that.
"Got it, I'll go. If you're all with me, we might scare her, so stay out of sight for now."
"Roger."
"Got it."
Eight werewolves and one skeleton nodded.
I quietly made my way over to the building, being careful to avoid detection. Just as Fahn had reported, I could hear someone playing a string instrument inside. They were playing quietly to avoid disturbing anyone, but my werewolf ears could easily pick up on the tune. I leapt up and deftly slipped into the building through the third-floor window. The window was protected by iron bars, but wrenching them apart didn't take much effort. I'd destroyed part of the palace property before it had even been completed, but considering the situation, it was a necessary sacrifice.
The room in which I found myself had a high, dome-shaped ceiling. The lack of furniture and personal effects gave it a rather desolate feel, and Queen Fasleen looked awfully forlorn inside it. The only light in the room was the moonlight streaking through the window.
The queen continued playing her strangely-shaped instrument far below, unaware of my intrusion. I silently jumped down behind her...and realized if I called out to her now, she'd almost certainly stop playing. If that happened, the maids would come in to check on her, so I decided to wait for her to finish her performance. I transformed back into my human form and hid in the room's shadows.
The queen's music felt somber and disconsolate. Judging by her appearance, she wasn't even 20 yet. I felt bad for her, being widowed at such a young age. Once her performance came to an end, I stepped into the moonlight.
"My apologies for disturbing you, Queen Fasleen," I quietly said.
The queen looked pretty surprised to see me, but she didn't scream.
"Wh-Who are you? This is the queen's private chambers."
"I know. I am the Vice-Commander of Meraldia's Demon Lord, Veight Von Aindorf."
I dropped to one knee and paid my respects to the queen.
She looked at me for a few seconds, then asked resolutely, "Are you friend or foe?"
"Friend...or so I hope."
I wasn't sure if I had the right to openly declare myself her ally, so I added that small footnote. She looked warily at me, and I repeated the password the king had told me.
"I bear a message for you from the king, 'The crimson flower blooms on the misty moon.'"
When she heard that, Fasleen blushed so deeply I could see it in the darkness. So that's what he meant when he said "I'd be able to see her most beautiful expression." Apparently, the king had loved seeing his wife's embarrassment. That's some interesting taste you have there.
"Th-That's a verse from the poem His Majesty wrote for me. He, umm, only sang it during...tender moments so the only people who know it are me and him."
"Tender" moments, huh? I didn't get what that was a euphemism for at first since I wasn't super familiar with Kuwolese, but Fasleen's bashful expression eventually made it clear. You were into some pretty weird stuff, man. The king's sexual habits made me want to sigh, but at least I had Fasleen's trust now. That verse had been more effective than I expected. Personally, I wouldn't trust someone who barged into my home and said a secret password only me and one other person were supposed to know, but if Fasleen was satisfied, that was all that mattered. I needed her to trust me if I was going to fulfill my promise to the deceased king.
In a timid voice, Fasleen asked, "...But how did you come to learn this verse?"
"His Majesty the king told it to me in confidence. He asked me to protect you and your child."
The young queen paled. "D-Don't tell me...His Majesty is..."
You're a sharp one. This was going to hurt to say, but Fasleen desired the truth. Still kneeling, I bowed my head.
"I'm afraid so. The mercenary employed by Lord Bahza, Zagar, used a disguised messenger to lure His Majesty out and assassinate him. You have my condolences."
Fasleen fell silent—her expression a mask of fear and despair. I probably wouldn't get to see her embarrassed, blushing face again anytime soon. In retrospect, Pajam might have wanted to show me his wife's most beautiful expression because he knew she wouldn't make it again after she learned the truth.
Fasleen staggered backwards and collapsed onto her bed.
"This... This can't be," she muttered. "His Majesty said that this war was just for show—that the coastal nobles' army wouldn't actually invade the capital."
To the coastal nobles, this really was nothing more than a political protest, but Zagar had slipped into the crowd of peaceful protestors and was now throwing bombs at the police. I thought about explaining as much to Fasleen, but it wasn't as if the added nuance would ease her pain. Instead, I just waited quietly for her to compose herself. If I died right now, is this how Airia would react? The thought made my chest feel tight, so I decided not to dwell on it.
Fasleen quietly sobbed into her sheets for a few minutes, but she knew she had a job to do. Wiping the tears from her face she forced herself to her feet.
"My apologies for losing my composure."
"Oh, no, I understand completely. My wife is pregnant as well, so I can imagine how you must feel," I answered sincerely.
Fasleen nodded, the sorrow still fresh on her face, and replied, "Thank you... I'm afraid I have no one else I can rely on right now. I have lived my entire life in the palace; I have no allies outside the city walls."
"Fear not—both the coastal nobles and the river nobles still swear fealty to the royal family. This insurrection is all Zagar's doing."
After I said it, I realized that sounded like a lie to make her feel better, but it really was the truth.
"Lord Bahza, the leader of the coastal nobles' alliance, as well as Lord Karfal and Lord Wajar are all your allies. Naturally, I am on your side as well."
Sadly, no matter how many allies Fasleen had, it didn't change the fact that her husband was dead. In order to console her, I decided to say something a little more underhanded.
"The child in your belly right now is the last ray of hope for Kuwol's royal family. Not only that, but he's the ultimate legacy Pajam the Second left behind."
I knew it wasn't fair to say something like this, but it still helped bring some life back into Fasleen's eyes.
"His Majesty's...legacy..."
"If your son is safely born into this world, it will be proof that His Majesty' Pajam's life had meaning. You must protect him, no matter the cost." I could feel my conscience withering with every word I said. Sighing, I scratched my head and added, "Most of all, I feel sadness for your son. He is not yet born, but his father was killed due to a cretinous political scheme, and his mother's life is in danger. It just doesn't feel fair."
I clenched my fist, thinking about what would happen to my kid if I died.
"If I was in His Majesty's position, I know my only wish would be for my wife and child to survive—and if possible, for them to both live happy lives."
"Lord Veight..."
Fasleen smiled weakly and patted her protruding belly. After a few seconds, she nodded and said, "Thank you... I'm sure that's exactly what my husband would have said if he was here right now. I need some time to sort out my feelings, but you're exactly right. I have to be strong."
The final sentence sounded more like she was talking to herself than to me. It truly was a shame that people of high standing weren't even allowed time to properly mourn their loved ones.
I bowed and said, "Please allow some of my men to guard you from now on. They're all friends that I grew up with, so you can trust them."
"Of course. I have faith in you, Lord Veight." Fasleen bowed in return. From what I'd heard, it was exceedingly rare for members of the royal family to bow to anyone in Kuwol. It proved just how much she trusted me.
I took out my dog whistle and called Fahn and the others with it.
"Oh, there's one important thing I forgot to mention."
"What would that be?"
Fahn's squad landed behind me as Fasleen cocked her head to one side. All four of them were still transformed.
"Has everything been settled, Captain Veight?" Fahn asked in her professional voice. She was probably trying to act proper in front of the queen.
I gave Fasleen a playful smile and said, "We're all werewolves. Every one of my men is stronger than ten soldiers, so you'll be well guarded."
Fasleen went pale again and sunk to the ground in shock.
* * * *
—The Stirrings of Ambition: Part 4—
"I see, so they're finally willing to negotiate," Zagar said with a smile as he read over Kumluk's report. "It's been ten days since the king went missing. Looks like they realized they can't keep going on like this."
"Yes. The grand chamberlain was reluctant, but the captain of the royal guard convinced him."
"There was a time when the royal guard hired me to guard one of the king's villas. The connections I made back then are finally coming in handy."
Zagar had blackmail material on all of the royal guard's top brass. Most of them were guilty of bribery, and quite a few had a lot of problems in their personal lives. Kumluk didn't know that, though, and believed Zagar genuinely was friends with them.
"I see. I suppose a man as great as you has friends everywhere."
"Naturally." Zagar got to his feet and looked out of the window. The city of Karfal spread out below him. "I'm tired of this place. I think it's about time we resumed our march."
"Yes, sir!" Kumluk saluted immediately, but then he added somewhat hesitantly, "By the way, Captain."
"Yeah?"
"Why exactly are you spreading rumors that the king ran away?"
Kumluk was a capable officer, but sometimes Zagar felt that he was too smart for his own good.
"Oh, that? I'm simply making sure the people are aware of the truth," Zagar replied, but that wasn't enough to placate Kumluk.
"Normally when you do something like this, you're trying to spread misinformation. Which means the king is actually..."
Unable to bear his vice-commander's accusatory gaze, Zagar slammed the window shut and turned around.
"Yeah, that's right, the king's dead. So what?"
"I-It can't be... A-Are you sure about that?!"
"Of course I'm sure, I killed him myself," Zagar scoffed dismissively.
Kumluk took a half-step backwards and shouted, "Why would you do such a thing?! No one has ever committed such a heinous crime in the history of Kuwol!"
"Because I deemed it necessary. Just because no one else has tried it doesn't mean I won't."
Zagar double-checked to make sure that Kumluk was unarmed, then made sure he had the hidden dagger he usually carried with him. He smiled magnanimously and said, "Kumluk, do you have a problem with the way I'm doing things?"
It was his policy to get rid of anyone who questioned him, regardless of how useful they might be to have around. There were countless subordinates he'd discharged, sent to the front lines to die, or killed by his own hands. Kumluk didn't know that of course, but even he was aware that crossing Zagar was a bad move.
"W-Well..."
Zagar leaned forward. "You and every other person in this company swore fealty to me. You promised to trust me, and to follow my command."
"I-It's as you say. I've pledged my life to you, Captain."
"Then you'd better do as I say. Don't worry, I never fight battles I can't win. Everything is still going according to plan."
In truth, there were so many unknowns that Zagar wasn't at all confident he could succeed, but a leader couldn't afford to look indecisive.
Zagar stretched his back and flashed Kumluk a confident smile. "Look at this country. You kill the king and no one says a word. That's proof that our king is nothing more than a figurehead. What's the point in having a ruler that's just for show? If anything, I'd do a better job ruling."
Kumluk nodded, but his expression was pale.
"I do believe that a man of your caliber would make for a splendid king, but...you didn't have to kill the previous one..."
Annoyed, Zagar glared at his vice-commander.
"It's because the king was worthless that the country fell into chaos. Here we are—stuck risking our lives for pennies. I'm gonna become king and lead Kuwol down a better path." The venom in his glare vanished and he smiled. "Once I become ruler of this land, I plan to make you my vice-king. I want you to make Bahza the second-greatest city in the kingdom. I'm sure Birakoya will be happy when she hears that."
"D-Do you really think so?"
"Of course—but to make my dream a reality, I need your negotiating skills. When we march on the capital, I'll need you more than ever."
Because of his privileged upbringing, Kumluk wasn't that great of a soldier, but he was literate and knew how to negotiate—both skills the rest of Zagar's men lacked. It was because Zagar had gone out of his way to recruit people like Kumluk that he'd been able to negotiate better contracts with his employers. Most other mercenary troupes weren't aware of this, but the fiercest fights happened at the negotiating table, not on the battlefield. That was why Kumluk was Zagar's vice-commander.
"I plan to instate a blanket ban on looting and plundering when we take the capital. Our unit is going to be even more law-abiding than the regular army. We're going to do things like we did back in Bahza. If someone wants women or booze, we'll pay for it out of our pockets. The only person who can make sure every single person in my unit follows my orders is you. I need you, Kumluk."
"Yes, sir!"
Kumluk nervously straightened his back. In Zagar's eyes, Kumluk was a timid but obedient subordinate.
"We need to claim the capital before our contract with Lord Bahza is up. Once it expires, we're going to sign a new one with the royal family. We'll be working for the kingdom next, understood?"
"...But didn't you say the king was dead?"
"As far as the public's concerned, he's just gone missing. The grand chamberlain will be willing to draft up a contract in his stead." Zagar grinned and took a sip out of his bottle of rum. "After that, we'll offer to help search for the missing king, who we of course won't be able to find. Before the dust settles, another civil war will break out. I've got no doubt that there are ambitious nobles out there looking to stake their claim for the throne."
Realizing where this was going, Kumluk asked, "Are we going to be the ones to put those rebellions down?"
"That's right. Soon enough I'll become the official guardian of the royal family, and they'll give command of the military to me."
"But they'll crown a new king eventually, won't they?"
"Don't worry about that. The only potential candidates are minor nobles who are distant relatives of the king or former priests who gave up on religious life. Regardless of who becomes the next ruler, they'll just be a figurehead like Pajam was."
Zagar didn't know that Pajam the Second had a legitimate heir.
"Given the choice between an undefeated general and a figurehead of a king, it's obvious who the nobles and regular citizens will put their faith in. After that, I just need to start a new dynasty." Zagar tilted his bottle back, downing the rest of the rum. "At most, it'll take three years—but if things move fast, I'll be king by next summer. Isn't this whole situation exciting?"
"Y-Yes..."
Kumluk nodded, but it was obvious from his expression that he didn't think so in the slightest. Irked, Zagar dismissed him.
"If you get it, then get out. Figure out a new set of rules to make sure none of my boys step out of line. Oh, and make the punishment for breaking any of them a beheading. We'll need to be strict on everyone."
"...Yes, sir."
Kumluk bowed and left the room. His retreating back looked awfully small to Zagar.
"What a coward," Zagar muttered with a sigh, then called another one of his officers in. "Keep an eye on Kumluk. If he does anything out of the ordinary, report to me immediately."
The officer blinked in surprise.
"What's all this about, Captain? Did Kumluk do something?"
"Just follow my orders. Kumluk's wavering. Watch him to make sure he doesn't defect, got it?"
"Y-Yes, sir."
The officer left, leaving Zagar to his thoughts. As he looked out at the setting sun, he poured himself another glass of rum.
"There's no turning back for me now," he muttered in an attempt to convince himself, and brought the jade glass to his lips.
* * * *
—The Vice-Commander's Woes—
Kumluk returned to his modest room and sighed as he sat down in his chair. I've gotten mixed up in a truly terrifying scheme. Kumluk hadn't taken part in any of Zagar's other underhanded plots; he'd only participated in official business. Now that he'd discovered Zagar's true colors, he wasn't sure what he should do. I thought the captain was a legendary general and an ally of the weak. Well, maybe that's still true...
To someone like Kumluk, who'd been born into a wealthy merchant family, Zagar had been a mysterious and enticing figure. Kumluk had truly believed that Zagar fought to protect those at the bottom of the pecking order, like mercenaries and the poor. He'd been willing to overlook the few illegal deeds he was aware of because he'd thought Zagar was doing them for the sake of a noble cause. Kumluk was pragmatic enough to realize unsavory acts were sometimes necessary for the greater good. He'd also been willing to accept Zagar's argument that attacking nobles and stealing their fortunes was just. After all, without war, mercenaries would have no way to feed themselves. It was better for a few rich nobles to be harmed than for 4,000 men to resort to banditry.
However, killing the king was going too far. Now an inordinate amount of blood would be shed, and the country would be rife with refugees and bandits. The people Kumluk believed Zagar was trying to help would suffer more than ever before. Did the captain change suddenly? Or was he like this from the start? Kumluk sifted through his memories of Zagar. It's true that the captain would make a worthy king. Would Kuwol become a more prosperous country if he was on the throne? Kumluk couldn't find an answer to that question. He just didn't know enough about politics. Being born a commoner, his status as a merchant meant he'd mingled with nobles before, so he knew better than most that society was a complex thing. Kumluk decided to use another country's example to try and envision what Kuwol's future might look like.
When the Meraldian Senate was destroyed, the demon army put a council in place, didn't they? Lord Veight, the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, was on that council as well. Kumluk felt a wave of relief wash over him as he imagined Veight's affable smile. Veight was not just a brave general and capable statesman, but an honorable and kind man, too. He was able to manipulate events to his benefit the same way Zagar was, but unlike Zagar, he never stepped out of line. Also, though it seemed he wasn't aware of it, he treated everyone with compassion and respect. This explained why even the citizens of Kuwol had warmed up to him, and why his subordinates were so loyal and well-mannered.
I wouldn't mind if someone like Lord Veight became king. He's popular with the common folk, and he knows how to rule. Kumluk blinked in surprise as he realized he would rather have a foreign general as a ruler than the man he swore to serve. I guess that means...the captain really isn't fit to be king? Zagar had claimed he would do a better job as king than Pajam the Second had. That was why he killed him, or so he declared, but it was clear to Kumluk now that Veight would make a far better king than Zagar.
In which case, the captain had no right to complain if Veight killed him. The moment he thought that, Kumluk shook his head. Oh no, what am I thinking? I'm Captain Zagar's Vice-Commander. Besides...I owe him a great debt. If even Kumluk turned his back on Zagar, it would be just too sad. More importantly, it would mean repaying Zagar's goodwill with betrayal. When he'd been appointed vice-commander, Kumluk had sworn to support Zagar to the best of his ability.
I'm Captain Zagar's vice-commander, not Lord Veight's. I need to support my master. Kumluk pushed aside his unease and picked up his pen. He opened up his notebook, but it was a while before he could finally bring himself to start writing.
* * * *
Shortly before his contract with Lord Bahza was up, Zagar gathered his mercenary army and prepared to march out of Karfal. As his men lined up, he turned to me with a flourish of his embroidered cape. He was wearing his formal general's uniform.
"Lord Veight, I intend to go to the capital as an envoy of the coastal nobles. Please take care of this city in my absence."
"As you wish, Captain Zagar. Once the regular army arrives, we'll head out as well, as your rear guard."
Zagar and I smiled and exchanged bows. What a farce. According to Monza's report, Zagar was planning to betray Lord Bahza once he was inside the capital. He wasn't loyal to anyone but himself, so naturally he would switch to whichever side benefited him the most. The one thing Zagar was good at was sniffing out who held the upper hand. Unfortunately for him, his sharp nose made it easy for us to predict his next course of action, since he always made the optimal choice.
Right now he was marching on the capital as an "envoy of the coastal nobles." On the surface, it looked like he was just going to ask the royal family to rescind their taxes on the ports.
"What kind of messenger takes four thousand soldiers with him?" Grizz muttered darkly as he watched the mercenary army head south.
I smiled wryly and replied, "Thanks to that, there are barely any mercenaries left in Karfal—just enough to serve as messengers in case anything happens. We should be able to subdue them with ease."
"So, is it finally time to clean house?" Grizz asked with a wicked grin.
I shook my head and replied, "No, first we need to get the coastal nobles' regular army to retreat."
"Retreat? But that slimy bastard's finally made his move."
Grizz cocked his head, and I explained, "That's exactly why. Zagar sees war as a way to rack up achievements. If we leave a large army near him, he's going to find an excuse to attack it. The coastal nobles' army has no experience with land warfare; they're the perfect target for him."
"You've got a point, but then who's gonna defend Karfal?"
"We don't have to defend it at all for now. Since he captured the city, it's technically under his control. Only a moron attacks their own city."
I was more worried about the safety of the capital and Karfal's citizens, but Zagar should know that attacking citizens wouldn't win him any medals—not unless they started a rebellion. And if he bungled things so badly the peasants were rising up in revolt, his name would be tarnished anyway.
"Zagar doesn't like war, he likes victory; specifically victories in which he gains a lot of wealth and fame."
"So you're gonna have the army pull out to prevent him from getting that victory?"
"That's right. We're Meraldian soldiers, so Zagar can't fight us. If he tries, I'll just have my werewolves kill him."
I could kill Zagar any time I wanted, but the moment I did, his mercenary army would turn into a highly trained bandit group. For now, I needed him alive to keep his men under control.
"I want the Beluzan landing forces to patrol the city streets and keep things in order. The citizens seem to like us, so they should welcome your protection."
"You got it, boss."
It felt strange to ask a bunch of mohawked soldiers to take care of public safety, but the people really were fond of Grizz and his men. Their appearances were so intimidating that just by acting like normal people, everyone thought "Huh, maybe these guys are nicer than they look."
"Me and my werewolves are going to be busy keeping tabs on Zagar. I want you guys to protect Karfal while I'm gone. The city's garrison should be coming back shortly, so work together with them."
"Aye, aye. You can count on us, boss," Grizz said with a nod. I could rest easy knowing Karfal was in safe hands.
With this, the coastal nobles would pull their armies back, and the river nobles wouldn't mobilize theirs. Zagar would have no one to fight, and would therefore be unable to rack up any military achievements. The only potential opponent he could fight would be the royal guard, but if he did that, he would be considered a traitor by all sides. If he became unable to strengthen his position through military accomplishments, he'd be forced to earn legitimacy elsewhere. Unfortunately, 4,000 mercenaries were of little use anywhere except the battlefield.
The question then became: What would Zagar try next? Since he always made the optimal choice, it was easy to guide his actions. I called all of my werewolves over.
"Wait a few days, then arrest the mercenaries remaining in Karfal. Zagar took most of his money with him, but he left behind catapults and other large siege weapons he couldn't take into the capital. I want you to confiscate everything he left here."
"You got it."
"You really like catapults, huh, boss?"
It wasn't that I liked them, but they were just too dangerous to leave lying around.
I frowned in an exaggerated manner and folded my arms. "You guys aren't expecting me to kick away rocks like I did in Zaria, are you?"
Everyone laughed. Alright, enough joking around, we've got work to do.
"Once Zagar's in the capital, I want you guys to go to the surrounding villages and call all of Karfal's garrison back."
"You sure you wanna do that? What if Zagar gets mad and uses that as an excuse to attack Karfal again?" Monza asked, confused.
I grinned and replied, "We'll hire them as temporary Meraldian reinforcements. Though, of course, Lord Karfal will still be the one paying their salaries."
"Huh? I don't get it... What's that gonna do?"
Enjoying Monza's confusion, I grinned even wider and replied, "The reason Karfal's garrison is scattered is because the city surrendered, and Lord Karfal was chased out. Technically, this means that right now all of these soldiers are unemployed. Since they're out of a job, I can hire them."
"You can't just—"
I interrupted Monza by showing her a sheaf of documents. It was a secret contract I'd signed with Lord Karfal.
"I've already distributed demon army flags to all of Karfal's troops. If Zagar attacks any unit flying our banner, I'll have a legitimate excuse to kill him."
Zagar wasn't the only one who could come up with hogwash justifications to do what he wanted.
"All we have to do is order the Karfal soldiers flying our flags to go back to guarding Karfal. By doing this, things will go back to normal, and the residents will be happy, too."
However, Monza still looked unconvinced.
"Are you sure about this?"
"If it turns out I'm wrong, it means you'll get to kill everyone who attacks us. You haven't started to hate killing, have you?"
Monza gave me a bright, innocent smile and shouted, "No way!"
Thought so.
The day after I learned Zagar's men had entered Encaraga, I put my plan in motion.
"Capture all the mercenaries in the city. You're free to beat up anyone who resists."
"Ahahaha, finally!" Monza shouted, transforming instantly and leaping away. You're supposed to be on lookout duty, you know... I walked into the viceroy's manor after Monza and shoved a piece of parchment under the drunk mercenaries' noses.
"I have written orders from Lord Bahza. The lot of you are under arrest for breach of contract. Resist, and your lives are forfeit."
The mercenaries didn't take too kindly to that, and they drew their weapons, abandoning their drink. One of the more green-faced mercenaries shouted in a rough voice, "The fuck?! Get sparrowed, ya fogey! Raaah!"
Sorry, but I don't understand Kuwolese slang. Fortunately, he also slashed at me to get his point across, so I had an excuse to try out a new strengthening spell I'd been developing. I didn't even need to transform against someone this weak, so I used strengthening to magic to enhance my reflexes and dodged out of the way. The man's swordsmanship was so slow and simple that it was easy to bop him on the head as I sidestepped him.
"Lights out."
The man hit the ground face-first.
"Guwah!"
Ooh, that looked like it hurt. The man flailed his limbs wildly, but he was unable to get his face off of the ground. I'd used magic to make his head heavier. It was the first spell I'd ever learned. Strictly speaking, the spell just strengthened someone or something's attraction with the ground, but I'd been wondering recently if it could have combat applications. Normally, casting strengthening magic on an enemy had the potential to backfire, but right now I had a thousand Kites of mana, so I could afford to be a bit daring.
"Mmmgh! Mmmmpf?!"
From the looks of it, this experiment was a success, too.
"If you struggle, you'll break your neck. Don't worry, the spell will wear off eventually."
I didn't know how long 'eventually' would be, but I'd make sure to record the time for future reference. Let's test this out on a few more people. I turned around looking for my next test subject, but all of the mercenaries had already been defeated.
"Is that all you've got? Come on, at least put up a fight." Monza grinned as she tossed the mercenaries into one big pile.
Well, I'm glad you're having fun at least, I thought. After subduing the manor with ease, I let Lord Karfal's maids in. Originally, this was their workplace.
"I return this manor to you, Shura. Would you mind cleaning the place up before Powani returns? If you need helping hands, I can lend you some."
"As you wish, Lord Veight."
I handed the manor's keys over to Shura, and the three maids bowed to me.
"Thank you for retaking this manor from those lawless thugs. We will never forget this debt. From this point onward, we will strive even harder to be of use to you."
"Thanks. The city's garrison will be returning soon, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about from here on out."
I can finally relax a little.
"Alright, now that Karfal is back to normal, all that's left is to separate Zagar from his mercenaries and take him out. After that..."
"What's the plan, boss?" Jerrick asked, carrying a piece of lumber over to repair a broken section of the manor.
"We're gonna end Zagar's ambitions here and now. I'm just trying to think of how to clean up the aftermath."
"What do you mean 'aftermath'?" Jerrick cocked his head at me.
* * * *
—The Stirrings of Ambition: Part 5—
Thanks to how disciplined his men had been, Zagar was relatively popular with the people of the capital. He'd successfully managed to sign a new contract with the royal family after the one with Lord Bahza expired, and he was now part of the city's provisional defenses. There'd been a public announcement that he was working for the kingdom too, so the residents of the capital weren't afraid of him.
"I heard His Majesty brought the mercenaries working for the coastal nobles over to our side."
"Wait, didn't the king run away?"
"I dunno, but either way, we're safe now. As long as these guys and the royal guard are around, the coastal nobles won't be able to touch the city."
"Good grief. I'll finally be able to start trading again."
"Can we really trust these mercenaries, though?"
"They're super disciplined. Honestly, I couldn't believe they were mercenaries. They even paid for the goods they bought from me."
"Huh... I guess that Captain Zagar fellow knows how to keep his men in line."
"Maybe it's not such a bad idea to let them guard the capital, after all."
The rumors on the streets made it obvious that Zagar and his men were welcome in the capital. The mercenaries didn't go out into the city very often, but even so, Zagar was the talk of the town. According to some, he'd stopped a thief in the streets and returned the stolen goods to their owner. According to others, he'd repaired broken buildings and shrines. And according to yet others, he was distributing food to the poor. As more rumors spread, the perception that Zagar was an honorable mercenary captain solidified. However, Zagar himself was currently panicking.
"No one's moving their armies?"
Kumluk straightened his back and nodded. "Y-Yes, sir. At present, no nobles are advancing on the capital."
"You're absolutely certain of this?"
"I believe so. We don't have many scouts, so it's possible we missed something, but with all due respect, armies are pretty easy to spot. If someone was coming to attack us, we would know."
Zagar got to his feet and kicked his chair away. He was currently on the top floor of the inn they were renting.
"That's impossible! Even if the commoners are clueless, the nobles should realize by now that the king really is missing! And I'm right here in the capital while the throne's empty! Why isn't anyone coming to fight me?!"
"I-I don't know."
"Damn it all!"
Zagar calmed down a little as a new idea came to him.
"Wait, I've got it. If the river nobles aren't attacking, we can take down the coastal nobles' army. Now that we've signed a new contract, they're technically our enemy. They should still be around Karfal, so we can kick their asses and gain some fame that way."
"Isn't that a little excessive?!"
Before Zagar could respond, one of the scouts returned to deliver his report.
"Captain, the coastal nobles' army appears to have retreated. It appears that they were so scared they didn't even want to risk fighting you."
The scout smiled, believing he was bringing good news, but Zagar frowned.
"What?! They turned tail and ran?! What the hell?!"
"Err..."
Kumluk and the scout exchanged glances, but neither of them could think of anything to say. Zagar smashed his wineglass onto the floor and shouted, "Fine! Whatever! We can just ignore them!"
"Are you certain?"
"We don't have the speed to chase a retreating army—almost all our mercs are foot soldiers. By the time we catch up to them, we'll be too far from the capital."
Zagar knew that if he left, there was a strong possibility that the grand chamberlain and the royal guard would betray him. After all, the Meraldian Vice-Commander was still in Karfal. If Veight makes a move, they'll abandon me in a heartbeat and take his side instead. His brief talk with the king had driven home the fact that he was just a commoner. No matter how many achievements he racked up, that was all he'd ever be to the royals. He needed to build up his influence in the city to make it so the grand chamberlain couldn't remove him. The problem was, there weren't any enemies for him to trounce and boost his popularity.
"We need to keep winning to stay afloat, but if there are no enemies to fight, there's no one to win against."
"What should we do, Captain?"
Zagar smiled confidently. "I didn't want to go down this route, but it looks like I've got no choice. Come up with some excuse to get all of the king's retainers, chief guards, important priests, and ministers in one room."
"A-Alright. There's supposed to be a meeting of retainers and ministers the day after tomorrow. We'll be in charge of guarding it, so you can get into the room if you want, Captain."
Zagar nodded in satisfaction.
"Perfect. It's time to show everyone I do have what it takes to be king."
On the day of the meeting, Zagar gave a speech to the gathered officials.
"Please let us take over the search for the king!"
The grand chamberlain, the country's most important ministers, and the commander of the royal guard were all present. The head of the Mondstrahl church in Kuwol and his closest aides were there as well. All of them were currently listening to Zagar's speech.
"My men are familiar with the terrain around the capital. We wish to find him as soon as possible to quell the unrest spreading throughout the nation!"
If it became clear whether or not the current king was dead, it would be possible to crown a new one. Of course, Zagar knew how ironic it was for the person who killed the king to offer to look for him, but judging by the reactions of the people in the room, they weren't aware he'd been assassinated.
The Mondstrahl chief shaman sighed and said, "It's certainly true that we cannot leave the throne empty for long. Seeing as His Majesty Pajam has not returned, we may have to consider choosing a new king..."
"We cannot. His Majesty's cousins Prince Kasum and Prince Haadi are both members of the clergy. Tradition dictates that one who takes up the cloth cannot be allowed to return to politics," the master of ceremonies countered.
"I understand your concerns, but there are no other suitable candidates."
The master of ceremonies glared at the chief shaman. "You aren't just saying that because you want to increase the Mondstrahl temple's influence over the nation's affairs, are you?"
The chief shaman frowned and replied, "We have no interest in worldly power. But if the king remains missing, this country will fall into chaos."
Good, good. Zagar grinned to himself. Keep on arguing, you morons. If this escalated into a conflict, both sides would need fighting power, and it was Zagar who held the most military might in the nation right now. He didn't care who he sided with, so he was willing to sell himself to the highest bidder.
Just then, the doors to the meeting room were flung open.
"Sorry I'm late," a voice Zagar recognized, a voice that filled him with dread, said. He turned around and saw the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander standing in the entryway.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, ladies and gentlemen. I am Veight Von Aindorf, Meraldian councilman and the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander," he said, bowing to the gathered ministers. It was low enough that his foreign robes brushed against the floor.
In a shocked voice, the grand chamberlain sputtered, "Wh-What on... How did... It is an honor to meet one of Meraldia's councilmen, but if I am not mistaken, wasn't Lord Wajar Amani supposed to be the one to attend this meeting?"
Veight smiled pleasantly and said, "Lady Amani is with me of course. We accompanied her to ensure her safety."
"'We'?"
Everyone looked at Veight in confusion, and Amani walked into the room with a beautiful woman. The moment he saw her, Zagar felt a shiver run down his spine. She was in a dress that only official consorts of the king were allowed to wear. Not only that, but her belly was bulging. She was pregnant. If she was a queen, then the child in her belly undoubtedly belonged to the king. There would exist a royal child.
"Wh-Who..." Zagar started to mutter.
The woman's cold, sharp gaze pierced through Zagar, silencing him. She was looking at him the same way the king had just before he was killed. There was a mixture of scorn and pity in her glare.
After staring at him for a few seconds she turned to everyone else and bowed. "I am Pajam the Second's consort, Fasleen."
"Lady Fasleen!"
"By Fasleen...you mean the woman who was the most likely candidate for the king's official wife?"
The ministers and priests hurriedly got to their feet and knelt to her, though Zagar wasn't aware that she was a woman of high status. You can't be serious! One of the king's consorts was pregnant?! Had he been aware of this fact, he certainly wouldn't have let Fasleen live. Zagar had done his best to gather all the information he could about the king's concubines, but there were a lot of women in the king's harem, and most of them rarely left the palace, so he hadn't been able to learn much. No one had said anything about a potential successor, so Zagar had assumed none of the king's consorts were pregnant.
Veight stepped forward and said, "The child in Lady Fasleen's belly is a boy. This record of the court physician's examination is proof of that."
What?! Zagar had no idea that it was customary for pregnant ladies to seek out doctors if they could afford one. He grit his teeth as he realized the men standing behind Fasleen were likely doctors. Shit, I slipped up! Zagar's plan had been to maneuver behind the scenes while everyone fought over the empty throne, but now, his hopes had been crushed.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11_3.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
With a legitimate heir, there wouldn't be any chaos unless Fasleen had a miscarriage. The other members of the royal family already had important posts in the Mondstrahl Church, so they had no reason to fight for the throne. No... My battlefield is vanishing...right before my eyes... Zagar had finally managed to become the leader of an army thousands strong and hold actual political clout. This was supposed to be the beginning of his rise to fame, but he'd been shut down before he even got a chance to get started.
Veight turned to the gathered officials and said, "His Majesty may still be missing, but his heir will soon be born. It will be you fine gentlemen's job to raise him into a fine ruler. Your wisdom and experience will be necessary to teach him what his father and grandfather won't be here to do."
For all his flowery language, Veight was basically inviting the nobles and ministers to serve as king regent while Pajam's son was still young. Naturally, that was quite an enticing proposal to them.
"But of course, as Kuwol's stalwart ally, Meraldia will support you in your endeavors. If anything happens to the royal family, or if Kuwol's stability happens to be threatened, the demon army will immediately rush to your aid. Our giants and dragonkin will be at your disposal."
Everyone started whispering excitedly to each other. Veight had effectively declared that Meraldia would send its elite demon soldiers in if anyone tried to assassinate the future king or start a civil war. In fact, that could even be taken as an implied threat that Veight would conquer Kuwol himself if someone harmed the king. No one would dare make a grab for power now.
Veight went on to explain the details of his policy, but Zagar didn't even have the energy left to listen. The only thing keeping him standing was the knowledge that if he looked visibly crestfallen here, everyone would grow suspicious of him. After some time, Veight finally turned to Zagar.
"I see we meet again, Captain Zagar."
"Yeah..."
I wanna wipe that arrogant smirk off your face so bad! But Veight's next words transformed Zagar's anger into fear.
"Rafhad is waiting for your return."
"Wha—?!"
Zagar wanted to ask Veight what he meant by that, but the Black Werewolf King had already turned back to the ministers. The sun slowly sank in tandem with Zagar's feelings.
* * * *
—The Stirrings of Ambition: Part 6—
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuuuuuuuck!"
After returning to his room, Zagar drew his sword and slashed at his bedsheets. There was a shattered rum bottle on the floor, and the cloying smell of alcohol permeated the room. Unsurprisingly, Zagar had finally lost his cool.
After Veight's entrance, Amani Wajar gave a speech. She said that all of the river nobles upstream of the capital were praying that Fasleen would safely deliver her baby, and that they would accept her son as the new king. Once she was done, Powani Karfal showed up and mentioned that all the river nobles downstream of the capital felt the same way. Not only that, but a messenger from Birakoya Bahza showed up to declare that the coastal nobles recognized the legitimacy of the new king as well. The entire country had sworn fealty to Queen Fasleen and her unborn baby.
It was the worst possible outcome for Zagar. He'd finally stirred things up enough to get a civil war started, but now everything was calming down. I even sabotaged Bahza's port to get the ball rolling last time! I should have easily been able to spark another civil war! Everything up to occupying Karfal had gone according to plan. However, Pajam the Second had rejected Zagar's proposal, which snowballed into everything going wrong.
No, wait, that's not quite right... Zagar thought back to everything that had happened thus far. It's all that damned demon's fault. Everything went to hell after he showed up. Zagar just couldn't fathom how Veight would move next, or what drove his actions.
Most of Zagar's mercenaries didn't make for good spies, and the few that he did have were infiltrating the royal family or the nearby noble houses. Of course, now it was clear to Zagar that Veight was a greater threat than anyone in Kuwol. Should I just kill him? Zagar briefly entertained the thought, but quickly discarded it. He wouldn't stand a chance against a werewolf. The only way humans could beat werewolves were if they caught them unaware and had a massive numerical advantage.
That guy never drops his guard for a second. Despite looking like he was wide open, in reality, Veight was constantly on alert. He kept at least four guards with him at all times, and maintained an eye on everything that happened within his surroundings. Zagar had asked a number of his men if it was possible to assassinate Veight, and they'd all said they wouldn't be able to do it. At this rate, Zagar's war would end before it even got started. Once the new king was born, the nobles would serve as his regent until he was of age—which meant Kuwol's policies and political structure would remain mostly unchanged. Moreover, once order was restored, they would start searching for the king in earnest.
"This isn't looking good..."
Veight had mentioned Rafhad's name during the meeting earlier. He was the same man who'd disguised himself as a messenger to lure the king out. The fact that Veight knew who he was meant that he'd uncovered the truth behind the king's disappearance. Zagar was trapped in a cage he hadn't even realized had been closing in around him.
My only option now is to take my 4,000 mercenaries and burn the capital to the ground... he thought. If he could just raid the palace and kill Fasleen, the royal family would be stamped out for good. Of course, that would make Zagar an outlaw, but at this point, he didn't have any other choice. It wasn't possible to do everything under the table anymore.
"Alright."
Zagar thought about summoning Kumluk, but then he stopped with his hand on the door.
"Hold on... Can I really trust him?"
When Kumluk had learned that Zagar had slain the king, he'd been visibly shaken. Furthermore, he had spent a lot of time around Veight. It would explain a lot if Kumluk had betrayed Zagar and told Veight about what he'd done. Though, it was still entirely possible that Veight had learned the truth through other means, too. Zagar couldn't be sure who was friend and who was foe.
"Goddammit!"
Zagar rolled up his map of the capital and its outlying regions and threw it on the ground. A second later he heard a deep voice from the hallway, "Captain it's me, Balkel. I have something to report."
"...Balkel?"
"Yes, sir. You hired me in Karfal. I was patrolling the palace, but I rushed here because I thought there's something you should know."
Now that he had over 4,000 men, Zagar wasn't able to remember all of their names. Sighing, Zagar waved his hand and said, "Alright, get in here. What have you got?"
A middle-aged warrior stepped into the room. He was wearing a mismatched suit of armor that was in awful condition. Nevertheless, he straightened his back and tried to project as much dignity as possible.
"I spotted what I believe was a few Meraldians near the palace's library tower. They were speaking in Kuwolese, but the contents of their conversation—"
"Hold on. How can you be sure they were Meraldians?"
Meraldians and Kuwolese didn't differ much by appearance. If a Meraldian was speaking in Kuwolese, it would be almost impossible to tell they weren't native.
Balkel grinned and said, "They didn't have much of an accent, but they used phrases like 'Mejire River' instead of just 'Mejire,' so I could tell they weren't a true native."
"I see."
In Kuwolese, the word "mejire" simply meant "big river." For that reason, no native speaker would say the words "Mejire River." If they were using Kuwolese, they were probably trying to pass as natives—meaning they might be spies of some sort. This definitely warrants attention.
"So, what exactly were they talking about?"
"It appears they were investigating something in the royal library, sir. I heard the word 'Valkaan,' and mention of some hidden royal treasure."
"Valkaan...you say?"
War Gods who possessed unparalleled power were called Valkaan. Moreover, if this was some hidden treasure of the royal family, it was probably something powerful.
"Do you have the keys to the royal library?"
"I'm afraid not, sir. You have to borrow them from the royal librarian, and he only gives them out to those of high status."
"Go tell the librarian there's a possibility thieves may have snuck in, and tell him to give you the keys. Let him know that Zagar, the man in charge of the capital's defenses, will take full responsibility for whatever happens."
"Yes, sir!"
Once he had the keys, Zagar headed to the royal library alone. He'd done basic guard duty plenty of times back when he'd been a small-time mercenary, so convincing the librarian to let him in alone had been easy. Books were valuable, but they were harder to preserve than currency or gemstones. They couldn't just be locked away in a safe, they needed to be kept in a place with low humidity and no insects. They also decayed in sunlight, so they needed to be in dark rooms with good ventilation. Plus, they were extremely susceptible to water and fire damage, and really easy to steal. There were very few places books could be safely stored.
Now then, where are you? He scanned the dust-covered spines looking for a book that had been recently taken off its shelf. Nothing jumped out at him immediately, but he noticed there was one spot with relatively fresh fingerprints. Upon closer examination, he realized the bookshelf's depth didn't line up with how wide the side was. Nice trick.
Zagar had seen plenty of similar gimmicks in his time as a guard, and rapped the bookshelf with his knuckles. As expected, a hollow echo came back. Relying on his memories of similar hidden bookshelves, Zagar slid one of the ledges back. The ledge in front was nothing but a facade. The real bookshelf was behind it. Zagar read the titles on the spines, and soon found one that looked promising called The Secrets an Heir Must Know.
The title made it pretty obvious that this was the book a king had his heir read when relinquishing the throne. As he flipped through it, Zagar found a passage detailing a secret treasure that could turn ordinary people into Valkaan.
"In times of great crisis, the king must use the Valkaan Orb and gain the strength to eliminate whatever threatens the nation. Those who become Valkaan cease to age. After fifty years, it is the king's obligation and duty to abdicate the throne and spend his remaining days guiding his successors."
The rest of the passage talked about how Valkaan needed to act in a morally upstanding manner so as to set a proper example to others, but Zagar didn't bother reading any of that. I see, so this is the royal family's trump card. If you become a Valkaan, you can easily take on armies a million strong all by yourself. None of the nobles would oppose you, either. Zagar finally understood why everyone respected the royal family so much, despite the fact that they were just figureheads when it came to politics. Of course, Zagar had come to a mistaken conclusion, but no one was around to correct his misconceptions.
If I turn into a War God, I won't have anything to fear. No one will be able to arrest or assassinate me. The legends made it clear just how much stronger a War God was than normal people. Where is it?! Where the heck is this legendary treasure hidden?! All the book said was that the Valkaan Orb was stored away in the base of Mount Kayankaka within the mountain tribes' sacred land. Mount Kayankaka was located in a remote region of Kuwol, and was said to be the source of the Mejire. A round trip from the capital would take half a month or more.
If Zagar left now, the political situation would be completely stabilized by the time he returned. He'd lose everything he'd built up until now. However, all that waited for him was execution if he stayed. Sooner or later, word would get out that he'd killed the king. Now that Veight knows the truth, it's just a matter of time. Bribery, threats, assassination... Nothing will work on him. Zagar didn't understand why, but Veight seemed hell-bent on thwarting his ambitions. I'm better off placing my bets on the possibility of becoming a Valkaan than staying here and trying to reverse the situation. Making up his mind, Zagar began planning his next move.
* * * *
"Hahaha! There's no greater honor for a military man than being able to share a seat at the same table as you, Lord Veight!" An old man with a stubbly beard said, then bit heartily into a grilled lamb leg. "I'm worried I may have used up all of my luck for this year."
He washed down the hunk of meat with a long swig from his goblet before continuing.
"My family owes the Wajars a great debt, since the previous viceroy, Kishuun Wajar, saved my grandfather's life. Hopefully, I've managed to repay some of it."
"You most certainly have. Thanks to you, we'll be able to avoid needless bloodshed. I have no doubt that the late Lord Wajar is proud of you as well."
I'd met Balkel once in Karfal. He was that shabby mercenary who'd been looking to join Zagar's crew. His armor was still mismatched and dented, but his demeanor was still as regal as before.
"My grandfather was once part of the royal guard, but he did something that got him in trouble with the palace staff. He never told us what exactly happened, but apparently, it was a mistake big enough that he would have had to pay with more than just his job to make up for it." Balkel smiled wistfully. "But Lord Kishuun vouched for my grandfather and managed to get him pardoned. If he hadn't, both my grandfather and my father—who was a child at the time—would have been executed."
Damn, that's a pretty big deal.
"Not only that, but Lord Kishuun also paid for my grandfather's living expenses. Because of his backing, the previous Lord Peshmet granted our family a plot of land. My older brothers still run a sugar plantation there."
Peshmet was the city furthest upriver, and was rather remote. The fact that Balkel's family had been granted land there meant it would have been a problem if they'd been allowed to stay near the capital. Now I'm curious what kind of insane thing Balkel's grandfather did to get so much attention.
Amani, who was also eating with us, took a sip of the chicken dumpling soup me and Grizz had come up with and said, "My father believed in showing kindness to all. Or, well, I should say he believes, since he's still in good health." She smiled and added, "Even if your generosity goes unrewarded, your reputation as a generous person has value in and of itself. Eventually, that reputation will aid you or your descendants. At least, that's what my father says. Quite often, mind you."
I see you're sick and tired of hearing the same lecture from your dad. Amani's smile turned rueful and she looked up at me.
"However, I suppose I now have no choice but to accept that my father was right, seeing as Sir Balkel was saved thanks to him, and now he's the one saving us."
"Ah, that's true."
I nodded in agreement. Balkel was here as a mercenary on Lord Peshmet's orders. His job was to infiltrate Zagar's company and keep an eye on what he was up to. Amani and Lord Peshmet were close friends, which was why she'd been able to get in touch with Balkel to finish the trap we'd sprung on Zagar. I didn't have a full picture of who was in the river nobles' employ, but I knew there were more spies than just Balkel in Zagar's company.
This time around, Balkel had been instrumental in putting on a convincing enough act to get Zagar chasing after the Valkaan Orb. I'd set up the whole act, and even created a fake book and secret bookshelf for Zagar to find. The fake book was based on the real one Pajam had told me about, and even used the exact same binding, but it was missing the pages that detailed how to actually use the orb. On the off chance that Zagar actually managed to acquire it, he wouldn't be able to do anything with it. Parker had summoned the spirits of a former librarian and royal secretary to help make the book as authentic as possible, so I doubted Zagar would realize it was a forgery. The ease with which he'd called them was a chilling reminder that if anyone got on his bad side, Parker could easily summon an undead army large enough to raze a nation to the ground.
Balkel sipped on the high-grade rum we'd gifted him and said with a faint blush, "I'm really happy I was able to repay my debts to Lord Kishuun and Lord Peshmet. I am in truth a mere wandering mercenary, so had you not told me about Zagar's plot, I would have remained his loyal subordinate."
A little hesitantly, Amani asked, "Why not use this opportunity to work officially under Lord Peshmet? I'd be happy to write you a recommendation. If he says he has no need for your services, you're welcome in Wajar."
Balkel was both loyal and surprisingly versatile. His skills as a soldier were top-notch, and he knew Meraldian as well. Honestly, I could see why Amani wanted him on her side.
"Lady Amani's right, Balkel. You're far too good to waste away as a mercenary. As Meraldia's representative, I'd like to reward you as well. Seeing as you know Meraldian, you'd be welcome in the demon army any time."
Balkel looked up at me in shock, then awkwardly scratched his head.
"Errr...well, this is quite the pickle. Such an important position would be too high an honor for someone like me. I never imagined the day would come where both Lady Amani and the Vice-Commander of a foreign king would want my services." He shook his head as he said that. "However, I'm afraid I'm too much of a patriot to leave for Meraldia. Please forgive me, but I'm afraid I must decline."
"Oh, no, if anything I should apologize for making such a brazen request."
Crap, I almost forgot the people of this world care way more about their homeland than people back on Earth. Of course, I still wanted to thank him, so I thought up a different reward I could offer.
"In that case, would you prefer a gift of currency? I could also provide you with superior armor and a powerful warhorse if that's what you desire instead."
"No need. My achievements this time around were not in battle. It would be wrong of me to ask for too much." As he said that, Balkel shot me a suggestive glance. "...I realize this may be presumptuous of me, but would you be willing to grant me your name instead, Lord Veight?"
"'My name'? What do you mean?"
"I would like to formally receive one letter from your name and henceforth call myself Valkel. Would that be an acceptable reward to ask for?"
I was surprised an old Japanese tradition existed here in Kuwol as well, though I was more surprised that was all Balkel wanted—especially since it would barely even change the pronunciation of his name.
Amani chuckled and explained, "I thought you were a man of few wants, but I see you desire something far more valuable than a legendary sword or famous warhorse. Receiving a letter from the name of a foreign king's vice-commander is an honor as great as being appointed the captain of the royal guard."
"Is it really?" In my head, I realized it was a great honor, but it still didn't feel like one. But hey, if that's what you want, I don't mind. "If my name alone is enough to satisfy you, then by all means feel free to adopt it. Hey, is there anyone around? I need some contract paper."
One of the servants brought me a piece of enchanted paper and I started writing. Once I'd penned the contents of the reward, I put down my signature in special ink, and the paper began to glow faintly. The spell on the parchment would prevent it from fraying or collecting dust. So long as it wasn't treated roughly, it would last over a hundred years.
"Here you go, Balkel...or rather, Valkel."
The unkempt warrior accepted the paper reverently with both hands.
"This truly is an honor beyond words. I, Valkel, shall treasure your kindness for the rest of my life."
You really like that new name, huh. Valkel rolled up the parchment and carefully placed it in his pouch.
"At long last, I have restored my late grandfather's honor. He was a kind man, and in his final years, he was constantly apologizing to us for ruining our family name. Now that I have earned this new name, I can visit his grave with my head held high." Valkel got to his feet and bowed. "Now then, if you'll excuse me, I wish to return home and help my brothers tend to the sugarcane fields. Now that I have this certificate, I'm sure I'll be able to find a splendid lady willing to be my wife."
Amani also got out of her chair and said, "Are you sure this is all you desire, Sir Valkel? I would still be willing to hire you."
Valkel smiled and replied, "I have already received more honor than a mere man-at-arms such as myself deserves. Even if I were to serve you, I would be able to gain no greater merit."
Confused, I asked, "You're a skilled soldier, and you're loyal to a fault. If you wanted to, you could earn a lot of fame as a warrior. So why is it that you feel like you can't achieve any more?"
Valkel let out a hearty guffaw. "Hahahaha! What a strange thing to say! The reason for that lies with you, of course, Lord Veight."
"Me?"
"Indeed. So long as you are around, there will be no more large-scale conflicts. How can I raise my fame if there are no wars to be fought?"
After saying that he got down on his right knee and bowed to me.
"Lord Veight, I beg of you. Please preserve this country's peace. I could ask for no greater reward than keeping my home safe from the ravages of war."
"You have my word, Sir Valkel, that I will do everything in my power to keep Kuwol safe."
I clasped his calloused hand and shook it.
Two days had passed since Zagar had learned of the existence of the Valkaan Orb. I was in a meeting with the palace's courtiers when I heard a werewolf's howl in the distance. That sounds like Monza, but I've never been great at telling the howls apart. My brain was still running human software, so I had a hard time doing a lot of things most werewolves found natural.
"Is something wrong, Lord Veight?" the grand chamberlain asked. I bowed to him and rose from my seat. "My apologies, but it appears I have a matter I must attend to."
"So that scoundrel Zagar has finally..."
"Yes. I just heard from one of my subordinates that he's taken five hundred cavalry and left the city."
"That's a rather large entourage to be taking to 'search for a missing king.'"
The officials frowned unhappily, though I could tell they felt a bit of relief as well as distaste. Zagar had left the capital to search for the treasure that would turn him into a Valkaan. Of course, the official reason for his departure was that he was going to look for the king, but everyone knew he was basically running away.
Queen Fasleen gave me a confused look and asked, "Zagar has four thousand men under him, doesn't he? Why isn't he taking them all?"
Ask him, not me. Still, I gave her my best guess for his actions. "I suspect it's a problem of logistics. He'll have to pay for his soldiers' food and lodging all the way to Mount Kayankaka. Now that the nobles have effectively turned against him, it'll be difficult to find financial help to pay for all four thousand soldiers' travel costs."
The nobles had pinned their hopes on Fasleen's unborn child, so they had no reason to aid Zagar. Without their support, the only way he'd be able to raise enough supplies for all of his men would be to raid the countryside, and doing that would paint a target on his back. So he took only his 500 cavalry.
"Of course, there's a reason he took only cavalry, too. If he included foot soldiers in his unit, it would take him far longer to reach Mount Kayankaka."
The vast majority of Zagar's company was infantry. Few of his mercenaries had training in horseback riding, and he had even fewer warhorses. The only way he could get 500 warhorses would be to raid the royal guard's stables, so I suspected most of his cavalry were using plain riding horses. Naturally, riding horses weren't suited for combat, but warhorses were far more expensive since they were trained in combat maneuvers and knew not to panic even in chaotic situations. A rather sinister plot came to mind as I explained the situation to Fasleen.
"Seeing as Zagar has basically fled the capital, it's safe to assume he's abandoned the mercenaries he's left behind. It's possible he left some kind of secret orders behind for them, but seeing as he took most of his best men with him, I think that's unlikely."
"Does that mean we can finally relax?" Fasleen asked, which prompted me to say the one thing that had been on my mind for a while.
"That I'm not sure of, but there's one thing I want you all to understand."
"What's that?"
"These mercenaries are just doing their best to scrape by. They're desperate because they need work to buy their next meals. Some of them might have homes and farms to return to, but those who don't will almost certainly resort to banditry if they can't make ends meet as mercenaries."
"Oh my..."
Fasleen and the courtiers looked worriedly at each other. Alright, here's my chance.
"...Which is why I implore you—please give these men a roof to sleep under and food to fill their bellies. The capital will be that much safer if they aren't starving and homeless."
"Are you...sure?"
"Absolutely," I replied. Only those who had experienced poverty knew how desperate it made you. "Very few people will try to do the right thing when they've gone hungry, have spent days exposed to the elements, with no way of knowing if they'll make it to tomorrow, and assume that the rest of society scorns them."
That was how us werewolves had been in the past, and many humans were suffering under similar conditions even now.
"It's impossible to understand what starvation drives people to unless you've been starving yourself. The biggest threat to a nation's stability is from within. That's the greatest lesson I've learned from touring various countries."
Technically I learned that by studying history, but this sounds more impressive.
Powani Karfal folded his arms and muttered, "Lord Veight is absolutely right. When I, my wife, and my child were chased out of Karfal, I was overcome by hatred, but also desperation. Had Lady Amani not offered me her aid, who knows what depths I may have fallen to."
He said nothing more, but I could easily imagine the lengths he would have gone through to protect his wife and kid. After all, I would do the same in his position.
Amani smiled and replied, "Very well, then all of the nobles and ministers shall work together to find a way to house and feed the mercenaries. If they're willing to follow the law, I wouldn't mind employing a number of them as guardsmen for Wajar."
"Thank you all very much."
As I bowed my head, the royal secretary walked into the room. He handed a sheaf of documents to the master of ceremonies, then bowed and exited the room. The master skimmed over them, then turned to me.
"I have just now issued an arrest warrant for Zagar," he said. "He's wanted as a suspect for the king's murder. Kuwol's soldiers have permission to execute him if he resists."
"You have my gratitude. I can take over from here."
I was now legally able to apprehend Zagar, but I suspected this would just give me a legal excuse to kill him. There was no way he was coming quietly.
Fasleen looked up at me, a hint of concern in her expression. "Please be careful, Lord Veight. For the sake of your wife back home."
Airia's smile flashed through my mind. From the few letters we'd exchanged, it sounded like she was doing well, but knowing her, she was probably hiding her real feelings so as to not worry me.
I bowed my head and replied, "Thank you for your concern. Both for the sake of my unborn child and yours, I swear that I will bring peace back to Kuwol."
Now then, all that's left is to catch this guy.
The same day, I took my werewolf unit and headed out. Of my 56 werewolves, two squads—in other words eight werewolves—were staying behind to guard Fasleen and serve as messengers. The remaining 48 were traveling with me. We had the Blast Rifles we'd kept hidden until now, since I was expecting things to get bloody.
"Hey, boss, there's still like four thousan' guys left back at the capital, right? You sure we only need eight guys to guard the queen?" Jerrick asked worriedly, glancing back towards the capital.
I smiled wryly and said, "That's all I can spare. If Zagar's taken five hundred men with him, then I'm going to need almost all of you to beat his entourage. Hopefully, the nobles at the capital will properly take care of the mercenaries."
Fahn seemed worried as well, and she asked, "Can we really trust them?"
"Not all of your citizens will be good people. Even your criminals and outlaws are still your citizens. It's the job of nobles and kings to properly manage everyone, including those who've strayed from the right path."
I wasn't good enough to do that, which was why I constantly had to rely on force to resolve problems. Furthermore, a true leader was someone who could get people to follow them even without the threat of military retribution.
I realized I was trying to convince myself as much as I was Fahn so I added, "If they can't manage a simple task like this, then they won't be able to hold the country together long enough for the prince to come of age anyway. In which case, we may as well see if they have what it takes."
If they don't...I guess I'll have to look into forming a United States of Meraldia and Kuwol. I really hope it doesn't come to that, though.
"Alright, everyone. It's time to go to Mount Kayankaka where the War God's treasure is enshrined. We're going to follow the river all the way upstream." I waited for everyone to nod, then said, "Zagar and his cavalry have half a day's head start, but if we transform, we should be able to catch up to him quickly enough."
"When are we gonna attack?" Monza asked, barely holding back her excitement. I pointed to the map in front of me.
"After we've passed the southernmost city, Peshmet. If there's a city nearby when we strike, Zagar might try and seek refuge there. He doesn't give a damn about civilian casualties, so I want to avoid a battle in the streets."
When he'd taken Karfal, Zagar had killed a good number of civilians and destroyed many more's homes. The only people who should die on a battlefield are soldiers.
"I asked Valkel to deliver a letter to Lord Peshmet on his way home. We should be able to resupply there, but Zagar will be turned away. Once we're past the city, there won't be any others on our route, so he'll probably show his true colors then."
The mountain tribes that lived around Mount Kayankaka weren't Kuwolese citizens, so Zagar would have no qualms about pillaging their lands.
Fahn grinned and said, "But there's no way he'll be able to raid the mountain tribes, right?"
"With just five hundred men, he probably won't be able to manage it, yeah..."
I opened up the real copy of The Secrets an Heir Must Know to a specific page. Unlike the fake I'd left for Zagar, this had plenty of information about the tribes living by the mountains. It also gave specific directions to where exactly the Valkaan Orb was hidden away. After reading everything in this tome, I finally understood why Mount Kayankaka was the safest place to hide the treasure.
"Honestly, Zagar isn't even our top priority. While he's lost in the mountains, we'll head straight for the mountain's summit, where the shrine is."
"You got it, boss!"
The werewolves grinned in anticipation of the hunt to come.
* * * *
—The Stirrings of Ambition: Part 7—
Zagar's vice-commander, Kumluk, was panicking.
"Captain, the majority of our cavalry isn't actually able to fight on horseback. If we were to be attacked by bandits..."
"Don't be stupid. What kind of bandits would attack an army? We're official soldiers of Kuwol now, remember?"
Zagar laughed off Kumluk's worries, which didn't reassure him in the slightest.
"But the nomad tribes in this area despise Kuwol's army. Besides, even if our main force is safe, our scouting party most definitely isn't."
Zagar had a few mercenaries riding out ahead in a constant rotation so that he'd always have some forward scouts. However, he wasn't the least bit concerned for their safety.
"I know our scouts are risking a lot, but we can't afford to let our main force get caught by surprise. You should be happy I gave them horses, at least."
Kumluk fell silent for a few seconds, but then hesitantly asked, "...Are we really out here to search for the king?"
Kumluk already knew that Zagar had slaughtered the king and dumped his corpse in the outskirts of Karfal. He also knew they wouldn't find anything at Mount Kayankaka. Everyone who was part of Zagar's inner circle understood that this entire search was a farce. Most of them thought this was just Zagar's way of pretending he'd tried so that he could make himself look better, but Kumluk wasn't so sure.
"The only time you personally lead your troops is when you're after something big. What's the real reason you're taking us to Mount Kayankaka?"
Zagar curtly replied, "Just shut up and follow my orders."
"Captain!" Kumluk shouted, beside himself. Some of the other veterans of Zagar's squad turned around, but he waved them off and said, "It's nothing, don't worry."
"I'm sorry for speaking out of line, Captain. But as your vice-commander, I want to know what your real objective is," he asked, in a quieter voice.
Zagar frowned at his persistent vice-commander. "You're wasting your time, there is no real goal."
His glare was sharp, almost as if he was staring at an enemy. For the first time that he could remember, Kumluk was afraid of his captain. Seeing his fear, Zagar awkwardly turned away and said, "You might think you understand me, but the truth is there isn't anyone who does."
He spurred his horse onward, not once looking back at his subordinate. Kumluk's horse was also a warhorse, but it wasn't nearly as fit as Zagar's. He didn't want to push his tired horse any harder, so he let Zagar outpace him.
"Captain..." he muttered to Zagar's retreating back.
Meanwhile, Zagar's scouts had reached the base of the mountain. Unlike the barren plains they'd been traveling through until now, the foot of Mount Kayankaka was a lush forest. Verdant greenery spread out as far as the eye could see. It was the height of summer though, so the interior of the forest was hot and humid.
"I thought we'd be able to cool down in the shade, but it's like a sauna in here..." one of the mercenaries muttered, wiping sweat off his neck. The others nodded in agreement.
"It's too goddamn humid to be wearing armor."
"Our horses are beat, too. We should rest them by the stream."
The mercenaries had found a clear stream that wasn't too far into the forest. It was one of the many sources that fed into the Mejire. While they were technically on a scouting mission, it wasn't as if there were any enemies nearby, so naturally, the mercenaries let their guards down. The seven scouts chatted idly with each other as they led their horses to the stream.
"Is it just me, or has our captain been kinda weird recently?"
"Yeah, a little. He used to smile a lot more, but these days he just yells all the time."
"He hasn't been paying us as much, either."
"Yeah, and he keeps going on about how we've gotta follow the rules and crap while we're in the capital. I heard he's being even stricter on us than the royal guard is to its soldiers."
"We're not even being paid as much as those guys."
The mercenaries were getting fed up with Zagar—especially the scouts, since they were doing dangerous work for no extra reward.
"A good mercenary captain should be undefeated, reasonable, and pay well, am I right?"
"We haven't fought much recently so I guess we're undefeated, but the pay sucks, and the captain's far from reasonable now. Maybe it's time we quit."
"You say that, but it's not like there's any better mercenary companies we could join."
The only thing driving these scouts on was the knowledge that this work was still better than anything else they could find. Just then, one of them stopped his horse.
"...Someone's here."
"Which direction?"
The mercenary silently pointed to the stream that could be seen peeking through the foliage. All of them slipped off their horses, took out their crossbows and swords, and hid in a nearby thicket.
"Heh, those are some pretty lasses."
Sitting on a boulder near the stream were three young women. Their bamboo baskets were filled with fish, but the mercenaries couldn't see any fishing tools anywhere.
"Are those the barbarians that live around Kayankaka?"
"Probably. Look at those thighs."
The women had rolled up their loincloths, and their tanned legs were in full view for the mercenaries. Eventually, one of the mercenaries muttered, "I think it's time we took advantage of the perks of our job. I'll lose my mind otherwise."
"Hey wait..." Another mercenary tried to dissuade him, but his eyes were glued to the women's legs too. "Those girls aren't Kuwolese, they're just mountain barbarians. And from the looks of it, there isn't anyone else around."
"Yeah, but what'll we do with them after we've had our fun?"
"Drown them in the Mejire."
"Sounds good to me."
The mercenaries tiptoed out of the thicket. By the time the dark-skinned women noticed them, they were already surrounded.
"Hey there, pretty ladies. Are the fish biting?" One of the mercenaries said to give his friends time to finish the encirclement.
"Get 'em!"
The men charged as one.
The clear stream was dyed red with rivulets of crimson.
"So, who the heck were these men?" One of the women asked in thickly accented Kuwolese. She tightened her belt and looked over at her two companions.
"I think Lord Peshmet said they were fugitives who killed the king or something."
"Pesh...met? Who is... Oh wait, he's that old guy who always gives us meji, right?" The youngest girl asked with a smile.
"He's the ruler of a city—you can't just call him an 'old guy.' Show him some proper respect."
"I know, I know. I like meji bread, so anyone who gives us meji has to be a good person."
"You don't get it at all, do you?" The woman who was tightening her belt said with a sigh, then looked down at the corpses of the seven mercenaries who'd attacked them. Their bodies had been ravaged, and their clothes were drenched in blood.
"Hey, sis, does this mean we can kill everyone who comes here wearing armor?"
"Not necessarily. Lord Peshmet said to wait until we're attacked before fighting back. Some of the people coming are supposed to be our allies, like this guy called Lord Veight, so we can't just kill off everyone we see."
"God, what a pain..." The youngest girl raised her head and perked her ears up. "Sounds like there's more coming. Maybe ten or so this time? They're around Turtle Rock."
"Oh, so they are. That's a big group." The eldest sister frowned and placed a hand on her cheek while the middle sister grinned. "Not big enough to beat us, though."
"Yeah, but we don't know whose side they're on yet. Let's hide the corpses for now."
A couple of minutes later, a group of cavalry wearing the same style of armor as the earlier mercenaries appeared by the stream. However, these men didn't have their weapons out. The sisters watched them warily, and the group's leader nudged his horse forward and introduced himself.
"Excuse me, ladies. I am the vice-captain of Encaraga's defense force, Haluam's son, Kumluk." The well-built man dismounted from his horse. "I'm searching for my advance party which I sent to scout out ahead. I don't suppose you happened to see them?"
* * * *
We overtook Zagar after leaving Peshmet and were now in one of the villages of the mountain tribe that lived halfway up Mount Kayankaka. Most of their settlements were in or around the crumbling ruins of an ancient city that had once existed here. The tribesmen appeared to have a rather modest lifestyle, but they were by no means impoverished. It was clear the villages had more than enough food, and the tribe members' clothes were colored with vibrant, luxurious dyes. The buildings were all made of wood, but they were sturdy and well-ventilated.
After presenting the tribe elder with a dragonscale gem as a gift, I then introduced myself.
"It's an honor to meet you. I am Veight Von Aindorf, werewolf of the Demon Army, member of Meraldia's Commonwealth Council, and Vice-Commander to the Demon Lord."
"Welcome, Veight. This is my first time meeting with a werewolf."
The kindly-looking elder nodded and accepted my gift. There were a lot of rules and customs in Kuwol regarding gift-giving, and the fact that he'd accepted mine meant he had no intention to fight. He examined the glittering jewel for a few seconds, then carefully put it down on a nearby table. He then raised his palms into the air.
"Spirits of my forebears, your blessing has graced us with this divine treasure. Guest to my home, may the blessings of my forebears go with you."
"Thank you for your hospitality," I said, bowing slightly.
When we'd stopped in Peshmet, the viceroy had taught me a little about mountain tribe etiquette. Guests were supposed to bow as low as the chieftain indicated with his raised hands. How high the chief raised their hands showed just how welcome a guest was. If they were unwelcome, the chieftain would put their hands so low you'd have to press your head against the floor. The short elder was doing his best to raise his hands as high as possible, so I barely had to incline my head.
Smiling, the elder said, "I see you took the time to learn our customs. We would like to repay the favor by learning yours."
"You honor me."
Back on Earth, it was normal for Japanese people to study up on the customs of whatever place they go to visit, but in this world, it appeared that wasn't the case. At the very least, the elder seemed surprised that a foreigner had gone out of their way to learn about his tribe.
"Incidentally—"
Before he could say anything more, I heard a commotion outside. The chieftain and I exchanged glances, then got to our feet. As we walked out he muttered, "Your warning was well-timed, Veight."
Upon stepping out of his house, I was greeted with exactly the sight I expected to see.
"We're back, elder!" A grinning young girl shouted, a bag of swords and spears slung over her shoulder. Behind her was a group of mounted, unarmed mercenaries—all of whom looked terrified. When I saw Kumluk among them, I breathed an audible sigh of relief. Thank god you didn't get killed. Two older women were at the head and the rear of the line of mercenaries to make sure they didn't try anything funny. All three of the girls were wearing mountain tribe clothing. Normally, it'd be strange for ten trained mercenaries to be afraid of three unarmed women, but I wasn't surprised by their reaction. If anything, it would have been strange for them not to be terrified of these girls.
"Kumluk!" I shouted, and he looked up in surprise.
"...Lord Veight?!"
I walked over, and Kumluk hurriedly dismounted from his horse. The girl at the head of the group turned around and shouted, "Hey, no one said you were allowed to get off!"
I smiled at her and said, "Don't worry, he's not dangerous. I promise he won't cause a scene."
"You sure? Actually, wait, who even are you, Uncle?"
"Uncle...?" I repeated, flabbergasted. The oldest of the girls bopped the younger one on the head.
"Owwwww!"
She then gave the youngest girl a noogie and said, "Lord Veight is a general visiting from another country! Did you already forget what Lord Peshmet said? He's the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander!"
"Owowowowowowow! I didn't forgeeeeeeet!"
I can't believe...I'm old enough that people are calling me "uncle" now... This was the first time someone had called me that since I'd reincarnated, so it came as a bit of a shock.
The eldest girl smiled and said, "I'm terribly sorry about my sister, Lord Veight, but you don't need to look so shocked. In Kuwolese 'uncle' just refers to anyone who's married. It has nothing to do with age."
"It's fine, I'm not upset."
I know Lord Peshmet said he'd told the mountain people about me, but why did he tell them about my marital status too? Well, whatever, that's not important right now. I turned back to Kumluk, who looked like he wasn't following along at all, and said, "Thank goodness you're alive, Kumluk. You're not hurt, are you?"
"N-No, I'm fine... But I just saw something terrifying enough to give me a heart attack."
"I assumed as much."
The fact that Kumluk and his men were still alive proved they'd made the right choice. If that was the case, then I could probably convince the elder to leave them in our custody—or so I'd hoped, but it appeared the situation was a bit more complicated than that.
When I turned to the elder he shook his head and said, "Those men's comrades attacked my people."
"How reckless can you get..." Fahn, who was my guard for today, muttered. She gave Kumluk a pitying look and said, "Bet you thought you were gonna die, huh?"
"Yes, I never imagined such beautiful women would suddenly..." He trailed off, realizing it might come off as an insult if he described what they'd suddenly done. The last thing he wanted was to make these three girls mad.
Apparently, Zagar's advance scouts had gone and caused trouble already, so now the people of Mount Kayankaka saw his mercenaries as their enemy. I'd let my guard down because he'd kept his men in line while in the capital, but now that I thought about it, these guys were still just glorified bandits. Why do you people always make the worst possible choices at every turn? Sighing, I turned back to the elder again.
"Kumluk is like the mercenaries' conscience. We'll need him if we want to convince them to retreat without attempting to raid your villages."
My plan was to have Kumluk reorganize the mercenaries and lead them back to town after I'd taken care of Zagar. He was decently popular within the unit, and his administrative skills were necessary to keep the mercenaries in line.
The elder grinned and said, "Why bother asking them to retreat when we can just annihilate the lot of them? It's been a while since our tribe's had a good fight."
Why is everyone such a warmonger? Seeing as the elder was raring to go, I decided to try a different tack.
"Err, in that case, could you at least spare Kumluk and his men?" I asked.
"We'll have to investigate whether or not he's committed any crimes in Kayankaka before we can do that. If he's innocent, we'll believe the people he leads are, too."
And how exactly do you plan to investigate that? Just as I thought that, the villagers started preparing something behind me. A few minutes later, Kumluk walked over to the table they'd readied, wary of the armed tribesmen all around him. Worried, he looked around and asked, "What's going to happen to me, Lord Veight?"
That's what I want to know. The elder looked down at Kumluk and declared, "Kumluk, son of Haluam. We will now hold your trial."
Someone placed a plate of dried beans in front of Kumluk. The heck?
"Those are judgment beans, a special legume that grows only in Kayankaka's sacred sanctuary. Their holy properties have the power to slay sinners."
Kumluk looked down at the plate in shock. I doubted mere beans had that kind of power, but I knew Kuwolese people were superstitious. Kumluk at least looked sufficiently terrified of them.
With a gentle expression on his face, the elder said, "Prove your innocence by eating these beans, Kumluk. If you truly have committed no crime, then they shall not kill you."
"I-I'm innocent, I swear."
"Then prove it."
The elder pointed to the plate of beans. Kumluk was getting overwhelmed by the atmosphere. It wasn't surprising, since his men had been restrained, and villagers were staring menacingly at him while fingering their axes and hatchets. If he failed the trial, it was obvious what fate awaited him and his men.
"Y-You want me to eat these beans?"
"Yes. Now hurry up."
The elder glared at Kumluk, seemingly running out of patience. I had actually heard about this ritual before. As things stood, this was a bad situation for Kumluk, so I shouted in Meraldian, "Gueita!"
Both the villagers and Kumluk turned to me. The elder asked politely, "Is something wrong?"
I calmly replied, "I simply told him 'good luck' in Kuwol's coastal dialect."
"I see. I'm afraid I must ask you to refrain from speaking during the ritual."
"My apologies, it won't happen again."
Kumluk was proficient in Meraldian. There was no way he'd mistake the actual meaning of what I'd said. Cold sweat dripped down his pale face as he looked at me. I nodded, trying to encourage him. Gathering his resolve, Kumluk lifted the plate with both hands and poured all of the beans into his mouth at once. He crunched on them loudly, then forced them down his throat. Everyone watched in silence to see what would happen. After a few seconds, Kumluk started retching violently.
"Gah! Blegh! Gwooh!"
One of the tribesmen casually brought a bucket over, and Kumluk threw up into it. Eventually, the vomiting subsided, and Kumluk raised his head. He'd gone from pale to deathly white, but he was still alive. I turned to the elder with a grin.
"He's still alive."
"So it seems. His innocence has been proven." The elder raised his hands into the air and shouted, "The trial is done! The holy land of Kayankaka has judged this man to be guiltless! He and his men are innocent! Untie them and welcome them as guests!"
The terrified mercenaries slumped to the ground, relieved. Kumluk was released as well, and the mountain people offered them a modest meal. The mercenaries were half-forced to eat the grilled venison and fresh fruit served to them. They'd just seen their boss puke up a plateful of poisonous beans so none of them had much of an appetite, but they ate regardless so as to not anger their hosts. From the looks of things, they weren't able to taste the food at all. Poor guys. At some point during the meal, I had a chance to talk privately with Kumluk for a few minutes.
"Thank you so much, Lord Veight," he said, bowing his head. "Had you not told me to 'eat it all in one go' I would have been too scared to do more than nibble on them one by one."
"If you'd done that, you would have been killed for a crime you didn't commit."
In my past life, I'd read about a bean known as the "calabar bean." It possessed a slow-acting deadly toxin, but it also had a slightly nauseating effect. If you ate it in small doses, the nausea would barely register, and the poison would kill you. However, if you consumed a bunch at once, you'd feel like throwing up, which would save your life. I'd read that there were indigenous tribes who used this exact same method to trial people back on Earth. There was a similar species of bean in Meraldia as well, and it was used for a similar purpose. The one back home was called "sinner's bean." I suspected the species used in Kuwol was the exact same, considering the climate.
The idea was that those who didn't feel guilty would eat the plate all at once and thus survive while those that did would slowly nibble on the deadly plant and succumb to the poison. Kumluk had been lucky. I explained all of this to him with a friendly smile.
"I just didn't want to see a good, honest person like you die for a crime you didn't commit. The elder probably didn't appreciate me interrupting his sacred ritual, but to me, your life is more important."
"Lord Veight..." Kumluk did his best to look composed, but I could see the tears spilling from his eyes. "Why would you...risk so much for someone like me?"
"Like I said, it's because you're a good person."
Kumluk covered his face with his hands and bit his lip, his shoulders trembling.
* * * *
—The Stirrings of Ambition: Part 8—
"Stop moving so slow! Don't break formation! At this rate, it'll be dark before we set up camp!" Zagar shouted to the cavalry trotting up behind him.
The sun was beginning to set, and the entire party was in the forest. The mercenaries timidly snapped their reins, but they weren't trained horsemen, and their horses weren't warhorses. Before long, the formation started to crumble again.
"Shit. The whole reason I shrunk my unit down to five hundred men was so we could all have horses, but..."
The reason for Zagar's unease was the fact that most of the scouts he'd sent out hadn't returned. He doubted there were any enemies waiting to ambush him up ahead, but if his scouts hadn't been killed it meant they were deserting. If there were deserters, that meant his command over the men was falling apart. Up until now, Zagar hadn't had a single deserter from his unit. This isn't good...but I just have to hold on until I get my hands on the Valkaan Orb and then none of this matters.
"Hey, what happened to Kumluk's squad?"
"They still haven't returned, sir..."
The man's reply only served to increase Zagar's unease. He doubted a man as loyal as Kumluk would desert him. That meant either Kumluk had either been attacked by someone or gotten lost. Should I have everyone dismount and prepare for a potential ambush? Zagar's unit was currently marching through a narrow forest path. His men were used to chaotic melees, but not to fighting on horseback. If they were ambushed now, his unit would almost certainly get wiped out. He was aware of how dangerous it was to advance into uncharted territory while his scouts were missing. But if I don't brave this kind of danger, my final opportunity will slip through my fingers... Zagar steeled himself for the trials to come.
According to The Secrets an Heir Must Know, there were less than 1000 mountain people, and they had only a few villages scattered across the slope. At most, they had maybe 100 trained warriors. A force that small was no match for Zagar's mercenaries. However, the problem was that his unit's morale was low. Because he was officially looking for the missing king, his men hadn't been able to pillage the towns they'd passed. Of course, it was unlikely that he'd actually get into a fight, but expeditions were always a risky endeavor. I need to do something to raise everyone's morale...and fast.
Making up his mind, Zagar shouted, "Listen up, everyone! We're almost to the mountain tribe's villages! Those bastards aren't Kuwolese, so Kuwol's laws don't apply here! You know what that means, right?!"
The mercenaries started muttering excitedly to each other. They finally had permission to loot and pillage to their heart's content.
Zagar added, "From what I've heard, their women are all ravishing, too. Though, they're all dark-skinned barbarians."
"Ohhhh..."
The mercenaries' lips curled up into vulgar smiles. Zagar smiled as well, glad that his unit's morale was restored. Honestly, I have no idea if the mountain women are hot. Whatever, once I become a War God, it won't matter if these guys stay loyal or not. For a moment, Zagar stopped to consider what might happen if he failed to get his hands on the Valkaan Orb. I'm past the point of no return. Either I realize my ambitions, or I die.
Realizing he was getting desperate, Zagar said, "The palace probably expects us to be gone for a while. Let's take our time and have some fun raiding the villages!"
"I'm afraid I can't allow that," a voice Zagar recognized replied. He looked in front of him and saw a single man blocking his mercenaries' path.
"Veight?! What the hell are you doing here?!" he shouted in disbelief.
With a sympathetic sigh, Veight replied, "You're the one who dug your own grave, Zagar."
"What?"
There was no equivalent for the saying "dug your own grave" in Kuwolese, so the nuance of what Veight said was lost on him. Despite this, Zagar still understood that Veight was here as his enemy.
"Kill him!" Zagar snarled.
"Now hold on a second!"
Veight held out his hands and gestured for Zagar to calm down, but the mercenary captain drew his sword and ordered his men to charge. I have an overwhelming advantage in numbers here. Even if a ton of my men die, I should be able to take him out! Zagar knew on an instinctive level that as long as Veight lived, nowhere in the world was safe for him.
Veight didn't run as the mercenaries charged him. He simply brought the staff in his hands up to eye level and pointed one end at them. What's that? An indescribable fear gripped Zagar's heart. A second later, a bright flash filled the twilight forest, making it look like it was noon again.
"Gyaaah!"
"Grah, my eyes!"
"Waaaaaaah?!"
Screaming in pain, the mercenaries fell from their horses. Their horses collapsed as well, tripping the group that was following close behind them.
"What?! What happened?!"
Despite the danger he sensed, Zagar spurred his horse into a gallop. He knew that if he didn't, he'd be trampled underfoot by the unit charging behind him. Moreover, his sixth sense as a mercenary was telling him he'd die if he stayed in place. A second later, the spots in front of and behind his unit glowed brighter than the midday sun.
"Gaaah!"
"Gyaaaaaah!"
There was screaming all around Zagar, and the nearby horses were panicking. They weren't trained warhorses, so the flashes were spooking them so hard their riders couldn't control them.
"Waaaah?! Help!"
"Hey, don't run into me!"
"You're the one who ran into me!"
The confused mercenaries started yelling at each other, even though this was no time for infighting. As the seconds ticked by, the number of mercenaries still capable of fighting continued to dwindle. Zagar drove his horse forward and noticed that the people he was passing had their shoulders or heads caved in.
"Spread out! Watch out above you! He's dropping something onto us from above!"
A second later, streaks of light rained down on the clumped mercenaries. It was like a meteor shower.
"Aaargh!"
"Run! Escape into the forest!"
A few of the mercenaries tried to drive their horses into the dense undergrowth, but the horses were terrified by whatever was in the trees, and refused to go in that direction.
"H-Hey, move!"
"Gaaah!"
The relentless torrent of light continued picking off the mercenaries who were rooted in place. What's going on?! Did he prepare more than just this strange new weapon that's attacking us from above? Upon closer inspection, Zagar realized there were soldiers waiting to ambush them in the forest as well. He had no way of telling how many, but clearly it was enough. The light raining down from above wasn't constant, but the flashes were so bright they blinded the horses. Because they were panicking, Zagar's unit couldn't flee or counterattack. However, Zagar's own warhorse was trained for this kind of situation, and it continued carrying him along the small dirt path.
A brief glance made it clear that his unit had been completely decimated. There were still a good number of survivors among them, but they'd lost control of their horses—and even if they hadn't, they'd all lost the will to fight. Bunch of worthless morons! Zagar used his panicking men as shields and wove his way forward. Veight had no guards with him. Zagar suspected he'd hidden all of his men in the trees for this ambush. The only safe path of retreat was directly behind him, but Zagar had a feeling Veight had accounted for that. In other words, there was nowhere for him to flee.
My only hope is to slip past him! Veight was mowing down the few mercenaries still charging with his mysterious weapon. His aim was impeccable, and each shot brought another man down. However, Zagar was still able to use those men as meat shields, and he successfully managed to gallop past Veight. I did it! Veight saw Zagar leap past him, but he was too busy shooting down the mercenaries to turn around and chase after Zagar. Everything was going exactly as Zagar had hoped.
"Hey, get back here!"
"Boss, what are you doing?! You let one of 'em escape! Zagar's running away!"
Zagar heard people shouting behind him, and a few beams of light streaked past him, but none hit. Looks like Lady Luck's on my side... Or perhaps this is just fate? Zagar's ungodly luck gave him courage, and he spurred his horse on. Before long, he'd left the tumult of the battle behind and was surrounded by darkness. Relying on his memory of the map he'd seen in the book, he guided his horse to where the Valkaan Orb was supposed to be. Apparently, it was enshrined in a stone temple halfway up the mountain.
Because he kept his horse at a gallop the whole time, it was frothing at the mouth by the time he reached the temple. He dismounted, ignoring his horse's exhaustion, and dashed over to the temple's gate. I'm finally here! All he had to do now was grab the orb and his dreams would be realized.
Before he could go inside, he heard a voice behind him, "...So this is your final answer, Zagar?"
"Wha—?!"
He whirled around and saw Veight standing a short distance away, a sad expression on his face.
"Wh-When did you get here?!"
"Don't think you can ever escape from a werewolf. We've spent millennia hunting your kind."
Veight slowly walked up the temple's stone steps. Zagar drew his sword, but as Veight made his way up, he began to transform. Fur darker than night covered his entire body, which grew to almost double its original size. The light of the full moon shone down on him, giving his coat a glossy sheen.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11_4.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
"The Valkaan Orb you seek isn't here. This temple is where the mountain tribe's ancestors judged sinners. You were led here by false information, Zagar."
"What?!"
Zagar tried to ready his blade, but he was too intimidated by Veight's appearance. He knew full well he couldn't win this fight—especially since the members of Veight's pack were beginning to gather around him. There were 14 werewolves in total—meanwhile, Zagar was by himself.
"This is where your ambition ends."
As he declared that, the werewolves around him let out a blood-curdling howl.
* * * *
I showed Zagar the formal arrest warrant I'd received from the master of ceremonies.
"You're under arrest for murdering the king."
"Fuck..."
Zagar understood now that any position he might have had in high society was gone now. He could no longer return to the capital, and he would be a fugitive wherever he went within Kuwol's borders. He was well and truly trapped. He showed no signs of resisting, so I had my werewolves take him away.
Just then, Vodd showed up with his squad.
"We're done inspecting the battlefield. There are some unlucky fellows who're still alive."
That's an odd choice of wording.
"Why are they unlucky?"
Vodd grimaced, then let out a small sigh. "Because there's no saving them now. I've seen a lot of people end up like that during my mercenary days. Even you can't regenerate lost limbs, right kid?"
"Unfortunately..."
I was an expert at strengthening magic, not surgery. Not only could I not regenerate severed limbs, but I also couldn't even replenish lost blood. The most I could do was sterilize the wounds and help close them up, but people who'd lost too much blood would need a transfusion or they'd die anyway. Indeed, another werewolf showed up a few minutes later to let me know all the prisoners had died.
Blast Rifles were just too strong. You could theoretically lower their firepower by using less mana per shot, but then they wouldn't have any range either.
Vodd turned to me and gruffly muttered, "I finally understand why you're so obsessed with using those newfangled Blast Rifles every chance you get."
"Where'd that come from?"
"We took on five hundred men with forty-eight werewolves this time around. In other words, we were outnumbered ten-to-one."
Vodd looked up at the night sky.
"...If we went up against ten times our number of armed men, normally we'd take some losses—even werewolves aren't invincible—but we came out of this fight without a single werewolf getting hurt. On top of that, we slaughtered every single one of our enemies."
"Yeah."
Everyone had transformed and rained death on Zagar's men from the treetops. They were sitting ducks for us, while their swords and spears couldn't even reach the werewolves hiding in the trees.
Vodd stroked one of his old battle scars and mused, "That wasn't even a battle...it was a massacre. Like slaughtering a field of cows. I felt like I was doing a butcher's work, not a soldier's." There was a deep sadness in his voice. "These Blast Rifles are handy, and they're powerful. I guarantee you they're gonna change the way wars are fought once everyone has them. But you know, it doesn't really feel like I'm using a proper weapon. Just a tool for murder."
I guess? Vodd patted the mass-produced Blast Cane model he was using for this mission and sighed.
"We're about to enter an era where everyone just shoots at each other with these things. To be honest, I don't wanna be on a battlefield like that. Pulling the trigger isn't fun, and getting shot doesn't sound too fun either." He smiled to himself. "Thinking back on it, I was born at the perfect time to be a mercenary. I got to enjoy war before it got ruined."
"Enjoy war, huh..."
Only a werewolf would ever say war's fun.
A short time later, the mountain people came over after touring the battlefield.
"To think you were able to annihilate five hundred horsemen in such a short period of time..."
"Not only that, but all of the werewolves are unscathed."
"We might have underestimated these guys."
I smiled to myself as I listened to the elder's conversation with his companions. I felt bad for killing the mercenaries like that, but their sacrifices helped showcase just how powerful Meraldia's demon army was to this tribe. Demons deferred to the strong on principle, so hopefully this meant the mountain tribe respected us more now. In fact, it was possible they had a high enough opinion of us that I'd be able to follow through with one of the more brazen plans I'd come up with.
First off, though, we needed to figure out what to do with Zagar.
The mountain tribe's elder walked over to me and said, "Veight, thank you for eliminating the ruffians who dared to trespass on our lands."
"Don't mention it. If anything, this is our fault for letting the royal family's secret slip to a man like him. We were just cleaning up after our mess."
I had no intention of ever telling him that we hadn't "let the secret slip," but rather used it as bait to lure Zagar out. The mountain people looked over at Zagar.
"I heard what this man said about us upon entering our territory. He sorely underestimated my clan. We're friends with the flatlanders who live close by, but this man is no friend of ours."
"Yeah, we don't trust him."
"Plus he's weak."
At that final comment, Zagar snapped. "You wanna say that again?! I'm the undefeated mercenary captain, Zagar!"
"Didn't you just lose five minutes ago?"
"Yeah, you're real weak."
You guys really like kicking him while he's down, huh? I glanced back and realized it wasn't even the mountain people who were insulting him, it was my own werewolves. Considering how much they'd seen of his bad side, I couldn't really blame them for having pent-up resentment against him.
His expression dead serious, Zagar turned to the chief of the mountain tribe and said, "I won't beg for my life, but know this, I am not weak! Whether it's commanding an army from the rear or leading the front lines myself, there's no one stronger than I! I'm a true warrior!"
"Hmm..."
The mountain people exchanged glances, debating over what to do. I'd rather you not take his side, please. That being said, I fully intended to respect their decision. There was a silent conversation held through just glances, after which the elder finally came to his conclusion.
"Very well, Zagar. If you truly believe yourself to be a mighty warrior, prove your worth through the Divine Duel."
"Huh?" Zagar frowned in confusion.
The elder explained, "Since ancient times, the people of Kayankaka have used the Divine Duel as a trial to see whether or not one is worthy of power beyond mortal ken." The elder pointed to the temple's stone steps. "That temple just so happens to be where the trial is held. This is your one chance to reclaim your honor. If you prove to us that you are indeed as great a warrior as you claim, we shall spare you." He smirked slightly. "Assuming you survive the trial, anyway."
After hearing the rules of the Divine Duel, I offered to be Zagar's second.
"What are you playing at, you bastard?" he spat.
I sighed and replied, "I'm the one who drove you into a corner and caused you to self-destruct. The least I can do is take responsibility for that until the very end."
"You think I'm going to die here?"
"Absolutely. There's no way for you to make it out of this alive. Officially, this is a duel, but it may as well be your execution."
Among the various forms of human sacrifice the Aztecs practiced, duels were one of them. The sacrificial victim would have a weight tied to their leg and be forced to fight with a bouquet and a feather plume instead of a sword and shield. In other words, they were rendered almost completely helpless. Meanwhile, the warrior chosen to duel them would be an elite soldier armed to the teeth. It was obvious who the victor would be before the battle even began. The duel Zagar was about to fight was fashioned in a similar vein, but it seemed he wasn't aware of it.
"Maybe I'd be doomed if I was up against a werewolf, but these guys are just barbarians. Not only that, it's a bare-handed one-on-one duel. There's no way I'll lose here."
More like there's no way you'll win here, but I'm not allowed to explain anything else, so have fun, I guess. In truth, there was a mountain-load of things I wanted to tell Zagar. I also wanted to ask him what drove him to kill his king and one of his own men. There was almost certainly a better way for him to have gotten what he wanted without killing people. Most of all, I wanted to ask him what made him so callous that he didn't care what happened to others as long as he was sitting pretty. I wanted to grill him on all of these things and more but what came out of my mouth instead was, "No matter how hard you struggle, you will never be king."
"Where'd that come from?"
"Those who care for nothing but their own well-being can never rule. A true king is someone who wants for nothing. Not money, not honor, not fame."
Zagar sneered at that. "Would an unambitious guy like that even want to be king?"
"Probably not, but I once knew a king who was exactly as I described."
A memory of Friedensrichter hunched over in his study, poring over reports, flashed through my mind. He had undoubtedly devoted his entire life to bettering the lives of others. He'd poured his soul into making the people around him happy, and at the very end, he'd fought and died for those who followed him. In my mind, he was the perfect example of a true king. I would never be even half the man he was.
I got to my feet and looked down at Zagar, who was still sitting.
"I've met a true king. I know what they're like. It's why I know I'm not fit to be one myself. No matter how much time passes, I will always be nothing more than the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander." I glared angrily at Zagar. "You lack the qualifications of a king. If you couldn't even beat a king's second, what makes you think you'll ever sit on the throne?"
Zagar got to his feet with a huff and threw his sword belt at me.
"I don't have time to listen to your bullshit philosophy. Lecture me all you want after I've won my duel."
As I caught the sword belt, a voice called out to Zagar from the arena, "Step forward, challenger!"
Zagar turned back to me with a confident grin. "Thanks, Veight. If I die here, I'll at least be able to die as a warrior instead of as a criminal. No matter how the cards fall, this is a better fate than being beheaded in Encaraga."
"You never struck me as the kind of man to care about how he dies."
"I want to stay true to myself until the very end. Even if I have to trample over other people to do it, I won't stop being me."
With those parting words, Zagar walked into the arena.
The arena resembled an ancient Roman colosseum—though it was much smaller, it still had enough room to seat everyone present. There were burning braziers set around the arena's perimeter at regular intervals, and the arena was brightly-lit. Waiting for Zagar in the stone fighting pit was a lone woman wearing rather revealing clothing. She's the one who captured Kumluk, isn't she? Zagar grinned confidently.
"So my opponent is one unarmed woman?"
She smiled back and replied, "I'm more than enough to beat one unarmed man."
Following the custom of all warriors who lived in this region, she formally named herself to her foe.
"I am a member of the Kayankaka tribe, daughter of Ornte, Elmersia!"
"I am Jakarn's son, Zagar."
"...Did you say Jakarn?" Elmersia smirked. Jakarn had been Kuwol's last War God. She unwrapped her belt and spread her arms out wide. Her stance looked like the start of a ceremonial dance. "You're a funny guy. I kinda like you."
"If you like me now, then you'll love me when I'm through with you." Zagar also unwrapped his belt, then bent his legs and lowered his center of gravity. His stance was ideal for wrestling an armed soldier to the ground in close combat.
After a few seconds of tense silence, the elder shouted, "Begin!"
The time had finally come to see Zagar's final moments. Elmersia kicked off the ground and transformed mid-leap into a tiger. Her fur was black, with gold stripes. She was one of the old demon races that didn't exist in Meraldia—a werecat.
"Raaaaaaaah!"
Elmersia launched a flying roundhouse kick at Zagar, who still hadn't moved an inch. That wasn't surprising, since a human's kinetic vision couldn't even keep up with her speed. Her leg sliced through the air and slammed right into Zagar's head. The poor ambitious fool died in an instant, with blood and brains flying everywhere. Never again would he be able to dream of glory. Rest in peace.
As she landed, Elmersia returned to her human form. Damn, she's fast. Since she'd taken off her belt, her loose clothes hadn't ripped when she transformed—though they were disheveled. A few seconds later, Zagar's headless body thudded to the ground.
"Elmersia is the victor!"
As the mountain people cheered, I silently offered a prayer to Zagar.
With this, Zagar and his mercenaries were finished. There were nothing but small fries left in his regiment, so they'd probably let themselves be assimilated into the capital garrison.
I smiled wanly at Elmersia and said, "Well fought, Lady Elmersia."
"It was an honor to get revenge for the king with these hands... Not that I've ever met the guy." The beautiful woman smirked, dropping the formal act almost immediately.
"According to The Secrets an Heir Must Know, the werecat tribe are guardians of the royal family's bloodline. Why did you guys decide to serve them?" I asked, curious.
Elmersia grinned and replied, "Because our tribe accompanied Kuwol's first king on his journey to recover all of the artifacts that can create Valkaan."
Long ago, there were tons of War Gods—also known as Valkaan in Kuwolese—running rampant across the land. Each was the same as what we called "Heroes" and "Demon Lords." Naturally, there were no stable nations on this continent during that time. A single War God could crush armies hundreds of thousands strong, and there were dozens of them fighting each other every generation. Even if a War God did try to build a country, another would inevitably come and kill them, after which their newly minted country would collapse in a chaotic mess.
That cycle of countries rising and falling in the span of decades pained one of the legendary leaders who lived during that era. It was unclear whether he'd been a human or a demon, but he'd gathered like-minded comrades and started collecting all of the artifacts that created War Gods. He may have been one himself, too, but no one knew for sure. The legends were unclear as well.
Regardless, after decades of fighting and countless sacrifices, he succeeded in confiscating every single War God-producing artifact and eliminating every War God who opposed him. Some of them joined his camp and fought together with him, but most were eradicated. From what I'd read, the war had been intense, but once the battle was over, our "Hero" created a new nation where everyone could live in peace. That nation was, of course, Kuwol, and he became its first king.
"After the war, we werecats returned to our home territory, the source of the Mejire. Since then, we've been keeping watch over the artifacts."
In other words, it was thanks to the mountain people that Kuwol hadn't seen any major strife for centuries. The more I learned about Kuwol's history, the more I realized why everyone was afraid of the royal family's bloodline dying out. That being said, I still had a duty to recover any Hero-making artifacts I found. Judging by what I'd just heard, there were quite a few of them here.
On the other hand, there weren't very many werecats. The tribe's numbers likely didn't even reach 1000. If an army in the thousands marched up here, they wouldn't be able to hold out. It was always possible another ambitious upstart like Zagar might rally the nobles together and raise an army to march on Kayankaka. If the werecats were unable to hold them all back, it was possible some of the artifacts they guarded would get stolen. It was too dangerous to leave them here.
Trying to sound as inoffensive as possible, I asked, "...Are you sure your tribe can protect the artifacts?"
"What do you mean by that, Veight?" Elmersia asked, her smile vanishing instantly. The other werecats gathered around her. I pointed to my Blast Rifle.
"These weapons are a new invention developed by humans in an empire far to the north. If that empire brought tens of thousands of soldiers armed with these to your doorstep, could you stop them?"
"That's..." Elmersia trailed off, and the other werecats shook their heads.
"You couldn't. It's not even worth trying," I said.
"Making even a thousand crossbows is a difficult feat... I don't believe there's any nation out there that could make that many of these complex weapons."
I got where these guys were coming from, but they didn't understand how terrifying humans could be. Back on Earth, the military might human nations had possessed was insane.
Getting somewhat desperate, I said, "That might be true for now, but I guarantee you the humans will find a way someday. Underestimate them and you'll come to regret it."
"That's impossible..."
Looks like they still don't believe me.
"I agree that individually, they're powerless, but when they combine their strength, they're far more dangerous than any Valkaan."
At that, the elder interjected, "Don't you think you're underestimating the power of werecats, Veight?"
"Not at all." I shook my head, but then decided to provoke them just a little. "But if you underestimate the might of humans, your entire clan will get wiped out. The same thing nearly happened to us werewolves."
The elder countered with an angle I hadn't been expecting at all, "Well, that's hardly surprising. Werewolves are weak, after all."
"Yeah, werecats are way stronger."
Excuse me? I mentally fired back. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"
"I mean, just think about it. Compared to a wolf, a tiger's a lot stronger, right?" One of the younger werecats said somewhat apologetically.
When I saw his expression, something inside of me snapped. You've got some nerve, punk. I grinned devilishly. "So you think werewolves are weaker than werecats?"
"Aha, now things are getting fun—I mean, bad."
Monza, who'd been keeping her distance until now, ran over. The other werewolves sensed something was off as well and started congregating around me. I watched them out of the corner of my eye while thinking of how best to clear up this little misunderstanding.
"In terms of pure strength, werewolves and werecats are equal. If anything, we're probably better at hunting in packs than you."
"You've gotta be kidding."
"Even a pack of wolves can't take down a tiger."
You stubborn idiots!
"Hold on, even when we transform, our skeletal structure from the neck down stays mostly human," I reasoned. "We're roughly the same size while transformed, too, so what do our abilities have to do with real wolves and tigers?"
"Sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Yeah, you're not making sense!"
Dammit, these guys are demons through and through.
"I see you're not very smart." I took off my cape and handed it to Monza. "I'm afraid none of you would stand a chance against a werewolf. In fact, I could take all of you down just by myself."
"What?!"
The werecats started surrounding me. Some of the werewolves squared off against them and small scuffles started breaking out. I guess, in the end, might always makes right. I pointed to the stone arena and shouted, "I demand a Divine Duel for the right to take your Valkaan artifacts and to uphold the honor of the werewolf race! I'll fight anyone you want me to!"
My werewolves stared at me in shock.
"What the hell, Veight?!"
"What're you doing, Veight?!"
"Ahaha, the boss's bad habit is back again."
"Stop laughing and do something, Monza!"
What are you guys getting so worked up for?
The werecat elder turned to me awkwardly and said, "Veight, Divine Duels aren't a game. The loser usually has to forfeit their life. And if you're asking for a Divine Duel to earn the right to remove the Valkaan artifacts, you'll have to fight more than one person." Sighing, the elder explained, "The challenger has to prove that they can protect these artifacts better than us. At the very least, you have to prove you can beat three of us at once."
I smirked and replied, "I won't even be able to go all-out against just three werecats. I'll take a hundred of you on at once."
"A-A hundred?!" Even the mild-mannered elder looked incensed at being underestimated that heavily. "Very well! Your wish is granted, Veight! Everyone, prepare yourselves! Gather our strongest hundred fighters!"
It's been a while since I've had some fun. Seasoned warriors started trickling in from the nearby villages. Elmersia was among them, too. I was surprised to learn that she was the werecat tribe's strongest fighter.
"I can't say I understand what's going through your head right now, Veight, but..." Elmersia muttered hesitantly, and my werewolves around me nodded in agreement.
"You said it."
"What the hell are you thinking, boss?"
"I mean, yeah, you can probably win, but..."
They were confused for a completely different reason than the werecats. Only Fahn seemed genuinely worried for me.
"Are you absolutely sure you can win, Veight?!" she asked. "You'll definitely come out of this okay, right?"
Fahn had been calling me "Captain" more frequently ever since I'd gotten married, but she was so flustered she was calling me just Veight again.
"How can I ever apologize to Airia if something happens to you?!"
"Fahn, I never knew you were such a worrywart."
"Who wouldn't be worried considering what you're doing right now!"
I feel like it's been ages since you last got angry at me like this. I gave Fahn a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. Even when he was half-dead, Arshes was way scarier than a hundred werecats."
"The fact that you're comparing them at all means we should be worried, boy!" Jerrick exclaimed, clearly riled up by all this.
Honestly, though, ever since that battle with the Hero who'd slain Friedensrichter, none of the fights I'd gotten into felt even remotely dangerous.
Grinning in anticipation, Monza gave me a thumbs up and said, "I'm counting on you, boss."
"Don't worry, I won't let you down."
"If you die, Veight, I'm bringing you back to life so I can kill you myself."
"O-Okay?"
You're scaring me a little, here.
I stared down 100 werecats in the stone fighting pit. There were so many of them they didn't all fit within the arena even after surrounding me from all sides. Were anyone else in my position, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Elmersia smiled confidently at me and said, "I hear you're a mage. Is that true?"
"Yeah."
Her smile grew wider and she replied, "Well, you see, so am I."
What? Elmersia spread her arms wide, looked up at the full moon, and began chanting an incantation in ancient dynastic.
"Silent light of the moon, bestow victory unto me! Grant me the strength and courage to defeat my foe!"
Oh, this is the same kind of spell as my Blood Moon. She was casting generic strengthening magic on everyone to raise their basic parameters like strength and agility. It was highly effective on races like werewolves and werecats who were already strong individually to begin with. As her prayer spread across the arena, the werecats began to transform.
"Uraaaaaah!"
"I feel so much stronger!"
"Let's do thiiiiiis!"
The warriors all had black fur with golden stripes. Uh oh. I might have miscalculated. They grinned at me and Elmersia asked, "Ready to die?"
"Hold on a second." I was starting to panic a little. I should probably apologize ahead of time, right? I thought, then said, "Sorry, I don't think I'll be able to hold back now."
"Wha—?!"
"You arrogant little shit!"
"Whatever, let's just kill him!"
The werecats charged at me from all sides, bearing their fangs as they rushed forward. A storm of violence descended upon me. I just said I won't be able to hold back, guys. You really all have a death wish, don't you? It would be pretty difficult to dodge all the attacks coming from behind, so I decided to blunt the damage by using hardening magic. I was also using magic to bolster my consciousness, so any potential concussions wouldn't knock me out.
"Holy crap, this guy's head is harder than steel!"
"Our attacks aren't doing shit to him!"
I knocked down the guys behind me with a backhand chop, then kicked another out of the ring with a roundhouse kick. There were a hundred werecats, but they couldn't all fight me at once. Most of them were hanging back, waiting for their turn. Not only that, but their coordination was awful and they didn't synchronize their attacks at all. Werewolves were a lot more dangerous when they came at you in numbers. They knew how to strike in unison, and also how to split into teams to make use of feints and other misdirection tactics. I took a few light blows here and there, but for the most part, I was mowing these werecats down.
Of course, while this was a serious duel, it wasn't one to the death. Back when the demon army was still new, division commanders often had major bouts like this to prove who was superior. One of the greatest things about demons was they didn't hold grudges over fights. Honestly, this melee kind of made me miss those days where I butted heads with Dogg.
"Bwahahahahahahaha!" I let out a maniacal laugh as I reminisced about the good old days. A few of the werecats were so startled they stiffened up for a second, giving me time to beat them to a pulp.
"What's with this guy?!"
"Why's he laughing?!"
"Watch out, he's insane!"
Why do you guys look so creeped out? Don't demons love this kind of stuff? Honestly, I may be part human, but even I enjoy fights like these. In my human form, I wasn't terribly bloodthirsty, but once I transformed, I couldn't help but revel in the thrill of battle.
I used my magic-enhanced fists to knock out one werecat after another. Man, it feels like I'm back in the good old days when Friedensrichter was still the Demon Lord.
"Whew, this is fun! Come on, I know you guys can put up a better fight than this!"
The more I got into the fighting, the more the werecats started distancing themselves from me.
"You're the only one having fun here!" a werecat exclaimed.
"This guy's mental!"
"Don't get scared, guys! We've still got the advantage in numbers!"
"Work together to pin him down!"
Two groups of two came at me from either side, so I leapt sideways and preemptively took out the werecats on my right. However, I turned my back long enough for the two on the left to catch up and grab my arms. They also wrapped their legs around mine to trap me in place.
"I've got him! Hurry, before..."
I used brute force to fling them over my shoulder before they could finish their sentence. I also kicked the one pinning my legs away. Both of them hit the ground so hard they shattered the flagstones. Fortunately, werecats were sturdy enough that I probably only gave them some light bruises. However, that display of strength was enough to drain the last of the werecats' fighting spirit. One of them muttered, "Is this guy a Valkaan? Are you secretly Meraldia's Demon Lord?"
"Nope." I decided to humor the werecats' curiosity for a bit to give me a second to catch my breath. I needed at least a few seconds. "I'm just her vice-commander."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11_5.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
Grinning, I finished catching my breath and let out a massive howl. My full-power Soul Shaker was a force to be reckoned with. Shockwaves of mana rippled outward, and the physical force of the spell bowled over most of the werecats. The stronger ones were able to stay on their feet, but even they staggered backward a little. The stone floor got pulverized to the point where it looked like something out of Dragon Ball. The pillars supporting the colosseum shattered as well, and the walls came tumbling down.
I hadn't been sure how effective my Soul Shaker would be on werecats, but it seemed I needn't have worried. It wasn't quite powerful enough to knock literally everyone out, but Soul Shaker wasn't an offensive spell to begin with. Its main purpose was to put the surrounding mana under my control so that I could freely manipulate it. With all the arena's mana now subjugated, I could use the vortex power I'd inherited from Master to absorb it all.
I stripped the 100 werecats of their magical strengthening and turned that mana against them. It felt good to finally be using Soul Shaker for its intended purpose. Alright, at least I managed to recover all the mana I spent during the fight. Of the werecats that had been knocked down, half of them managed to stagger to their feet. Despite how haggard they were, they nevertheless raised their fists.
"That's the kind of backbone I want to see from the guardians of these artifacts!" I cheered.
I used an overhead throw to fling the first werecat behind me, then used a combo of other throwing techniques to dispatch the rest. Clouds of dust and gravel filled the air as the falling werecats smashed the pulverized ground even further. Every now and again one of their attacks made it through to me, but their kicks lacked weight, and their punches weren't as sharp as before.
As I continued throwing them all over the place I shouted, "Don't get scared by what I'm doing! A real Valkaan is a thousand times stronger than this!"
"You're asking for the impossible, man!"
"There's no way we can win!"
I'm serious about Heroes being that much stronger than me, though. Looking around, I realized the only werecat still in the ring was Elmersia. Like any good mage, she'd been desperately chanting this whole time.
"Raging crimson moon, rain thunder down on— Oh, forget it!"
However, it looked like now even she was giving up. Guess I can't blame her. I did just suck up all the mana she was trying to use.
To use a more modern analogy, it was like she'd gone to the fridge to take out some pudding, but then I'd snatched it out of her hands the moment she opened the lid. Nothing was more frustrating for a mage than having their mana stolen from under their nose.
Elmersia glared daggers at me. I understood how she felt, but the key to a mage battle was making sure the other side couldn't cast. She slowly walked over, her glare growing in intensity.
"Fine. Let's see how you handle my secret weapon! Spirit Blade!"
Elmersia and I were both masters of strengthening magic, so I could easily read her next move. She stopped a short distance away from me and chanted, "Claws of my ancestors! Descend unto me and..."
She raised her claws high.
"Descend unto me..."
She tried it again.
"...Unto me?"
But her spell didn't take hold. So long as she couldn't gather any mana, she was unable to use her trump card. It didn't matter how strong it was.
Elmersia ground her teeth in frustration, which just made things awkward. It was doubly awkward since I was able to cast that same spell incantation-less. Master had drilled it into my head that the only spells that could help a mage in combat were the ones they could cast instantly. More often than not, there wasn't time to chant an incantation on the battlefield.
"Elmersia."
"What?!"
"Is this the spell you were trying to use?"
I swung my claws down and a distant pillar got sliced in half. The top segment slid to the ground with a resounding crash. The spell was extremely powerful and often just instantly killed my foes, which was why I hadn't used it for this fight. The principle behind it was the same thing that had allowed Arshes to use his mana blade. Of course, my version was way weaker than his.
Elmersia took a step backwards and shouted, "How... That's so strong... Yeah, that's right! That's the spell I was trying to use! Got a problem with that?!"
Not really. So please stop glaring at me like that.
The elder, who'd been watching the Divine Duel this whole time, sighed and said, "That's enough, Elmersia. The victor of this duel has long since been decided."
"Elder..."
"Don't trouble Veight any further." The elder raised both hands into the air and declared, "This duel is over! The victor is Veight!"
I took quite a few painful blows, but that was a pretty fun fight. I'd like to do this again sometime.
Unfortunately, the time for fun was over. My real work started now. This was my best opportunity to drive my point home.
As the elder walked over I bowed and said, "Thank you for granting me the opportunity to attempt a Divine Duel."
"Err...uhh... To be blunt, I didn't think you were this strong."
The elder rubbed his forehead awkwardly while Elmersia asked, "Are you really not a Valkaan, Veight?"
"I'm not, really." I shook my head and added, "I know I look strong, but I wouldn't last ten seconds against a real one. They'd probably obliterate me with one attack. Not even a hundred of me could match up to one."
"No way..."
I mean, the calculations prove that real War Gods have more than a hundred times my mana. There's no way I could beat one. The only reason I'd beat Arshes was because Friedensrichter had nearly finished him off. Had he not been on the verge of death, a mere werewolf like me wouldn't have stood a chance. These werecats were custodians of the artifacts that gave birth to War Gods, but they hadn't seen what a real one could do. In that sense, you could say they'd done a good job of safeguarding the artifacts, but that's precisely why they were ignorant to the strength of a true Hero, or Demon Lord.
I told them about the battle I'd witnessed in Grenschtat Castle. I impressed upon them just how unbelievably strong Arshes and Friedensrichter had been.
"If a true War God, a Valkaan, is born, no one will be able to stop them. Not even me. Do you understand now how important the relics you protect are?"
The werecats exchanged silent glances. I had just beaten down 100 of their best warriors. Demons instinctively deferred to those stronger than them. The senior members of the clan frowned, but then eventually nodded to each other.
Seeing that a consensus had been reached, the elder said, "You just defeated a hundred of my clansmen, I no longer have any reason to doubt your strength. I accept that these artifacts are more terrifying than we ever realized." He let out a small sigh. "It pains me to relinquish the duty we've considered an honor for so long, but as you are stronger, we shall do as you wish."
"You have my thanks." I bowed and added, "But the real threat you should be worried about isn't War Gods."
"What is it, then?"
I smiled sadly as I sifted through memories of my past life.
"Humans. There is no race out there more terrifying or more persistent than humans. In a century or two, I guarantee that they'll be the strongest force in the world. Werewolves, werecats, and all the other demon races won't be able to hold a candle to them."
No demon army would stand a chance against a modernized human nation. They would easily be able to make up for the difference in strength with powerful equipment, and their population grew faster than any other intelligent race. As it was, Blast Rifles were powerful enough to instantly kill werewolves. Our superior strength was no longer an advantage against the people of Rolmund, at the very least. Were any nation to modernize, they would weaponize War God-creating artifacts in far more horrific ways than they had been in the past.
For example, it would be easy enough to modify one of those into a magical bomb with as much destructive force as a nuke, then drop it on a city. Even if they didn't go that far, they could use it as a power source to overcharge tens of thousands of soldiers' Blast Rifles or Blast Canes. There were already certain artifacts like Draulight's Legacy that had been designed as strategic weapons from the outset.
"The demon army is currently researching these artifacts to make sure no more tragedies come about because of them. One of our goals is to find as many of them as we can and seal away their powers."
"I see..." The elder nodded, then beckoned to me. "Very well. I shall guide you to where we keep them."
I followed him out of the temple.
"These ruins are close to a thousand years old, and not a safe place to keep powerful artifacts. That is why we built a new vault at the mountain's peak."
The elder transformed and stretched his back. Despite his age, he looked quite imposing in his transformed state. He seems pretty strong. He smiled, baring his fangs.
"Are you feeling up for a short run, Veight? As this is sacred territory, I'm afraid we can't take anyone else with us. It's going to be just you and me."
As he said that, the elder leapt onto the branches of a nearby tree.
"Alright, you heard the man. I'll be back soon, so just hang out here for now," I said to my werewolves, then chased after the elder.
I spotted a number of totems carved into the boulders that were along the path the elder led me down. Only magicians would be able to tell, but those totems were there to create a special barrier. While the totems had been engraved pretty deep into the boulders, they were quite old, and I could tell they'd been repaired multiple times over the years.
"This is a barrier, isn't it?"
"Yes. It alerts all of the werecats in the mountain whenever any human or demon crosses its threshold. No one alive knows how to make these, so we rely on Elmersia and the other mages to maintain the totems we still have."
Barrier spells were one of the basic ways for mages to protect their research, so most mages in Meraldia knew at least a few. Even I could make simple ones. It seemed the mountain tribes had lost all of their old magical knowledge. I knew it was rude to think this, but the mountain tribe really was too ignorant to be left in charge of a cache of powerful artifacts. They didn't even have a mage specialist who could create new totems if their old ones broke.
Mount Kayankaka's elevation was quite high, and as we neared the peak the trees started going from deciduous to coniferous. There were also far fewer of them, and I could see the night sky clearly from here.
As he leapt from boulder to boulder the elder muttered, "I noticed...that you're looking farther forward than we are. Your concerns are for a future that none of us can even visualize."
"Yeah, I get that a lot. I know it's weird."
"I cannot fathom why it is you can see so far ahead but...perhaps that is why every one of Meraldia's Demon Lords valued you so highly." The elder nodded ponderously to himself. "If you climb this mountain, you can see the land stretch out below you, but the climb itself is quite difficult. At lower heights, the trees block your path, and up here the winds and steep cliffs mean instant death if you don't tread carefully. Moreover, the summit is our sacred sanctuary, and even members of our clan need permission to make this climb."
This is definitely a tall mountain. I bet the view from the top is gorgeous. We're already so high up that this mist might actually just be the inside of a cloud.
The elder added, "Only those who overcome numerous trials and continually hone their abilities can reach the top. If there truly is a sight visible only to those who've endured such hardships, then I'm certain you're one of the few who can see it."
"It's an honor to hear that, but really, you're overestimating me."
Blushing a little, I glanced behind me. The sky was just beginning to brighten, and I could vaguely make out the scenery below. Numerous streams zigzagged through the forest like snakes, joining up at the source of the Mejire. Though the two vistas were nothing alike, I was reminded of the time I climbed Mount Fuji back on Earth. This really was a spectacular view.
There was a small cave inside one of the cliffs near the summit. It was pretty tiny, and looked like it could be natural. A bunch of weathered animal bones littered the floor, even.
"We've disguised it to look like a crag leopard's nest. No sane Kuwolese person would go near one. They know they'd be eaten alive."
"I see."
Disguising it as a monster nest was some pretty clever camouflage. It was pitch black inside the cave, but to my enhanced werewolf vision, it just looked like a dimly lit room. There was a hidden passage about halfway inside, which led to a sturdy metal door. My guess was the artifacts were stored behind it.
"Go on in, Veight. As the guardian of Kayankaka and the elder of the werecat tribe, I grant you permission to enter this vault."
"Thank you."
I thanked the elder, then pried the door open. The moment I stepped inside, my jaw dropped open. I figured from the elder's story that there were more than just a few, but there's like a hundred of them here! They came in all different shapes and sizes. Some were shaped like goblets, others like swords, and yet others like helmets. There were plenty that looked like crystal balls, too.
"...Is this all of them, Elder?"
"Yes. Though most are no longer usable. Our ancestors believed they were too powerful to be controlled, and thus deactivated them."
I bet there were a bunch like Draulight's Legacy that activated on their own. The elder started rummaging through the pile for the remaining ones that were still working, but personally, I was more interested in the broken ones. Their magic crests were glowing, which confirmed that they were still functional, just in standby mode. I took great care not to touch any of them and started analyzing the magic circuits they contained.
"Veight, the artifacts you're looking for are... Veight?"
Hold on a sec, I'm on the verge of a breakthrough.
"Elder, this is amazing. The way these artifacts were deactivated was masterful. There wasn't a single wasteful decision."
"Uhh..."
I pointed one of the artifacts out to the elder. It was a sword with a small crest glowing in the center of the blade.
"Only two of the magic circles that make up the entire circuit have been erased here. This sword won't ever activate, but if we wanted to repair it, we could do so easily. Because of the content of the circles surrounding it, there's only a single potential circle that could complete this circuit."
"I-I see?"
The elder wasn't too knowledgeable about magic, which was why he wasn't as moved as I was. Annoyed by his tepid reaction, I explained, "This proves that your ancestors were extremely skilled mages!"
"I'm sorry, but I don't understand magic very well..."
Alright, it's lecture time.
"The werecats of old destroyed these artifacts in such a way that they would never activate on their own, nor could anyone else abuse them. At the same time, though, they did so with as much precision as possible so that their descendants could still glean valuable knowledge from them."
With a treasure trove this large, it would be possible to analyze how to recreate these kinds of artifacts.
"Don't you see how amazing this is? Look! For example, the mana capacity for all of these is written down in plain language!"
"Uh-huh..."
"We still don't know exactly how much mana is needed to give birth to a Valkaan, but if we research all of the artifacts stored here, we might be able to find an answer to that question. Or if not, at least some clues!"
Even the artifact with the smallest mana capacity would need to be able to store at least enough mana to create a War God, so we could use that as a baseline.
In order to impress upon the elder the unbelievable value of this hoard, I explained, "This isn't just a place to seal away relics of the past. It's a gold mine of information. The knowledge safeguarded here can change the future!"
"It can?"
"Absolutely. Even if we don't make War Gods, the wisdom we can glean from this is enough to transform society."
"Oho..." the elder mused, stroking his beard. "Now that sounds quite exciting. But at the same time, that's a rather heavy responsibility to bear."
Finally, you understand. After discussing things with the elder, he allowed me to dispatch a surveyor here later to properly catalog everything. I should probably convince him that the defenses around Mount Kayankaka need to be strengthened too. For starters, we should get an undead army here to protect the artifacts. While I wanted to do all this to safeguard the room, I also wanted to make sure the werecat tribe would be protected centuries down the road, when humans became much stronger. You could never let your guard down around humans, after all. There was always the possibility that they'd forget their ancient pact and try to eliminate the werecats. Humans were truly, truly, terrifying.
The elder grabbed the only working artifact and carried it outside. As I followed after him, I saw the sun crest over the horizon. The dawn's early rays illuminated the forest at the northern base of Mount Kayankaka and caused the winding Mejire to scintillate. To the south, I saw the mountain range that Kayankaka was a part of extending off into the distance. If I had a cell phone, I would have snapped a picture of this stunning sight and posted it online, but in this world, a view like this was reserved for those who could make the climb.
The elder basked in the morning glow for a few minutes, then proffered the orb he was carrying to me. It was about as large as a baseball, translucent, and had numerous magic circuits engraved on its interior. The way they faintly glowed made it look kind of like a snow globe. It really gave off a fantasy vibe.
"This is the last working artifact we have. It is known to us as "Jakarn's Relic." According to legend, when our ancestors defeated the final Valkaan, Jakarn, they sealed his powers within this orb."
Zagar's grinning face flashed into my mind. Up until the end, he'd continued to call himself a descendant of Jakarn. I could easily imagine just how much he would have loved to get his hands on this. Thank god we stopped him. I shook my head to clear him from my thoughts, then reverently accepted the orb with both hands. Following the customs of the mountain people, I held it up high.
"I humbly accept this gift. I swear to you that Meraldia's demon army will do everything in its power to keep Jakarn's Relic safe."
"We put our faith in you, Veight."
I carefully wrapped the orb up in a cloth sheet to protect it from the elements. Once we got back to the village, I was planning on packing it into a wooden box and having two squads guard it at all times.
As he watched me store the orb the elder asked, "You don't intend to use it yourself and become a Valkaan?"
"No, there's no need for that," I said. Why does everyone keep asking me that?
He looked up at the rising sun and said in a surprised voice, "You truly are a strange man... Despite being a demon, you don't crave power."
"I'm already strong enough. 'Content is the philosopher's stone.' Those who learn to be satisfied with what they have are the ones who achieve true happiness."
"Oh, is that one of Meraldia's sayings?"
"Something like that."
Pretty sure Lao Tzu was the one who came up with it, but he doesn't exist in this world. Once you started craving strength, there would be no end to your ambition. Even if you became a War God, next you'd want to fight other War Gods to prove your superiority over them. Kuwol's history proved that. I wanted the era my kid would live through to be more peaceful than the one I lived through. Oh yeah, that reminds me...
"By the way, Elder, why is it that only this artifact is left in working condition? What happened to the mana reserves in the others?"
Smiling, the elder spread his arms wide. "Our ancestors used them to help Kuwol prosper. It's thanks to those artifacts that this forest has grown as large as it has, and why the Mejire provides such a huge bounty to the land. Because of the constant fighting between the Valkaan, this region used to be a barren wasteland."
"...I see."
"However, they wanted to leave at least one in reserve in case someone needed it centuries later, so this is the one that has been passed down from generation to generation," the elder added.
"Makes sense."
I nodded as I looked down at the lush forest below. The werecats' ancestors had poured all the mana stored in these artifacts into the soil to revitalize the desolate land. That reminded me of what Airia had done after becoming a Hero.
"You know, Meraldia's Demon Lord did something similar. She used most of it to bless our territory."
"Oho, so she arrived at the same conclusion our ancestors did?"
"Yes. I realize I'm biased since she's my wife, but she's a truly wise ruler."
I smiled proudly as I boasted about her. Hopefully, that would reassure the elder that Jakarn's Relic really would be in safe hands, though I really just wanted an excuse to talk about Airia. I ended up bragging about her for so long that it was noon by the time we started heading down.
* * * *
—The Elder's Reminiscence—
This day was undoubtedly a historical moment for our tribe. A werewolf came to visit us from beyond the sea at the northern tip of the Mejire. The man who introduced himself as Veight was unbelievably strong. He and his soldiers were able to rout a human army ten times their number without losing a single one of their brethren. Normally, a difference in numbers this striking would lead to some losses, even for a powerful group of demons, but his tactics were impeccable.
However, even more impressive than his leadership skill was his power. He took on 100 of our best warriors and beat them handily. I thought I was hallucinating at first. I had always believed werewolves to be inferior to us werecats, but Veight's strength had been equivalent to the Valkaan of legend. Despite what he said, I still believe that man to be a Valkaan himself. At the very least, I know of no demon stronger than him. Even our greatest mage, Elmersia, was but a novice by comparison. His magic was honed for combat while hers was mostly used for rituals and ceremonies. He came out of that battle practically unscathed.
It was then that I realized we had gotten complacent. After centuries of peace, we'd grown overconfident in our strength and convinced ourselves we were invincible. We no longer have the right to be the guardians of these artifacts.
Veight was unbelievably strong, but according to him, real Valkaan were even stronger. When I heard that, I could hardly contain my surprise. Furthermore, Veight claimed that humans would eventually grow stronger than Valkaan. Supposedly, they would be able to create machines that could fly through the sky and rain fire and death on the land from above. Frankly, I find that hard to believe, but Veight is stronger than us. His strength is reason enough to trust his word. For a demon, strength is necessary to survive long enough to become wise. Our kind is constantly facing hardships that can only be overcome with force. Only the strong are able to be wise.
It is for that reason that we've decided to put our faith in Veight's words and entrust our future to him. From this day onward, our tribe's goal has changed. In order to protect our past, we must forge a new future. We are entering an era where our outdated magic and superior physical prowess will no longer be enough to safeguard our artifacts from those who would use them with ill intentions. If we don't start running down the same path our werewolf counterparts are, we'll be left behind.
To the future generations who will read this, I have one final message: We must join hands with the werewolves of Meraldia to protect our tribe's sanctuary. Veight is not only strong but also a man we can trust. Learn from not only his might but his mercy as well. We must continue pushing forward so that we can stay where we are.
* * * *
After sorting everything out, me and my werewolves departed the holy land of Mount Kayankaka. Traveling with us were Kumluk and his men, as well as a few werecats who'd volunteered to come along. In deference to their duty as guardians of Jakarn's Relic, I decided to let them be part of the retinue of guards taking the artifact back to Meraldia. Plus, I wanted them to be present when I told the royal family I was moving their artifact. The werecats had a longstanding relationship with the royals, so it'd help to have them around. Among the werecats who were joining us, Elmersia seemed especially excited about the upcoming journey.
"Hey, Veight."
"Yeah?"
"Is the Great Sage Gomoviroa really as amazing a mage as everyone says?"
"I mean, she's my master. She's studied a bunch of different fields of magic, and she's completely mastered necromancy. Oh, and she's been around since the fall of the Old Dynasty. I can't think of anyone who knows more about magic than her."
Master loved to gush about her students, but this was the first time I'd gushed about her. Honestly, I should do this more often. Telling people how cool she is makes me happy.
Frowning, Elmersia muttered, "...All our mage training consists of is following the techniques and formulas our ancestors left behind, but I've heard you guys have ways of studying lost spells and even researching new ones." She let out a long sigh. "I never realized just how useless our magic was in actual combat. It's been so long since we've really had to fight anyone. I wouldn't stand a chance against someone armed with a Blast Rifle."
Blast Rifles could fire long-range light bullets without an incantation, so Elmersia definitely wouldn't be able to cast her spells in time.
"Me and the other shamans of the werecat tribe were thinking of studying under Master Gomoviroa so we could learn how to use more practical magic as well."
The girls standing behind Elmersia nodded emphatically. Master is about to get a whole slew of new disciples. Meanwhile, Kumluk looked like he was still in shock.
"The... The captain's really dead, isn't he?"
To Kumluk, Zagar had been more than just his boss—he'd been Kumluk's savior. It was hardly surprising that he was upset.
I nudged my horse over to him and said sympathetically, "Zagar was undoubtedly a legend. He was a genius when it came to warfare, and he had a surprising amount of foresight as well."
Kumluk nodded glumly, and I smiled sadly at him.
"But there were two important things that he failed to understand."
"Really?"
"Yes. The first was his lack of consideration for others."
Not only had he been ruthless towards his enemies, but he'd been just as ruthless to his own allies. To him, other people were nothing more than pawns to be manipulated and sacrificed as necessary.
"The second was his inability to be satisfied with what he had."
His burning ambition had put him in constant opposition with those in power. No one else had wanted a period of strife, but strife was the only way he could advance, so he'd kept trying to stir up trouble. Ultimately, he made everyone in Kuwol his enemy and self-destructed.
"Zagar certainly had the ability to achieve great things. However, his never-ending thirst for glory made him greedy. It's fine to want power, but with great power comes great responsibility. If you forget that, you'll eventually be overthrown."
"I'll take your advice to heart...though I'm one of the weaklings on the other side of that equation." Kumluk smiled weakly and looked up at the sky. "In retrospect, I suppose it was inevitable that the captain would meet a grisly end."
"Yeah," I said with a nod. "The royal family has decided not to publicize the fact that the king was killed by a mere mercenary captain, by the way. From what I heard, the palace ministers aren't too happy about the decision, but the royal family won't budge."
"Why?"
"Kuwol's king is supposed to be a direct descendant of the Moon God. They can't let the citizens know a commoner was able to kill someone divine... At least, that's their reasoning."
It would set a bad precedent to let people know that commoners overthrowing their rulers was possible, so the official story would be that Zagar didn't kill Pajam the Second, and that he was slain while searching for the king.
"They're planning on telling everyone that the king was injured while traveling to a different city, and died before he could be treated. As for Zagar, they're gonna say he tried to raid the mountain tribe's villages but got killed by the villagers instead."
"And that'll put an end to this whole affair?" Kumluk asked sadly.
"Pretty much. We have to do things this way, or you might be executed for the crime of aiding and abetting a king-killer. You were his vice-commander, after all."
"True... You've saved me so many times now. I can't thank you enough, Veight. I don't know if I can ever repay you for all that you've done, but truly, thank you."
"Don't mention it. I helped you because I wanted to."
I smiled at him and Kumluk finally gave me a genuine smile back.
"I've learned far more than I should have about this entire incident. On top of that, I was Zagar's second. There's no way I'll be able to stay in Kuwol now."
"Yeah."
I didn't let it show, but I was grinning on the inside. Kumluk's next words were exactly what I was expecting.
"...Once all the loose ends are taken care of, would it be alright for me to join the demon army? I wouldn't mind being made a regular foot soldier, even."
"What are you talking about? Someone of your caliber deserves to be my vice—"
Kite's face popped into my head and I suddenly trailed off. I forgot about that promise.
"I'd like for you to serve as my aide. I'm sure your military and diplomatic knowledge will be of great use to Meraldia."
"Thank you."
Didn't think I'd be scouting new talent here. It would be a huge diplomatic boon to have someone from Kuwol on my staff.
The trip to and from Mount Kayankaka took about one month in total, and it was fall by the time I returned to Kuwol's capital. Upon entering the city, Parker greeted me with a smile.
"Welcome back, Veight. The queen safely gave birth to Kuwol's new prince while you were gone."
"That's great news."
Leaving Parker behind had been the right choice. He had a lot of medical knowledge, so he'd probably been able to help with the delivery.
I made my way into the palace so I could congratulate Queen Fasleen. She'd been feeling under the weather after giving birth, but apparently that was pretty normal for humans—or so I'd heard, anyway. In my old life, I'd never gotten to see what people were like right after childbirth, and werewolves recovered from labor pretty much instantly. When I reached Fasleen's room, she showed me the newborn baby. He was small enough to fit in my palms, but then that was true for werewolf babies too.
Smiling happily, Fasleen said, "Would you be willing to bless him?"
"Are you sure? I'm not a Mondstrahl believer."
"It's fine. You were the one who got revenge for his father. I'm sure he'll grow up to be a strong ruler if he has the blessing of a true legend like you."
Man, you're making me blush.
"Is it okay if I bless him in the werewolf tradition?"
"Of course."
"Alright, then."
I cradled the baby in my arms and he eagerly grabbed at one of my fingers. Normally, werewolves kissed a newborn baby's lips, but that had the potential to transmit disease, so I opted for kissing his chin instead.
"May you be blessed with strong fangs to rip through your enemies and bountiful prey to feast on."
This was the same blessing adults gave newborn babies back in my village. While not all of those babies had grown up healthy and strong, most had. Had this world's medical knowledge been as advanced as Earth's, they might have all survived.
I handed the baby back to Fasleen, who smiled at me and handed it to her wet nurse.
"I've finally decided on his name. Schmal. It was the name of our family's founder, the one who defeated the Valkaan Jakarn together with his allies."
Ah, I see now. Zagar calling himself Jakarn's son was his way of rebelling against the royal family. And now, the son of the man Zagar had killed was being named after the hero who had slain Jakarn. The symbolism couldn't be more clear.
I watched Schmal wiggle around in his crib for a bit, idly musing about how babies in this world possessed the Moro reflex as well. Come to think of it, werewolf babies had that reflex, too. After testing for a few more reflexes, I got shooed away by Schmal's wet nurse.
"Lord Veight, Prince Schmal isn't a toy!"
"It's fine. Lord Veight, I hope you'll be a friend to Schmal once he grows up."
She gave me a slightly worried look as she said that so I nodded reassuringly and replied, "Of course. Meraldia is Kuwol's ally. Schmal has our full support as the rightful heir to Kuwol's throne."
The more Kuwol was indebted to us, the easier it would be to get them to enact pro-Meraldia policies. Please sell us your sugarcane for cheap.
The only problem remaining now was figuring out what to do with all the remaining mercenaries. All they were good at was fighting, so it would be hard to find honest work they could do. There was going to be a meeting with all the ministers soon to decide how to handle them, so I needed to come up with some ideas before then. I needed to resolve this problem fast, or I wouldn't be able to make it back in time to see my child be born.
As I was organizing some paperwork in my room in the palace, Fahn walked in.
"Captain Veight, there are messengers from Meraldia here to see you, but..."
"Hm? There shouldn't be anything weird about that, right? Are they people I know?"
Before Fahn could respond, two heads poked out from behind her.
"Ah... Professor!"
"You can't call him that right now, Myurei! We're here as official messengers of the council, remember?"
It was Myurei and Ryuunie, the grandson of Lotz's viceroy and Rolmund's exiled prince. The two of them also happened to be my students. The heck are you guys doing here? I put down my pen and got to my feet.
"Kuwol's political situation is still unstable, you two. Didn't I say it isn't safe to come here yet?"
Myurei puffed out his chest and said, "Too bad! The Demon Empress herself told us to come see you!"
"Master...I mean Demon Empress Gomoviroa asked you to come here?"
"Yep!" Ryuunie said with a nod. What's going on here?
"She told us to deliver this to you," Myurei said, handing me a letter. The outdated handwriting style was indeed Master's. I don't get it. Why'd you send my students to deliver this? Confused, I unfurled the letter and started reading. The contents included a rather ominous prediction by Mitty, Ryunheit's resident astrologist and leader of the city's Mondstrahl church. It said, "There is a single shadow of death hovering over the date of Demon Lord Airia's delivery."
A single shadow of death? You mean either Airia or the baby is going to die? No way! Is that all the info you have?! How accurate is that prediction?! And how did you divine it?! Wait, how does the magical theory of divination work anyway?! There was a mountain of questions I wanted to ask, but then I snapped back to my senses and realized no one here had the answers.
"Umm...Professor?" Myurei asked tentatively, looking up at me with a terrified expression. "D-Does the letter contain bad news?"
Oh yeah, these guys probably don't know what it says. Crap, was I making a scary face? Man, I need to pull it together. I'm these kids' teacher. Master always acts calm in front of us, I need to learn from her. Even when Master let her emotions show, she never did anything that would scare her disciples. Usually, anyway—I needed to do the same.
I forced a smile on my face and placed a hand on Myurei and Ryuunie's shoulders. "Yeah, unfortunately. Don't worry, it's not like Meraldia's about to implode or anything."
The two of them looked relieved as I said that. Wait, is that the reason Master specifically sent these two here to deliver that letter? I could easily imagine her saying "If you're in front of your disciples you won't lose your cool, right?" if she was here. Seeing that I was calm again, Ryuunie pulled out another letter.
"U-Umm, the Demon Empress told me to give you this letter once you finished reading the first."
"Thank you."
Alright, what now? I unfolded the second letter and started reading.
"According to Mitty's divinations, the baby will be unable to pass through Airia's birth canal. I can think of a few reasons for that, but what this means is she will be unable to give birth normally. As the Demon Empress, I command you to return immediately and help me think of a solution."
The baby won't be able to pass through the birth canal?
"...So we'll have to do a C-section," I muttered under my breath.
I glanced over and saw Myurei and Ryuunie looking worriedly at me. In a scared voice, Myurei asked, "Is everything really going to be okay, Professor?"
"Don't worry. There just might be some complications when Airia gives birth, that's all."
It was just like Master to split her letter up into two parts to give me a chance to cool my head. The second one also explained the magical theory behind divination, which was one of the things I wanted to ask. Mitty's astrology used a combination of astronomy, history, mathematics, and magic to lead her to surprisingly accurate predictions. There were a lot of things she couldn't get predictions for, but it was rare for any of her predictions to be off.
As I was reading through the details, I felt myself calming down. I know what I need to do. Master really knew me way too well. I took a few deep breaths, inwardly thanking her for being so understanding. I organized my thoughts, making sure to not let my emotions cloud my judgment. Alright, what's the best way to go about this? I still needed to meet with the ministers to discuss Kuwol's future plans. This was probably the only opportunity a Meraldian would have to sit at such an important policy meeting for Kuwol, and also have the right to influence the ministers' decisions. It was in Meraldia's best interests that I remain here, but now that I knew my wife was having pregnancy troubles, I couldn't justify prioritizing anyone or anything else.
Isn't there anyone I can have sitting in on these meetings in my place? There's gotta be someone, right? None of my werewolves were suited for negotiations or politics. Grizz wasn't really trained to handle this kind of stuff either. Who else... Just as I was thinking that, Parker barged into the room.
"Hey there Myurei, Ryuunie! Welcome to the sweet land of sugar! Want some sugared chicken gizzard?"
"Why the heck are you walking around with gizzards? And don't just barge into people's rooms without permission. Also, don't corrupt my cute little students. I don't want them learning anything from you."
I rattled off complaints against Parker as a way to let off some steam. He ignored me entirely and took a bag of sugared chicken gizzard out of his pocket.
"You did a good job in delivering those letters! Here's your reward. Go ahead and relax for a bit, Veight and I will take care of things from here."
Myurei and Ryuunie were aware that Parker was one of Master's oldest disciples. His praise clearly meant a lot to them, and they beamed as they took the bag of snacks. They bowed to him, then to me, then left the room. Fahn looked like she wanted to say something, but after seeing Parker's expression, she followed the two kids out.
Once the two of us were alone, I showed Parker the two letters Master had sent me. After reading through them, he nodded firmly.
"This is serious. Master is right, you should head back immediately."
"But there's nothing I can do even if I do go back." I was neither a doctor nor an astrologist. All I was good for was fighting.
Parker strode forward and said confidently, "While you were gone, I spent most of my time with Queen Fasleen's doctors. I was there when she was in labor, too. She has a weak constitution, so I was planning on healing her if anything happened."
What's this all of a sudden? Parker's next words helped clear up my confusion.
"It took half a day, but the prince was born safe and sound. That was the first time I'd seen new life being brought into this world. It was sublime, moving, overwhelming, and...fleeting."
Parker feigned a sigh, though no air came out. He couldn't sigh for real anymore, now that he was a skeleton.
"When I was still alive, I spent all my time thinking about how I could escape from death. I was so scared of dying that I never spent any time appreciating the fact that I was alive. That's how I ended up like this."
Parker took off his gloves and showed me his pale, bony hands. They looked strikingly forlorn.
"...Had I spent any time at all thinking about the creation of life, I might have been able to properly master the necromancer's final test."
"I kind of get what your point is, but how does that relate to my current problem?"
Parker wagged his white index finger back and forth. "Life is noble, sacred, and beautiful, but it can also be snuffed out at a moment's notice. That holds true for everyone, not just infants."
I understood he was referring to Airia here. Parker took another step closer and dispelled the illusion he normally cast on his face. The smiling young man vanished, leaving an expressionless skeleton in its place.
"This is way more important than what's good for the demon army, or Meraldia. You need to go back to Airia."
"But the meeting still—"
"If you make that choice, you'll end up regretting it... Just like I did."
I could see a boundless darkness within Parker's empty eye sockets. It was rare for Parker to get this serious, and I knew I couldn't just laugh his words off this time.
Seeing how conflicted I looked he added, "I haven't spoken with her much, but I've heard a lot about how skilled Mitty is. She predicted the appearance of a Hero, and she's also the one who advised you to help Friedensrichter."
"Yeah...you're right. It was thanks to her accurate prediction that we didn't all die."
Without her foresight, Arshes would have had time to heal his wounds after killing Friedensrichter and would eventually have come back at full strength. Had that happened, we would all have been doomed. It was thanks to her prediction that I was still alive right now. I had every reason to trust her word.
Parker placed a hand on my shoulder. "You've done more than enough for Meraldia and Kuwol as the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander. It's time you put your title aside and do what you have to do as a husband and a father."
"You have a point, but..."
"You saved Bishop Yuhit's life once before with your healing skills, remember? Had you not treated him back then, he'd be dead."
That had happened so long ago now that it was a nostalgic memory.
"You're a lot better at healing people than you might think. Don't forget, it's thanks to you that Amani Wajar was healed as well. Believe it or not, you're a doctor in your own right."
"I don't know about that..."
All of my medical knowledge was trivia I'd absorbed from watching a bunch of medical dramas in my past life. Granted, in this world, that was probably still more knowledge than most people had. Parker put his gloves back on and reapplied the illusion to his face. Now he was back to looking like a handsome dandy.
"Leave all the remaining meetings to me. I've gotten quite fluent at Kuwolese now. Besides..." He grinned at me. "Truth is, I used to be the viceroy of one of Meraldia's southern cities back when I was alive. Surprised? I'm a noble too!"
"Yeah, I know."
"Wait, you knew?!"
How many other skeletons out there know about proper decorum?
"The fact that you were able to study necromancy even after falling ill meant you had to be someone wealthy. If you were just a commoner, you wouldn't be able to afford that."
"Point taken. Here, want one of my pointy bones as a prize?"
Parker removed one of his wrist bones and held it out to me with a smile. Your gags are getting even worse, man. But I gotta admit, for as annoying as you can be, you're a really reliable guy to have around. I spun Parker's wrist bone like I would a pen, then stuck it back where it belonged.
"If anything, I should be the one giving you a prize. Thanks for everything, Parker."
"You're very welcome."
Smiling, Parker bowed deeply. God, you can be such a pain sometimes, but alright, I'll go back. Screw that damn prediction. I'll find a way to bend fate to my will and make sure both Airia and my kid survive. I've already thwarted fate once before, no way I'm gonna let myself fail now.
"Parker, you're in charge of the remaining meetings now. Oh, and one more thing."
"Shoot."
"Let Myurei and Ryuunie sit in on the meetings. It'll be a good learning experience for them. They may still be young, but they're both pretty talented. I'm sure they'll do a good job of keeping you in line."
"Sure. But what do you mean 'keep me in line'?!"
Well, knowing you, there's a 100% chance you'll try to do something crazy.
I called the two kids back, but for some reason, three people showed up.
"It's wonderful to see you again Veight," Mao said, getting down on his right knee, Kuwolese style.
"I didn't know you'd come, too."
"You didn't honestly believe the Demon Empress would send two children here alone, did you? I came here with a retinue of demon knights to keep them safe."
Makes sense. I gestured Myurei and Ryuunie to come closer, then said in a whisper that was purposely loud enough for Mao to hear, "Listen up you two, that old man is a crafty villain. Don't trust him, no matter what you do."
"At least have the decency to whisper it softly enough that I can't hear you. Also, I'm not old."
Why is it that all the people who would be a bad influence on these two are the ones staying here?
"You came at the perfect time, Mao. I want you to take part in the meetings with the country's ministers. You're Meraldia's new diplomat."
"Are you sure you want to give me that responsibility?"
"Parker's an able politician, but he's not sly like you. He had too pure of an upbringing."
"What? So you want me to do all the shady deals?"
Despite his grumbling, I could tell Mao was holding back a smirk. Don't get too ahead of yourself now.
"Diplomacy isn't about just pretty words and fair deals," I replied. "However, you better not do anything you wouldn't want these kids seeing, since they'll be at the meetings as well."
"You're asking for the impossible here. I can't be crafty and wholesome enough for kids at the same time."
"Well, make the impossible possible. You're about to become their role model for what a good diplomat is like."
You can handle it, right?
"Also, please try to steer negotiations in a direction where both Kuwol and Meraldia profit. If you do a good job, I'll give you exclusive access to part of the sugar trade."
"I'll do it," Mao replied instantly.
I turned to Myurei and Ryuunie and said, "And this is why you can't trust him. That said, you can trust him as long as he stands to profit from helping you somehow, so take a good look at how he handles these negotiations."
"I can still hear you, you know?"
"If you want me to say nicer things about you, stop trying to bribe everyone left and right."
Seriously, if you don't get your act together, I'll have to arrest you eventually.
"Alright. From now on, Parker's in charge here. I need to get ready to go back home."
I started packing my things as I talked. Wait for me Airia, I'm coming.
* * * *
—The Value of Trust—
After Veight left, Mao cleared his throat and muttered, "Uhh..."
He'd been left here with the exiled prince of an empire, the grandson of his business rival, and a skeleton mage. His merchant's intuition was telling him that he really didn't want to spend any more time than necessary with these guys. Unfortunately, he'd made a promise to Veight. This, too, is for the sake of business. Just deal with it, Mao.
"Ryuunie, Myurei."
"Yes, Mister Mao?"
"What is it, Mister Mao?"
Mao didn't hold any grudges against Ryuunie, but Myurei was the grandson of that blasted Petore. He'd lost track of how much he'd paid in taxes and fines to Lotz at this point. However, Myurei himself was innocent.
"I look forward to working with you two. As Veight's representative, you can count on me to take care of the negotiations, including all the calculations we might need to do to strike accurate deals."
Ryuunie smiled and said, "I look forward to working with you, too."
Despite his nervousness, his smile didn't look at all forced. He's got the backbone of a ruler, that's for sure. Myurei looked just as nervous, but like Ryuunie he steeled his resolve and held out his right hand.
"I've heard a lot about you from my grandfather, Mister Mao. It'll be a pleasure to work with you."
"It's an honor to make your acquaintance. I'll do my best to put the future viceroy of Lotz into my debt."
Mao shook Myurei's hands, and the two of them smiled wickedly at each other. Yep, he's definitely got his grandfather's blood in him. I can't underestimate him.
Parker chuckled heartily and said, "Veight always knows how to pick the right people for a job. If there's anything you need help with, you can always turn to me. Turns out, necromancy is pretty useful when it comes to negotiating."
"...As a means to threaten people?" Mao asked, his gaze narrowing slightly.
Parker casually waved his gloved hand and replied, "No, no, not at all. I can have the spirits lurking in the castle give me information. When I was investigating the region, I called up the old spirits of a place to have them tell me about it. If you befriend them, they're pretty willing to talk."
"You can...befriend spirits...?"
Mao shook his head, deciding not to think too hard about it. It would just give him a headache if he did. At the same time, he realized why Veight had wanted him to take part in the negotiations. He was the only adult here with any amount of common sense. Veight was expecting him to set a proper example for Ryuunie and Myurei.
For all your complaining about how I'm a devious, cheating merchant, you sure do put a lot of faith in my conscience. Though, if I'm being honest with myself, I am happy you asked me to do this. It warmed Mao's heart to know that when all was said and done, Veight really did trust him a great deal.
Parker peered into Mao's eyes and said, "I thought I might have scared you with my talk of spirits, but here you are smiling. What has you so happy?"
"It's nothing."
Mao's smile turned devious and he said, "I just realized Veight happens to trust me the most. For a merchant, trust is a currency that holds more value than my life. Leave these negotiations to me."
"Now hold on a moment here. The one Veight trusts the most is me. I've been his reliable older brother since our disciple days, after all."
"Actually, I think Professor Veight trusts his students the most. Don't worry, we'll do our best to support both of you," Myurei interjected.
"Myurei, it's rude to interrupt a conversation between adults."
Ryuunie tugged on Myurei's sleeve, but Myurei was determined to prove that he was actually the one Veight trusted the most. Sighing, Mao smiled wryly to everyone.
"Fine, then. How about we have a contest to see who can contribute the most to this upcoming meeting? That should at least prove who lives up to his trust the most, and of course, no trying to sabotage anyone—we're all on the same side."
Ryuunie and Myurei nodded solemnly, while Parker grinned and said, "Let's do such a good job that we knock Veight's socks off."
* * * *
"I sure hope those guys aren't planning anything weird..."
I was worried about leaving Ryuunie and the others behind with no supervision, but I needed to get back to Meraldia as soon as possible. I chartered a boat to take me and my small collective of guards back to Bahza. Most of the werewolves had stayed behind to protect the kids, so I'd brought only a single squad—Garbert's, to be specific—with me. Actually, wait, I don't remember allowing the formation of a Garbert squad.
"Listen up, everyone!" Garbert shouted, raising his fist into the air. "All of us here are Veight's best friends! Now that Veight's first kid's about to be born, we've gotta be there with him!"
The members of Garbert's squad, Jerrick, Monza, and Nibert, nodded.
"Yeah!"
"You said it."
"You're so cool, bro!"
Now hold on just one blasted second.
"Jerrick, Monza, what happened to your squads?" I asked, confused.
"You know how the Garney brothers have been part of Mary's squad for the past few months? Well, we shuffled hers and our squad's members around to fill the numbers for our squads."
"You can't just do that without permission!"
"We had Fahn's permission."
Yeah, but I'm still the commander of this unit. Well, whatever, I guess I'll let it slide. Everyone looks like they're in high spirits.
"We've gotta come with you to help welcome the newest member of our pack!"
"Yeah!"
And how exactly are you guys going to help?
After leaving the other werewolves, Grizz's men, and even the mountain people behind, I made it to Bahza and started searching for the fastest ship in port. The warships Meraldia had sent in would be too slow. Thankfully, Bahza Birakoya was willing to help me out and provide a fast ship to take me back to Lotz.
During the journey back, I pored over my magical texts and explained to Jerrick, "Apparently, Master has been visiting Lotz every day to see if I've come back yet. Once we reach port, I'm going to ask her to use her teleportation magic to take me straight to Ryunheit."
"If she can teleport that far, she should have just come to Kuwol to get you."
I shook my head and replied, "She needs to visit a place in person first to calculate the distance from her current location and the local topography, and so on. If she just teleports somewhere on a whim, she might accidentally kill herself. There actually was a time once where she teleported herself high into the sky and almost died."
"Damn, teleportation magic sounds like a pain in the ass to use."
It would have been nice if Master had had a chance to visit Kuwol, but she'd been busy looking after Airia so she couldn't.
There were a few hiccups along the way, but we were blessed with a good tailwind for most of the trip. In just a few days, we were back and docking at Lotz. From that point on, everything was a flurry of activity.
Master showed up by the lighthouse just before sunset, and started looking around frantically for me. When she finally spotted me her face lit up and she exclaimed, "Oh, there you are Veight! You've grown in the short time you were gone."
"Uhh, Master, I passed puberty a long time ago."
"We can catch up later—for now we must return to Ryunheit posthaste. Unfortunately for everyone else, I can only take one person with me, so I'm afraid Monza and the others will have to take the long way."
Master started molding her mana without waiting for a reply.
"I'll explain the details of Airia's complications once we're in Ryunheit."
Right as she said that, my surroundings began to twist and warp. The first thing I noticed upon arriving back home was the thick scent of mana in the air. It seemed that the mana Airia had spread throughout the land still lingered. After having spent so much time in Kuwol, I was surprised by how much denser the mana here was. I can think about that later—right now, Airia takes priority.
"Master, how's she doing?"
"Both Airia and the baby are still healthy. Had Mitty not made that prediction, Kite and I would have been completely unaware that there was a problem." Master folded her arms and let out a sigh. "However, I am unsure whether or not we should tell Airia about the prophecy. Due to how ominous it is, I wanted to hear your opinion before coming to a decision."
"I'll tell her. Airia's a lot tougher than I am, I'm sure she can handle the news. Besides, I came up with a way to save her." I explained the plan I came up with while sailing back to Lotz. "The demon army hospital has a few unused research labs, right? Inscribe this magic circle into everything in one of those rooms."
"Is this not...the formula for the death spell? But you've weakened it considerably."
I could tell Master's academic curiosity was piqued by the disinfection charm I'd learned in Kuwol, but right now saving Airia was more important than teaching her about the things I'd discovered.
"If the baby won't be able to pass through the birth canal, we'll have to cut open her stomach and take it out."
"Hold on a moment! Cutting the mother's stomach open to remove the baby should be a last resort! If you do that, Airia will most certainly die! You didn't come back here just to kill her, did you?!"
So people don't survive C-sections in this world... There wasn't much time, so I decided to convey only the salient points.
"I'm not a doctor, but I know the biggest dangers of this operation are blood loss and the risk of infection. The magic circle I showed you earlier should help prevent any infections, at the very least."
"Wait. Explain everything, properly, from the beginning. I can't follow your thought process."
Oh yeah, this explanation probably doesn't make any sense, huh? Master floated up and patted my shoulder with a patient smile.
"What is it you are trying to tell me? Do you know of some way to cut open Airia's stomach without killing her?"
"Err...yeah, basically."
"I must say, I've never heard of such a thing in all my years of research. Where exactly did you learn such a technique?"
Damn it, Master's starting to catch on. However, right now, saving Airia was more important than keeping my true identity secret. Besides, Master was one of the few people I didn't mind knowing about my reincarnation.
"In the world I used to live in, there was a medical procedure called a cesarean section. I intend to replicate that in this world."
Those words alone would probably be enough for Master to infer the whole truth about my past, but to my surprise, Master didn't seem fazed at all.
She nodded without hesitation and said, "Understood. That sounds like the safest choice. And you need this magic circle to perform the procedure safely?"
"Ah, yes."
"Why is it that you need this circle engraved on all the objects in the room, as well as the walls and floor?" Master looked down at my notes, seemingly uninterested in the bombshell I'd just dropped.
I hurriedly explained, "The things that cause infections are tiny living organisms that inhabit every space in the world. They're too small to see, but we need to purify everything, including our hands, Airia's skin, and even the air in the room to get rid of them."
"Very well. In that case, I shall erect a barrier to prevent air from flowing in and out of the room as well. That will be necessary, correct?"
Master added a few corrections to my notes, then cocked her head.
"You mention here that we will need Melaine's help, but why is that?"
"To prevent Airia from dying of blood loss. Melaine's hemomancy will help keep Airia's bleeding to a minimum. We don't have the means to do blood transfusions in this world, so her aid is required."
I didn't know Airia's blood type, nor did I know of any way to hygienically transfer blood with the technology we had. If she lost too much blood during the C-section, she would undoubtedly die.
"Based on Melaine's earlier reports, anyone should be able to staunch bleeding with a few simple spells," I said. "But she's the only one skilled enough to stop necrosis of the wound while also restricting blood flow."
"Understood, I will bring her over immediately. It'll be faster than sending a messenger. You speak with Airia in the meantime." Master nodded and started chanting the teleportation spell. I could tell her the remaining details of the operation once Melaine was here.
As Master warped away, I dashed over to Airia's room.
"Airia!"
Her stomach had grown quite large in the time I was gone. It was nice to know that my kid was growing up healthy. Daddy's come back from work to visit you. Airia was sitting on a chair by the window, embroidering our family crest onto a tiny piece of cloth.
She turned to me with a smile on her face and said, "Welcome home, Veight."
"Oh, uhh yeah...I guess I'm back. I was able to make it in time to keep my promise," I replied with a smile. Thank god for that. "Are you sure you should be sitting right next to the breeze? Here, have a blanket to keep you warm. Also, shouldn't you be lying down?"
"Please, Veight, you're exaggerating. Surely you saw plenty of pregnant women back in your old world."
Actually, I didn't... Airia patted her stomach and smiled reassuringly at me.
"I feel just fine—though, our baby's been quite energetic recently. Every time I eat something tasty, they start kicking my stomach."
Aww, I wish I could have seen that. Wait, now's not the time to be gushing over how cute my kid is. I gave Airia a brief overview of how things went in Kuwol, then mentioned Mitty's prediction.
"According to Mitty's divination, the birth is going to have a lot of complications. It's possible we may have to cut your stomach open to get the baby out. Of course, I plan to do everything I can to make sure the operation doesn't do any lasting harm to you."
"...Did you just say 'cut open my stomach'?"
Naturally, even Airia paled at that, so I hurriedly explained, "In my old world, medicine was advanced enough that people regularly performed this procedure if it looked like a natural birth wouldn't go smoothly. In fact, that was how I was born the first time around, and my mom ended up outliving me."
Sorry I wasn't able to give you any grandkids, Mom. Airia smiled, and her shoulders relaxed in relief.
"In that case, please use that procedure to save both me and our child if necessary. So long as you're with me, I'm not afraid of anything."
Honestly, I wasn't all that confident in myself, but with the combined powers of Master and her best disciples, I figured things would end up okay.
Smiling, I said, "Do you remember how we first met?"
"Of course. You broke through the window on the second floor and scared me half to death," she replied with a chuckle. I scratched my head in embarrassment.
"I bet you never thought we'd eventually be married back then."
"Indeed."
"Life really is unpredictable. When I was on my deathbed in my past life, I never even dreamed that I would end up in another world as a werewolf."
I thought I'd be in for a rough time again in this world, but my life's been full of so much happiness that it more than makes up for what happened in my last one.
"Anyway, my point is that the future is never set in stone, and I firmly believe that both you and our baby will come out of this alive and healthy. At the very least, I'll do everything I can to make that happen."
Airia nodded, then placed a hand on my cheek. "Seeing how resolute you always are helps assuage my own fears."
"Airia..."
"By the way, Veight. I heard you did some rather reckless things in Kuwol."
Who told you that?
"A number of Wa's scouts, including members of Fumino's squad, are currently in Kuwol. I've heard quite a bit about your exploits from her. Including the fact that you dueled a hundred demons all by yourself."
"Err, well, I was sure I could win that pretty handily. I may have made a few miscalculations, but in the end, I still won without so much as a scratch on me..."
Oh god, why. Still smiling, Airia tightly gripped my hand. Okay, I give up.
"I'm sorry... It's just how I am. I couldn't fix it even if I tried."
"I know." Chuckling, Airia patted her stomach again. "You're going to have it rough with a father like this."
Hey now, that's just not true.
A few days after my arrival, Airia went into labor. In Kuwol, the big meeting was probably happening right about now, too. Had it not been for Mitty's prophecy, I would probably be in a heated debate with the kingdom's ministers. I really dodged a bullet there.
I turned back to Mitty, who'd come to assist with the birth as a midwife. She was wearing the white coat I'd provided for her and had her hair held back by a kerchief.
"You're always here when we need you most, Mitty."
"That is the job of an astrologist, you know," she replied with a smile. I never imagined protecting Mitty and the other Mondstrahl believers back when I'd first conquered Ryunheit would pay off like this. What goes around comes around, I guess. Master, Melaine, Kite, Lacy, and the deputy head maid Isabelle were all here as well to help Airia.
Worried, Isabelle asked, "Will the seven of us really be enough? Shouldn't we call for more people?"
Isabelle had received a decently advanced education, but she knew even less about medicine than I did. I needed to word my explanation carefully here.
"It's best to have only specialists here," I replied. "The more people we call, the easier it will be to accidentally transmit disease to Airia. We all carry pathogens with us at all times, even if we don't realize it."
I was far from an expert on infections, but I at least knew how to take precautions against bacteria.
I turned to everyone else and explained, "Don't take those gloves off until the operation's over. Also, try to avoid touching anything unnecessary. If you do end up touching something, be sure to use the purification spell on the gloves immediately." They nodded nervously, and I added, "Master is going to be the one making the incision and performing the operation. Mitty, you have experience as a midwife so you can assist her. Kite, use your epoch magic to keep a close eye on the baby's position, as well as Airia's current condition. Lacy, you project Kite's measurements on the wall for everyone to see. Both of you remember the organ anatomy I taught you, right?"
Kite nodded and confirmed, "Lacy and I spent the last few days memorizing everything."
"It was a real shock to learn that was what the inside of my stomach is like..." Lacy muttered, rubbing her abdomen. I literally just told you not to touch things with those gloves on. I decided to save warning her for the next time she did it and turned to Melaine.
"Melaine, you're in charge of keeping the bleeding down. Make sure there's enough blood flowing to the wound that it doesn't undergo necrosis. Once the baby's safely out, I'll close up the wound."
We would be cutting open the womb as well, so I would have to heal that first. I went over the steps with everyone one more time, as well as what to do in case something unexpected occurred.
"Airia still has eight hundred Kites of mana. She isn't able to control it all that well herself, but I can use my strengthening magic to direct it towards life preservation."
To a mage, Airia had the life force of 800 people, but even so, she could still die easily if we weren't careful. Mana was like someone's savings: unless they withdrew them and used them for some kind of purpose, they were useless. Moreover, Airia was neither a mage nor a werewolf.
"Isabelle, your job will be to give Airia moral support. We'll be too busy to chat, but talking to her and keeping her spirits up will be of vital importance."
"Understood, sir."
Isabelle nodded resolutely, reaffirming her resolve. I put on the white robe that would serve as my operating gown and activated the magic circuit embroidered on it to sterilize it again just in case. Everyone else followed suit.
I forced a smile to try and reassure everyone and said, "Don't worry, we'll be done by sunset. By this time tomorrow, we'll be welcoming the newest member of the Aindorf family."
There was no guarantee that would be the case, but we were all here to make sure things went well. Airia was waiting for us in the operating room. Monza and my other friends were standing guard outside. As we walked in, the white-robed maids who'd been attending Airia until now bowed and exited the room. Airia looked like she was in pain, but when she spotted me she smiled.
"I only just went into labor this morning, aren't you rushing things a little, Veight? I've heard some people take as long as a day to give birth."
"It's better to have the operation over with before you get exhausted. If we're going to have to do the C-section either way, it's better to do it now rather than after you've been struggling for hours."
I kept my tone light, but in truth, I was still feeling conflicted. No matter how accurate Mitty's divinations were, even she couldn't predict things with 100% accuracy. It was still possible we were putting Airia in unnecessary danger, which was why I decided to wait and see for the morning, at least. Now it was afternoon, and it didn't look like Airia had made any progress at all. If we performed the operation while Airia was tired, her life would be in more danger. This wasn't 21st-century Japan, and I wasn't a doctor. That being said, I was a mage. That was the one trump card I had up my sleeve.
Airia's expression grew serious when she saw the look on my face. "If you end up having to choose between me or the baby, please save our child."
"Airia, I..."
She forced a smile through the pain. "...Of course I would love it if you could save us both, Veight."
"That's the plan."
I'll make sure everything goes perfectly.
I lifted Airia's shirt up and started to cast an anesthesia spell on her stomach. As I did so, I thought back to my duel with Schmevinsky back in Rolmund. He'd used a sword enchanted to inflict severe pain on whoever it cut, so I'd anesthetized myself ahead of time. Of course, this time it was my wife and kid's life on the line, not mine. I couldn't afford to make any mistakes. I disinfected Airia's skin with alcohol, then started giving instructions.
"Melaine, get your blood magic ready. Master, prepare the mana scalpel."
"I'm ready."
"Likewise."
Melaine and Master nodded solemnly. Master extended her finger and a tiny blade of pure mana shot out of it. Her control over mana was far greater than mine, and she was able to make a much smaller blade than I could. It had no thickness whatsoever, enhancing its sharpness. Moreover, it was made of pure energy, so it was naturally sterile. The only potential problem would come from misadjustment of the blade's power output, but Master was far too skilled to make such a mistake.
"Kite, Lacy, guide Master to the position of the womb."
"Okay."
The two of them answered in unison, and started casting. Kite relayed the information he received to Lacy, who used illusion magic to project a mapping of it overhead. This same combination worked wonders back when I'd built a snow fortress in Rolmund to keep Woroy in check. Meanwhile, Mitty taught Master all the things she'd learned about women's wombs during her years as a midwife. She also helped Master find the correct position to make the incision.
Once everything was ready, Master said, "Here I go."
Everyone nodded in reply, and she slowly drove her scalpel into Airia's stomach.
"By the spirits vested in me, like the ebb and flow of a tide, retract the passage of blood!" Melaine chanted, preventing the cut from bleeding.
As the cut went deeper, I could see the subcutaneous fat beneath the skin, and then the abdominal muscles underneath that. Good, there's barely any blood. I'd prepared healing magic in case it was necessary, but to my relief, it wasn't. However, the real trial was yet to come. Sweat beaded on Master's forehead as she expanded her mana scalpel, enlarging the incision. In order to prevent infection, she couldn't touch Airia's body directly. The safest way to both deepen and widen the cut would be to adjust the output of mana to reshape her scalpel.
"Mrrrr..."
Master's childlike body was exactly what allowed her to perform such fine-tuned adjustments. My fingers were far too big to manage a feat like that. All I could do was pray that Master succeeded.
"...Does it hurt, Airia?"
"No, I'm fine. It does feel a little hot and itchy, but other than that, nothing."
Airia was white as a sheet from nerves, but she nevertheless put on a brave smile. Isabelle tightly gripped her hand, looking even paler than Airia.
"Don't worry, everything will be just fine. I'm about to become a mother, which is going to be a far greater ordeal than this," Airia said lightly, trying to encourage her maid.
"My lady..."
There were tears in Isabelle's eyes. I almost felt like crying myself. I guess we won't have to worry about Airia's mental state at least. I poured as much strengthening magic into Airia as I could, boosting her immune system to the max. Airia still possessed a lot of mana herself, so the spells were highly effective.
"Master, try your best not to cut any of Airia's other organs."
"Mmm... I know."
"And don't touch anything with your hands. If you must move something, use telekinesis."
"I said I know. All you're doing is distracting me."
Look, I'm just worried, okay? Master masterfully used telekinesis to push Airia's womb up, making it easier to cut. She'd already made the necessary incisions through the fat and muscles, so all that was left was to cut the womb's membrane.
Kite, who'd been using epoch magic this entire time, said in a nervous voice, "Demon Empress, please shorten the blade's length by half a mioro, and move your incision three mioro to the right."
"Understood."
At long last, Master began cutting into the womb. I was too busy focusing on Airia's vitals, so I wasn't able to watch the whole process. I kept pre-casting spells to have ready just in case something went wrong. However, I did clearly see the moment Master lifted our baby out of Airia's stomach. Mitty hurriedly patted the baby a few times to wake them up, and before long the baby let out a long wail. Their lungs had started functioning automatically now that they were no longer receiving oxygen from the placenta. Our baby was able to keep themself alive all on their own now.
In an uncharacteristically excited voice, Master shouted, "She's been born! She's alive! It's a girl!"
A girl! We have a daughter! Our baby's a girl! I resisted the temptation to shout in joy and looked at Airia.
"Our baby's safe now, Airia. We have a daughter!"
"Yes!"
"Just focus on yourself now. Mitty, Isabelle, take care of the baby for us."
The midwife and the maid would definitely be able to handle taking care of a baby for a few hours. We mages needed to concentrate on closing up Airia.
The healing process turned out to be quite the ordeal.
"We need to take out the placenta. Sorry Mitty, but where exactly does that start and end?!"
"Give me a moment, I'm coming. Isabelle, give the baby her bath."
"Of course! Wait, you want me to do it?!"
"Melaine, let a little bit of blood start flowing! I won't be able to close the wounds up otherwise!"
"It's hard to fine-tune this spell! You'll need a workaround!"
"Lacy, keep projecting the current status of the womb! I need to heal everything, including the womb incision!"
"O-Okay!"
"Master, are you sure you have the correct position for the bladder?!"
"Huh?! Umm...Kite, is this the right spot?"
"Yes it is, I'll record it for future reference!"
I bet the post-op of a C-section in modern-day Japan isn't this crazy.
It took until sunset for us medically-inexperienced mages to finish the operation. We'd started around noon so the whole thing took quite a few hours. After checking up on Airia's condition, Kite absorbed some mana from a nearby candlestick. The stick was a magical item that stored mana for mages to take at a later time. From the looks of it, he was completely drained.
"She's fine... Everything's good..."
"You're...absolutely, one-hundred-percent sure, right?"
"Yeah, the only problem now is how tired we all are..."
If you can crack jokes like that then I think we're good. I'd expected the operation to be a draining process, so I'd requisitioned a number of these candlesticks from the demon army ahead of time. Everyone just needed to absorb enough mana that they weren't running on empty, and we'd be fine. There was a huge pile of drained magic items on the ground in front of us already. I'd used up two of Master's Thousand Souls Helmets myself. Blasting magic off without a care in the world was a lot less exhausting than healing like this that required impeccable micro-control. It was like the way a car used up ridiculous amounts of gas if you floored the accelerator while also pressing down on the brakes.
Airia herself was asleep now, and Lacy, who was the first person who got to rest, was also sleeping while leaning against the wall.
"Everything's fine, yeah? It's okay for Airia to sleep, right?"
"I dunno, but if something happens wake me..." Kite trailed off, slumping to the ground. Fortunately, his head landed on Lacy's stomach so he didn't hurt himself. Neither him falling on her nor his loud snoring seemed to wake her up. Both of them were fast asleep.
It's gotten pretty quiet now, huh? Turning around, I saw Master and Melaine asleep in each other's arms. Neither of their bodies actually needed sleep, so this was quite a rare sight. Mitty and Isabelle were both down for the count, too. Both of them were resting against our baby's crib and sleeping quietly. But if everyone else was asleep, it meant I couldn't rest.
I need to at least stay awake until someone else shows up to nurse Airia. Just as I thought that, the wall in front of me turned into the ceiling. Did I just fall? As I tried to struggle back to my feet, I saw a figure out of the corner of my eye. Who's that? When I got up, the figure turned to look at me. No way! That large frame, those narrow lizard-like eyes... Is that you Friedensrichter?! Am I dreaming?! This has to be a dream. The dead can't come back to life. This is either a dream or an illusion. There's no other explanation. But even so...that's good enough for me.
"...My Lord!" I exclaimed.
The original Demon Lord, Friedensrichter, put a finger to his lips.
"Shh, you'll wake the baby," he said. Then he smiled, his lips curving in a way only dragonkin's lips did. Unable to hold myself back, I ran over to Friedensrichter.
How could you die and leave us behind like that? Do you know how hard it was to keep your dream going? We fought and agonized and suffered for it. There was so much I wanted to say and so much I wanted to ask, but I couldn't even think of where to start.
Still smiling, Friedensrichter nodded and said, "You don't need to say anything. I know it all. I've been by your side this whole time."
Ah, now I get it. I finally understand. It all makes sense now. I understand the meaning of life, death, and reincarnation. I know why we live, and where we go when we die. There was no reason to be sad. I can't believe I spent so long agonizing over something so simple. I smiled to myself, and Friedensrichter smiled back.
"Thank you for inheriting my will, my dear vice-commander. I'm sorry for putting you through so much."
I could tell I was crying. Friedensrichter walked over to my daughter's crib and gently patted her head. Eyes still closed, she grabbed one of his fingers. Her tiny hand clasped around the finger that was thicker than her arm.
"Your daughter is one lucky girl. She'll get to live in the era of peace you built," Friedensrichter said with a smile. Then he whispered, "May her life be full of happiness."
Once he was done blessing her, he turned back to me.
"Now that I've seen the birth of your first child, I have no regrets. It's only fitting that the birth of a new life be crowned by the passing of an old one." As he said that, Friedensrichter started walking away.
"Wait! Please, wait! Where are you going?!"
With his back still turned to me, he tilted his head and said, "...Surely you must know by now?"
It was true that I understood now, but even so, that didn't make this parting any less painful.
"Please stay for just a while longer! Keep watching over us until my daughter's an adult, at least!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that... My next battlefield awaits," he said solemnly.
It was at that moment that I realized Friedensrichter no longer looked like a dragonkin. He had the appearance of a human. Though he wasn't particularly tall, his back was ramrod straight. He was wearing an old military uniform, replete with epaulettes and an officer's cap. There was also a saber at his waist.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11_6.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
He looks just like... Wait, is that what he looked like in his past life?!
"Please! At least let me see your face! And tell me what your original name was!"
As he walked towards the light, Friedensrichter said in a playful voice, "My true name is Friedensrichter, and my calling always was and always will be to act as an arbiter of peace." After a brief pause, he added, "Veight. I'm sure we shall eventually meet again in this never-ending cycle of reincarnation. And when we do..." He lazily raised a hand into the air. "Will you be my vice-commander again?"
He sounded so happy as he said that.
"My Lord!"
I realized my own shout had woken me up. So that was a dream after all... I hadn't even noticed I'd fallen asleep. There weren't any windows in this room so I couldn't tell what time it was, but I was the only one remaining here. It seemed everyone else had woken up and left before me, including Airia and my daughter. Wow, I can't believe you all abandoned me.
I slowly turned to one side. It seemed I'd been using one of Master's drained Thousand Souls Helmets as a pillow. It was enchanted with necromancy that allowed the wearer to see and hear visions of spirits that were close to them. Right now, Ryunheit was inundated with the mana Airia had released. Moreover, the whirlwind of spells we'd cast here while treating Airia had caused the flow of mana to become quite convoluted. There were also the numerous death spells we'd engraved onto everything in the room, as well as Master's barrier. Any kind of magical miracle was possible in a situation like this. But...was that really what I think it was? Before I could dwell on it any further, Monza walked into the room with a yawn.
"Fwaaaaah. Ah, morning, boss."
"Morning. How long have I been out?"
"It's the next day already," Monza replied with a grin.
"How's Airia? And my daughter?"
"They're both perfectly fine. Everyone else who also helped out with the surgery is sleeping in their own beds."
Thank God. Really, thank God.
Monza placed her hands behind her head and looked down at me as I sighed in relief. "Oh yeah. I got a question."
"What's up?"
"Were there any other human guys in the operating room yesterday aside from Kite?"
"Nope."
"That's weird..." Monza cocked her head quizzically. She was flexible enough to tilt her head so far that it looked painful.
"Why?"
"Well, I thought I saw a guy leaving the room last night, but Jerrick and the Garneys say they didn't see anything."
Spare me the ghost stories, please. Actually, wait...
"Was that guy wearing a fancy cap and a nobleman's suit? Oh, and did he have a sword at his waist?"
"Yeah, he did! I only caught a glimpse of him so I can't be sure, but that sounds right." Monza grinned. "So he was someone you knew! Can't believe I got worried over nothing. I was kinda surprised at first, since he hid his presence so well I couldn't even smell him."
I figured. Hmm...so that's how it is. I jumped to my feet and shook my head to clear my thoughts. That was neither a dream nor an illusion I saw when I was half asleep. The ultimate proof of that was that I had no idea what the secrets of life, death, and reincarnation were. It was a pretty common story for mages to stumble across some grand truth in their dreams, then forget all about it when they woke up. In fact, I'd had similar experiences before.
Either way, my mind hadn't been working right when I saw that vision. I decided to treat everything as just a dream. I felt like if I didn't, I would end up crying. You were such an awkward person, you know that? Also, you were way too selfish. The next time I see you, I'm going to complain until your ears fall off—which means I better do a good job here so I don't have any right to get scolded by you instead. I can't wait to see you again.
"Alright, time to think of a name for my new daughter."
"You should probably hurry if you wanna do that. Our lovely Demon Empress is debating whether we should name her Kyupete or Shuporin right now."
"Hey, I never gave her permission to name our kid. Who does she think she is, our baby's godparent?"
Master, your naming sense is terrible. Are you still so mad about the name you were given that you're trying to drag other people down with you?
"Guess I better stop her fast. Where is everyone?"
"Second floor."
"Alright, let's get going."
I shrugged off my white robe and walked out into the hallway. No one gets to name my daughter without me.
Ultimately, we decided to name our daughter Friede. The decision was unanimous between me and Airia, though there was of course a very tough uphill battle in convincing Master to let us name her that. Sorry, but I don't want any of the "cute"-sounding names from the Old Dynasty that you came up with.
Friede was a proper name that had been given to other members of the Aindorf family in the past, and it was also the first bit of Friedensrichter's name. When I saw the list of candidates in the Aindorf family register, I knew this would have to be our daughter's name. Hopefully, that meant she'd grow up to be at least half as wise and virtuous as our first Demon Lord had been.
Two days after Friede was born, I visited Airia's hospital room again to boost her immune system once more. The spell I was using was actually a detoxification spell, but the poisons people put on weapons that it was designed to resist were often just infected substances, so it had immunity-enhancing effects. Airia herself was in top form. Guess I don't have anything to worry about since she's the Demon Lord. Granted, according to Kite's latest checkup, her mana capacity had gone down by 10 Kites. Apparently, our healing wasn't quite enough, and her body had needed to expend that much mana to keep her alive. In other words, if we tried something similar on any other pregnant woman, they would without a doubt die. We'll need to research this some more if we want to make it a commonplace procedure. I momentarily pushed those thoughts from my mind and joined Airia in staring at our daughter.
"She's the daughter of the third Demon Lord, was brought into this world by the second, and is named after the first..." I muttered absently, and Airia smiled.
"She's no common girl, that's for sure. She's blessed."
"That's one way to look at it, I guess."
I'd be fine with her just being a normal girl, too, but now I finally realized what it was Mitty had divined. "The shadow of death" that she'd witnessed was actually Friedensrichter's spirit. I wasn't sure if it was really his ghost that had been there that night, but I definitely spoke with him in some form or another. As I recounted the story to Airia, I suddenly realized something worrying.
"...I've heard that prophecies have the power to influence reality in such a way that they always come to pass. If something bad has been prophesied, trying to escape from that fate will only drive you closer towards it."
There was no way to prove that theory since it wasn't a hypothesis you could repeatedly test.
"Which means maybe you might have been able to give birth normally, too..." Of course, there was no way to be sure about what the prophecy had meant. In the end, though, Friede was born safe and sound, and Airia survived as well.
She patted her stomach, which had been perfectly healed, and smiled softly. "As you can see, I'm perfectly fine, so you don't need to worry. Besides, who knows what might have happened if I remained in labor for the rest of the day."
"That does make me feel a little better."
I got to my feet, still looking down at our newborn daughter. She was red, kind of wrinkly, and very small.
"I always wondered why in the language of my old world the word for babies was 'red child,' but now I understand. Babies really are pretty red."
"'Red child' you say? That has a rather cute ring to it. Especially when you say it," Airia said with a chuckle.
Friede had my black hair, and a mixture of my features and Airia's. Black hair was a dominant gene while blond was recessive, so unfortunately my hair color had won out. It was a bit of a shame, but it looked like Friede would grow up to be just as beautiful as her mother at least. She'd only inherited the good parts of my face, and taken the rest from Airia. Bet the boys will be all over you once you're older.
Smiling, I grabbed Friede's tiny hand. Even though she was asleep, she wrapped her tiny fingers around one of mine.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11_7.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
"It's nice to finally meet you, Friede. This is my first time being a father, so go easy on me, okay?"
Friede smiled, her eyes still closed. Man, baby smiles are so cute. Oh yeah, does she have the Moro reflex? She does, right? Werewolf babies all did, and even Kuwol's crown prince did, so it's probably normal for babies in this world to have it. Chances were, both humans and werewolves had evolved from the primates of this world.
I glanced back at Airia, and she flashed me a knowing smile. "You're thinking about something from your past life, aren't you?"
How could you tell?
"I can't hide anything from you, huh?"
I awkwardly cleared my throat, trying to think of how to explain my thoughts to Airia. Do I start by explaining the genetics of why newborns resemble their parents? It feels like a kind of dry talk to have, considering the mood. As I was thinking, Friede opened her eyes and began to cry. There was something oddly frail about her voice. Parker was right, new life really was fragile. Though, Friede's crying still sounded cute to me.
Airia and I smiled gently at each other, but then Friede's voice got a few dozen decibels louder.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Are all newborns this loud?! It felt like my innards were being bombarded with sound waves.
"Kyaa!"
"It's alright, I got you!"
Airia staggered backwards, and I hurriedly grabbed her from behind. I realized a second later that Friede's shout had been laced with mana. Since the mana hadn't been shaped into any physical phenomenon, the room wasn't damaged in any way. Airia and I were unhurt as well, but our daughter had basically just used Soul Shaker without even transforming. Does this mean she inherited the ability to use my ultimate spell?!
The surprises didn't stop there, either. The mana in the room was now spiraling around Friede, and it had the distinct properties of mana that was being manipulated by a demon. Not only that, but her body was absorbing the surrounding mana. After she sucked in a small amount, Friede's voice grew softer and her crying sounded more like a normal baby's again.
"That's Master's vortex power..."
I'd never heard of a baby that could absorb mana before.
"Friede...are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?" Airia cradled Friede in her arms, and she immediately stopped crying. She bent her arms and legs, curling up into the fetal position. Right now she looked just like a normal baby, but she was anything but normal.
I looked over at Airia and nodded.
"I'll call Master over. Don't let anyone into the room in the meantime. If a normal person heard that cry, they'd be immobilized for a while."
"Of course. Oh, are you hungry?"
Airia looked down at Friede and uncovered her breast. Friede started sucking happily, remaining perfectly calm. It seemed Airia already knew how to pacify our daughter. From the looks of things, she wouldn't fire off another Soul Shaker anytime soon, at least.
I walked into the hallway and told the maids I needed to see the Demon Empress as soon as possible. They all split up and started looking for her immediately. Just then, Monza came running up to me.
"Boss, the werecats made it to Meraldia! They caused a huge scene at Beluza's port, and there are seven people who got injured."
Why'd they go to Beluza instead of Lotz? Did they mess up charting their course?
"Also, everyone in Beluza seems to love Elmersia and her friends. They're fawning over them so much they can't leave the city."
Oh yeah, I forgot Beluza's residents were like this. You know those werecats beat up seven of your fellow citizens, right? Granted, Beluza's sailors were the kind of people who loved a good brawl, so they'd probably been enamored by the werecats' strength.
"Shouldn't you go get them before they cause more trouble, boss?"
"I don't have time for that right now. It turns out my daughter's just like me."
Monza cocked her head. "That's a good thing, isn't it? Shouldn't you be happy about that?"
Not quite. Before I could explain the situation to her, Kurtz walked over.
"I've put together an investigation team to head to Kuwol's Kayankaka region. However, I can't find a ship willing to carry all the equipment we'll need to take with us. Furthermore, Kite has been complaining about how he doesn't want to go..."
When it rains, it pours, huh. To top things off, Ryunheit's garrison commander, Wengen, showed up as well.
"Lord Veight, a group of mushroom creatures is causing a ruckus in the city's new district! They call themselves 'fungoids,' but they're spreading their spores all over people's houses and stores."
Oh, they finally made it here from the forest.
"To fungoids, lumber, freshly butchered meat, and even books are just 'corpses.' Spreading their seedbeds to the corpses of living things is their way of showing respect to them. They don't mean any harm by what they're doing, they just don't understand our culture, Wengen."
That being said, they needed to be stopped before they converted half the city into their nest. Man, the domestic and international situation's finally calmed down and my daughter's safely been born, but I still can't catch a break. I guess this is my life now. Being the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander meant constantly dealing with ordinary problems like these. Forever.
Sighing, I organized a priority list in my head. Friede took precedence of course, but at least all of these problems were a piece of cake compared to the crises I'd faced before.
"Alright, I'll take care of everything. But first, we need to find Master. There's something of the utmost importance I need to discuss with her."
My job as a boring, plain old vice-commander continued for quite some time after that. But I never dreamed of Friedensrichter again after that night Friede was born.
※ Veight uses the word "genes" here, but the common terminology these days is "alleles." However, in the time period Veight is from, people still used "genes" instead.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/copyright.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
Copyright
Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
by Hyougetsu
Translated by Ningen
Edited by Meiru
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 Hyougetsu / Nishi(E)da
Illustrations by Nishi(E)da
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2019 by Earth Star Entertainment
This English edition is published by arrangement with Earth Star Entertainment, Tokyo
English translation © 2021 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property.
J-Novel Club LLC
j-novel.club
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: April 2021
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/extra1.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
The Four Heroes of Meraldia at Kuwol's Grand Conference
Parker changed into his formal uniform and cast an illusion over his face, transforming the horrifying white skull into the features of a handsome young man. As always, he was going with the looks he'd had when he was still alive.
"I have something important I need to discuss with you before we attend the meeting," he said to Ryuunie and Myurei, who both straightened their backs and looked earnestly at him. I like your attitudes, he thought before continuing, "Veight is on good terms with the leaders of all of Meraldia's neighboring nations. Not only has he shown them all just how powerful he is, but he's done a lot to help them as well. I'm sure you've heard the stories."
"Only a few, but yes," Ryuunie said with a nod.
"In other words, it's thanks to Veight that diplomacy with our neighbors is going so well. Without him, we don't have any leverage."
Now that Veight had returned home, there was no Meraldian left in Kuwol with any real influence over the kingdom's ministers. But even so, someone had to handle negotiations.
"One of the topics of today's meeting is the sugar trade between Meraldia and Kuwol. It's something that will have a huge impact on the kingdom's finances, as well as the circulation of goods within Meraldia. Veight isn't here, but the ministers will still be expecting us to represent Meraldia. We have to secure the conditions we want or we'll be letting everyone down."
"I-I'm starting to feel nervous..." Myurei muttered with a gulp. He knew a fair bit about goods trading so he understood just how difficult a task awaited them.
Parker smiled reassuringly and said, "Worry not. I'm sure if the four of us work together, we can accomplish just as much as Veight would have."
"Do you really think so?" Mao, who was organizing a sheaf of documents, asked.
Parker looked over at him and said with a straight face, "If we can't handle a problem as simple as this, then our nation has no future. The Meraldian Federation is too big for Veight to solve all of its problems on his own. As it is, he'll have his hands full taking care of Ryunheit."
There was a reason the old Senate had appointed viceroys to each city rather than trying to govern the region themselves. They'd even gone so far as to restrict trade despite knowing it was going against the times to narrow the scope of their jurisdiction.
"From here on out, we can't just rely on Veight for everything. Besides, we need to prove to Kuwol that Meraldia has plenty of other young talent at its disposal."
Ryuunie nodded resolutely and replied, "I-I'll do my best."
"Likewise," Myurei added.
Parker and Mao both smiled at the two innocent yet determined young boys.
"Don't worry, Mao and I will be here to assist you."
"You can leave anything involving math to me. Also, I'll take care of any 'shady dealings' as well. Veight's already branded me as an evil merchant, I may as well live up to the reputation." Mao tucked his documents under his arm and bowed gracefully to the two boys. "Now then, shall we be off?"
And so, the first "Grand Kuwol Conference" began. The members present on the Kuwol side were all big names who had immense influence over national affairs. There were a number of nobles who'd traveled quite a ways to be here as well. Birakoya Bahza, Powani Karfal, Amani Wajar, and Valkel, Lord Peshmet's representative, were the main ones. Naturally, the palace ministers such as the master of ceremonies, the grand chamberlain, and the chief shaman were all present as well. The elder of the mountain tribes was present too, as was Queen Fasleen.
Meanwhile, situated in one small section of the room's large circular table were Meraldia's four diplomats.
"T-This isn't good, Mister Mao. I'm scared we might not get a chance to say anything at all," Myurei mumbled with a stiff expression.
Mao, who was sitting in the chair behind him, shook his head and replied, "You need to project confidence. People will judge you based on your attitude."
"I-I see..."
Myurei turned back to the table, but now Ryuunie glanced back and asked, "I'm from Rolmund. Is it really okay for me to speak on Meraldia's behalf?"
Parker smiled reassuringly and replied, "I'm not sure if you noticed, but your entourage consists of a demon and a man from Wa. The only true-blooded Meraldian here is Myurei."
Meraldia's mixed population was one of its drawbacks, but it was also one of its strengths.
"The people here only know what Kuwol is like. This is your chance to show them how Meraldia does things. Don't worry, I'll back you up if anything happens," Parker added.
"I-If you say so."
Ryuunie looked forward again.
The meeting began with a recap of Kuwol's current situation. Powani Karfal, who was serving as this meeting's chair, started off by saying, "The passing of His Majesty Pajam the Second brought much turmoil to every region of Kuwol."
Strictly speaking, that wasn't the truth since Pajam the Second had basically been completely isolated from politics. It was Zagar's rebellion that had caused all this turmoil. However, the nobles had all unilaterally decided to wipe Zagar's involvement from the public record, so they were all pretending like he had nothing to do with this.
"We must act swiftly if we are to restore order. Both the royal family's coffers and the various nobles' finances are in dire straits. We need to resume trade with Meraldia immediately if we are to avert a financial crisis."
Even if there hadn't been much actual fighting, the coastal and river nobles had ostensibly been at war. Meraldia had supported the coastal nobles, which technically had put them in opposition with the river nobles. However, Lord Karfal owed Veight a large debt, so he was willing to side with Meraldia despite being one of the river nobles.
Parker whispered all of this background information to Ryuunie and Myurei, who nodded emphatically.
"...Our teacher really is amazing."
"So this is what he meant about turning enemies into allies through diplomacy. Maybe this won't be so hard after all," Myurei said with a grin.
Mao shook his head and replied, "Sorry, but I'm afraid things aren't that simple. Soon enough, this is going to devolve into an unsightly slugfest with everyone prioritizing their own interests. Stay sharp—the true battle is yet to come."
It only took a few minutes for Mao's words to come true.
"Without our ports, you wouldn't be able to send your sugar anywhere! Not to Meraldia, and certainly not to Wa!" one of the coastal nobles shouted, red-faced.
One of the river nobles countered, "That may be, but your port fees are still too high!"
"We're the ones actually growing sugarcane!"
"The more you charge us, the higher we'll have to price our sugar to make a profit! You know Meraldia won't like that!"
Another coastal noble jumped into the fray and shouted, "You already surrendered to our armies! If you had any pride as warriors, you would accept the victor's conditions!"
"This is a discussion about trade—a warrior's pride has no place here!"
A few of the nobles were so heated that they looked ready to draw their weapons at any second. Naturally, their aides were keeping them in check, but there was no telling what would happen if the argument got any more heated.
Myurei sighed and said, "This is no way for grownups to act. Where's their dignity?"
"It's because they're adults that they're so desperate," Parker said with a grin. "I wouldn't look down on them if I were you."
"What do you mean by that?"
Parker's expression grew serious and he replied, "They all have a responsibility to the people they govern to put their priorities first and foremost. Which, of course, means they're less concerned about what the best solution is, and more interested in the solution that will bring them the most profit."
"But then..." Myurei trailed off.
Mao chimed in with, "This isn't a classroom, Master Myurei. Finding a compromise everyone can accept is more important than chasing vague ideals like justice or truth." Sighing, he added, "That being said, principles are still important. Your grandfather may be harsh, but he's known far and wide for being a fair ruler and someone you can trust...though, he's definitely a stingy old coot."
"I see."
Myurei nodded, absorbing that knowledge. Meanwhile, the debate between the nobles had taken an interesting turn.
"Here, look! These are the prices we'll have to charge for our sugar if we pay your usurious port fees! There's no way anyone will buy it!"
"Oh, shut your trap! Why don't you go ask Meraldia's representatives over there whether or not people will buy sugar at that price, huh?!"
Everyone's eyes darted over to Ryuunie and Myurei, who were indeed Meraldia's representatives for this meeting. Lord Karfal gave the two boys a pitying look, but then asked, "...What is Meraldia's opinion on the matter?"
Myurei and Ryuunie exchanged a quick glance, then Myurei got to his feet. He was a bit older than Ryuunie, and he was also a Meraldian native, which was why he thought he needed to take the lead here.
"M-Meraldia is hoping to profit from the sugar trade as well. If the prices are too high we won't be able to import it."
Immediately one of the river nobles shouted, "See! We won't be able to sell anything! If Meraldia won't buy our sugar, we may as well go bankrupt!"
"But if we don't recoup our war expenditures somehow, our cities will go bankrupt!"
"We weren't able to trade at all during the civil war, so we're already deep in the red!"
"We should just ask Lord Veight what he thinks directly!"
The moment they had their answer, Kuwol's nobles started ignoring Myurei again. He looked around for a few seconds, then awkwardly sat back down and hung his head.
"If Professor Veight were here, he would have done a way better job than me."
"Veight certainly did a lot to help everyone here. They feel indebted to him, so of course they wouldn't be able to yell at him like this. You did well, though. You held your ground and you told them where Meraldia stands on the issue."
Parker smiled softly at Myurei, but he then folded his arms and lapsed into thought. It was clear reaching a compromise here wouldn't be easy.
"This is quite the pickle. Everyone's so focused on profits they're losing sight of the big picture," he mused.
Ryuunie looked up resolutely and said, "In that case, let me handle this."
"H-Huh? Ryuunie?!"
Myurei looked concerned, but Ryuunie ignored him and got to his feet.
"Excuse me! May I have permission to speak? I am Rolmund's former prince, Ryuunie Bolshevik Doneiks Rolmund!"
The meeting room fell silent almost immediately, then was soon followed by many of the nobles whispering frantically to each other.
"...Meraldia is harboring members of the Rolmund imperial family?"
"This must be part of Lord Veight's plan."
"Agreed..."
Hearing this, Ryuunie raised his voice. "You're forgetting what's important! Right now we should be focusing on how to protect Prince Schmal and the royal family! I lost my father to a civil war and was exiled from my home! But it is thanks to Lord Veight that I now have protection!"
Everyone's attention was focused on Ryuunie, but they didn't look happy at all.
"Here in Kuwol, the only people who can protect Prince Schmal are you nobles! I'm begging you, please put your discussion about profits and interests aside for now and put the royal family first!" After saying his piece, Ryuunie sat back down.
Myurei patted him on the back and muttered, "You're amazing, you know that?"
"Th-Thanks... But I don't think they're too happy about what I said."
Indeed, most of the nobles were sighing and shaking their heads.
"Hmm, I'm not quite sure what to say."
"After all, everyone knows that 'protecting the royal family' is just an excuse to hold this meeting..."
Ryuunie slumped as he listened to the nobles' condescending voices. Parker shook his head and said, "It's just how things are. Everyone's more worried about the immediate problems they face. Ideals can't fill your belly. Well, not that actual food can fill my belly either."
Parker's sorry attempt at a joke didn't lighten Ryuunie's spirits at all.
"You're right... If we could just talk through everything, civil wars wouldn't happen in the first place."
"Huh?! Err, well, yes..."
Parker slumped as well, and this time Mao stepped in with a rueful smile.
"Why don't you let me handle this? I'm not much of an idealist, but I do know how to handle mundane problems."
Mao got to his feet and swept his gaze across the room, gathering everyone's attention on him.
"My name is Mao, and I am one of Meraldia's diplomats. I would like to offer a realistic proposal as an addendum to Prince Ryuunie's words. Naturally, this proposal brings with it the potential for profit."
"Profit...you say?"
The nobles stared at Mao with mild suspicion, but he didn't seem to mind. Amani Wajar stood up and asked, "You are one of Meraldia's foremost merchants, are you not, Sir Mao?"
Well, this will certainly make convincing everyone easier, Mao thought with a faint smile.
As Mao collected his thoughts Amani waved cheerfully to Parker, and he gave a small wave back. Amani's complexion was much better than the last time Parker had seen her, and the niacin deficiency rashes were gone. She's quite cute now that she isn't sickly... he thought absently.
"I heard you were born in Wa, but that you have connections everywhere, including in Rolmund. Please, tell us what this proposal might be."
Wajar was one of the most important inland cities, and Amani had quite a bit of influence with the river nobles. Now that she'd stood up for Mao, none of them could speak out against him.
"Thank you." Mao bowed deeply to Amani. "I realize that this meeting was called to discuss practical affairs, and that it was improper to call attention to the pretense when we all understand it is a facade, but I implore you all to consider Prince Ryuunie's words more carefully."
Mao spoke smoothly, drawing on his years of experience as a traveling merchant.
"His Majesty Pajam the Second passed away under dubious circumstances, and his heir Prince Schmal has only just been born. Were the neighboring nations to learn that the nobles who support Kuwol are more concerned with lining their pockets than securing the stability of the new regime—what would they think?"
The palace's official statement was that Pajam the Second had died by falling off his horse, but everyone in this room knew that he'd been assassinated by Zagar. Kuwol had also just come out of a civil war, and it was obvious to everyone that the nation was greatly weakened. The nobles glared at Mao with unbridled hostility, but he continued, unfazed.
"Meraldia is, of course, Kuwol's ally and will do everything in its power to assist you, but we need to gain from this alliance as well." Grinning, Mao ended his speech there.
The nobles looked awkwardly at each other. Mao did have a point about how they couldn't afford to be infighting right now.
"If the larger nomad tribes struck now, we'd be in trouble..."
"All they have to do is capture one city next to the Mejire, and our supply routes will be completely cut off."
"Considering how unstable the kingdom is currently, they may really try and attack."
After making sure the nobles had been sufficiently shaken, Mao said, "I have no doubt the nomad tribes that roam this land are dangerous, but there's a far more dangerous adversary you must worry about."
"And who would that be?" Amani asked in a tone that made it clear she knew the answer.
"Your own people," Mao replied simply.
"Our...people?"
"Yes. I hope you have not forgotten that Zagar and all of his mercenaries were the kingdom's subjects. What do you think drove those common people to commit such barbaric acts?"
Mao purposely avoided explicitly mentioning Pajam's murder. In order to properly bury the truth, it was important that no one said it out loud. Nevertheless, the nobles fully understood what Mao was getting at.
"...I do not mean to disparage our own people, but something like that will never happen again."
"Something that has happened once before can easily occur a second or third time. In fact, most of the mercenary company Zagar led is still intact. Not only that, but they're still here in Encaraga."
Zagar himself was dead, but it was easily possible for another ambitious man like Zagar to attempt something similar. Mao spoke quickly, not giving the nobles a chance to argue back.
"Don't you understand? The reason this tragedy occurred is not because a scoundrel like Zagar existed. The current state of Kuwol's society is the root cause. The ills of the common people serve as fertile soil to breed revolution. So long as you don't address the core issue, this tragedy will repeat over and over again."
One of the nobles opened their mouths to argue, but Birakoya Bahza cut them off.
"Please wait, everyone. Let Sir Mao finish what he has to say. I think it will prove very valuable advice."
Birakoya smiled at Parker as she extended a helping hand to Mao. I guess this is her way of paying us back? Parker thought, smiling back at her. Things were going better than expected, thanks to all the groundwork Veight had laid by helping everyone out.
Mao bowed to Birakoya, then continued his speech, "Now that you've experienced a civil war for yourselves, surely you understand just how terrifying the common people can be when they're hungry, penniless, and fed up with being trampled on? I was once in their position, so I can understand their anger quite well. The reason I live in Meraldia now is because my former employer framed me for his crimes, forcing me to flee my home."
The room went quiet. After a few seconds, Lord Karfal nodded solemnly. He, too, had been chased out of his city by Zagar and forced to wander the wilderness for a short while with his family. He looked over at Parker, who nodded silently. It seemed Karfal wanted to repay his debts here as well.
Upon receiving confirmation, Lord Karfal raised his hand and said, "My apologies for speaking so frequently when I'm supposed to be this meeting's mediator, but I understand Sir Mao's words quite well myself. If we focus solely on our own profits...we will be inviting another calamity."
Mao nodded in agreement.
"Lord Powani is absolutely correct. Were all of Kuwol's people law-abiding, tax-paying citizens who respected the royal family and the nobles who support it, the kingdom would be at peace. I believe the best way to make that possible is to vastly expand sugarcane cultivation and increase the amount of sugar in circulation. That will make the common people wealthier as well, and if they have a stable lifestyle, they won't feel compelled to revolt."
One of the nobles folded his arms and harrumphed loudly. "You just want to be able to buy cheap sugar in bulk, don't you?"
Mao grinned wickedly, his nature as a merchant coming to the forefront. "Perhaps. But it's not a bad deal for you either, now, is it? Meraldians aren't particularly fond of meji, but they love sugar. Even if prices decrease, you'll more than make up the difference with the increased sell-through quantity."
"Will we really stand to profit from this?" the noble asked suspiciously.
Mao pulled out the documents he'd been organizing earlier and said, "According to Lord Veight's calculations, Meraldia's sugar consumption is projected to hit an explosive new high. He's confident enough that he's willing to buy ten times the sugar next year as he did this year."
"...D-Did you just say ten times?!"
Mao scratched his head awkwardly and said, "To be honest, I can hardly believe it myself... However, Veight seems certain that the demand for sweets and confectionaries will rise exponentially."
Sugar was used as a medicine and for regular cooking as well, but Veight's insistence was that sweets production would drive demand up. Of course, baked goods and confectionaries used far more sugar than medicine or regular dishes, so if his predictions were true, consumption would indeed go up by as much as 10 times.
Mao cocked his head and questioned, "Can people really eat that much sugar?"
"Err, I'm not sure we're the ones you should be asking." The nobles exchanged glances with each other. "But if Lord Veight says Meraldia will want that much sugar, then demand most likely will rise."
"Besides, it's only Meraldia that stands to lose out if they can't actually use all the sugar they buy."
"If they actually take all the sugar we grow, we may as well expand our plantations."
In the end, one of the nobles turned to Mao.
"Will you really buy ten times as much sugar next year?"
"Lord Veight has said he wants to import that much, and the council has already set aside the budget for it. However, we would like to negotiate the price down a little, considering the large quantity we'll be buying."
The nobles exchanged glances again so Mao added, "Even if you sell at a discounted price, you'll still get to inject a large amount of foreign currency into your economy. Plus, this will be a good chance for Kuwol to start importing Meraldia's luxury goods."
That seemed to convince the nobles.
"You have a point. If we start importing Meraldian goods and sell them domestically, we will be able to increase our profits that way as well."
"Indeed. A small price drop on sugar will still net us more rewards in the long run."
In a passionate voice, Mao stated, "Precisely! I'm sure the people of Kuwol will find great value in our exports. We can sell you dragonscale gems from Rolmund, magical tools designed by the demon army, intricate glass and silverwork pieces, and even high-quality iron from Wa!"
"Oho..."
Goods that were commonplace on Meraldia's continent were quite valuable in Kuwol. Buying cheaply and selling at a markup was the basis of business, but the profit margins of imported goods like these would be astronomical.
While everyone was slowly being won over by Mao's arguments, Valkel rose to his feet and said, "Well then, this is quite an intriguing proposition you have for us! My master, Lord Peshmet, was already considering adding a new large sugarcane plantation to his territory and giving it to me, so this works out quite well for us. I would love nothing more than for Meraldia to buy all of my sugar! As Lord Peshmet's representative, I give you my word that our city will take part in this deal!"
It appeared that Valkel had become quite the celebrity after receiving a letter from Veight's name.
"It's fine if the other cities aren't interested, that will just mean more profits for us. I'm sure my master will be quite pleased to learn that we have a monopoly on this deal, ahahahah!"
Valkel grinned at Parker as he said that. It feels like half the people at this meeting are indebted to us. Even when you're not here, you're still helping us out, Veight, Parker thought with a wry smile as he bowed to Valkel. That convinced the other nobles to throw away any remaining hesitation, and everyone started clamoring to join in on the deal.
"Now, now, hold on a moment. We need to do this fairly so that everyone, including the citizens, prospers from our agreement."
"O-Of course, we can't leave them out either..."
After a great deal of debating minutiae, the first Grand Kuwol Conference came to an end. Meraldia's four representatives were currently resting in their room.
"Your way of doing things is insane too, but completely in the opposite way of Veight's," Parker said sullenly.
Mao coolly replied, "What's the problem? If there's already a contract in place, Kuwol will be able to expand their sugar production without having to worry about anything."
"Signing an advance contract for the purchase of sugar is fine, but you went and inserted that clause about Meraldia getting preference when buying on the international market. At a ridiculously discounted rate, at that!"
Mao looked unmoved by Parker's complaints.
"We aren't running a charity here, you know. Meraldia's pledging to buy an inordinate amount of sugar. Considering the risk we're taking on, it's only fair that we get a few perks out of the deal, too."
"We got way more than just a few perks here!"
Ryuunie and Myurei sighed, ignoring Parker and Mao's debate.
"We were completely useless, weren't we?"
"I wasn't able to do even a fraction of what my dad or grandpa do when they negotiate with the Kuwolese..."
Upon hearing that Parker and Mao cut their argument short and exchanged smiles.
"What are you saying? You two did great."
"Indeed. This was your first time at the negotiating table, but you were both able to state your position clearly and concisely. Well done."
Myurei looked up, unconvinced. "Did we actually help at all?"
"Absolutely. I have faith that you will make for a great councilman in the future. I'm confident you'll keep Meraldia's trade going strong even decades from now."
Myurei looked back at Ryuunie, his expression still glum.
"If you say so..."
"But in the end, it feels like Professor Veight's popularity carried the entire negotiation."
Even the inexperienced boys were able to tell that the majority of Kuwol's leadership felt an affinity towards Meraldia thanks to Veight. That was indeed the biggest reason why the debate got resolved so quickly.
Parker smiled sadly at the two of them and said, "I suppose that's true. Everyone's trust in Veight was what ultimately decided things."
Of course, knowing him, I bet my little brother doesn't think he accomplished anything at all here.
With his smile growing bigger, Parker followed up himself, saying, "You know, even if Veight created this opportunity for us, we're the ones who seized it. I'm sure he'd say the same thing if he was here."
"Oh, absolutely," Mao added.
Eventually, the report Parker wrote on how things went made its way across the sea and over to Ryunheit.
"Hah, I knew they could do it," Veight said with a smile as he read the letter, Friede resting on his lap.
"It looks like negotiations with Kuwol went well. I guess everyone really didn't need me there. I'm going to have to get used to relying on other people more often from now on."
Airia smiled and replied, "You really should. Normally a large-scale conference like this would take much longer to resolve. I'm sure the reason things went so smoothly is because of all the trust you built up while you were there."
Veight watched Friede play with his finger and said, "You think so? But even if I created the opportunity for them, they're the ones who seized it."
"Yes, yes, of course."
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/extra2.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
Vice-Commander Kumluk's Heroes
My name is Kumluk. I used to hold titles such as "Vice-Captain of Bahza's mercenary company" or "Haluam, the porcelain merchant's son" but right now I'm just Kumluk. I no longer have a home in Kuwol, so I've decided to sail north to Meraldia. Veight, the vice-commander to the Meraldian Demon Lord, has helped me out on numerous occasions, and this time is no exception. However, before I leave to join him, I want to leave a written account here of the two heroes in my life: Zagar and Lord Veight.
I owe a great deal to Zagar, the man who led Bahza's mercenary company. Without him, I would not have been able to make it as a mercenary. I realize he betrayed his comrades and assassinated the king, but even so, I can't help but feel grateful to him. Zagar was brave, decisive, wise, hardworking, and most of all, ambitious. To me, he was undoubtedly a Hero. Had he been incompetent, he wouldn't have managed to kill the king. Many people dream of doing impossible deeds, but he was someone who actually did them. Though, I suspect no one living in Kuwol other than him would even dream of slaying the king.
Meraldians probably don't understand just how sacred Kuwol's king is to us. It is for that reason that I think it would be a shame for Zagar's name to be wiped from the public record. The things he did may not have all been morally just, but they were lofty. His achievements should go down in history for all to see. His cowardice should go down in history for all to see. I think once I reach Meraldia I will write a book chronicling the life of this wicked Hero. I'm sure I will be allowed to publish the truth in a different country.
In hindsight, I think the driving force behind Zagar's action was rage. He was angry at many different things, I feel. When I first met him, he was angry at the treatment mercenaries received in Kuwolese society. That's why I and so many other mercenaries put our faith in him. We believed he was a captain who fought alongside us, rather than a faceless employer.
Eventually, his rage shifted towards society itself, and then towards the nobles and royals who stood at the top of that society. During that shift, he stopped caring about the mercenaries under him and began working towards a more selfish goal—though I suspect the selfishness he eventually showed was his true nature. He never felt guilty about the atrocities he committed, nor did he himself think he was changing.
However, I believe it would be wrong of me or any other mercenary to condemn him. We entrusted our hopeless lives to him because we couldn't bear to take responsibility for ourselves. We selfishly expected him to solve all of our problems for us. Our lives were given to him of our own will and became the kindling that fueled the fire of his ambition. If anything, we're the ones that created the monster Zagar eventually became. It is difficult to blame him for using us since we were using him just the same. The relationship between us and Zagar was simply one of mutual benefit.
By that logic, a thousandth of the blame for the king's murder lies with me. Back then, my job was to keep an eye on Lord Veight. Zagar was terribly afraid of what he might do, and wanted him under constant watch. Thinking back on it now, it's obvious that Zagar wanted to make sure Veight didn't get in the way of his plan to kill the king—which means I unwittingly aided Zagar in his plot. In the same way that you can thin blood with water but never make it disappear, I can justify my sin but it will never go away.
That being said, I have no way of atoning for my sins. The most I can do is accurately record the truth behind the civil war and leave it as a warning for future generations.
With regards to just what kind of personality Zagar had, Lord Veight—that is Veight Von Aindorf—had a rather insightful comment about that: "Zagar was a genius when it came to warfare, and he had a surprising amount of foresight as well. However, he lacked consideration for others, and did not know how to be satisfied with what he had."
Consideration for others, and the ability to be satisfied with what you have—it's true that Zagar lacked both of those. The only time he showed kindness was when it was a calculated move to benefit him. Generosity was a currency used to buy the help of others. Of course, I myself didn't realize this until much later. As for his ambition, even when I was oblivious and working under him, I could tell it was bottomless. Zagar was a man who didn't know when to quit.
He was the kind of person that would keep fighting until he was the ruler of Kuwol—no, of the entire world. He could run out of enemies and he'd still keep fighting something. To him, the act of taking from others through combat was what defined his life. Ultimately, his path of plunder died the moment he made an enemy out of someone stronger than him, and that someone was Veight Von Aindorf, the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander.
At first glance, Zagar and Lord Veight might seem like polar opposites. Zagar loved violence and was a self-centered narcissist, while Lord Veight eschews violence and is kind to all. I guarantee you, everyone who met him in Kuwol would say the same, regardless of their station in life. If you ask me, though, the two have a surprising number of things in common. Both of them have excellent foresight and knowledge to set up strategies for the long-term. They are also both decisive and act quickly when they know what they want to do. Moreover, they both understand how to win over the hearts of others. You could say they're charismatic. They know when people want practical solutions, and when they want idealistic speeches.
What's truly surprising to me, though, is that both of them are exceedingly cautious. Zagar was a peerless warrior, but was concerned about even the most trifling of hiccups in his plans, and always prepared backup plans for everything he did. And despite how bold Lord Veight may seem, he's cut from the same cloth. According to Lord Veight, the reason Zagar seemed so confident was actually because he lacked self-confidence. In order to hide his low self-esteem, he had played the part of a confident leader—or so Lord Veight says. This is why I think those two Heroes, who seem like complete opposites at first glance, are actually quite similar.
Ultimately, however, Zagar was unable to match up to Lord Veight in any respect—and that wasn't because Lord Veight is the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, or a werewolf, or even a mage. The biggest difference separating these two is that Lord Veight is aware of his own weakness, and he doesn't run from it. In doing so, he's conquered his weakness in the truest sense. It's why he can unveil his plans to unrelated people like me, and why he doesn't try to bluster the way Zagar did. He's one of the few people I would call a truly good man.
So, I mentioned how Lord Veight is quite similar to Zagar but different in a few fundamental ways. As someone who used to be Zagar's second-in-command, I'm very curious what kind of future Lord Veight wants to build. Will Veight's methods be able to create a world where the weak and oppressed can live in peace? Or is not even a man as great as him capable of such a miracle? For now, at least, it appears as though things are going well under his leadership. Most great legends fail to raise capable successors, so once they die, things tend to fall apart. But in Lord Veight's case, those around him are constantly being influenced by his ideas and growing along with him.
I heard that two of his students who traveled here from Meraldia were able to handle the Grand Kuwol Conference in his place, which is proof enough of that. Lord Veight is not only a skilled warrior and politician, but also a good teacher. If the world Lord Veight is aiming for—a world where no one will have to suffer and everyone can be happy—is truly a possibility, then the day it comes will be the day Zagar's delusions are destroyed for good. The very specter of ambition will fade from this world, then. I hope that Lord Veight truly can show me such a world.
Overall, I think there is one important lesson I have learned from this ordeal: I should never put my life in another's hands. I've decided to work for Lord Veight now, but this time around I plan to take responsibility for my own life, rather than leave it up to him. Not only is it dangerous to entrust my life to another, but it's being disrespectful to them. In Bahza, there's a custom known as "Peshunga." During festivals and banquets, people group up into pairs, and one pair closes their eyes while the other guides their hands so they can eat. According to Lord Veight, there's a similar custom in Wa as well. I hear it's called "Nininbaori" there.
At any rate, in Bahza there's a saying that goes "Peshunga porridge is spilled porridge." No matter how close two people are, guiding someone who has their eyes closed is pretty difficult. The meaning of the saying is if you want to try to entrust everything to someone else, you should be prepared for failure. I remember my father and grandfather often repeated the saying to me. This is why nobles often try to take care of their most important business by themselves. Though, I suppose in His Majesty Pajam the Second's case, following that advice got him assassinated. Thinking back on it now, I've been doing Peshunga my whole life. I was borrowing Zagar's help and trying to have him feed me—not that he had any intention of helping me. It's only natural my life would be full of failures considering the way I lived so far. I was a fool.
This time around, I'll be the one holding the porridge spoon. It's kind of pathetic how I only realized what my father and grandfather were telling me after so many years, but even Lord Veight says it's never too late to change yourself. Apparently, there's a bishop in Meraldia who turned over a new leaf recently despite being quite old. He used to hate demons, but now is one of the biggest proponents of coexistence. Not only that, but he has demon believers coming to his church. I hope I can change the way he has. If I can, I feel like I will finally be able to become myself—or rather, I'll be able to return to being myself.
The weather's quite nice today. It's the perfect day to set sail. The perfect day to take a new step forward. I don't know who may pick up this letter later, but if anyone does end up reading this, let us see Meraldia's brilliant future together. I'm looking forward to this long, long journey.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/signup.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-11-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/toc.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 11
Table of Contents
Cover
Color Illustrations
Characters
Map
The Story So Far
Chapter 11
The Four Heroes of Meraldia at Kuwol's Grand Conference
Vice-Commander Kumluk's Heroes
Afterword
Bonus Short Story
About J-Novel Club
Copyright
Landmarks
Color Images
Table of Contents
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/afterword.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
Afterword
I'm currently writing this afterword while being sandwiched by my two daughters, who are six and two years old. The first was born just before I started writing Der Werwolf, actually. Thanks to them, I have a lot of real-life examples to draw from when writing about Veight's fatherhood days. If I think about it, my two girls have not only helped me grow as an author, but they've also taught me a lot about life in general. They really are angels. Even though they act like devils sometimes.
My eldest daughter loves playing blasphemous, inharmonious melodies on her toy piano, and my youngest loves messing around with the red pen I use for proofreading (she's scribbled so much with it that it's unusable now). It's hard enough writing afterwords with them messing around all the time, much less entire books.
At any rate, the protagonists of child-raising stories are the children themselves; this is why the protagonist of Der Werwolf is now Friede. Of course, Veight is still the protagonist of his own life. Parents are people too, after all, and their lives matter as well. There are still a few more legends the Black Werewolf King needs to make before he can retire. Veight may want to just sit back and relax, but as long as he's alive, he won't be able to stop sticking his nose in people's problems.
I hope you all continue to enjoy reading about his escapades, as well as those of his daughter Friede. Both of them are protagonists now, and while they'll be walking down different paths in life, they'll continue to have a huge influence on each other.
Now then, it's time for the acknowledgments.
First off, I'd like to thank Teshima-sensei for his wonderful illustrations. Drawing aged-up versions of characters who already have existing designs by a different artist is an impossibly difficult task, but he managed to do a splendid job regardless. I'm especially impressed by how he managed to make Friede look slightly older through the years; it was like going through an old album. Thank you so much for your hard work.
I'd also like to thank my editor, the great Lord Fusanon—A.K.A. Saitou-sama. Your advice has been a huge help. I'm terrible at anything not directly related to writing, so his suggestions and business advice have come in very handy. In the next volume, Friede will have grown up a little more, and though she's not quite an adult, she'll start following in Veight's footsteps. I hope you enjoy seeing her learn and grow.
May we meet again in the next volume.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/bonus.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
Bonus Short Story
Airia and Friede
On a day much like any other, Airia was spending one of her breaks brushing Friede's hair.
"Your hair is just like your father's, you know that?"
"Ehehe, really? I kind of wish it had ended up more like yours, mom."
"Then why do you sound so happy about being compared to your father?" With a smile on her face, Airia ran the brush through again.
Friede turned around slightly and asked, "Were you two really enemies when you first met?"
"We certainly were," Airia replied, chuckling to herself. "In fact, he burst into the manor through that window over there. I thought I was going to die that day."
"But you didn't, did you?"
"I'm still alive, aren't I?" Airia mused. And you wouldn't have been born if I was dead either. She added, "Your father is merciful to his enemies, and he dislikes bloodshed. Even when I pointed a sword at him, he never attempted to retaliate."
"Dad's so cool!"
"He really is."
The two of them smiled at each other, then Friede muttered, "I can't believe humans and demons used to kill each other in the past..."
"That's because your father and I did a good job of changing things. Ryunheit was the first to join the demon army and declare independence from the Meraldian Federation."
In retrospect, that was a rather rash decision. But I had a feeling it would work out somehow. Even back then I knew Veight wouldn't let me down.
Excited, Friede asked, "And you guys took down the evil Senate together, right?"
Airia turned Friede's head forward and started brushing her hair again.
"I wouldn't say everyone in the Senate was evil, but I am thankful to see them gone. Most of the Senators did not approve of a woman serving as viceroy." Airia frowned as she thought of how she'd needed to wear men's clothes on the day she'd gone to swear fealty to the Senate. "Fortunately, you won't have to suffer the way I did. Now that I'm Demon Lord, I can make sure of that."
"Um...okay?" Friede nodded, not entirely sure what suffering Airia was referring to.
Just then, Veight poked his head into the room.
"Isn't it about time we got going?" he asked.
"Huh? Oh yeah! Mom, I can go, right?"
Airia placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder and said, "Yes, you're all set. Make sure you pick out some good clothes for your father."
"Got it!" Friede got up and gave her mom a mock salute.
Sighing, Veight bemoaned, "Who cares what I'm wearing as long as it covers me?"
"We do!" Friede retorted, pointing at her mother. "Now let's go!"
"Fine, fine. All right, we'll be back soon, Airia."
Airia smiled and gave him a little wave. "Have fun, you two."
After the door closed, she went to put away her brush, then moved to open the window. Veight and Friede had just left the building and were heading onto the main street. A new chapter in her life had begun when Veight had broken in through that very window, and that same chapter was continuing even now.
"You really can't predict where life will take you..." she muttered, waving back at Veight and Friede, who were waving up at her. "Hehe."
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
Chapter 13
The Meraldian Commonwealth and the Rolmund Empire agreed to a technological exchange, opening the door to formal negotiations between the two nations. Friede was chosen to go with the diplomatic delegation to Rolmund, and was eagerly awaiting the day of their departure.
"You're really gonna go to Rommand?" Ryucco, the demon army's chief technician, asked her as he idly munched on a carrot.
"Yep. I'm going to Rolmund." Friede casually corrected Ryucco's mispronunciation, but the lagomorph didn't seem to notice.
He skillfully disassembled a small Blast Rifle, made a few adjustments, and reassembled it just as quickly.
"Here, it's got the firepower you asked for. Give it a test shot."
"Thanks, Ryucco."
Friede took aim at a small target that had been set up on an empty lot near Doneiks's arena. Her Blast Rifle was small enough that it was more like a Blast Pistol.
"Take that!" She pulled the trigger, and a blinding bullet of light shot out of the muzzle. "Whoa! What the?!"
Friede shut her eyes in surprise, and heard a soft thump as the bullet hit the target.
After a few seconds, she slowly opened her eyes and saw that the target had been blown to pieces. The smell of burning wood reached her moments after.
"Damn, that blasted straight through that tower shield. It was even reinforced with iron plates. Hey, how many plates did that shot pierce?" Ryucco asked in amazement, and a group of canine techs went over to the target to check.
"Four plates, sir!"
"It didn't pierce the fifth plate, but it snapped in half!"
"There're cracks in the sixth one too!"
"The first two plates were shattered in so many pieces there's nothing left of them!"
One canine ran over to Ryucco, took off his goggles, and pointed to a few figures on his clipboard. "We got some really good measurements here! Look at this, Ryucco, it's amazing!"
Ryucco whistled appreciatively as he stared at the numbers. "That one shot had 7.4 kites worth of magic in it? You'd need a cadre of destruction mages to get that kinda output normally. No wonder you obliterated that shield."
"Umm, isn't this weapon a little overkill?" Friede asked hesitantly, and Ryucco shrugged his shoulders.
"You might need this kind of firepower when you're up against a bunched army, but you definitely don't need it for a regular shoot-out. Lemme see that." Ryucco took the Blast Rifle from Friede and started tinkering with it. "I'll just set a limit on its maximum firepower and... Wait, what should I do with the excess mana output? Eh, screw it. I'll divert it here and increase its capacity."
He substituted out a few parts, then handed the pistol back to Friede.
"Here, this should do it. Keep the output setting on minimum unless you need heavy firepower. It'll shoot 0.2 kite bullets, which is the demon army Blast Rifle standard."
"Of course, that's still enough to kill a normal human, so be careful," one of the canines added, his tail wagging excitedly.
"As long as you're shooting within its effective range, that's still powerful enough to blow off someone's head or arm, even if they're wearing armor," another said.
"Yikes," Friede said with a shiver as she stared at the weapon in her hands.
Ryucco started cleaning up his tools and took out another vegetable stick to munch on.
"You don't have as much mana as Veight, but you've still got a heck of a lot," he said. "Honestly, this pistol's meant to be more of a tool to help you get rid of your excess mana than a proper weapon."
"If I store up too much mana, I'll turn into a Valkaan, right? Don't worry, I'll be careful."
Friede looked over the pistol one last time, then holstered it. "All right, one last test shot?" she asked.
"Yep, go for it."
"'Kay."
The canines brought out a new target, and Friede got into a quick-draw stance. She sucked in a deep breath and touched the pistol's grip.
"Here I go!"
After she was done testing her new gun, Friede ate lunch with the canines. They'd made roast duck sandwiches for everyone. When he saw what was for lunch, Ryucco started angrily stomping on the ground.
"Why do you guys have to stick meat in everything?!"
"'Cause meat's tasty?"
"How many times do I have to tell you I prefer vegetables?!"
Friede fished out a sandwich that looked different from the rest and handed it to Ryucco. "Here, they have vegetable sandwiches too."
"Oh, good. You guys did remember. It's not like I can't eat meat, but vegetables are just so much better."
Ryucco sat down next to Friede and took a big bite out of his sandwich. Before long, the topic of conversation naturally turned towards Friede's upcoming trip to Rolmund.
"Watch out for Empress Eleora. She's one hell of a schemer. She's got a few soft spots though."
"Uh-huh."
"Oh, and she knows her stuff when it comes to magic and research. Though, she ain't as good as me."
"Doesn't...that mean she's not that amazing?" Friede asked with a smile, and Ryucco sniffed dismissively.
"Oh, she's amazing all right, just not as much as Veight."
"Okay..."
I'm not sure that actually told me anything concrete about what Eleora's like.
Some time later, Friede and her companions set out for Krauhen, where the members of the delegation would be meeting up before going to Rolmund. There was supposed to be a large number of researchers, mages, and students in the delegation, so they wouldn't feel out of place. Veight and a few other members of the werewolf squad would serve as Friede's bodyguards during the trip.
Inside the carriage, Friede smiled and said, "You're such a worrywart, dad."
"I'm not worried, I'm just going with you to see you off as mom's—as the Demon Lord's representative," Veight said, folding his arms and looking out the window. He had a habit of doing that whenever he was making excuses. "The council's expecting a lot from this delegation. Meraldia and Rolmund have different political structures and different cultures, but that's precisely why we need to deepen our ties and avoid conflict."
"I don't get the complicated political stuff, but basically we just have to become friends, right?"
"Well...basically, yeah. Make sure you mind your manners though," Veight said with a small smile, then leaned closer to Friede. "Oh yeah, it's cold up there, so remember to pile on the blankets when you sleep."
"Hm? But I always sleep under a lot of blankets."
"Yeah, and by the time you wake up you've kicked them all off. The last thing you want is to catch a cold in a foreign country. Oh, and they have different foods than us, but don't overeat just because everything looks novel. They'll be serving a lot of deer and beef, but leave some for the rest of your friends, okay?"
"Wait, beef?! Wow, we almost never get beef in Ryunheit!"
"That's exactly the kind of thing you shouldn't say when you're over there. People might make assumptions on Meraldia's financial situation based on our eating habits." Veight let out a small sigh. "Cows need more food to raise than other livestock, which is why beef is more expensive than other kinds of—"
"Hey, dad, how do they cook their beef in Rolmund?"
"Hm? Well, it's been a while, so I don't remember too well. I think they had a lot of stews and wine-glazed steaks, and stuff?"
"How could you forget something so important?!" she protested. You've got such a good memory for everything else, how could you forget about all the delicious foreign food you ate?
Veight gave Friede a placating smile and said, "There was a lot going on when I was there. I didn't exactly have time to savor my meals... Oh, but that does remind me." Talking about food had jogged Veight's memory. "You know how in northern Meraldia they put melted cheese on a lot of dishes? Well, that style of cuisine comes from Rolmund, so you'll see it there too."
"Sweet! I love cheese!"
"Just remember, don't overeat."
"Okay!"
It was clear from her tone that she was ready to eat an entire cow each meal.
Friede and Veight ended up talking about Rolmund cuisine for the rest of the journey to Krauhen. As this would be the first official exchange between Rolmund and Meraldia, Kurtz, the head engineer of the demon army and Veight's longtime friend, was chosen to be the delegation's leader.
"Our mission is to set the foundations for an alliance with Rolmund," Kurtz said to the gathered members of the delegation in his customary calm, measured tone. "However, we are not diplomats. We do not possess the education and training that formal diplomats would. Rolmund is not expecting diplomacy from us either. We simply need to comport ourselves in a manner befitting researchers and engineers. In other words..." He cleared his throat. "All that's expected from us is to learn from Rolmund's leading scholars, my fellow academics."
The members of the delegation grinned and nodded emphatically.
The Holy Empire of Rolmund covered as much territory as the Meraldian Commonwealth but had a much bigger population, which consisted predominantly of humans.
"Because of the cold, mountainous climate, there are only a few places in Rolmund suitable for cultivating crops. The reason Rolmund invaded Meraldia in the past was because the empire was in desperate need of more arable land," Kurtz explained to the group as they rode up Rolmund's main highway in a carriage. History wasn't Friede's strongest subject, but she did remember learning about this in class before.
Kurtz turned to her as he continued his speech.
"Your father, Veight, was the one who stopped their invasion. He defeated the commander of the invading army, Eleora, at the battle of Ryunheit, and took her captive."
"Wait, the same Eleora who's now an empress?" Friede asked.
"Correct."
Friede sighed and muttered, "Is there any major accomplishment that wasn't yours, dad?"
Kurtz chuckled at that and replied, "With the exception of one person, that's how everyone in Meraldia feels."
"Who's that one person?"
"Veight himself. It honestly gets exasperating at times." He looked out the window and added, "After that, he won Eleora over to his side and got her to work for him. He caused quite a scene in Rolmund, and after a series of rather fascinating events, installed Eleora as its empress."
"Uncle, what exactly do you mean when you say 'he caused quite a scene'?" Shirin asked, curious. Their lessons hadn't covered recent Rolmund history yet.
Kurtz wiped the lens of his glasses and turned to his nephew. "I only read the reports, so I'm afraid I only have a basic understanding of what happened. But apparently, Veight is known in Rolmund as the Astral Fencer. He also earned himself the moniker 'Lord of Crimson Snow Keep.'"
"How many nicknames does my dad have?" Friede asked in amazement. Kurtz summarized the events that happened during Veight's visit, starting with the death of Bahazoff the fourth, then going on to talk about the Doneiks Rebellion, and the heretic Lord Bolshevik's secret plot. Some of that had been covered in Friede and the others' lessons, but not Veight's involvement.
Once he was done, Kurtz finished up by saying, "Ultimately, though, it would be best to ask the people of Rolmund on any specifics you're curious about."
Friede muttered, "I will, but I get the feeling I'm not going to like some of the answers..."
The carriage rattled on as they headed towards the capital.
The delegation safely arrived in Rolmund's capital city of Originia.
"This city used to be called Schwerin, because until recently, it was Prince Ashley's Schwerin family that held the throne," Lieutenant Lenkov explained as he greeted Kurtz and the others. He was now a member of the royal guard, and it was his squad that had escorted the delegation from Fort Novesk to the capital. He had a slender build and was nearing middle age, but it was clear from the way he carried himself that he had years of experience on the battlefield.
"But once Empress Eleora took the throne, the Originia family became guardians of the capital, so its name was changed."
Shirin looked up at him with respect and asked, "I read that Empress Eleora's mage corps took on all the most dangerous missions during her rise to power. You were part of that corps too, weren't you, Sir Lenkov?"
Lenkov smiled ruefully and pulled his cap low over his head. "It was not us who did the most for our empress, young dragonkin. It was the man you all know so well." He let out a small sigh before adding, "It's quite humbling, owing a debt to a man who works for a country we may one day have to fight."
"I...hope we never go to war. Rolmund is the birthplace of the Sonnenlicht Order; I wouldn't want to fight fellow believers," Yuhette said in a worried voice.
In a solemn tone, Lenkov replied, "I did say 'may,' not will. We aren't enemies right now—it's just that the only nation Rolmund might ever find itself at war with is Meraldia, considering the continent's geography. Besides, we have sworn fealty to Empress Eleora, and our only duty is to protect her and our homeland. It was she who ordered us to escort you here, so she also believes mutual cooperation will be to both nations' benefit. Besides..." Lenkov scratched his head awkwardly. "I don't want to fight Meraldia ever again either. So I hope we can work together to make sure that never happens."
"Yes, of course!" Friede said excitedly. "Though...I'm not sure what we can do to help," she added after a moment's hesitation.
The nobles whose territories Friede and the others had passed through on their way to the capital had welcomed the delegation with open arms, and the nobles in Originia were no different. But while the group was glad for the dinner invitations and parties, the constant stream of socializing in a foreign land had left them exhausted. By the time they reached the palace, the children were at their limits.
"W-We can relax now, right?" Shirin groaned.
Natalia, their guide and Rolmund's grand chamberlain, smiled. "Yes, you can. Feel free to take a short nap, or if you'd prefer a light meal, I can have something brought up from the kitchens."
"Talking formally for so long gets so tiring..." Friede said, collapsing on a nearby sofa.
"Everyone is just pleased to see you, that's all. Some of our nobles only began to believe the Black Werewolf King no longer meant them harm after you arrived."
"What on earth did my dad do here?"
Natalia walked over to Friede, and asked, "Is your father doing well?"
"Yes. His fashion sense is atrocious, and he never brushes his hair properly, but other than that, he's doing great."
Natalia smiled. "I see he hasn't changed at all."
"Huh?" Friede asked, getting up into a sitting position.
Natalia bowed to the children and said, "Now then, I must get going. Someone will come by to visit you later—I do hope you get along with them."
"Who?" Yuhette asked, but Natalia just chuckled and shook her head.
"I'm afraid that's a state secret."
Is that supposed to be a Rolmundian joke? Friede thought blearily.
The room the kids were in was about as large as a Meraldia University classroom, and decorated with jewels and precious metals. The other members of the delegation had all been given their own rooms as well.
Friede stared absently up at the ceiling and muttered, "That chandelier is using magical lights instead of candles. I wonder how much something like that costs..."
"It's not just the chandelier. That fireplace is built out of dragonscale marble. One of those stones could buy a hundred Blast Rifles," Shirin said, staring at it in awe.
Yuhette reclined in an armchair and stared intently at the wall. "This fresco on the wall depicts the entire story of Saint Zahakt's Penitence. I've never seen a painting so detailed or so vivid... It's the kind of thing you might see in Ioro Lange's cathedral."
As the kids marveled at the treasure trove of a room they'd been assigned, they heard a knock at the door.
"Come in," Shirin said, and the door swung open. Everyone turned to see a young girl about Friede's age walk in. She was wearing expensive clothes, and her eyes shone with a fierce strength.
"Umm... Are you part of the Meraldian delegation?" she asked, speaking in Meraldian rather than Rolmundian. The two languages were rather similar, but there were distinct differences in pitch and accent that made it clear when one was speaking one or the other.
As Friede and the others thought about how to respond, the girl furrowed her brow and cocked her head.
"Was my pronunciation off? I thought I practiced it enough. You can understand me, right?"
"Oh, uh, yes we can. I'm Friede. Friede Aindorf," Friede said with a nod, and the girl smiled.
"Good, that's a relief. My name is Micha. Micha Wikran Originia Rolmund. My apologies for arriving late."
Friede and the others exchanged glances.
"Who?" Friede asked her friends.
"Well...she has the Originia surname, so she must be part of the imperial family," Shirin replied. "I feel like I've heard the name Wikran somewhere before too..."
"You two could have at least memorized the names of Rolmund's royalty," Yuhette said. "This girl is Empress Eleora's niece. I believe she's second in line for the throne."
"No, I'm first! Mother relinquished her claim, so I'm first in line!" Micha said indignantly, and then pointed at Friede. "You're a princess too, aren't you?! If you're royalty, you should at least know the names of your neighboring nations' royalty!"
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13_1.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
"I'm a princess?"
"You're Demon Lord Airia's daughter, right? That makes you a princess!"
"It does?" Friede turned to confer with her two friends again.
"Friede, are you a princess?" Shirin asked.
"I dunno."
"You are the Demon Lord's daughter, Friede, so I suppose that would make you a princess, but..."
Their conversation seemed to irritate Micha even further.
"Do you have no self-awareness? How will you negotiate with other royalty if you're like this?"
"'Negotiate with other royalty'?" Friede parroted dumbly.
Tired of shouting, Micha sighed and said, "Eventually, I'll inherit the throne, and you'll be the next Demon Lord."
Friede gave her a confused look. "I don't think I'm going to be Demon Lord though."
Micha stared at her in shock. She glanced around to make sure no one else was nearby, then sidled closer to Friede. She grabbed Friede's arm and asked in a serious tone, "What do you mean? You're a princess, but you don't have the right to inherit the throne?"
"I-I think so, yes?"
Micha's expression grew more serious, and she asked, "Don't tell me you're here because you were exiled?"
"Huh?"
Now it was Friede's turn to be surprised, but Micha didn't seem to notice.
"Don't worry, this happens all the time. You'll be fine. I swear on the name of the royal family that I, Micha Wikran Originia Rolmund, will protect you and your retainers." Micha nodded solemnly, managing to look regal despite her youth. "There's nothing to fear. You're safe here."
Flustered, Friede shouted, "Wait, hold on! I haven't been exiled!"
Though Friede seemed to be panicking, Yuhette quickly realized what was going on and smiled to herself.
"Ah, I see where the misunderstanding is now. Don't worry, Lady Micha."
"What do you mean?" Micha asked, turning to Yuhette.
Choosing her words carefully, Yuhette said, "In Meraldia, the position of Demon Lord isn't hereditary. It's different from Rolmund. That's why Friede doesn't comport herself like a princess."
"Then why is the Demon Lord called a Lord?! I thought nobility and royalty were decided by birth?!"
"Well, it was originally humans who started calling a leader of a large group of demons a Demon Lord, so..." Friede trailed off apologetically.
Micha scrutinized everyone's expressions. After a few seconds, she organized her thoughts and asked, "In other words, you are the Demon Lord's daughter, but that doesn't guarantee you'll be the next Demon Lord?"
"Yes. Mo—The Demon Lord and the Demon Empress both say the next Demon Lord should be whoever has the ability and the desire to serve, as well as a good head on their shoulders."
At present, Friede had no desire to become a Demon Lord.
Micha sighed and said, "I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions. It's a bit disappointing to learn you won't be the next leader of Meraldia, but I only have myself to blame for getting my hopes up without learning about your customs. It makes sense that different countries would have different forms of succession for their rulers."
"Oh, uh, it's fine. If anything, I should be apologizing, I think."
Micha's right, I need to act more like the noble I am. I have no right to laugh at dad for doing the things he does... Just then there was another knock on the door and an older man's voice could be heard from the other side.
"So this is where you were, Micha. Lady Friede, may I enter?"
"Oh, sure."
A middle-aged man walked into the room. He was well-dressed, muscular, and had a friendly smile on his face. He looked like the ideal Rolmundian gentleman. Bowing, he introduced himself.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Lekomya Hinokentus Wikran."
At that, all three of them remembered where they'd heard the name Wikran before.
"Archduke Lekomya! You're the empress's brother-in-law!"
"Now I remember! The Wikran family is Archduke Lekomya's family! Friede, where are your manners?! Introduce yourself!"
Friede hurriedly straightened her back and bowed her head to Lekomya.
"It is a nonner—er, an honor to meet you. My name is Friede Aindorf. These are my best friends, Yuhette and Shirin."
"I appreciate the formal introduction, but you can relax. I've only recently become an archduke, and I'm nowhere near as important as my title would have you think."
Lekomya smiled reassuringly, and Micha pouted at him.
"Why are you acting so humble, father? You're the leader of the Fourteen Imperial Generals who protect Empress Eleora!"
Lekomya shifted awkwardly at that.
"Micha, my sweet daughter. I've told you not to use that title before, remember?"
"B-But why?"
"It's embarrassing to parade it around in front of Lord Veight's daughter as if it has any real significance."
His gentlemanly mannerisms were gone, and he seemed oddly nervous after mentioning Veight.
"I feel like we've seen this sight a thousand times before, Yuhette."
"That we have, Shirin."
Friede's two friends turned to her, and she awkwardly scratched her head. But at the same time, her curiosity had been piqued, so she wormed her way into the conversation.
"Say, Lady Micha. Archduke Lekomya is Rolmund's greatest general, right?"
Micha nodded emphatically, shouting, "That's right! When Empress Eleora was still sixth in line for the throne and it didn't seem like she would ever hold political power, there were fourteen nobles who chose to support her! And it was my father who brought them all together!"
That got Shirin's interest as well.
"I've heard the stories. He was the one who slew the enemy general in single combat during the Doneiks Rebellion, wasn't he? I also read that he contributed significantly to North Rolmund's irrigation and agricultural infrastructure, and led an expedition to the furthest northern reaches of the empire. He also stymied an assassination attempt on the empress, didn't he? I heard that was when he fell in love with her younger sister. Your father is a true hero."
"E-Exactly! Father is Rolmund's greatest treasure! He's a living legend!" Micha exclaimed, her eyes sparkling.
Lekomya placed a hand on his daughter's shoulder and pulled her back a little. "Stop it, Micha. Please."
"But I want to tell them about how amazing you are."
"There's no need. Lady Friede's father is the legendary Astral Fencer. The stories of my exploits must pale in comparison to the things she's heard about him." Sweat was beading on Lekomya's forehead, and it looked like he was panicking for some inexplicable reason. "I'm sorry, my daughter gets excited easily. Let's talk again later sometime."
Lekomya bowed to the three children, then dragged his daughter out of the room. Friede and her friends exchanged glances.
"What was all that about?"
"No clue. I wanted to hear more about Lekomya's heroic deeds though; it's a shame he left so quickly," Shirin said with a wistful sigh. "He worked his way up from a landless noble to archduke through his actions alone. He's one of the greatest men alive. Little wonder minstrels sing his stories even in Meraldia."
"But he looked like he was panicking for some reason..."
None of them knew about what Veight had accomplished here before they'd been born, so their confusion was only natural.
The next day, Friede was summoned for an audience with Eleora.
"Why just me, Professor Kurtz?" she asked.
Kurtz was the leader of their delegation and the demon army's chief engineer, but to the kids, he was their university professor first and foremost.
With his usual calm, Kurtz replied, "The empress wishes to speak with you one-on-one, Friede."
"But...why?"
The two of them were waiting in a spacious reception room, and Friede's voice echoed off the wall multiple times.
"I have my hunches, though they are ultimately just hunches. Moreover, regardless of which of my hypotheses is correct, I think it's for the best that I don't share my speculations with you."
Friede nodded, accepting Kurtz's logic. But while she accepted it, she didn't fully understand it. Shirin and Yuhette were in the waiting room as well, but Shirin was examining a Blast Cane replica in a corner of the room, and Yuhette was engrossed in an old Sonnenlicht scripture.
"Umm, guys, could I get a little support here?" Friede asked.
"You'll be fine."
"Yeah, I'm not worried."
Her two friends clearly didn't care about her plight. Giving up on getting any help from them, Friede sat down and started snacking on the sweets laid out on the marble table. They were dyed with fruit juice, making the tray look like it was full of sparkling multicolored jewels. As she was agonizing over which color to try next, Natalia came in to call her to the throne room.
"This way, Lady Friede."
"Ugh, I'm so nervous."
Eleora Kastoniev Originia Rolmund was one of Rolmund's most famous rulers. Everyone had heard the stories about how despite being sixth in line for the throne, she'd outwitted her competition and made her way to becoming empress. She had the overwhelming support of her people, regardless of what caste they belonged to. Commoners, nobles, clergy, scholars, and soldiers alike approved of her rule. Eleora was lenient to heretics and demons, so she had their support too.
But in Meraldia, she had left a very different impression. Back when she'd been just a princess, she'd been ordered to lead the invasion on Meraldia, which she did. But though the invasion had been an imperial decree, she'd been given very few soldiers to work with, and her invasion had ultimately ended in failure when she'd been captured by the Black Werewolf King. Those who knew her story in Meraldia looked at her with pity. She was seen as a tragic heroine who'd been at the mercy of circumstances beyond her control. The plays Forne had written contributed to that image as well, since that was exactly how they portrayed her.
All of that ran through Friede's mind as she came face-to-face with Empress Eleora.
"My name is Friede Aindorf. It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty." Friede had practiced this particular greeting a dozen times now, so she was able to say it without tripping on her words. It helped that she'd picked the shortest greeting she could get away with without seeming rude.
"Welcome, Lady Friede. I am Eleora Kastoniev Originia Rolmund. I'm glad I finally had the chance to meet you. You may be seated."
Eleora was sitting at a table, and she motioned for Friede to sit as well. Friede hesitated, unsure of whether or not it was polite to sit in the presence of an empress, and Eleora smiled at her.
"This is a private chat, not an official audience. There's no need to worry about decorum."
Eleora was more affable than Friede had been expecting, which put the young girl at ease. Of course, Eleora was still beautiful and imposing, but she at least seemed like someone Friede could get along with. Friede took her seat and timidly looked up at the legendary empress. Eleora was smiling gently, but she still looked a little intimidating.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13_2.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
"You look just like your father. Especially your eyes."
"Th-Thank you very much!" Friede said reflexively, and Eleora nodded.
"I see you respect your father."
"Yes! Well, mostly."
"Oh, just mostly?"
"There are some bad habits he has that I wish he'd fix... Like not fixing his messy hair."
Eleora chuckled at that, as if recalling an old memory. "I see. Well, it's clear he raised you with love. I lost my own father at a young age, so I'm a little jealous."
A hint of sadness tinged Eleora's smile. There was something poignant about the way she expressed herself, and Friede realized she was feeling sad for her too. But at the same time, she was awed by this woman in front of her.
"Err, umm..."
She wanted to do something to ease Eleora's sadness, but as she'd never lost a father, she couldn't think of what to say. Still, she felt like she had to say something, even if she didn't have the right words. I thought I'd matured a little over this trip, but I guess I'm still hopeless. Veight had taught her to default to either "thanks" or "I'm sorry" when she didn't know what to say, and Friede decided to follow that advice.
"Thank you very much. And umm...I'm sorry for your loss."
She wasn't sure which was right for this situation, so she went with both.
Eleora shook her head and said, "It's fine, you don't need to worry so much about what you say. It was my fault for bringing up such a heavy topic. Forgive me."
"No, umm, you really don't need to apologize."
Now Friede felt bad because she thought she'd said the wrong thing. Suddenly, Eleora changed the topic.
"You're a polite, wise young girl, Friede. I hope we can become friends. Do you feel the same way?"
"Huh?! Ah, yes! I would love to be your friend! I-I-It would be a true honor!" Friede nodded over and over as she stammered.
Smiling gracefully, Eleora said, "I'd like it if you visited Rolmund more often. To make your trips easier, I was thinking of providing a mansion, or perhaps even a plot of land for you."
"What?"
Flabbergasted, Friede wasn't able to say anything more before Eleora added, "Meraldia has offered us some of their land for an embassy, you know. It's only fair that Rolmund reciprocates. Oh, but if you are to hold land, you will need the peerage. It would be exceedingly rude of us to offer you a lower title, such as baron or knight. Hmm. Ah, I know, would you like to be a Count?"
"H-Hold on a second."
Things were moving so fast Friede couldn't keep up.
Eleora grinned and said, "Don't worry. The imperial family will take care of managing your estate. You can think of it as having a villa in Rolmund, nothing more."
Friede almost nodded on reflex. But then she remembered what her dad had told her over and over. Plus, her werewolf nose had picked up on a peculiar scent.
Friede immediately replied, "I am truly humbled by your offer, but I am afraid I cannot ac-acquie— Umm, it's fine, I don't need it!"
She shook her head, making her refusal clear. It was a bit scary turning down a gift from an empress, but she knew she couldn't say yes.
"Even if you have me beheaded, I can't take your gift!"
"Oh?" To Friede's surprise, Eleora's grin grew even wider. "Would you be willing to tell me why, Friede Aindorf?"
"That's because, umm...my dad always says, 'Be wary when someone offers you a gift and asks for nothing in return. That means they're hiding their true intentions.'"
Veight had often told her that with a frown whenever Mao had given her a new toy, some fashionable accessory, or even some candy. He'd explained that only true friends offered gifts for free, and the daughter of a Demon Lord would encounter many people masquerading as such, when in reality they just wanted something from her.
"I don't know why you're offering me such a lavish gift, but there has to be some reason behind your actions! Umm, sorry for being suspicious of you!"
Eleora still intimidated her, so Friede finished off by apologizing. She was now thinking about how heavy the guard around the palace was, and how she would manage to escape back to Meraldia without getting killed.
Still grinning, Eleora got up and walked over to Friede. Friede stiffened up involuntarily, but she didn't smell any hostility from Eleora. In fact, I think...
"Splendid. That was wonderful, Friede. That's exactly the response you should have given. Well done."
Eleora knelt down to look into Friede's trembling eyes. She nodded approvingly at the young girl.
"Hahahaha! Even now the Black Werewolf King still manages to one-up me! Amazing!"
"Huh? Umm, Your Majesty?"
Friede had no idea what was going on. Finding her reaction adorable, Eleora patted her head and ruffled her hair.
"Be proud of yourself, Friede. You gave the correct answer. Though you're still a child, you managed to win against the temptation of wealth and power."
"What do you mean?" Friede still couldn't grasp what Eleora was talking about.
Still patting Friede's head, Eleora explained, "When it comes to titles and land, the one doing the gifting gets to be in a position of power, and the one doing the receiving becomes subordinate to them. Had you accepted my gifts, you would have become beholden to me." She idly twirled some of Friede's hair around her fingers. "Imagine what would have happened if Rolmund's empress made the daughter of Meraldia's Demon Lord into her subject. If nothing else, diplomacy between our two nations would have gotten a lot more complicated."
"Oh, I see... I get it now." Friede had once again forgotten that her status as the Demon Lord's daughter meant something to other people.
Eleora smoothed over the parts of Friede's hair that she'd messed up, then returned to her seat.
"I heard that Veight's been putting in a lot of effort in raising the new generation of leaders. I figured he'd be pretty thorough with your education too, so I just wanted to see how much he'd already taught you."
"So, this was a test."
"Yes. I put you in a position where it would be difficult for you to refuse. All the idle small talk I made before making my proposal was to make it harder for you to say no." Eleora chuckled to herself, looking like a kid who'd been caught pulling a prank. "Friede, you resemble your father in more ways than just your appearance. You share the Black Werewolf King's spirit as well."
"Th-Thank you."
Friede still wasn't sure why Eleora had tested her, but she was happy to be told she was like her dad. And Veight had taught her to thank people who praised her.
Eleora rang the bell resting on the table in front of her, and a maid rolled a tea cart into the room. There were a number of baked sweets and rare fruits resting on a tray next to two steaming teacups.
"All right, that's enough stressful conversation." Eleora smiled reassuringly at Friede. "As an apology for testing you, and as a gift to Meraldia's future leader, I present to you the best sweets Rolmund has to offer. I hope you'll be willing to partake of them together with me, Friede."
"Of course!"
* * * *
While Friede was enjoying tea time with Eleora, Shirin had been summoned to the palace armory.
"What do you think, Master Shirin?" a white-haired gentleman asked Shirin as he opened the door to the armory. His name was Borsche, and he was the principal of Rolmund's military academy. He'd called Shirin over to show him Rolmund's latest model of Blast Canes. Though Shirin wasn't a mage, he still had a vested interest in magic technology.
"They're amazing, Sir Borsche."
To an amateur, it looked like there was a row of identical canes lined up against the wall, but Shirin could pick out the minute differences in each one.
"I imagine these are for cavalry, or perhaps scouts?"
"Correct. Well spotted."
Shirin nodded and explained, "I could tell because the cane barrels are shorter than usual. Crossbows meant to be used by cavalry are smaller than the standard, and I imagine the same holds true of your Blast Canes."
"Good thinking. These canes have been treated with a special magic circle that dampens the glow of the bullets to prevent them from startling horses or alerting enemies when fired. I'm afraid I can't share the specifics since the details are classified." Borsche gave Shirin a playful wink.
For a while, they toured the armory, examining the different kinds of Blast Canes, but after some time, Borsche grabbed two specific ones and brought them over to a nearby workbench.
"You plan on becoming an officer in the Meraldian army one day, correct?"
"Yes, Sir Borsche. That's what I'm studying for."
"Good. Every nation needs brave men to defend her. I have a question for you, young soldier." Borsche turned to look Shirin in the eyes. "Both Meraldia and Rolmund believe that future wars will be fought with magic weapons rather than swords and spears. When you become a general, what kinds of Blast Canes will you give your men? What part of their functionality will you prioritize?"
"That's a tough question..." Shirin muttered, mulling it over. While he was thinking, Borsche pointed to one with the longer barrel.
"Firepower, perhaps?" Borsche asked. "This is a Norlinskar Cane, issued to our elite snipers and heavy infantry. Thanks to its increased firepower, it can take down an armored warhorse in one shot." Smiling ruefully, he added, "But because of how much the output has been overclocked, these canes are prone to breaking down. Plus, they're quite heavy and unwieldy."
He pointed to the other, shorter cane.
"Do you consider accuracy the most important parameter? This is a modified Rolmund Blast Cane Mk IV. It's a radically different design from the Mk III—which is currently standard issue for foot soldiers—and very few have been produced so far." Borsche picked the weapon up. "Both the Mk III and Mk IV are designed with mass-production in mind, but this particular modified version was made specifically for the Imperial Guard. It's expensive and difficult to manufacture, but highly accurate. Its effective range is quite long too, and it has enough firepower to kill a man in one shot."
He stared at Shirin, gauging the young dragonkin's reaction.
"These are both good, practical weapons. Which one would you choose to defend your homeland?"
Shirin looked from one cane to the other. After a few minutes, he shook his head and turned his back to Borsche.
"If it was me, I would pick this one." He picked up a plain-looking cane that had been lying unceremoniously on one of the weapon racks. Borsche narrowed his eyes.
"Why? That's an old Mk III, the basic standard issue. Its only redeeming feature is that it's sturdy, but it pales in comparison to these new versions by any other metric. Are you sure this is the one you would choose?"
"Yes. The fact that it doesn't break easily means I can trust it. It doesn't matter how powerful a gun is—if it breaks down, it's nothing more than a stick." Shirin nodded and added, "Besides, the fact that most of your soldiers use them means that your generals also believe this version is the most reliable. You've also probably spent more time figuring out how to get the most value out of this weapon than any of the modern prototype models."
Once Shirin got started talking about military affairs, he went on forever. But since Friede, Yuhette, and the other girls didn't share his interest, he rarely had people he could discuss the topic with.
"Meraldia hasn't gone through as many large-scale campaigns involving these Blast Canes as Rolmund, so we have little battle data to go off of. The Mk III has remained in use over multiple rebellions, meaning it's survived the stress test of real battle and proven itself superior." Realizing he was droning on, Shirin suddenly cut himself off. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to give a lecture."
"No need to apologize, Master Shirin. You show a lot of promise." Borsche laid a hand on Shirin's shoulder. He then sat down in front of the workbench and let out a long sigh. "About a decade ago, I went on an expedition to Meraldia. Back then, Meraldia had no sign of magic weapons, and they weren't mining magesteel, so logistics were a nightmare. We also had to recover our fallen comrades' weapons so that knowledge of them wouldn't leak to the enemy."
Borsche stroked his white beard and reminisced about the time he'd been Eleora's adjutant.
"In hostile territory, every tiny screw and gear is valuable. One asset the Mk III has over the other models is that all of its component parts are made to be identical. You can swap out the stock or muzzle or barrel from one Mk III and fit it onto another with just a little fine-tuning."
The industrial revolution still hadn't come to this world, so perfect standardization was impossible. Every Mk III had minor differences in part size, length, and weight, but the discrepancies were small enough that some quick, easy engineering could get rid of them. Like Meraldia, Rolmund had started looking into standardizing the equipment its military used.
"I'm surprised the parts are interchangeable, Sir Borsche."
"I'm impressed you already understand the value of that, young man." Borsche smiled and added, "Empress Eleora learned these lessons the hard way, during her invasion of Meraldia. When you're fighting on home ground, you have enough supplies that you don't have these logistical concerns." He fondly patted the cane resting on the workbench. "In war, you should always expect the unexpected. Chances are, none of your plans will work out the way you intend... Indeed, you might even run into a situation where you're stuck deep in enemy territory for years on end without any hope of resupply."
Borsche let out a long sigh.
"The most important quality for a weapon isn't firepower or range, but durability and adaptability. Fortunately, it seems you already knew that without me having to tell you." He smiled at Shirin. "You're still young and inexperienced, but you're cautious and have a mind to think things over before making decisions. You'll make for a fine commander someday. The soldiers who serve under you will be lucky indeed."
"Thank you, Sir Borsche."
"You've been blessed with a good teacher. I'm surprised Meraldia has instructors who understand the importance of interchangeable parts. Who taught you about that?"
"Professor Veight. It was during a lecture on logistics and organization."
"I see... I suppose that was a foolish question—I should have known it would be him." Borsche gave Shirin a knowing smile. "But I'm sure Lord Veight isn't your only capable teacher, now is he?"
"Yes, there are others." Baltze, Kurtz, and Gomoviroa's faces popped into Shirin's mind.
"I'm looking forward to seeing how Meraldia develops in the future. Preferably as an ally." Borsche got to his feet and patted Shirin on the back. "As a sign of our two countries' friendship, how about I show you some more of Rolmund's weapons? Of course, I can only show you what I'm authorized to, but that still includes quite a few interesting things."
"Thank you very much!"
* * * *
At around the same time, Yuhette was sitting alone in the waiting room. Kurtz had gone off somewhere as well, and Friede and Shirin were in their respective meetings.
She traced her fingers over the sacred Sonnenlicht symbol on the scripture she'd been reading and looked out the window. After a few seconds, Natalia walked into the room. She was with a middle-aged woman this time. The woman was wearing a nun's habit and looked like a high-ranking member of the Sonnenlicht Order.
"Lady Yuhette, this is Cardinal Kushmer, my teacher."
The older woman smiled at Yuhette and said, "Hello there. If you have some time, I'd like to chat."
Few things surprised Yuhette, but she had not expected to meet a Sonnenlicht cardinal here. That was the highest rank in the Sonnenlicht Order, and here in Rolmund, the order held far more political power than in Meraldia. There were only eight cardinals within the empire, and they were respected almost as much as the empress herself. Meanwhile, Yuhette was just a priestess-in-training.
She hurriedly got to her feet and bowed in a formal Sonnenlicht greeting.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Cardinal Kushmer. I am Yuhette, an apprentice priestess studying under Archbishop Yuhit in Ryunheit's Sonnenlicht temple."
Her grandfather had taught her proper manners, and she knew the most important part about a good Sonnenlicht greeting was conveying that you were happy to meet the other party. Granted, Yuhette was really feeling more nervous than happy at the moment.
Kushmer walked over and touched Yuhette's shoulders, then her head. That was how high-ranking priests blessed lower-ranking clergy in the Rolmund sect of Sonnenlicht. Kushmer's touch was so gentle that, for a moment, Yuhette felt like it was her mother stroking her hair, not a stranger.
"You may sit, Lady Yuhette. The pleasure is all mine."
"Thank you, Cardinal Kushmer."
Yuhette waited until after Kushmer had sat down before taking her seat. Kushmer looked down at the scripture in Yuhette's hands and gave her a questioning look.
"That scripture is called The Virtues. It contains the guidelines that every member of the clergy should live their life by. But I thought this particular scripture never made its way over to Meraldia?"
"It didn't, Cardinal. In Meraldia we have The Divine Record, which serves the same function," Yuhette replied smoothly. She was more used to dealing with important people than Friede or Shirin. The Sonnenlicht Order served different roles in Meraldia and Rolmund. Because of that, their scriptures and teachings diverged a significant amount.
"Do you have any questions about the way our scriptures are written?" Kushmer asked. "I'm curious what impression you get, as a Meraldian."
A nervous shiver ran through Yuhette. If she couldn't think of a good question to ask, the cardinal would think her understanding of the scriptures was shallow.
"Well...I do have a few." Yuhette hurriedly flipped through the pages. In truth, there had been a few things she found strange. She pointed to one of the passages and said, "Here, it's written that 'faithful clergy have no need to learn magic.'"
"Haha, and I suppose you find that strange?"
"Yes. Magic has the power to help people. It can heal illness and injury, and predict disasters ahead of time. Why would you tell your followers not to learn it?"
Kushmer traced over the lines Yuhette was pointing to with her finger. "This section of the scripture is a remnant from the old republic. Back when Rolmund was still a republic, it was only clergy and nobility that were literate—meaning only members of those two classes could learn to be mages. At the time, most of Rolmund's mages were also priests."
"In that case, the people would have seen the priests and bishops as special, wouldn't they? Now I really don't understand why you would tell people they don't need to learn magic."
Kushmer chuckled to herself. "Think about it like this. What would happen if a mage who wasn't a noble or a priest showed up?"
Yuhette turned the question over in her mind, then suddenly looked up at Kushmer. "People would be confused. If the only mages were priests, people would think magic was a blessing granted directly by God, and they would worship any mage, even if they weren't a priest."
"Correct. Well reasoned," Kushmer replied with an approving nod. "If you had to go to the temple to get cured, people would think the healing itself was a miracle from above. But one does not need to serve God to use magic." Kushmer fiddled with the insignia on her robe and looked down. "Heretics and rebels can use magic just as well as anyone else. It would cause quite a stir if someone who didn't follow God's teachings could still use 'God's blessing.'"
"I see..."
Yuhette had heard that unlike in Meraldia, the Sonnenlicht Order in Rolmund had spent centuries fighting heretics. The religion had spread in a very different environment.
Kushmer added, "But there's one even more important reason for this passage's existence. Clergy should not be required to use healing magic. That's not what should be expected from them. Do you understand what I mean?"
"U-Umm..." This was a much tougher question. Yuhette wasn't sure what the right answer was.
She idly rubbed her cheeks as she thought, then looked up again as a sudden realization hit her. It's not for others to decide which answer is correct. The correct answer is the one you come to yourself and can fully believe in. I should give Cardinal Kushmer my answer, not the one I think she wants.
"Grandfa—I mean my teacher, Archbishop Yuhit, once told me that God's teachings existed to save the people who had been abandoned by everyone else."
Cardinal Kushmer smiled quietly at Yuhette. Mind racing, Yuhette hurried to explain her reasoning.
"If you're sick or hurt, you can ask a doctor or a mage to heal you. But some people get hurt in ways that magic or medicine can't fix. My teacher believes a priest's true calling is to help 'heal' those people."
"You're absolutely correct. If medicine can heal you, see a doctor. If magic can heal you, visit a mage. Our job begins when people face problems that human wisdom and ingenuity cannot solve." Kushmer took the insignia off of her robe. "The teachings of Sonnenlicht are different in Meraldia and Rolmund, but those differences are like the differences between the rising and setting sun. Though they come at different times and burn in different colors, they are still the same sun."
Kushmer got to her feet and walked over to Yuhette.
"Apprentice Priestess Yuhette of Ryunheit Temple. I recognize you as a devoted servant of God."
She offered her insignia to Yuhette, who bowed reverently, allowing Kushmer to fasten it to the collar of her cloak.
In a gentle voice, Kushmer said, "You're young, even for an apprentice—here in Rolmund we call them acolytes—but you're wise beyond your years. You've learned well, and more importantly, you've learned to think well. You will face many obstacles yet in your path to becoming a priestess, but I know you will persevere. May the sun bless you on your journey, Yuhette."
"Thank you very much, Cardinal Kushmer." Smiling, Yuhette nodded to the cardinal.
* * * *
The Lily Knight Hall was a section of the palace that had been granted to nobles who'd first supported Eleora upon her return from Meraldia. Archduke Lekomya let out a long sigh in the hall's sunny, spacious common room.
"This is going to be rough..." he muttered, and the other people at the table nodded. "To think Lord Veight's daughter would be part of the first delegation from Meraldia..."
"I heard that Her Majesty specifically requested for her to come, and Meraldia acquiesced," Lord Pieti, one of Lekomya's friends, said. A decade ago he'd been a landless, low-ranking noble, but now he was a count with a large plot of land.
Lekomya rested his cheeks in his hands and said, "She did. Our empress is quite obsessed with Veight's daughter."
"Do you think she regrets not marrying him herself?"
"No, nothing like that. I suspect she wants to see just how good a job Lord Veight has done in raising the children of today. It's important to know what kinds of people Meraldia's future rulers will be before deciding on long-term policy."
Lekomya's friends nodded in agreement, then sighed.
"But still, it's going to be nerve-wracking meeting her face-to-face..." Pieti muttered.
"Don't be like that. It won't do to have our Astral Tactician be afraid of a little girl."
"I told you before, I don't like that nickname, Mister Unbreakable General." Pieti folded his arms and muttered, "This is all Lord Veight's fault. If he hadn't tried so hard to hide his achievements, we wouldn't have to feel so bad about our titles."
"It wasn't like he had much of a choice. If the public found out that a Meraldian was almost single-handedly responsible for winning the throne for Empress Eleora, her reputation would plummet. Lord Veight knew that as well."
"Still, he didn't have to go and credit all of his deeds to us."
Lekomya and his friends, the Fourteen Imperial Generals, all gave each other uneasy looks.
"Back during the Doneiks Rebellion, we were only able to push so far into North Rolmund because Lord Veight was our rearguard."
"Not only did he protect our rear, but he even managed to take Prince Woroy captive and conquer Creech Castle. I don't even want to take credit for a feat like that, people will expect too much of me."
After Bahazoff the fourth had died, the Doneiks family had started a rebellion to take the throne. The family's second son, Prince Woroy, had taken a contingent of elite soldiers and holed up in Creech Castle, which was close to the capital.
"In fact, the entire reason Prince Woroy decided to hold the castle instead of riding forth to capture the capital was because of Lord Veight."
"Yeah. If Lord Veight hadn't retaken Sveniki Castle as fast as he did, then Woroy would have used it as a staging point to invade and take the capital for sure."
It was only because the war had been drawn into a stalemate that Eleora had been able to take her army and march north into Doneiks territory to strike a decisive blow against Prince Ivan. But had Veight and his troops not managed to keep Woroy pinned at Creech Castle, he would have pincered Eleora's invading army from behind and torn it to shreds. With just 7,000 men, Veight had managed to not only keep Woroy's 25,000 men holed up and unable to reinforce Ivan, but he'd also managed to eventually capture Woroy and Creech Castle. Without his decisive victory, the Doneiks family would never have fallen. Simply hiding his involvement would make people question how exactly Eleora had managed to win despite the overwhelming odds against her.
"I can't believe he was willing to let someone else take the credit for capturing a prince so easily."
"I can. That man seems wholly unconcerned with status and fame."
"Yes, but he cares so little that it's actually a problem..." Lekomya muttered, and his friends nodded again. The low-ranking nobles that Eleora had recruited to her faction back then had all been poor but loyal. They knew that they owed their current wealth and power to Veight and Eleora's generosity.
Lekomya swept his gaze over the table and said, "Lord Veight accomplished so much, then went home without a care in the world, as if to say such feats weren't even worth remembering. There was no way we could just sit back and take it easy after that."
"Yeah. No matter how reliable he'd been, he's a Meraldian general. We couldn't let him outshine us Rolmund nobles forever."
"Thinking back on it now, perhaps Lord Veight acted that way precisely to spur us to work harder. He's always thinking ten steps ahead."
They were overestimating him, but to the Fourteen Imperial Generals, Veight was basically a god.
"Plus, after seeing how humble he'd been about his own accomplishments, it made it harder for us to ask for our rewards once the battle was over."
"Tell me about it. We worked so hard, but we couldn't even bring ourselves to ask for a single village."
"Yes, but if we'd asked Eleora to make us all counts, it probably would have come back to bite us. Do you know how many nobles end up assassinated by their jealous peers when they rise up the ranks too quickly?" Lekomya said, and everyone nodded in agreement again. "Instead, we followed in his example and tried to be model nobles. Honest, courteous, and humble."
"Well, seeing as we hadn't accomplished even a fraction of what he had, we couldn't exactly act cocky anyway."
After Veight had left, it was these 14 men who'd supported the Rolmund Empire through a rocky transition period. Their own accomplishments were numerous enough that no one doubted their capabilities. But none of them could find it in them to be proud of what they'd done.
Lord Shawch gave Lekomya a wan smile and said, "And then before we knew it, everyone was calling us the Fourteen Imperial Generals and Originia's saviors."
"I won't deny that we've done a lot for Rolmund, but every time someone calls me by that grandiose title, Lord Veight's smile flashes through my mind."
"Yeah, me too." Lord Mottemo said with a self-deprecating chuckle.
"You know, Lord Veight's legitimately proud of us. He sends me letters from time to time congratulating me on what I've done."
"I keep all the letters he's sent us locked up in my safe. They're family heirlooms at this point. How many nobles can claim they've gotten a personal letter from the Black Werewolf King?"
"He is Meraldia's hero after all. I imagine a thousand years from now, he'll be known in history books as the Father of the Commonwealth."
Despite everyone's constant sighing, all the generals were smiling.
"That was a fun winter."
"You can say that again. Though I almost died a dozen times during the rebellion."
"Us lowly nobles who no one had even heard of got a chance to make our names in a rebellion big enough to go down in history. What more could you ask for?"
"It really was a thrilling time. We were finally given the opportunity to prove our worth through our deeds." Lekomya scratched his head as he said that. "Though I suppose it's thanks to Lord Veight that we had that opportunity at all." His friends nodded, smiling wryly.
Just then, the door to the room opened and Empress Eleora walked in. The nobles got to their feet in unison and bowed to her. She gave them all a casual wave, and they sat back down.
"How many times do I have to tell you there's no need to stand on ceremony with me in this room?"
"We bow because we want to, Your Majesty," Lekomya said with a laugh. Eleora sat down at their table, and they turned their chairs to face her.
"How was Lady Friede, Your Majesty?" Lekomya asked her.
"Do you even have to ask? She looks like a defenseless little girl, but she's sharp as a tack. I have no doubt she'll accomplish great things in the future."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief at that.
"So exactly like we expected."
"I have to say, that's kind of a relief. It would have been stranger and far more worrying if Lord Veight had somehow failed in raising his daughter."
Eleora nodded in agreement. "Had Friede been a foolish girl, it would have been quite a problem for us."
"Don't tell me you would have invaded Meraldia again just over that?" one of the nobles asked, and Eleora shook her head.
"No, nothing so drastic. Meraldia has people from many different cultures living within it. Northern Meraldians, southern Meraldians, and demons all have their own customs and values. Keeping them united isn't easy." Eleora closed her eyes and organized her thoughts. "It will take...someone with exceptional skill to keep the various factions in Meraldia from turning against each other. Their diversity is their strength, but also their weakness."
She paused to take a deep breath.
"History has shown that often when a great leader dies, the empire they built dies with them. I was worried that if Meraldia's future leaders were not up to the task of continuing Veight's work, the nation might fall into civil war." Eleora opened her eyes and smiled at Lekomya. "Fortunately, it seems we won't have to worry about that. Friede isn't the only young Meraldian who shows promise."
She went on to explain what she'd heard about Shirin and Yuhette.
"Everyone who spoke with members of the Meraldian delegation mentioned how insightful the children were. From what I've heard, they're as knowledgeable and wise as our own academy's top students. Plus, they have an educational foundation in a wide variety of subjects."
"Then I suppose we don't have to worry about the Meraldian Commonwealth falling apart in the future. Meaning Rolmund will benefit greatly from forging a lasting alliance with Meraldia," Lekomya said happily.
"Precisely. Or so I believe, anyway. What do you all think?"
The other generals exchanged glances, then smiled at Eleora.
"It's as you say, Your Majesty."
"Besides, I wouldn't want to fight any country that has Lord Veight's help."
"It would be best if we could forge a lasting peace with our neighbors."
Eleora returned their smiles. "Splendid. With that settled, all that remains is to eliminate our opposition... The Hunters have found their prey."
The nobles' expressions turned grim. They got to their feet, looking far more imposing than would have seemed possible considering how they'd been lounging around a second ago.
"What are your orders, Your Majesty?" they asked in unison.
* * * *
After her audience with Eleora was over, Friede found herself face to face with her niece, Micha.
"Father interrupted us yesterday, but today you're free to talk, right?"
"Even if I wasn't, you'd stick around anyway, wouldn't you?"
"Yep," Micha said with a nod, and Friede resigned the thought of getting any rest. After that, Micha talked Friede's ear off.
"So then, my aunt came up with a way for slaves to become tenant farmers. In other words, a way for them to become free. Farmers need to pay yearly taxes though, and most slaves don't even seem to want to become tenant farmers."
"I-I see..."
"Do you think what my aunt did was necessary? I'm not sure myself."
"Well..."
This was Micha's true nature. She was a studious girl, and was burning with questions regarding the things she didn't understand. She also had her own hypotheses, but she liked hearing other people's reasoning as well. Most of her interest lay in politics, military affairs, and economics. Friede was pretty well-read for her age too, but her specialties were magic and science. She found politics and economics too complicated to be interesting. But while she didn't fully grasp the scope of Micha's questions, she was never one to back down from a challenge.
"Hmm..." She closed her eyes and tried to work her way through Micha's question.
After a while, she opened her eyes and explained the answer she'd come to.
"On the surface, it might look like what she did was pointless, but if you ask me, it was pretty important."
"Why's that?" Micha asked, leaning forward.
Friede cocked her head to one side and said, "It's hard to get motivated to do work someone else is forcing on you, isn't it? Like, it's no fun."
"It's...no fun?" Micha blinked in surprise. She hadn't considered it from that angle.
Argh, I need to word this better, or she'll think I'm an idiot, Friede thought, and hurriedly added, "If you're not motivated to do the work you're doing, you won't do a good job, or try as hard. For example, with farmwork, the more effort you put in, the more fertile your fields are. So if you're going to get someone to plow for you, they should be able to reap the benefits of their hard work. That way, they'll be more motivated."
Micha considered that for a few minutes, then replied, "Now that you mention it...you do have a point."
"Right?!"
Phew. I made it out of that without looking dumb. Friede heaved a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, her trials were only just beginning.
"So if farmers become more motivated, we'll be able to get greater yields from the same amount of land. It's one way of solving our food problems," Micha mused.
"Yep, yep."
"But won't that cause the class system to fall apart? Isn't society more stable because slaves stay slaves, nobles stay nobles, and commoners stay commoners?"
"Uhh..."
Friede had been hoping they could move on to a simpler, more girly topic, but Micha continued to grill her about Meraldia's class system, its food culture, and its agricultural techniques. Eventually, Friede couldn't take it anymore.
"C-Can't we do something else? Like, I dunno, get some exercise?"
"Oh, is that what you'd rather do?" Micha asked, a little disappointed. She'd been enjoying her Q&A time with Friede. But then she smiled, got to her feet, and held a hand out to Friede. "If that's what you want, I know just the place for you. Come on, come with me."
"Where are we going?"
Micha led Friede to the palace's parade grounds. The imperial guards used it to train whenever they weren't on duty. There was a shooting range in one corner of the grounds where people could practice shooting Blast Canes. Friede thought the guards would be surprised to see Micha there, but they just saluted and greeted her like she came here all the time. She probably does.
Micha took a Blast Cane from the guardsman on duty at the shooting range and flashed Friede a smile.
"You were carrying a Blast Cane with you when you rode into the capital, weren't you? You know, that tiny one on your waist?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. I took it off when we got to the palace, and I haven't worn it again since... How do you even know about that?"
"Agk!" Micha gulped and looked away, realizing she said something she shouldn't have.
Friede brought her face closer to Micha's and asked, "Did you see me before I got to the palace?"
"N-No, an imperial princess wouldn't dare sneak out of the castle to catch a glimpse of the delegation from Meraldia..."
Friede didn't even need to sniff Micha's scent to know she was lying. She looked into Micha's eyes for a few seconds, then laughed to herself.
"Well, it's fine, I don't mind. Anyway, those are the targets we're going to be shooting, right?"
"Yes. Feel free to aim for any of them. Those over there are half a bowshot away, the standard distance from which Rolmund infantry fires their first volley. And the ones way over there are for heavy infantry with bigger guns."
The targets were human-shaped, but their right sides were cut off. Usually, that was the section of the body protected by a tower shield, which in a real battle hitting that would basically be the same as a miss.
Micha hefted her Blast Cane and chanted a small incantation to pour mana into it. "I'm not a mage, but I've learned how to shoot. Watch."
She raised the weapon to her shoulder and took aim with practiced movements. She took a deep breath to steady herself, then pulled the trigger. A ball of light shot out, hitting the target square in the chest. Archers tried to avoid the chest since it was the most heavily armored part of a soldier, but plate mail barely even slowed down a bullet from a Blast Cane. For a gunman, the torso was the best spot to aim for, since it was the largest target on a human body, and the one that moved the least.
Micha turned her back to the destroyed target and smiled at Friede. "What do you think?"
"Wow, nice shot!" Friede exclaimed, clapping. She truly was impressed by Micha's impeccable aim. "I'm awful at actually hitting my targets, so I envy your steady aim."
"Hehe, I actually passed the same exam imperial snipers have to take. But I only scored high enough to be fourth class."
Friede didn't know how hard that exam was, but she figured it had to be pretty tough if Micha only scored high enough to be fourth class.
Micha handed her cane to Friede and said, "Rolmund's Blast Canes are top of the line, and they're pretty easy to use. You wanna give it a shot?"
"Ah, sure." Friede gingerly took the cane, a worried look flitting across her face. "I hope I don't break it..." she muttered.
"It's military-grade, you know? A weapon designed for war won't break that easily. It can handle a pretty large mana capacity too," Micha said with a reassuring smile, but Friede didn't look reassured.
"If you say so... Sorry in advance if I break it."
"On the off chance that you do, don't worry. I'm sure one of our technicians will be able to fix it."
"I see. All right, I'll give it a shot."
Relieved, Friede raised the cane and took aim.
"Hmm..." She wasn't confident she could hit a target that far out. Tasks that required precision were not her forte. Oh, I know what I can do.
The Blast Cane seemed to have a pretty large mana capacity, and Rolmund was the initial birthplace of the Meraldian Blast Rifle.
Careful to keep the flow of mana under control, Friede released the mana she had stored up. With all the magic training she'd had, controlling her mana was like second nature to her now. Once she'd put enough into the cane, she took aim as best she could and fired. A booming explosion of light filled the parade ground, and the nearby buildings shook.
"Aaaah!" Micha's scream was swallowed up by the sound of the explosion.
"What happened?!" one of the guards shouted.
"Protect the princess!"
Heedless of the danger to their own lives, the imperial guards ran towards Micha. Meanwhile, Friede looked utterly dejected.
"The Blast Ri—I mean the Blast Cane broke. No...I broke it." She looked down at the remnants of the Blast Cane lying on the floor. The barrel was so melted and twisted that it looked unrecognizable. Smoke wafted up from the end of the muzzle. Micha, who'd been knocked onto her butt, stared at it in shock. When the guards reached her, they did too.
"I-It broke?!"
"No, I'm the one who broke it. I'm sorry. I got carried away and put 20 kites of mana into it..."
Rolmund didn't use kites as a unit of measurement though, so no one understood what Friede meant. Still shocked, Micha and the guards turned to see what had happened to the target Friede had aimed at. All of the targets in the shooting range had been blasted to pieces. Shards of wood were embedded deep in the mud wall that protected the rest of the parade ground from stray bullets out of the shooting range.
"Wha..."
"She even destroyed the targets set up for the snipers..." the guard captain muttered, and Friede bowed her head in apology.
"I-I'm terribly sorry. Should I take this to the technician to get it—"
"You think that can be fixed?!" Micha shouted, pointing to the melted husk of the Blast Cane.
* * * *
Micha had known Friede wasn't a typical girl before Friede had even stepped foot into the capital. After all, she was the daughter of the legendary Astral Fencer. Micha had heard enough stories of Veight's heroics from her aunt that she knew Friede would be special as well. But she hadn't realized just how special Friede would be.
Why does she have so much mana? Is it because she carries the blood of a werewolf? It wasn't just her mana capacity either; Friede had an unbelievable amount of stamina as well. She's on a totally different level from us humans. Is there anyone in the Empire who could beat her in a head-to-head fight?
One thing Micha had begun to notice, though, was that it wasn't Friede's strength that made her amazing. It was the fact that she didn't boast about said strength. Furthermore, she didn't try to hide her weaknesses either. Friede made it clear to Micha that politics and economics weren't her strong suit, but she was still willing to engage in those discussions.
If it was me, I would have avoided those topics like the plague. Friede's very...accepting, I guess. She takes things as they come. But personally, I wouldn't be relaxed enough to do that if I was out in a foreign land. I'd be worried about maintaining my image and acting dignified as befitting a princess. I wouldn't be able to act naturally like Friede does. She doesn't care about her image at all, but it's not like she's looking down on people who do. Plus, she freely admits when she doesn't know something, and she does her best to learn more about it. She's...radiant, in a way.
Is this what a real leader looks like? Then again, she also does some pretty silly things from time to time. Like right now, she's bowing her head to the Imperial Guard despite them being commoners, and she's a princess. Of course, it's important for nobles to apologize to commoners when they do something wrong, but you have to go about it the proper way. Then again, it wouldn't feel right to see Friede giving a formal noble's apology with a casual smile. Yeah, she's definitely real weird. I don't know how I should act around her.
* * * *
At around the same time, far to the south in the demon capital Ryunheit, one man was preparing for a long journey.
"And with that, the werewolves are authorized to mobilize," I said, leaning forward over my bedside table and signing the memo. "Vodd and his friends are too old to go on extended expeditions, so I'll just send the younger men. Ten squads should be enough, anyway."
I crawled back into my bed, my friends' faces flitting through my mind. "Everyone's gotten on in age now," I muttered, and Airia sat up to give me a reproachful look.
"You say that like you haven't aged a bit. We've both gotten older too, you know?"
"Well, I have for sure. I died pretty early on in my past life, so I guess I've actually lived longer in this one now."
And if you combine the two lives, I'm basically a grandpa.
"But you still look as young as you did on the day I burst through your window," I said.
Airia blushed and gave me an embarrassed smile. "It only looks that way to you because our room is dark. My skin isn't as supple as it used to be. Whenever I look at Friede I'm reminded of how old I've gotten."
"You always say that, but I honestly can't see any difference..."
That wasn't flattery; I really couldn't tell that she'd aged.
"Maybe it's because of all the mana I possess," she mused.
"Could be," I said, sitting up as well. "We still don't fully understand how mana affects people, but we do know it can prolong life spans. Stored mana can erase fatigue and heal illnesses as well."
The demon army was actively conducting a variety of mana-related experiments on monsters to try and learn more. To a commoner, the experiments probably sounded inhumane—the kind of stereotypical thing villainous demons would do—but they were necessary for the advancement of science. Fortunately, there was a large supply of monsters in the demon forest that we could capture.
I stroked Airia's cheek, then my own. "It's true that skin sags with age, but neither of us look as old as we really are. My guess is our mana is keeping us young. It's the same way with monsters. The more mana a monster has, the longer its natural lifespan."
Suddenly, I realized I'd gotten off-track from what I'd originally been trying to say. I lay back down and muttered, "Anyway, umm...my point is you're still beautiful. Extremely beautiful."
"Thanks," Airia said with a wry smile. I hope this means I've matured a little compared to before.
She snuggled up close to me, and we looked up at the ceiling together.
After a few seconds, Airia muttered, "You'll be going again, won't you?"
"It's a top secret mission this time, and it's imperative I return as soon as possible. If I make it back after the diplomatic delegation, Friede'll figure out what I've done."
"If you're going all the way to Rolmund anyway, why not meet her?" Airia gave me a confused look. "You haven't seen Eleora or your other friends in Rolmund in a long time either."
"It'd be nice to tour Rolmund's restaurants with Friede, but I can't. She's doing her best to become independent. It'd ruin everything if I showed up in the middle of her trip."
Eventually, Friede would have to leave home and forge her own path in life. In this world, you were considered an adult in your teens, so for her, that time might come sooner than I would like. The best thing I could do was let her grow on her own so she'd be ready to face the challenges of independence.
"I do want to see whether or not North Rolmund's recovered, but eventually I'll have to go for an official visit anyway, so I'll be able to check then."
"I see... I suppose that's fair. I'll keep your mission a secret from Friede then."
"That's for the best, yeah. There's no need for a mere student to know about the council's secret dealings."
Sometimes keeping my public and private life separate ended up proving difficult, but I knew I needed to do it or the Commonwealth Council would end up going the way of the old Senate.
"Still, won't it be lonely? You won't ever be able to tell Friede that you were protecting her from the shadows."
"It's better if she doesn't know," I replied, waving away Airia's concerns. "Parents are like a stepping stool for their children. They need to be sturdy and steadfast, so the kids don't fall. But eventually, they have to leave the picture, so their kids can reach new heights all on their own."
You couldn't take a stepping stool with you everywhere. While it was important to rely on one at the start, eventually you had to learn to get where you wanted to go without one.
"My job is to leave a solid foundation for Friede to jump off of. But she should keep her gaze focused ahead, instead of at her feet."
"That's such a you thing to say," Airia said with a smile.
Besides, this is a mission for the council, not for Friede, I thought. Of course, I'd been given free rein in choosing the personnel for the mission, so I was still mixing private and public affairs a little bit.
"If Friede ever becomes a mother, she'll naturally come to realize all the things we did for her. It was only after I became a parent that I understood how much my mom went through to raise me," I said.
"That's certainly true. I feel like I understand my father...and even my mother a little more now that I'm one myself."
It's sad how by the time you want to repay your parents for everything they've done for you, a lot of the time they're already gone.
"Hopefully, Friede grows up quickly so I can retire soon. I really want to spend the rest of my days studying the ecology of the demon forest, and exploring the ruins of the old dynasty. Oh, and I want to help Master out with her magic research."
Airia gave me a pointed look and asked, "Do you really think you'll be able to retire that easily?"
"I guess not, huh?"
"You're not getting away from the Demon Lord just like that."
What a scary Demon Lord. It hadn't even been 20 years since the start of the Meraldian Commonwealth. Many problems instigated by the old regime still remained. It would probably take another 20 years before the nation was stable enough for me to retire. I'd need to live for quite a long time if I didn't want all the work I'd put in to go to waste. Screw it, guess I'm living to 100 after all.
We chatted for a bit longer, but eventually the conversation petered out.
"If we were responsible adults, we would go to sleep now, but..." I said with a smile, and Airia blushed. My smile grew wider. "Wow, I don't even have to finish my sentence."
Airia leaned her head against my chest and murmured, "I can easily tell what you're thinking by the way you smell."
"Since when did you become a werewolf?"
"Since I married one."
She blew out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.
The next morning, I left Ryunheit with 40 of my werewolves. We reached Krauhen in a few days, and took the secret tunnel north that led to Rolmund. The tunnel exited out into Fort Novesk, where a slew of familiar faces greeted me.
"Ya sure got handsome in the ten years since I last saw you," Volka, the leader of Rolmund's werewolves, said with a grin on her wrinkled face.
"I didn't think you'd still be alive, Volka."
"Bah, I won't kick the bucket that easily. Can't let these young'uns outdo me just yet."
At your age, I really think you'd be better off retired... Sadly, we didn't have time to catch up, as this mission was time-sensitive, and we had plans to discuss.
"No matter how many times we crush 'em, more idiots keep popping up."
"They keep trying because they believe they actually have a chance of succeeding. Either their intel or their analysis is wrong, but either way, they're sorely mistaken."
"And that's why I said they're a lot of idiots."
"Agreed."
Rolmund's werewolves had become Eleora's personal secret service, and over the past 10 years, they'd grown into one of the world's best spy forces. I'd read the reports they'd sent over for the current operation, and their efficacy scared even me. If I had to fight them again, I wasn't sure I could win.
"I came here to help you guys with your hunt, but from the looks of it, these guys would have been dead meat without me."
Volka and her men had already gathered more than enough information and drafted a meticulous plan. All that was left for us to do was help carry it out. In the previous wars I'd fought, I'd only come out ahead because my intelligence had always been superior to my foe's. But at this point, it was safe to say Rolmund's intelligence service was as skilled as Meraldia's, if not more. Any conflict between our two nations would be pretty evenly matched.
Seeing my expression, Volka grinned. "Nice to know even the fabled Black Werewolf King thinks we're doing a good job. Still, it'd be nice to have your help grilling this 'dead meat.'"
"Got it. I'll char them good for you."
It's been a long time since I last went on a hunt. I should take it slowly, just in case.
* * * *
A group of soldiers of unknown affiliation were camped out in the southern forests of West Rolmund, in Kastoniev territory.
"Has the delegation arrived?" one of the soldiers asked. Judging by how the other soldier saluted, he was of higher rank.
"No words from our scouts yet, sir."
A few of the more heavily armed soldiers exchanged glances.
"That's odd. According to our intel, they should be passing through here today."
"The sun's going to set soon. If they were coming today, they would have passed through here a long time ago."
"Did they slip past us somehow?"
"They might just be spending an extra night at Fort Novesk. Remember, our target is a civilian carriage. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not moving on an exact schedule."
Though these men bore no insignias or crests that could identify them, it was obvious by their expensive plate mail that they were nobles. A short distance away, 100 men with Blast Canes waited at the ready in the dim evening glow. There wasn't a single campfire despite the chill.
"It's dangerous to remain any longer. There's no telling when a lumberjack or a huntsman might pass through here. It's only a matter of time before Lord Kastoniev learns of our location."
"No risk is too great for a mission this important. If we can assassinate the Meraldian delegation, it'll be a huge blow to Eleora's reputation. Lord Kastoniev will be held responsible as well, since the assassination will have happened on his territory." The commanding officer's expression was grim. "Besides, we can't turn back now. We have express orders to kill at least one member of the delegation."
"We could kill a dozen of them if any of them actually showed up..."
"Yes, these Blast Canes can easily make short work of a few carriages. Don't forget how much time and effort it took to procure these tools, and men skilled enough to use them."
"I know. But if our target doesn't appear, no amount of snipers can help us."
An uneasy silence fell over the camp, and just as full night fell, a scout came running over.
"They're here! I saw a carriage flying Meraldia's flag!"
"Finally."
The soldiers breathed a collective sigh of relief. They were so eager to be out of here that they forgot to ask the scout for further details.
"Gunners, at the ready!"
The gunmen hurriedly formed into rows, and began marching towards the highway in formation. A row of carriages rolled down the highway, lamps hanging from their wagons. The Meraldian Commonwealth's flag fluttered in the cold breeze on all of them.
"Half-circle formation!" the commander called out, and the gunmen fanned out to the left and right, hiding behind trees or in bushes.
"The lead carriage is your primary target. The one at the end of the train is your secondary target. We must ensure they can't flee in either direction."
"Should we aim for the horses?"
"With wagons that big, it's easier to aim for the carriages themselves. As long as you shoot the wheels, the horses won't be able to pull them away."
The commander waited until the carriages were in range, then shouted, "Fire!"
Countless bullets of light shot through the night. There were so many of them, it looked like it was high noon in that short section of the highway. They slammed into the carriages with explosive force, shattering the wooden frames and wheels. Panicking, the horses and the coachmen tried to run.
"Keep shooting! Don't let up!"
"Are you sure? Shouldn't we at least confirm who we've killed before—"
"It doesn't matter who we got. So long as these carriages are flying Meraldia's flag, anyone dead inside them is worth something to us. Ignore the stragglers, we don't have much time."
Before long, all the carriages had been reduced to smoldering piles of wood, and almost all the horses had been slain. It looked like a group of giants had trampled over the travelers.
"Cease fire!" the commander shouted, and the deluge of bullets stopped.
The camouflaged nobles nodded to each other. The stench of charred wood and fresh blood filled the air.
"A perfect rout."
"I suppose we should at least inspect the bodies before retrieving them."
Just then, one of the soldiers shouted, "C-Captain! There's someone in there who's still alive!"
"What?!"
The nobles turned around, staring in disbelief at the wreckage. A single man was standing among the burning piles of wood. He looked completely unhurt. Though he was alone and looked unarmed, the nobles didn't hesitate.
"Kill him," the commander ordered, and a volley of bullets hurtled towards the man.
That amount of firepower was overkill for a single human. But as the bullets neared the man, they blinked out of existence instead of exploding. He stepped out of the barrage unharmed.
"Wh-What the..."
"I don't know what's going on, but keep shooting!"
Upon discovering bullets didn't work, the logical thing to do would be to order the knights to draw their swords and engage, but the commander's instincts told him getting close to that man would be a mistake.
"Call the cavalry over!"
A ripple of fear ran through the soldiers, but they continued shooting as ordered. This time, a dozen or so actually connected, but the man brushed them off like they were nothing.
"Damned terrorists," he growled in an intimidating voice. Before anyone could reply, he transformed.
"What is that?!"
"A-A werewolf?!"
The man had turned into a large black werewolf, and was now rushing towards the line of gunmen. In an angry voice, he howled, "If you're so eager to kill others, then you have no right to complain about someone killing you!"
"Hey, don't stop! Keep shooting!"
The gunmen dumped all of their remaining mana into their rifles and fired. The bullets swirled around the werewolf in a whirlwind of light before being absorbed into him. None of them so much as singed his fur.
"Our Blast Canes aren't working?!"
"Retreat! What's taking our cavalry so long?!"
Before the commander could take a single step, the werewolf bared his fangs and let out an explosive howl. A pure shock wave of sound tore through the soldiers.
"Ngh?!"
The soldiers cowered in fear, but then a second later they collapsed to the ground, blood pouring from their eyes and noses.
"Wha—" the commander muttered, unaware that the soldiers around him were dying in droves.
He himself had only barely survived the sound shock wave, and he crawled across the ground, trying to reach safety. The howl had blinded him somehow, and he didn't know which direction his allies were in. Where did that monster go? Just as he thought that, he heard footsteps approaching him. A wolf's footsteps. He steeled himself for death, but then the earth began to rumble. The cavalry's here! he thought, squeezing out the last of his strength to try and reach them. Still blind, he waved at what he believed was his cavalry, and died.
* * * *
"We've taken care of the cavalry. That should be all of them, Lord Veight," one of the young werewolves from Volka's pack said as he sliced through the rebel commander's throat.
I canceled my transformation and looked around. Though I felt bad about the slaughter, these men were terrorists who'd been planning on attacking Meraldia's diplomatic delegation. Even if I'd captured them alive, Eleora would have just ordered them executed.
My werewolves started congregating around me. They'd been keeping an eye on the surroundings to make sure no innocents got wrapped up in the fight, or saw anything they weren't supposed to. A few of them had also served as the carriage drivers. They shook their heads as they looked around at the wreckage and the corpses.
"Blegh, what a mess."
"Who blew up that carriage? Was it the boss?"
"Nah, the wood's all burnt, so it was probably the Blast Canes. Can't believe you got out of that without a scratch on you, Veight."
I mean, those things can't hurt me, be it a Rolmund or Meraldian one. I also had used arrow-deflecting magic, so I was pretty well outfitted against ranged attacks.
Volka sauntered over to me, a group of young apprentices trailing behind her.
"The hell happened? Did you use magic or something to kill 'em?"
I shook my head and replied, "A werewolf's howl originally had the power to kill. I just enhanced it with a bit of extra mana."
Werewolf howls were like debuffs that just happened to be potentially fatal. And I'd been honing my Soul Shaker for decades now. Of course, to get Soul Shaker to this level, you needed to study both necromancy and strengthening magic. You also needed a comprehensive understanding of human biology, so you could tune your howl to a wavelength that was fatal to human ears. Basically, this was a skill only I could use. And even if I could explain the underlying principles to someone else, they wouldn't be able to truly master it. At best, I'd be able to write a paper describing the theory behind it.
Actually, I guess a half-werewolf like Friede might be able to learn this skill...though I don't think I'd want to teach it to her. I put that out of my mind for now and focused on the problem at hand.
"All right, let's bury the bodies," I said, and Volka shrugged.
"Do they even deserve a burial? They tried to kill your daughter and comrades—in an underhanded ambush, no less. Scum like these should be fed to the buzzards."
She had a point. Nonetheless, I replied, "Corpses can't cause anyone any harm. Plus, I don't want to leave them out here for someone to discover. It'll just cause problems for Lord Kastoniev."
Rolmundians were superstitious, so they might start thinking his lands were cursed or something. Just then, a human messenger galloped over to us on horseback.
"Lord Veight, Lady Volka, I come bearing a report! Her Majesty Eleora has begun marching on the estates of the traitors Count Olfsei and Baron Banya!"
Volka chuckled when she heard that. "Looks like we've won. That was easier than hunting a boar."
To werewolves, boars were considered elementary prey, but the saying probably sounded weirder to humans, since boars were an actual threat to them.
"I can't believe there are still nobles who think they can beat Eleora."
"They've spent so much time lording over their tiny domains that they misjudge their strength. Rolmund's been at peace for so long they've forgotten how dangerous the empress is."
You call putting down rebellions every few years "at peace"? This is why Rolmund's such a scary country.
"But hey, more rebels is a good thing for us since it means Eleora can add more land to her family's holdings," Volka added.
There were so many nobles in Rolmund that Eleora actually preferred some of them rebelling against her on occasion so she could cull their numbers. I see even under her rule this empire's as violent as always.
"Anyway, with this, Meraldia's delegation should be safe enough. I'll be counting on you to guard them when they start making their way back, Volka."
"You have my word. But you sure you wanna go home so soon? Not even gonna meet with Eleora?"
"I'd like to, but I don't want anyone to find out that I'm in Rolmund," I replied. Especially not my daughter. "I'll just go back and return to my paperwork like a boring ol' vice-commander."
"Yeah, 'boring,'" Volka said with a sardonic smile. "Well, I guess our lives have gotten pretty boring since the rebellion too. It's nice finally being able to relax."
As she turned to leave, one of the young boys standing behind Volka spoke up. "U-Umm, Commander General Veight, sir!"
"I'm not actually a general, you know? My nicknames have a lot of titles attached to them, that's all."
"M-M-M-My apologies, Lord Councilor Veight?!"
"That makes me sound way too important. You can just call me Veight, honestly."
The young boy nodded enthusiastically and said, "Umm, my name is Joshua! Great-grandmother has told me the stories of your battles in Rolmund!"
Wait, this kid is Volka's great-grandson?
"I want to be the world's strongest werewolf, just like you! Please make me your disciple! I'll do my best to learn magic and fighting and everything else!"
"Whoa, hold your horses. You're part of Rolmund's werewolf pack, aren't you? That makes you one of Eleora's men." It'd be a diplomatic problem if I took him home with me.
Volka snickered and said, "He's still an apprentice, so he hasn't formally joined the squad that reports to Eleora. Technically, he's a civie. He's been pining for Meraldia since he learned how to talk."
"Quit grinning and help me out here. Your great-grandson's going to run off to Meraldia if you don't do something."
"It's high time he left the nest anyway. He's free to choose which pack he wants to run with." Volka really didn't seem to care where her great-grandson went. She added, "There's a few other young'uns who want to go train in Meraldia. Mind taking them too? You can think of it as part of our cultural exchange with you guys."
"Mrrrgh..." I grunted. When you put it like that, I can't really argue back.
Joshua looked me in the eyes and raised a fist into the air. "I want to be a legendary hero so I can protect great-grandma when she gets too old to fight!"
"Mrrrrrrrrgh."
Dammit, what now? I could tell Volka really wanted me to take these kids in. You're too soft on your great-grandkids, you know that? Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to argue her down, but maybe I could scare her great-grandson off.
"Just so you know...my training's going to be tough."
"That's fine!"
"You won't have your friends and family to rely on in a foreign land. Are you still sure you want to come?"
"Absolutely! Great-grandma said that'll help make me stronger!"
Crap, you're hell-bent on sending them off to learn in Meraldia, aren't you? Fine. You win.
"All right. But you're going to have to learn academic subjects and magic on top of learning how to fight."
"Of course, Master!"
Oh god, the time's finally come where people are calling me "Master." I'm not sure I'm ready for this. And so, I headed back to Meraldia with one extra werewolf in tow. It feels like I've become a full-time teacher since I helped bring peace to Meraldia...
* * * *
"I understand how significant it is that I can meet with you again here in Rolmund, which used to hunt down all demons who entered its borders," Kurtz said, lowering himself into a sofa. "However, I am neither a politician nor a priest, so I cannot say I personally am terribly moved. I'm afraid I'm an engineer and a scholar through and through."
Eleora smiled at him and replied, "The way you speak reminds me so much of my old self. It's embarrassing."
"I must admit, you have become a lot more...human since I last saw you, Your Majesty," Kurtz said bluntly.
"Ahahaha." Eleora's laughter echoed through the tiny parlor. She nodded and said, "It wasn't easy. I used to be an ignorant girl who only cared about theories and hypotheses. But I soon learned you couldn't navigate the intricate landscape of human society with just logic and academic knowledge."
"Humans are very illogical creatures, it's true. Or rather, it would be more apt to say that they often let their emotions rule them."
"Indeed. But it's pointless to pontificate on whether that aspect of our nature is good or bad. For better or worse, I am human, and I need to live in human society."
When she'd been Veight's captive, Eleora had gotten to know Kurtz and the other engineers in the demon army. She'd found their logical nature to her liking, and had become good friends with all of them. Which was why she could speak so frankly with Kurtz despite seeing him for the first time in a decade.
Curious, Kurtz asked, "So now that you've learned to navigate the 'intricate landscape of human society,' how do you find it?"
"Honestly, dealing with other people all the time is tiring. But it's also a lot of fun." Smiling, Eleora took a sip of her black tea. "Still, I think I'd prefer to be born a dragonkin in my next life. A life dedicated to research in the demon army sounds perfect for someone like me."
"If you do get reincarnated as a dragonkin, I'll be sure to look after your tutelage. It will be an honor to train you into a master academic, as you are in this life."
Kurtz nodded solemnly, and it was hard to tell if he was joking or not. Eleora still had trouble reading dragonkin expressions. I know Veight said they could be quite expressive once you learned to spot the subtle changes in their expression, but he spent a lot more time with them than I have...
"By the way, Sir Kurtz, I think I can hazard a guess, but why did you ask for a private audience?"
"Feel free to hazard that guess."
"It's related to the Doneiks family, isn't it? I know how kindhearted your Black Werewolf King is. He probably wanted you to ask for Woroy and Ryuunie's sakes."
Kurtz nodded. "Indeed, Your Majesty."
"I'll get this out of the way first, but I'm afraid I cannot rescind their exile. It was only by exiling them that I could get their crime of rebellion forgiven. Not even the empress has the authority to overturn the rule of law."
"I am aware," Kurtz replied with a nod. "However, the two of them are influential members of Meraldia's government now. It's possible they may have to travel to Rolmund for official business."
"I figured you'd say that," Eleora said with an impish grin. "It's true that if they were to come as official Meraldian delegates, I wouldn't be able to turn them away. If, during their visit, they said they would like to see North Rolmund, I would have to acquiesce, of course. It wouldn't do to refuse a request from a Meraldian diplomat."
In truth, Eleora would be well within her rights to refuse them, but she was fond of Ryuunie and Woroy. Though they'd fought on opposite sides during the rebellion, they were still her relatives. Over ten years had passed since the Doneiks Rebellion too, so she didn't see the problem in making a few concessions for them.
"The imperial family has confiscated all of the Doneiks family's assets and land, which means it is up to my discretion whether or not a Meraldian diplomat is allowed to visit the region, or perhaps buy some property there."
"That's very generous of you, Your Majesty."
"I'm not doing this out of generosity, I'm doing this because it's one of the few ways I can pay Veight back."
Dragonkin were wise, but they didn't understand the subtleties of human society.
Kurtz adjusted his glasses and nodded. "Still, thank you. I'm sure Veight will be glad to hear the good news."
"I owe Veight a massive debt. And it's one I can't repay in public because it will bring some unfortunate truths to light. So instead, I'm repaying it bit by bit under the table by doing things like this." Eleora took another sip of tea. "Veight has already discovered why North Rolmund's agricultural production was declining year after year. I'm a novice when it comes to agricultural science, so I never would have guessed that the water quality of the rivers would affect the soil."
"It certainly was a brilliant deduction. I've heard that the nutrients deposited by the Mejire River are what make the southern nation of Kuwol so fertile as well. It seems rivers play an even bigger part in agriculture than we realized."
"Hmm, fascinating. I wish I could leave the throne behind and go to Kuwol to investigate." Eleora was half-joking, but still. "The problem is that while the late Lord Doneiks's waterworks project impacted river quality, it also helped prevent flooding in much of the region. If we return the river to its original flow path, the villages will flood once more."
"It sounds like a rather difficult situation."
"Indeed. For now, the empire has been providing fertilizer to North Rolmund free of charge to help keep its annual yields steady."
Eleora was currently trying to find a way to keep the river in North Rolmund from flooding while allowing it to go down its original route, but it was a massive engineering project that would take a few years to complete.
"We've also started planting knight lilies everywhere people are tilling soil. Not only do they improve soil fertility, but we know that if they flower blue in spring, the land is safe to plant on."
"I see, so you're using them as a litmus test."
"That's another idea we got from Veight. They're so ubiquitous now that farmers have taken to calling Knight Lilies the 'knights of the field.' If possible, I'd like it if you could send a team of agricultural inspectors to see if there are any other improvements we can make. It won't do if the team is comprised solely of Meraldians, so be sure to include a few members who know North Rolmund quite well."
That was Eleora's way of unofficially inviting Ryuunie and Woroy back to Rolmund. Kurtz nodded and replied, "Thank you for the invitation. Lord Woroy and Ryuunie will be most overjoyed."
"Oh, you don't call him 'Lord Ryuunie'?"
"Right now he is my pupil. It would be strange for me to refer to him as 'Lord Ryuunie.' But of course, as his teacher, it's only natural to do what I can for him."
"Naturally. Remember, you are neither a politician nor a diplomat, and this is not a formal negotiation between Meraldia and Rolmund. We're simply discussing private affairs that have no bearing whatsoever on international politics."
"Correct. And because this is just a private discussion, had you refused my request, it would have had no negative impact on diplomatic relations between our countries."
"So this was all part of Veight's calculations, huh?"
"He does his best to give everyone as much freedom as possible. But he's also one of Ryuunie's teachers, so I'm sure he would like it if his pupil could return home."
Eleora smiled at that. "Nice to know Ryuunie's well-loved in Meraldia as well."
"Absolutely. Everyone has nothing but praise for him."
"I see. As far as the imperial family is concerned, his father is seen as a rebel who nearly toppled the Empire, but it's good to know he still taught his son well."
Trust in the Doneiks family still ran deep in North Rolmund, but even the family's staunchest defenders didn't think kindly of the late Prince Ivan. His rebellion had destroyed the Doneiks family and its supporters after all. Fortunately, it seemed Ryuunie had inherited his father's will, and was flourishing in Meraldia.
"I can only hope my niece has even an ounce of his wisdom..." Eleora muttered.
"Do you have no intention of marrying, then?"
Another human would have hesitated to ask something so personal, but dragonkin were known for their bluntness. Questions were simply questions, nothing more. There was no judgment or cultural baggage or mind games attached; they simply asked things out of curiosity.
Eleora scratched her head awkwardly and said, "I'm not terribly interested in being a wife—or a mother, for that matter. Being empress is taxing enough as it is, and I have no intention of delegating my responsibilities to others. I wouldn't be able to handle the extra effort family life would require."
"I see. As a fellow bachelor, I can understand that."
"Besides, if I died in childbirth, the Empire would fall into chaos. Getting pregnant is just too much of a risk."
"There was quite a stir when our Demon Lord had complications with her birth, so I can't say your fears are unfounded."
"Fortunately for her, she had the greatest vice-commander in the world by her side. I'm envious." Eleora rested her chin on her hands and pouted.
After a brief silence, Kurtz cocked his head and asked, "Was that last question rude? I've been trying to learn more about human customs."
"Definitely. I wouldn't recommend asking anyone else that. And since you had the gall to ask, I guess I'll send that question right back at you. Why aren't you married, Kurtz?"
"Because I can already tell that I'd neglect my wife and kids to focus on my research. Just like you, family life isn't for me."
The two of them fell silent again, but it was a comfortable silence.
After a while, Eleora said, "We're probably better off being a doting aunt and uncle to our nieces and nephews, huh?"
"Now those are words of wisdom."
"Hahahahaha." Eleora laughed heartily, while Kurtz's lips curled up almost imperceptibly. But for a dragonkin, that was as good as raucous laughter.
Just then, a loud explosion rocked the palace.
"Hm?" Kurtz muttered.
"That explosion was laced with mana," Eleora said in a surprised voice.
"So it was."
The two of them went over to the window and looked down at the courtyard. Micha and Friede were sitting on the ground, a single Blast Cane in their hands. The two girls stared at it dumbfounded for a second before coming to their senses and wildly looking around. They then looked up and saw Eleora and Kurtz.
"Oh, hello, auntie! Sorry, this was my fault! I noticed something wrong with Friede's shooting posture at the range, so I was trying to help her fix it!"
"No, it's my fault! I ended up accidentally channeling too much mana again!"
Both girls tried to cover for each other, and then got mad when the other did it.
"You stay quiet, Friede! This is my house, so we'll get off lighter if we make it my fault!"
"But that's wrong, Micha! A future empress shouldn't be lying to people!"
"Sometimes a leader has to do the wrong thing for the right reasons!"
"If not even the empress is fair and forthright, how will the people trust any of their leaders?!"
Kurtz stared calmly down at the two girls.
"I see Lady Micha has been teaching our Friede how to shoot."
"Yep. And it looks like Micha forgot to switch on the safety, and Friede instinctively poured too much mana into the rifle."
A group of imperial guards silently formed around Eleora, on alert because of the explosion. Eleora turned to them and said, "That was almost certainly a Blast Cane misfire. See if Micha and Friede are injured, and if they aren't, please bring the two of them here. I'm going to give them a nice long lecture on weapon safety."
"Yes, ma'am."
Once they were gone, Eleora sighed. "They're almost adults, so I wish they'd act with a bit more prudence. I guess when it comes to childcare specifically, the Eleora-Veight alliance still pales in comparison to the Doneiks forces."
"Agreed. When we return home, I will need to assign Friede supplementary lessons," Kurtz said with a nod, sighing to himself. "She takes after her father in both the good and the bad."
* * * *
"Phew. I thought that was going to go a lot worse," Micha said, and she and Friede both let out sighs of relief.
"It's not every day you get scolded by the empress of a neighboring country," Friede said with a weak smile.
"It shouldn't happen any day, let alone every day," Micha replied in a tired voice, but then a second later her expression brightened up. "You know, you got really lucky. Normally, your whole family would be executed for a stunt like that."
"Really? I guess we should be thanking my luck then."
"Seriously?"
"I'm kidding."
The two girls meticulously checked over the safeties of their armaments as they walked through the backyard.
"But you know, Micha..."
"What?"
"During that lecture, Her Majesty taught us how to properly maintain our weapons and aim and all that, right?"
"Yeah. It felt like her lecture went on for hours..."
"In that case, wasn't this a good thing? I mean, she's the inventor of the Blast Cane, right? So we got a personal lesson on how to use them from their inventor." Smiling, Friede patted the pistol holstered at her hip. "Unlike arrows, the light bullets don't fall from gravity, so it's important to always aim a little upwards when firing in an open space. When you think about it, that's obvious, but Her Majesty must have been really smart to figure it out on her own."
"I suppose... I never imagined the safety feature was this important either. I always thought shooting accurately was all that mattered."
The two of them were still children, so they hadn't realized the value of the safety feature. But thanks to Eleora's lecture, they had a better understanding of their weapons now.
"Hey, Micha, what do you wanna do now? Won't we get yelled at if we keep wandering around the palace?"
"Fear not. Having accidentally put my guest in an uncomfortable spot, it's the host's duty to make up for it, and I know just the thing."
Micha smiled confidently, climbing up the walls of the palace and slipping through the fence meant to keep people from falling off.
"See, if you're small enough, you can fit through the bars here. I'll give you a tour of the whole capital city."
"But we'll get scolded again if we leave!" Friede said in protest, but she still jumped up and followed after Micha.
"Ehehehe, I don't even care if they scold us anymore... Rolmund's sweets are the best."
"See, what did I tell you?"
Micha had taken Friede on a tour around all of Originia's best sweets shops. They were all famous enough that their goods were in high demand within the palace as well.
"You can't eat them while they're fresh in the palace. Well, sometimes the pastry chefs get called in to bake for the nobles or the empress personally, but usually you can't get them fresh."
Micha split a baumkuchen with Friede, who gobbled it down with gusto.
"But Micha—err, I mean Misia, is it really okay to go out in the city like this?"
"Of course it's fine. I'm Misia the apprentice maid, it makes sense that I'd go out on errands."
"Dressed like that?"
Micha's dress was styled after the imperial army's officer uniform, and it was clear that she belonged to a rich noble family.
The young waitress who brought the two girls their tea smiled at Friede and said, "'Apprentice Maid Misia' comes here once a month. Don't worry; it's quite safe."
"Hey, telling other people about the private lives of the imperial family is a violation of special imperial law forty-three, article two!" Misia exclaimed.
Friede gave her an exasperated look and said, "But you aren't a member of the imperial family, you're an apprentice maid."
The waitress chuckled and bowed to the two girls. "Precisely. Now would you like to try our newest item, Miss Apprentice Maid?"
"Y-Yes, please," Micha said with a nod. It was clear to Friede that the people here knew her true identity, but continued pretending like the façade hadn't been blown for Micha's sake.
Is it really okay to be burdening the people of this restaurant with the responsibility of making sure nothing happens to you? Friede mused.
"Hey, Micha."
"I told you, call me Misia when we're out."
"Well, that doesn't really matter at this point. Anyway, aren't you causing problems for the people who work here by coming without guards? Is it even okay for a princess to walk around the city by herself like this?" Friede thought back to the time she'd tried to take on a bunch of bad guys all by herself.
Micha took a sip of her tea and waved her hand dismissively.
"Don't worry, the empress and my father both know I do this, and they don't mind. I make sure to pay for what I eat, and I do actually have guards nearby." She pointed out of the window with her fork. "Granny Volka's people patrol the three main districts around the palace. They're the imperial family's elite spies, and they're just like your father. You probably can't spot them because they're good at staying discreet, but they're out there."
"You mean they're werewolves?"
"Yep. See, we're safe."
In that case, we probably are fine here. The conversation moved on to the topic of food, and the two girls excitedly discussed their favorite sweet toppings.
"Now then, how about we stop by a perfume store on our way back?"
Friede shook her head and replied, "I'm still too young for perfume. Besides, my nose is sensitive, so I don't like places with too many different smells."
Micha smiled and said, "If you don't want any, how about you buy some as a present for your mother? It's pretty fun smelling different types of perfume, you know."
"Well...I guess that's not a bad idea."
By nature, werewolves had an obsession with new and unfamiliar scents. And getting a souvenir for Airia did seem like a good idea to Friede.
The two of them went out onto the main street and entered a large store. A group of uniformed employees came out to greet the two girls, and "Apprentice Maid Misia" talked to them like they were her subjects. Friede couldn't help but sigh as she watched the imperial manner in which Micha comported herself.
"You could at least try to act more like a servant," she muttered to herself. Though Friede had a better understanding of the games adults played now. Everyone pretended like Micha was Misia even when she didn't act like it, so that they would have plausible deniability if anything happened. They knew the empress had guards patrolling the main streets outside the palace as well, and they knew that having a princess be a regular at their store would bring them prestige. It was a win-win situation for everyone.
So Friede stopped worrying too much about Micha's flimsy façade, and focused on smelling the different perfumes. There were a variety of floral, fruity, herbal, and earthy scents. The plant-based perfumes smelled nice to Friede, but they didn't trigger that primal werewolf part of her brain in any way. There was one specific scent that did excite her though. It was a sharp, sweet perfume sitting in the corner of the shop.
"Excuse me, but what scent is this?" Friede asked one of the store clerks.
"It's ice tiger essence, miss. It's made by refining the intestines of the legendary Ice Tiger monster and is quite rare. However..."
"However, what?"
The store clerk smiled at Friede. "The truth is, these days the perfume is made from Sea Tiger intestines instead of Ice Tiger. There are so few Ice Tigers left in Rolmund that you'll be lucky to even find one some years. Sea Tigers are similar enough that their scent isn't much different. They're ferocious beasts that live in the ocean."
"I guess that's why they're the tigers of the sea?"
Had Veight been present, he would have realized the creatures the clerk was referring to as Sea Tigers were similar to the sea hares back on Earth, but Friede had no such knowledge.
"Yes. They live only in the frigid seas to the north. I've never seen one myself, but I hear they don't look very much like actual tigers. At this store, we only import the very best Sea Tigers slain by huntsmen in North Rolmund for our perfumes."
While the two of them were talking, an oddly dressed man descended from the second floor of the shop. He didn't look like he belonged here at all.
"If you wanna know about Sea Tigers, you should talk to me, Meraldian missy."
He had a long beard, looked to be in his 40s, and was wearing a fur cape. There was a machete belted at his waist, and a heavy leather bag slung over his shoulder. His face was covered in scars. From his appearance, he looked like a commoner from some rural village, but there was something about the way he held himself and the way he talked that invoked a feeling of an upper-class upbringing.
Panicking, the store clerk ran up to him and said, "Ah, you can't just come out into the shop, Mr. Karankov! We've talked about this before!"
"Oh, what's the big deal? I just wanna tell her about Karankov, the Sea Tiger hunter. It'll be a story she can tell her folks back home."
Karankov made his way to Friede, deftly weaving between the display cases.
"Fine, do whatever you want." The store clerk sighed to herself. "It's not like we can kick you out, since our perfumer will throw a fit if we lose your business."
"Mr. Karankov's the only one who manages to bring Sea Tiger intestines that don't have the usual fishy smell..." another clerk muttered. From the sound of it, the employees were used to this Karankov fellow's eccentric behavior.
He plopped himself down on a chair and started regaling Friede with his tale: "So, Sea Tigers are these fiends that live in the frozen seas to the north. They hide between cracks in the ice, waiting for unsuspecting prey to walk by. Once they've found their mark, they leap out and drag them into the freezing water."
"Yikes," Friede said with a shiver, and Karankov laughed.
"There's no land animal that can beat a Sea Tiger in the water. But they've got one big weakness."
"What's that?"
"They gotta get on land to catch their prey. And they're way slower on the ground. So the way to lure them out is to wrap some animal skins around a pole and wave it over ice cracks."
"Ah!"
"I see you've figured it out already. That's right, the dumb brute'll bite the stick and you can pull it up. They're stubborn as all hell, so they'll jump up onto land to try and drag the bait back in. Once you've got them on the ice, all it takes is one good hit to the stomach with a harpoon and they're down." Karankov made a throwing motion with his hands. "But it's not like they're totally defenseless out of the water. They know how to slide around on the ice, and they're as big as bears. If they manage to hit you with their fins or tail, they'll send you flying."
"They sound like tough prey to bring down!"
"You bet. Also, if you wanna get good-quality intestines, you can't stab them there. You can't use poison either, it'll ruin their organs. If they start thrashing about, you gotta aim for the heart, which is up and to the right of the stomach, here. It's not easy, though, which is why you wanna go for the stomach first."
Karankov went on to explain that Sea Tiger pelts, blubber, meat, and bones were already sold for a pretty high price, so most hunters didn't bother to make sure the intestines remained intact. "If you do manage to harvest the intestines, though, they make for good medicine and perfume. The guys here actually let me have the Ice Tiger perfume that doesn't sell, which is nice since you don't get to take too many baths when you're hunting."
"Hmm, but this perfume doesn't— Huh?"
While she was talking, Friede noticed that Karankov was giving off the distinctive scent of a liar. The smell was faint, and there was no hostility in it. Humans often smelled like this when they were trying to hide something about their true feelings or personality. Whatever it was, the man in front of her was hiding something. The smell of a lie actually smelled a lot like the perfume made from Sea Tigers did, which was why it had taken her so long to notice. Friede was curious what he was hiding from her, but she knew just asking straight up wouldn't get her any answers, so she decided to be discreet about it.
"It sounds like a tough life, hunting Sea Tigers."
"Well, yes, the sea is a harsh mistress. Whether that's a sea of ice or a sea of people." Karankov flashed her a grin. Something in his tone shifted subtly when he said that, but Friede couldn't quite place it.
Before she could puzzle out the difference, Karankov added, "It's nice to get a present for your mum, but don't forget to get something for your dad too. Here, take this."
Karankov handed her an animal bone and what looked like a leathery rope.
"That's a Sea Tiger bone and dried Sea Tiger intestine. You can boil it to make medicine, but knowing that man, he'll probably dissect it and study it."
"Oh yeah, he probably would... But wait, how do you know what my dad's like, mister?"
Karankov's expression and tone shifted again as he said, "Well you see, Lord Veight helped me out of a very tight spot in the past. If you tell him you met a man by the name of Karankov, he'll know who you're talking about."
"I feel like everywhere I go there are people my dad knows. It doesn't even feel like I'm in a foreign country right now," Friede said with a sigh, and Karankov laughed.
"It must be tough being the daughter of the continent's greatest legend. What's your name, miss?"
"Friede. Friede Aindorf. Also, wait, how do you know I'm Veight's daughter?"
Karankov lowered his voice and whispered, "If a girl with a Meraldian accent is hanging out with the crown princess, she's probably someone of high standing. Also, your kind eyes, striking black hair, and the way you carry yourself all remind me of him. Anyone who knows Lord Veight and doesn't recognize you immediately has ice for eyes."
Karankov's rough voice had become more refined, more posh. The way he sat had changed as well, and Friede would have to be both blind and deaf not to figure out that he was a nobleman in disguise.
Before she could ask who he really was though, Karankov got to his feet and said, "Now then, it's about time I returned to hunting beasts on the icy seas! My beautiful wife and three cute sons are waiting for me at home too! I'm going to need to train them up to be better hunters than me!"
"U-Umm—"
If a nobleman was making his living hunting on the northern seas, he was almost certainly an exiled lord. Friede knew she had to be careful about what she said, but if he really was an old friend of her father's, she felt like she had to speak up.
However, Karankov just shook his head at her and said, "I'm having the time of my life right now. Everyone around me's a friend, and I don't have to worry about getting stabbed in the back. The only people I have to protect now are my family, and I'm free to live my life however I please."
"O-Okay?"
"You probably don't understand just how liberating it is to be free to choose your own path yet, but you will someday." Karankov gave her a gentle smile.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13_3.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
"It's all thanks to your dad that I have what I do right now. When you get home, tell him this: 'The fox of Karankov is living peacefully with his wife and kids beneath the shimmering stars of the north. Thank you for everything.'"
"I will," Friede said with a solemn nod. She didn't understand the meaning behind the words, but she could tell they were important.
Just then, Micha called out to her from another part of the store. "Friede, does this aoyashis perfume smell like the actual fruit? I heard they only grow in Meraldia."
"Wait, I love aoyashis, let me come smell it!"
Friede turned back to say goodbye to Karankov before running off, but he was nowhere to be found.
"Aaaaah."
Friede collapsed on her bed with a content sigh. The bed in her guest room was massive, and she could roll over five times before getting from one end to the other. She opted to roll over just three and a half times before turning around and rolling back to her original position though.
"Aaaaaaaaah."
This time there was a bit of lethargy mixed in with her sigh.
"I'm so boooooored."
She'd told herself she wouldn't utter those words aloud while in Rolmund, but she couldn't help herself.
A few days earlier, they'd gotten a letter from home telling them to remain in Rolmund for a little while longer and mingle with the local nobles, so their departure had been postponed. There was a flurry of activity in the palace as well, and Eleora had left the capital on urgent business. Her absence was why Friede had nothing to do. The other members of the delegation were taking this opportunity to get to know Rolmund and its people better.
The principal of Rolmund's military academy had taken a liking to Shirin, and he was currently taking lessons there. He'd left early in the morning today and likely wouldn't return until late at night. Yuhette was traveling to Wiron Library, which apparently housed a lot of important documents of the Sonnenlicht faith. It also had a lot of newer books as well, and Yuhette was looking forward to spending some time there reading. Which left Friede alone with nothing to do.
I wish I could practice my shooting, or my hand-to-hand combat skills, but... After the explosion the other day, Kurtz had told her to refrain from messing with magic tools while in Rolmund. She thought back to the conversation she'd had with him.
"Friede, why must you always blow everything up?"
"But professor, this is the first time I've blown anything up..."
"Oh, so it is. Sorry, my mistake. You just remind me so much of your father that I accidentally conflated his sins with yours."
Gazing up at the ceiling Friede thought, What kinds of stuff did you blow up here, dad? She couldn't imagine her mild-mannered father blowing up anything. For a while, Friede just rolled around her bed sighing to herself, which helped alleviate the boredom a little.
As boring as this is, I know it's probably a bad idea to cause a scene right now. All the activity in the palace, plus the fact that Meraldia had asked them to delay their return, made it obvious that something was afoot. Friede had a vague inkling that causing a stir right now would only make everyone's lives more difficult, so she was lying low.
As she was rolling around, she heard a knock at her door. But it was from her side parlor door instead of the main door that connected to the hallway. As an honored guest of the palace, her guest room came with a separate parlor. There was even a room to house any servants she might have brought, and a storage room.
"Coming!"
She hurried over to the door and pulled it open to find Micha on the other side.
Micha gave Friede a worried look and asked, "Friede, are you bored?"
"Extremely," Friede said bluntly, and Micha chuckled.
"I thought so. Shirin and Yuhette are both gone, and you look like a snowman at the start of spring."
"I look like I'm melting?" Friede had been trying not to wear her heart on her sleeve, but she clearly hadn't been doing a very good job of it.
Micha sauntered into the room and put a book on top of the table. It wasn't very big, but it hit the table with a heavy thud. Friede's curiosity was instantly piqued.
"What's this? You didn't come here to show me an ordinary book, right?"
"Correct. This is an extremely rare book. But its contents are a secret for now, since I want to surprise you."
Micha theatrically opened the book. The sentences on the first page read like Sonnenlicht scripture. At a glance, it looked like a perfectly normal book. But Micha's expression told Friede there was something special about it.
Gulping, Friede stared intently at the tome. Micha started flipping through the pages with a grin on her face.
"What do you think? Looks perfectly normal, right?"
"Yeah, but it's not, isn't it?"
"I mean, yes, but... You have no sense of drama, do you?"
As they talked, Friede suddenly realized what was off about the book.
"There's something weird about that book's pages." Friede pointed to the edge of the pages. For a normal hardcover book, when it was closed the edges of the pages formed a gentle curve. This book's pages did the same thing, but unlike with a regular book, that curve didn't change shape as Micha flipped through the book. It was as if something more than simple book binding was affixing the pages in place.
"Can you even flip all of this book's pages?"
"How are you so sharp?!" Micha groaned, but then her face lit up in a smile. "Anyway, good eye, Friede. This looks like a plain old book, but it's actually a box. Only the first ten pages or so are actual pages."
Micha dexterously fiddled with the book-box revealing how it worked to Friede. After a few seconds, Friede realized what the book really was.
"Is that a Blast Cane?!" she exclaimed, and Micha puffed her chest out proudly.
"Yep. This is Aunt Eleora's secret weapon, the Blast Grimoire. And this is Blast Grimoire #28."
"There are twenty-eight of these..."
"Whenever something bad happens, auntie starts making magic tools instead of dealing with the problem. She gets really into it, and she won't respond no matter how loudly you yell her name. She actually gets kind of scary when she's designing magic tools. Like her eyes start to shine, and there's this creepy smile on her face."
"Whoa, that's terrifying!"
Friede couldn't fathom the kind, calm Eleora tinkering with machines while looking like a mad scientist. I guess there's more to people than meets the eye.
As Micha inspected the machinery of the Blast Grimoire she explained, "Apparently Aunt Eleora started researching how to compact a Blast Cane's machinery and stuff it into a book back when she was just a princess. The current Blast Grimoires are a lot more reliable and even smaller than the early prototypes she made back then."
"Wow, this is even smaller than my pistol. I'd never guess it's a weapon at first glance. Is it meant for assassination?"
Even Friede was a little put off by this weapon. But Micha smiled and shook her head.
"No way. The opposite, actually. Auntie made it to defend herself against assassins. She doesn't really need it anymore though, and she only makes more because it's a hobby of hers."
"Making complex machines like this is her hobby?!"
"I think it's weird too, don't worry..." Micha said with a sigh. "This is a prototype that's meant to be as strong as a regular Blast Cane despite being much smaller. Unfortunately, you only get one shot with it before it breaks. Auntie said something about how the firing mechanism severs the magic circle connected to the magesteel, or something, but I don't remember the details."
Micha wasn't especially interested in magical engineering.
"By the way, this is a highly classified state secret. Don't let any other Rolmundian know about its existence, okay?"
"Wait, why are you leaking state secrets to me?! I'm the Demon Lord's daughter!"
"Yeah, but you looked so bored," Micha said with a grin, and Friede sighed.
"You can't just go around doing that."
"It's fine. Auntie even said sharing secrets is how you become friends with someone."
"Couldn't you have picked a secret that was less important to national defense?"
Friede sighed again, but in truth, she was happy that Micha was looking out for her. She had a huge interest in Blast Canes and their derivatives, and this certainly was a fascinating take on them. Plus, the fact that Micha had been willing to share state secrets with her meant that Micha trusted her. That was what made her the happiest of all.
Friede looked up at Micha and said, "How about we share some secrets that won't get us in trouble with your aunt next?"
"Sounds good. Let's go for a walk outside the palace while we talk."
"That might get us in trouble too but, eh, screw it."
Smiling, Friede changed into her outdoor clothes.
The pair once again made their way to the sweets shop.
"Wow, it's so cute!"
"And delicious!"
They were once again sampling the newest concoctions of the head pastry chef.
"This powdered sugar looks so fancy, and it tastes good too!" Friede exclaimed.
"It's modeled after the powdery first snow of winter. The red and yellow fruits underneath represent the fallen leaves of autumn and—hey, are you listening to me?"
Friede nodded absently in response, her gaze fixated on the dessert in front of her. Her fork trembled as she agonized over what section to try next.
"I'm listening, I'm listening. That part over there is mega tasty."
"You're not supposed to eat the fallen leaves. You're not listening at all, are you?"
The two of them washed down the delectable desserts with high-quality black tea. As they were waiting for the next sweet to be brought in, Micha muttered sadly, "It's only because my aunt is the empress that I can afford luxuries like this..."
"Where'd that come from?" Friede asked with a puzzled look. Micha gave her a forlorn smile and said, "Oh, it's nothing. I was just thinking I'm only allowed this lavish lifestyle because of the achievements of my aunt, my father, and the other nobles."
"That's true."
Friede could tell it was time for a serious discussion, so she washed away the lingering sweetness on her tongue with another sip of tea. She could smell the conflicted feelings coming off of Micha.
Micha picked up her own porcelain teacup and swirled the tea inside.
"I get to live better than any other child in the empire, but I haven't done a single thing to earn it. Of course, I'm doing my best with my studies, but I'm not actually supporting the empire like my father is."
"You're still a student, so that's only to be expected, isn't it?" Friede started working her brain on overdrive so she could keep up with what Micha was saying. "Even my dad, who everyone calls the Astral Fencer and the Black Werewolf King, just did normal kid things when he was younger, I'm pretty sure..."
Micha shook her head and replied, "Didn't you know? Your father was a child prodigy. Aunt Eleora heard that from the werewolves in his squad. Even though no one taught him, he was able to figure out mathematics and astronomy all on his own."
Come to think of it, one of dad's friends did mention that...I think. Everyone had nothing but praise for Veight, and Friede couldn't keep track of all the stories they'd told about him. Realizing this particular approach wasn't working, Friede changed tack.
"Sure, but most people aren't like my dad. I mean, the empress must have been a normal child, right?"
Micha sighed and said, "When she was our age, her wet nurse tried to assassinate her. Auntie captured her instead, and tortured her for information, then executed her and everyone involved in the assassination plot. She wasn't much different from your father."
"Whoa! She sounds strong!"
Friede had read that Eleora had been an exceptionally competent woman since before she became empress, but wasn't aware that she'd been exceptionally competent even as a kid.
Friede hung her head and muttered, "I guess the really awesome people are awesome from the start..."
"So it seems." Micha looked out the window, smiling sadly. "Eventually, the day might come where I ascend the throne and become empress, but I'm not sure I'll be able to achieve even a fraction of what my aunt has. She's just that much better a person than I am. No amount of studying is going to bridge that gap."
Friede wanted to say that wasn't true, but she had nothing to back that up with so she stayed quiet. Empty words wouldn't help Micha.
Micha turned back to Friede and said in a serious voice, "We'll always be friends, right? No matter what happens to me or Rolmund, we'll stay friends?"
"Of course!" Friede replied instantly. "I don't know what kind of job I'll be doing in the future, but I promise if anything happens, I'll come save you, Micha. Even if Rolmund and Meraldia go to war, I'll be on your side!"
"Are you really sure you should be making promises like that?" Micha asked with a sad smile, but Friede had made her decision.
"I'm sure. Dad always makes promises that are hard to keep, but he does it anyway. And I'm his daughter, so of course I'll do the same."
Friede was slowly beginning to realize just how many people her dad had saved by agreeing on a whim to help them, and how he carried through with his promises because it was the right thing to do. It wouldn't be easy making promises like this, but this was what Friede wanted. Doing her best to help people no matter how hard it got suited her more than letting them struggle alone. At least this way, she wouldn't live a life full of regret.
Her father's face flashed through her mind, and Friede thumped her chest reassuringly.
"If you're ever in trouble, come to Meraldia. I'll ask my dad to figure something out if I can't."
Dad's so popular that I could probably help her escape as far as Kuwol if I had to. No political opponents would chase Micha all the way across the Sea of Solitude. Though, I guess if dad has to get involved, he'll find a way to solve the problem and make everything better while he's at it... And the council probably won't be happy if Rolmund gets any stronger than it already is. Friede smiled, imagining the look on the councilors' faces if Veight went and helped Rolmund solve another problem.
Micha squeezed Friede's hand and said, "Thank you, Friede. It's reassuring to know I have someone like you on my side. You really do live up to your father's name, you know that?"
Friede was happy to hear that, but there was one thing she needed to set the record straight on. "Thanks, but please don't praise me by comparing me to my dad. I'm me, no one else."
"But you're the one who claimed you were his daughter five seconds ago."
"Oh yeah, I guess I did," Friede said, awkwardly scratching her head.
"But you do have a point. I don't trust you because you're the Astral Fencer's daughter. I trust you because I know you, Friede."
"Thanks. Ehehe." Friede looked away, blushing slightly. "You know, my dad and Empress Eleora had to work together to fix Rolmund. I bet if we combine our strengths we'll be able to do amazing things too. So let's promise to always be on the same side."
"Of course. I promise."
The two of them left the sweets shop and started heading back to the palace. Micha had cheered up considerably, and she was still holding Friede's hand while they walked.
"I knew consulting with a fellow princess was the right call," she said.
Friede gave her a playful grin and said, "You mean consulting with a fellow apprentice maid, right?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah! Totally!" Micha said hurriedly, realizing she'd forgotten about her façade.
Is she really going to be okay? Well, I guess if the empress's werewolf squad is guarding us, we'll be fine. According to Micha, even if they couldn't see them, Volka's boys were keeping an eye on her. If they transformed, I'd be able to pick them out by smell, but... Huh? Friede came to a halt as she picked out a strange noise among the bustle of the city. It was just barely within her audible range, meaning a regular human wouldn't have noticed it.
"A dog whistle?" Friede muttered to herself, then turned to her companion. "Misia."
"What is it?"
"What does three short bursts then two long bursts on a dog whistle signal?"
As if she'd memorized the answer beforehand, Micha replied, "Well, we don't use dog whistles, but that's the alert signaling there's an emergency. All the officers in the imperial army know it. Why do you ask?"
There was no reason to be giving regular dogs a military signal, meaning someone was communicating with Volka's werewolves.
"It looks like something's hap— Huh?" Micha turned around mid-sentence and headed into a side alley. There was a man crouched on the ground in front of her.
"What's wrong? Should I call for help?" she asked.
"Waah, Micha?! You can't just go into an alley, it's dangerous!" Friede shouted, forgetting momentarily to use her false name. But Micha didn't seem to mind, and she gently rubbed the back of the man who looked to be some kind of merchant.
"I can't just ignore someone who needs help. You're the same way, aren't you?"
"I guess so."
But a princess traveling incognito needs to be more careful. As Friede walked over to Micha, she caught a whiff of hostility.
"Get away from that man right now! He's dangerous!"
"What?!" Micha asked in surprise, and the man suddenly got to his feet and thrust his hand into his pocket.
Is he gonna pull out a knife?! Friede was unarmed, meaning she had less reach than the man if he had a weapon. She dashed forward, planning to close the distance in one go and seal his movements with a preemptive strike. But it wasn't a knife the man pulled out of his pocket. Whatever it was, it made Friede's vision go red.
"Waaah?!"
Her eyes and nose burned.
It took a second for Friede to realize she'd been exposed to some kind of toxic powder. Because the attack happened so suddenly, she'd dodged a hair too late, and a tiny bit of it had gotten on her face. If she'd inhaled all of it, she probably would have been knocked out.
"Friede, run!" Micha shouted.
"Uwaaaaah!"
Even if she wanted to, Friede couldn't run. Her eyes had been blinded, and her sense of smell wasn't working right. She couldn't even sense the man's bloodlust. Only her hearing was unaffected, so she tried to use sound to get her bearings.
Focusing on her ears, she heard the faint swish of a knife being drawn from a leather sheath. This isn't good.
"Oh come on! Just go!"
Unfortunately, Friede didn't have enough training to fight effectively in this situation. If she could transform, a mere knife wouldn't have been able to touch her, but Friede's body was that of a plain human's. "Even a hero who's won a hundred battles will die if they lose a single time." That was one of her father's pet sayings. If she tried to fight as she was now, she'd almost certainly die. If she died, she wouldn't be able to do anything to help Micha, and she'd never get to see her mother again.
"I'm sorry, Micha!" she shouted, and used her werewolf-enhanced leg power to jump away. Something smacked into her head at the apex of her leap, but she was sturdy enough to shrug it off. She grabbed onto whatever she'd jumped into, then kicked off higher into the air. Friede landed on her back, but the impact was lighter than she expected.
"Yeowch!"
The moment she landed, she started rolling off the slanted surface, so she hurriedly found something to grab on to. Judging by how steep the slant was, Friede surmised she was on a roof, and not the street. All of Rolmund's roofs were slanted to make sure snow didn't pile up on them. It seemed like she'd escaped the lion's den for now, and she let out a sigh of relief. But just then, her eyes started burning again.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow..." They hurt too much to open.
Carefully, she chanted the detoxification spell to get rid of the toxins in her eyes. The spell didn't work on poisons derived from inorganic sources like ore, but fortunately, it seemed this particular one was organic. The pain began to recede, and Friede focused her attention on her nose to see if anyone was around. She could smell two people she didn't know nearby, both female.
If they're girls, that means they're not the man from before. One of them spoke to her in Rolmundian.
"You're...Friede, right? Are you okay?"
"Don't worry. We're part of the werewolf squad that works for the empire," the other said.
Thank goodness, they're allies. Relief overcame Friede, and the tension drained from her body. Fortunately, she could open her eyes a little now. They were still tearing up, but she could see two beautiful older women through her blurry vision.
"I'm Nasha, Elder Volka's grandniece. And this is my little sister Misha."
"It's nice to meet you. You know, your father kicked my butt once."
Seriously, is there anyone in this city who doesn't know dad?
Nasha glanced down frequently as she spoke, seemingly checking on something on the ground. "It looks like you're okay. Where's Princess Micha? I don't see her anywhere?"
So that guy was after Micha. But was he an assassin, or a kidnapper? Mildly panicked, Friede replied, "I don't know. Someone attacked me with this powder, and I couldn't see anything..."
"I'm impressed you managed to jump away after being ambushed like that. But then again, I guess you are the Astral Fencer's daughter!" the younger sister, Misha, exclaimed.
"Regardless, I'm glad you're safe. We got tricked by that dog whistle earlier and ended up going to the next district over. We realized it was a diversion pretty quickly, but by the time we returned, the princess's scent was gone. Fortunately, we saw you on the rooftop, and headed over."
The fact that Micha's scent was gone was odd. Veight had taught Friede that a werewolf's sense of smell had evolved specifically to hunt humans. In other words, it should be impossible for a werewolf to lose someone's scent.
Nasha's expression grew grim, and she said, "We need to hurry. Friede, I'll take you back to the palace and report to our superiors. Misha, you stay here and search for the princess."
"Ah, I'll help look for her too!" Friede said, rubbing her still blurry eyes.
* * * *
Ummm, where am I? The first thing Micha noticed when she regained consciousness was that it was cold. Her memories came back to her in bits and pieces, and she soon remembered that she'd been kidnapped by a mysterious man. She couldn't tell how long she'd been out for, but all of her joints hurt. Her wrists were tied up, and she was lying on a cold stone floor. Wherever she was, she wasn't getting out any time soon.
What should I do... Is Friede all right? The last thing she could recall before being knocked out was Friede jumping away while covering her eyes. I doubt she's been killed, but I hope she hasn't gone permanently blind. Micha couldn't help but worry about Friede, lost and alone in a foreign country, even though she knew she should be worrying about herself more right now.
She took a look around the room she was in, but it was too dark to see much. Sounds didn't seem to echo much though, meaning she was in a small space. Straining her eyes, she was at least able to make out that the walls and floor were made entirely of stone. There were no windows, but there was a ventilation shaft in the ceiling. Whatever room it connected to must have been lit, since a bit of light was spilling through it. Judging by the design, this was a storage room of some kind rather than a bedroom. Metal shelves lined the walls, and all of the shelves were locked with sturdy doors.
Hm? Is it just me or does something smell nice... She sniffed, trying to catch the scent, but she couldn't make out what it was. Still, it felt like she'd smelled something sweet for a moment there earlier.
The door leading outside was made of thick iron, and was of course locked. I'm scared... Are these people going to kill me? Well, I won't let them. I'm Micha, daughter of the great Lord Lekomya, and the niece of the empress herself. Determined not to give in to her fear, Micha started thinking about what she could do. If she gave up, her chances of being rescued would only go down.
Fortunately, all of Micha's stuff was still there. Since her hands were tied, she couldn't reach into her pocket for her Blast Grimoire, but its reassuring weight was present. Why did they bother to tie me up? Wouldn't they think that door would be enough to keep a little girl locked in? Ah, what if... A few possibilities came to Micha. They don't want me trying to make a break for it the moment they open the door. Meaning I'm not far from help, and there aren't too many people guarding me...I hope. The fact that they hadn't searched all of her belongings lent credence to the assumption that they were low on both manpower and time. If they had the time, they would have definitely examined her possessions and confiscated anything dangerous.
If they haven't killed me even though they're in a hurry, they must have a very pressing reason to keep me alive. Probably to use me as bargaining leverage. But against whom? Micha didn't have enough information to make any decisive conclusions, so all she could do was speculate. Her unease grew as she considered the various fates that might await her.
Dad... Auntie... Eventually, she realized imagining worse and worse possibilities wasn't actually helping her.
Just then, she heard a voice from the other side of the door. "I suggest you stop worrying so much." It was a man's voice, and he had a West Rolmund accent.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Who knows?" he replied in a nonchalant voice. For a moment, Micha considered shooting him with her Blast Grimoire, but her wrists were still tied up. Even if they weren't, her Blast Grimoire wasn't strong enough to shoot through such a thick door.
It's reckless to fight him. I'm better off trying to get whatever information I can instead. If I keep him talking, he might let his identity slip. With her decision made, Micha said, "I wouldn't have to worry if you would let me out of here."
"No can do. Though I suppose it wouldn't do to leave you so scared that you bite your own tongue and kill yourself. If there's anything you want to know, ask. I'll answer if I can."
That confirms they want me alive at least. Assuming this man is telling the truth, I don't have to worry about being killed, for the moment. There wasn't much more Micha could ask regarding her safety, so she decided to switch topics.
"Where am I?"
"Can't tell you that one."
"I should have known."
Micha took the refusal in stride. Had they been far from Originia, the man might have been more willing to answer. Meaning they were still close to where she'd been kidnapped, and somewhere in the capital. Micha couldn't be sure of course, but she'd be willing to bet on it.
"Hey, I'm getting hungry."
"Oh, come on, it's not even dinner time yet. Besides, I know you were stuffing your face full of pastries—whoops, wasn't supposed to mention that." The man realized what Micha was trying to do, and quickly shut his mouth. "I really can't let my guard down around you, can I? Not a princess for nothing, I guess."
"What do you mean?"
Micha tried playing dumb. She'd already figured out roughly how much time had passed since she'd been kidnapped. They took me around noon, so not much time has passed. That proves I can't be too far from the palace. And I guess it would be too risky for them to try and smuggle me out of the capital anyway. Guards would almost certainly stop an unfamiliar carriage heading out of the city with undeclared luggage. And if they found out it was the crown princess being smuggled out, no amount of bribes would be able to keep their mouths shut. Furthermore, Micha was certain the werewolves and the Imperial Guard were already combing the streets for her. It was only a matter of time before she was rescued.
Or will I? These guys kidnapped an imperial princess. There's no way they didn't plan this out meticulously. Maybe this place is in a blind spot that the guards won't search. Micha didn't know how exactly it was a blind spot, but she now knew what she needed to do. If I can just find a way to alert people to where I am, they'll come save me. I need to take things carefully and wait for an opportunity. Micha was under no illusion that she could escape on her own. I wish I could transform into a werewolf. But since I can't, I'll stick to getting as much information as I can.
"So, what do I do now?"
"Nothing. You just sit tight until the adults are done talking, then you'll be returned to the palace. We won't touch a hair on your head, don't worry."
The man didn't sound like he was lying, but Micha wasn't gullible enough to believe him that easily.
"What happened to the girl who was with me?"
"Oh, that slippery little girl. You don't need to worry about her either, she got away. I'm not that great at fighting. If she hadn't run away, I'd have been the one in trouble."
I guess that means he's the same person who kidnapped me then. Unless he's trying to trick me about that too, but I doubt it. His accent's definitely West Rolmundian. And from how he speaks, he's probably the servant of a noble. He talks like a peasant, but there's a trace of refinement in his words. If I had to profile him, I'd say he's a butler working for a West Rolmund noble. So long as she kept him talking, he'd keep giving away more about himself.
But before she could say anything more the man said, "Don't probe too hard into my identity, missy. It won't end well for either of us."
"If you say so."
I guess I'm not being as subtle as I thought. I shouldn't underestimate anyone clever enough to kidnap a princess. Micha decided not to do anything risky for now. Even auntie got captured by Meraldia when she was younger. It's not over for me yet. The fear wasn't gone, but Micha had a better handle on her emotions now.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13_4.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
* * * *
At around that same time, Friede and the others were looking high and low for Micha. The entire Imperial Guard had been mobilized to help with the search. They'd set up temporary checkpoints and were investigating anyone who looked even remotely suspicious. Friede went back to explore the alleyway Micha had been kidnapped in, but she couldn't find any trace of her. It's like her scent has been erased from here... The scent of the man who'd attacked her had vanished as well.
All she'd been able to find was the powder the man had thrown at her. It was still a clue, so she'd bottled what was left before the wind blew it away. She had to be careful not to touch it directly since if even a little got on her finger it became extremely itchy. Is it even possible to erase a human's scent? Without a smell to follow, werewolves wouldn't be particularly useful in the search. Friede explained what she'd found to Nasha and her sister, and the two of them were also at a loss.
"How did they manage to erase Micha's scent?" Nasha asked, shrugging her shoulders.
"I don't know. It shouldn't be possible. Maybe they used some kind of magic," Misha mused.
"If they'd used magic, there would be traces of mana in the air, but I don't sense that either. Besides, if they could use magic to hide perfectly, they wouldn't have used such a roundabout method to capture Micha."
"Good point. You're pretty smart, you know that?" Misha said, nodding in agreement. "The truth is, the imperial family is actually in the middle of putting down a rebellion started by a powerful noble. All of the other werewolves are taking part in the battle, and it's only us three sisters who were left here to guard the princess. Normally, she'd have a much bigger entourage."
"And since we rotate our shifts, there are only two of us on duty at any given time. Our eldest sister just went to sleep after staying up all night," Nasha added, scratching her head. "This is pretty bad. Empress Eleora is out subjugating the rebels, and Lord Lekomya is too busy to bother right now. There's no one to rely on, and it doesn't look like we're very reliable ourselves..."
Friede mulled this new information over in her mind. A rebellion started by an influential noble. The lack of guards protecting Micha. And a mysterious kidnapper. If all of these are linked, then Micha's in real danger!
"Nasha, this might be linked to the rebellion."
"You think so too?" Nasha folded her arms, and another woman came over to join the group. She bore a striking resemblance to Nasha and Misha, and looked pretty tired.
Misha shouted, "Masha!"
"How could you let the princess get kidnapped?!" the woman named Masha shouted, grabbing Nasha and Misha by the lapels and shaking them.
"S-Someone blew the emergency signal on a dog whistle!"
"Even on guard duty we're not supposed to ignore it!"
"We didn't go very far, and Friede was with the princess, so we thought..."
"Friede's our guest! How can you expect her to act as one of the princess's guards?! Bah, enough excuses!" Masha kicked her two sisters' legs out from under them and they tumbled to the stone floor.
"Gyaaaaaah!"
She then turned to Friede. "I'm sorry for putting you in danger. Don't mind what my idiot of a sister said, this isn't your fault."
"O-Okay..."
The women in Meraldia's werewolf squad were pretty tough, but Friede hadn't expected the ones here to be just as tough. A little overwhelmed, she nodded.
Scratching her head the same way Nasha had, Masha said, "Dammit, I'll probably have to ask that guy for help if we wanna find the princess."
"Which guy?"
"Hm? Oh, I've just got a friend who's good at tracking and stuff."
Masha smiled and shook the bottle of red powder that she'd taken from Friede.
* * * *
Masha waited for her tracker friend in a perfume shop near the palace.
"It's been, what, six years? Long time no see, Masha." To Friede's surprise, the friend she was waiting for was Karankov. He wasn't even pretending to be a country bumpkin anymore, and slid into his chair with all the poise of a noble.
Masha bowed to him, then scratched her head awkwardly before saying, "I guess it has been about that long, Lord Sha—I mean, Lord Karankov."
"I can tell by how agitated the Imperial Guard is that something serious must have happened."
"Well, you see..." Masha explained how Micha had been kidnapped, and showed Karankov the bottle of powder. "This is the powder I was talking about."
"Hmm." Karankov opened the bottle and took a cautious whiff, frowning as a few minute particles reached his eyes.
"This is...potent stuff. It's the powder you find in maryweed fruit, which grows in the south. The fruit splits when touched, and releases this powder to spread its seeds. The herbivores that get caught in the plant's trap get stunned, making them easy prey for wolves, and then the fruit's seeds spread through the wolves' feces.
"Huh..." Masha muttered, impressed. Karankov blinked a few times to get the powder out of his eyes, then gently wiped his fingers with a wet cloth.
"It makes for a unique, stimulating perfume so there are specialists who go out to gather maryweed fruit, but it's hard to harvest the fruit without breaking it, and they mess up quite frequently. They wear eyepatches on the job so that if they do mess up, powder only gets in one eye."
"Is it actually valuable enough to harvest despite the risks?"
"Oh yes, even a tiny bottle of powder sells for a fortune."
Still, Masha couldn't fathom risking your eyesight for money.
"Properly extracted and packaged maryweed powder is too expensive to be used as a weapon. If you just want to blind someone all you need to do is throw some broken glass at them. Even sand will work. Using the powder in a fight is an utter waste."
"Then, does that mean...?" Masha trailed off, not wanting to voice the unfortunate conclusion she'd come to, and Karankov nodded in affirmation.
"Yes, whoever's behind this is quite rich. A noble with enough money to keep a personal perfumer on retainer."
"Do you think Count Olfsei and Baron Banya are behind this then? They're the ones who started the current rebellion."
"Yes, and if I had to say, it's more likely to be the Olfsei family than the Banya family. They recruit a lot of poisoners, bringing them in under the guise of perfumers. No one finds it suspicious when perfumers mix strange ingredients together, so it's the perfect cover," Karankov explained, folding his arms. "It's possible they evaded werewolf pursuit by using houndsbane perfume. It's a difficult perfume to make that needs to be custom-tailored to each person using it, but it allows a person to erase their scent."
"Oh, I didn't even know something like that existed..." Masha said, amazed, and Karankov smiled at her.
"I haven't seen it with my own eyes, I just heard that the late Lord Doneiks used to keep a supply for himself. There was a time assassins had set hunting dogs on him, and he'd wanted to make sure he'd never get caught by the same trick again. Anyway..." Karankov got to his feet and started stroking his beard. "Masha, you go report to Her Majesty. I'll get in touch with my perfumer contacts in the meantime."
"Why your perfumer contacts?"
"Because while houndsbane erases a person's scent, it leaves its own unique scent behind that can be tracked. Plus, using expensive tools to hide your tracks leaves behind a different kind of evidence that makes it easy to pinpoint someone's identity." Smiling, Karankov added, "I'll also ask a few other acquaintances of mine to see if they can help. We'll rescue Princess Micha no matter what it takes. After all, this is another way I can repay my debt to him."
"Who do you mean?"
"Oh, you know. The man I owe a great deal to." Karankov gave Masha a mysterious smile. "It's been a while, but this really feels like old times, doesn't it?"
"It really does, Lord Sha—I mean, Lord Karankov!"
* * * *
A castle burned in the light of the setting sun. Count Olfsei's beloved Keenika Keep was dyed red on the outside by the sunlight, and red on the inside by the flames. The castle stood atop a precipitous cliff, and was considered the sturdiest fortification in West Rolmund, but it had fallen a mere two days after being besieged.
"Well, Your Majesty? My werewolves are quite something, wouldn't you say?" Volka said with a grin.
Eleora grinned back at her and replied, "Oh, yes. Cliffs and walls can't stop werewolves, and humans are powerless against them in confined spaces like castle corridors. But you went a bit overboard here." Eleora brushed her bangs aside, her cloak flapping in the wind. "You crushed this rebellion before rumors of it even had time to spread. Of course, it wouldn't do to struggle against mere rebels, but if you suppress it this fast, other dissenters won't have time to hear about it and come out of the woodwork."
Volka just shrugged and said, "Eh, what's the big deal? This way, more rumors of your unparalleled might will spread instead! People will talk about how Keenika Keep fell the moment you stepped on the battlefield."
Eleora had indeed only arrived this morning with her army. The werewolves had made their move the night before, and by the time she'd reached the castle, the gates had been shattered. With the gates broken and Eleora here to raise morale, the regular army had made short work of the rebels. Every soldier knew that if he performed well, Eleora would reward him handsomely.
Sighing, Eleora said, "Fortifications are built to keep other humans out, but they're not even an obstacle to demons. I didn't do anything at all. Besides, it was Veight who first used tactics like these."
Eleora didn't feel any of the satisfaction that usually came from winning a battle.
"You say that, but it was your incredible tactics that truly led us to victory," her aide Borsche said, narrowing his eyes.
He was ostensibly retired, but any time Eleora headed to the battlefield, he went right back to active duty. He was a worrywart by nature, and he could never leave Eleora alone.
"These rebels tried to tarnish your reputation by attacking the Meraldian delegation. They thought this would be a political battle, not a military one," Borsche added, stroking his beard. Even now, he was still Eleora's trusted military advisor. "But you mobilized the army immediately, ensuring this wouldn't become a political battle. The rebels were scattered before they had time to prepare their defenses, and were crushed one by one."
"All right, I suppose I can give myself a little credit," Eleora said with a faint smile, looking up at the burning Keenika Keep. "Count Olfsei himself committed suicide, but his family fled and are in hiding. It'll take forever to capture all of the mountain forts and secret villas they've sequestered themselves in. Publicly announce that any who surrender will be spared."
"Guess that means this war's over. Are you going back to the capital?" Volka asked.
"Not yet, there's still Baron Banya to deal with. Lord Mottemo captured his castle, but the baron managed to escape during its fall. He's still hiding somewhere."
"Sounds like a problem. But don't worry, my werewolves'll find him for you. I'll get fifty of my best trackers to hunt him down."
"Thanks. I'll take command of the army here," Eleora said with a nod, patting her trusty Blast Grimoire. "I haven't fired a Blast Cane in years, but every now and again it's good to fight on the front lines to keep my reflexes sharp."
"We won't be fit to call ourselves soldiers if we let you get in a situation where you have to fight personally, Your Majesty," Borsche said with a rueful smile.
A few seconds later, Volka turned around.
"Well, if it isn't Masha. I thought I left you back in the capital to guard Princess Micha. What happened?"
Masha sprinted over to Volka as fast as she could, shouting, "B-Bad news! Princess Micha has been kidnapped!"
"What?!" Eleora shouted.
After Masha had finished explaining the situation, Eleora nodded.
"This must be one of Count Olfsei's plots. He failed to harm the Meraldian delegation, so he conspired to kidnap the crown princess instead. That would work just as well to smear my reputation. Even if he ultimately failed, if word got out that the princess had been kidnapped for even a moment, it would be enough."
Count Olfsei's plan to attack the Meraldian delegation had been unsuccessful, but he had managed to capture Micha. Word of that could not be allowed to get out. Moreover, if anything happened to Micha, it would be a huge blow to the imperial family. But most important of all, Eleora truly loved her niece.
She squeezed her Blast Grimoire and smiled at Masha. The Empress needed to appear calm at all times. Unfortunately, her smile was so terrifying that Masha shrunk back in fear.
"I-I-I-I-I'm terribly sorry! The kidnappers used a dog whistle to blow the emergency signal and distract us. They'd clearly planned everything out ahead of time!"
"I'm not mad at you."
"But your expression's so, so—" Eleora placed a hand gently on Masha's cheek, surprising her. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Once Masha was sure she was in control of her emotions, she continued, "Considering the powder the kidnapper used on Friede, it's almost certain Count Olfsei was behind this. I'd heard rumors about houndsbane perfume, but I never suspected it actually existed."
Even if it wasn't as perfect as the stories claimed, the fact remained that someone had indeed managed to create a perfume that erased a person's scent said a lot about the tenacity of Rolmundians. They pulled out all the stops when it came to plotting against each other. And it was Eleora's job to herd them together. She thought furiously, considering her options.
"I imagine the kidnappers don't know their master is dead yet."
Even the fastest horse would take a day or two to reach the capital from here.
Eleora kneaded her forehead and murmured, "The count's already dead. I have no way of knowing how his men will act when they learn that. But Baron Banya is still on the loose. I can't afford to return to the capital now."
Rebellions needed to be thoroughly put down or the survivors would rise up again. Eleora had learned that from experience. If she left Banya alone, he'd slowly gather his strength, and strike again when another faction decided to revolt, and the imperial family was at its weakest. Eleora needed to be thorough with her purge.
"Tell Lord Lekomya to search for Micha. The werewolves and I will set out after Baron Banya."
"There are only a few werewolves in the capital right now. Are you sure about this, Your Majesty?" Volka asked in a worried voice.
Calmly, Eleora replied, "There's no other choice. If we give Baron Banya even a few days he'll regroup and attack again. We can't let our guard down until we've seized all of his lands, castles, and soldiers. I am the empress before I am Micha's aunt." She squeezed her Blast Grimoire again and added, "But if those rebels put so much as a scratch on Micha, then I'll make them rue the day they were born."
"Please stop making that terrifying expression!" Masha exclaimed, cowering.
* * * *
Meanwhile, Micha strained her ears, trying to hear the whispered argument going on outside her room.
"...Are you sure?!"
"Not so loud! I've already... In progress... Immediately..."
"Wait, but then... The plan?"
All of the vital details were spoken too softly for her to hear, but Micha listened as hard as she could. The man she'd been talking to earlier seemed to be speaking with several other men. She couldn't tell exactly how many they were, but she knew there were multiple of them.
"Anyway, lie low until we have more to report. I can't imagine Keenika Keep will fall that easily," one of the men said, speaking a little louder than the others.
Micha was able to hear everything he said. Keenika Keep is...that one famous castle somewhere in West Rolmund...right? I wish I'd paid more attention to my studies. The name rang a bell, so Micha was sure it belonged to some influential noble at least. He said "it won't fall that easily," meaning it's under attack by someone. But who? Auntie? Only the empress had the right to freely wage war within Rolmund. And most of the time, she did so to put down a rebellion. If auntie is attacking Keenika Keep, that means the noble who owns it started a rebellion, right? Is the reason these people kidnapped me because... Wait, it all makes sense now! Micha lightly clapped her hands together. They kidnapped me to stop auntie from attacking them! Right? Her deduction was only slightly off, but there was no one around to tell her that.
* * * *
There was one other person who was quite worried about Micha.
"Micha..." Archduke Lekomya muttered, staring at the report on his desk.
He was sitting in his office within his mansion in the capital. He'd been a loyal follower of Eleora since before she'd become empress, and he'd accomplished numerous heroic deeds in the years since. Many people in Rolmund considered him a living legend. Right now he was married to Eleora's younger sister, and wielded considerable authority within the empire. But that also meant he had a lot of enemies, and now he'd just learned his daughter Micha had been kidnapped.
In front of him, the messenger who'd brought the kidnapper's demands cowered.
"M-My Lord..."
"It's fine, I know you're not involved. You were just being used."
The messenger was a merchant who'd simply been entrusted to deliver a present to Archduke Lekomya by one of his customers. It was only after the present had been delivered that he'd realized a ransom letter had been included with it. The letter consisted of only two sentences.
"Do you want what matters to you most? Then give up everything else." Lekomya figured what that meant was that if he wanted Micha back alive, he had to give these men his full cooperation. After examining the color of the ink and the quality of the paper, Lekomya analyzed the letter's handwriting. Every letter was beautifully penned, and it had clearly been written by a professional scribe.
The kidnappers must have gotten a third party to write this letter. They're exceedingly cautious. He suspected the reason for the letter's brevity was to prevent him from getting any useful information out of it. Even if he did manage to track down the scribe that wrote this, that person likely didn't know anything more than the words they'd written.
"I have a few more questions about the man who handed you this letter."
"O-Of course, My Lord!"
The merchant straightened his back, and Lekomya started with the most pertinent question.
"You mentioned that he was wearing a deerskin cap, correct?"
"Huh? Oh, yes. I believe it was giant deerskin, not the regular variety. It was a strange cap, to be honest. There were these tassels dangling from it, and..."
"I see. Thank you very much."
Hats like those were popular in West Rolmund, where they served as ceremonial caps. Lekomya recalled that Count Olfsei in particular had been fond of such hats. Few people wore them outside of West Rolmund, and they weren't sold anywhere in the capital. It's easy to tell a man's origin by the way he dresses. But the kidnappers must have known that as well, so this man must have purposely dressed this way to inform me of his birthplace.
Lekomya thought to himself. He folded his arms, sinking deeper into his thoughts.
First, they tried to attack Meraldia's delegation. Now, they've kidnapped Micha. They're clearly trying to settle things with skullduggery, but Eleora's already got their leaders cornered. They must not know that or they wouldn't have bothered to go through with the kidnapping. I'll have to take advantage of their lack of information if I'm to navigate my way through this mess. I can't afford to tell them anything they don't already know. Lekomya would do anything to get his beloved daughter back.
In as gentle a voice as he could manage, he said to the hapless merchant, "Would you mind staying here for a while longer? I need to be completely sure of your innocence."
"O-Of course. It would be my pleasure, My Lord!" the merchant said with an emphatic nod.
* * * *
"Ugh..." Friede groaned, covering her eyes with a damp cloth. An imperial mage had seen to her healing, so her eyesight was fine. But she still had some lingering pain.
While she was groaning to herself, Archduke Lekomya came into her room.
"How are you feeling, Friede?"
"Ah, good evening, Lord Lekomya!" Friede hurriedly got to her feet and bowed. As she did, the wet cloth over her eyes plopped to the ground right at Lekomya's feet.
Panicking, Friede bowed again in apology.
"Ah, I'm so sorry about that!'
"I see you're feeling just fine," Lekomya said with a playful smile, and picked up the cloth, handing it to a nearby nurse.
"I'm terribly sorry for what happened. It's an unacceptable failure on our part that anyone from the Meraldian delegation was exposed to danger..." Lekomya let out a long sigh. "We owe Lord Veight an immeasurable debt, but instead of repaying it, we instead almost let his daughter come to harm. Please, forgive me."
"You don't need to apologize! If I'd just done a better job of protecting Micha, then..." Friede trailed off, shaking her head vigorously.
"You aren't Micha's bodyguard. It wouldn't be fair to expect you to protect her. I'm just glad you weren't kidnapped as well."
"Lord Lekomya..." Friede knew how much Lekomya loved his daughter. Yet, despite her being kidnapped, here he was apologizing to someone he'd only met a few days ago. Her chest tightened as she thought about how heavily the shackles of duty must be weighing down on him right now.
"I'll help with the search for Micha!"
"I'm afraid I can't allow that. It wouldn't do to endanger your life any further. This is Rolmund's problem; a guest such as yourself shouldn't have to worry about it."
Lekomya's tone was gentle but firm. As a father himself, he knew how worried Veight would be if Friede risked her life to help. He couldn't allow it, both for personal and political reasons. Friede picked up on that as well, and realized there was no convincing him. I guess that means I'll have to sneak out and look for her on my own.
"You aren't planning on sneaking out to look for her on your own, are you?"
"D-Definitely not!"
Lekomya hadn't worked his way up to being leader of the Fourteen Imperial Generals without learning how to read people, and Friede was like an open book to him. But even so, Friede was determined to find Micha.
"If I learn anything new, I'll be sure to tell you as soon as possible. But please rest here until dinner at least," Lekomya said as he left the room.
Once he was gone Friede immediately began thinking of how to sneak out of the palace. Unfortunately, she was currently in Lekomya's office, which was only a few doors down from the empress's. It was one of the most heavily guarded areas of the palace. There's no way I'll make it down the hallway...so what about the window? The garden probably isn't as well guarded. Lekomya's office was on the second floor, so she'd be able to cover a lot of distance with her first jump.
As she prepared to make her escape, Friede suddenly heard a knock on her window.
"Mind if I come in, Astral Fencer's daughter?"
"Huh?"
Even though this was the second floor, a well-dressed young man was standing outside the window.
"Who are you?"
Friede opened the window, and the young man slipped inside. His abnormal strength and agility marked him as a demon, even though he looked human. He flashed Friede a handsome smile and straightened his tuxedo, which vaguely resembled that of a butler's.
"It's a myth that we can only enter buildings we've been invited into, but I thought it would be polite to ask regardless. Besides, I don't want Lady Shallier scolding me again."
"Only enter buildings you've been invited into?"
Oh yeah, I heard people used to believe that about vampires. It's not true, of course.
"Are you a demon then?"
"Yes, a proud member of the vampire race. The name's Thuka." He gave a polite bow. "You're Friede, right? I can smell werewolf blood in you... Your father's blood."
"Yep. Am I going to meet a single person here who doesn't know my dad?"
"I wouldn't bet on it. Half the people in this country have some kind of connection to him. Anyway, I finally have a chance to repay my debt to him, and there's no way I'm letting it slip past me."
"Dad did something for you too, then?"
Thuka ignored Friede's question and asked, "Would finding Micha's location count as repaying our debts?"
"Absolutely!" Friede exclaimed.
"It wasn't just werewolves who used to make their living hunting humans, you know? Vampires have their own tricks for tracking prey down," Thuka explained as he led Friede down one of the capital's back alleys. The main street that cut through this district was bustling with stalls, but the alleys contained only deserted warehouses.
"Werewolves track by smell, but vampires use a different sense."
"Which one?"
"Honestly, for the longest time, we didn't know. We thought we could just sense the presence of people, but then some mages discovered we actually track the unique mana wavelengths that belong to humans." Thuka turned around a corner, leading Friede even deeper into the maze of alleys. "The vampires of Rolmund pledged their service to Empress Eleora, and are under her personal protection. We've met with her and her close family a few times now, and have memorized their particular wavelengths."
Curious, Friede asked, "You don't have to suck their blood to decipher their wavelengths?"
Thuka turned to her, looking rather miffed by her question. "You guys can still tell humans apart by smell even though you don't eat them, right? It's the same thing."
"That makes sense. I'm sorry I asked."
"It's fine, I can't blame you for being wary. But just so you know, this is a secret known only to vampires, so please don't go spreading it around." He started walking again, leading Friede to a nondescript building. She sniffed at the air, and instantly noticed the smell.
"There's a bunch of scents here. Blegh! Way too many of them!"
"That's because it's a perfume warehouse, and most of the perfumes stored here are animal-based. They'll mess with a werewolf's sense of smell." Thuka gave Friede a faint smile and added, "But since vampires don't rely on scent, such camouflage won't work on us. Well, do you respect us a bit more now, werewolf girl?"
"Yeah, loads more!"
Surprised by her honest enthusiasm, Thuka took a half step backwards.
"O-Oh. You're pretty forthright."
"You think so?"
"I guess it makes sense considering who your father is. Anyway, I've repaid my debt now." He turned around and took a step back towards the main street. "My brother's already gone to report Micha's location to the werewolves left in the capital. Even if you don't do anything, Micha will be rescued soon. So remember, I did this as a favor to you, and not for her."
"Thank you, Mister Thuka!"
"You really are a strange one. But I like you. Hopefully we'll meet again, Friede." Thuka gave Friede a casual wave and walked out of the alley. Friede turned back to the iron warehouse door.
"Now then..."
The door looked too sturdy to break down, but Friede was confident she could find a window or a ventilation shaft to sneak in through. There weren't any lookouts, so she wouldn't even have to be stealthy.
She folded her arms and looked up hesitantly at the building. Should I really do this? She was on foreign soil, solely here as an official member of the Meraldian delegation. Micha was her friend, but she was also Rolmund's crown princess. Friede knew getting involved now could have political repercussions.
Should I leave this to Rolmund's werewolves then? Friede didn't even know how many kidnappers were inside this warehouse, or how they were keeping Micha locked up. She knew from experience that charging in alone could lead to disastrous results. If something happens, dad won't be around to save me this time. If you want to rescue someone, you need to ensure your own safety first. And right now, Friede wasn't confident she'd be safe if she went in.
Let's just keep an eye on things for now. The best thing she could do for Micha right now was stake out the warehouse, and tell the Rolmund werewolves everything she learned when they arrived.
Friede lithely climbed up the wall of an adjacent warehouse, then leapt over to a ventilation shaft jutting out of the perfume warehouse. It had iron grilles to keep people out, but she could still see inside it. Uh-oh. Because it was a warehouse, Friede had expected the building to be one big open space, but that wasn't the case. The room she was looking into was no bigger than a shop's storage closet. If this room was anything to go by, the warehouse's layout wasn't much different from a regular house.
Come to think of it, I guess a single bottle of perfume lasts a long time. You'd only need a few shelves to hold a hundred bottles or so, and that'd be enough for a store. All of the shelves were locked with thick metal doors, so she couldn't actually see any of the perfume. Micha's not in here...is she? I'd die if I was stuck in a cramped place like this. There was only one door in the room, which presumably led to the hallway. Most likely there were multiple other rooms identical to this one.
Hmm... Try as she might, Friede couldn't sniff out Micha's scent. All the perfume smells were getting in the way. If she could transform, she might be able to tell the subtle differences apart, since that would enhance her senses.
Problem is, I can't transform... Angrily poking at her own nose, Friede let out a small sigh. A werewolf's weapon isn't just her nose though. My ears are super sensitive too. The perfumes couldn't mess with her sense of hearing. There was a lot of background noise in the city, but Friede figured if she used magic to enhance her hearing, she'd be able to focus on the noises in the warehouse.
She cast the spell just as her dad had taught her and strained her ears. Let's see here... She could make out the muffled sounds of people talking inside. There were three of them, and they were all adult men.
"Do we have any new orders?"
"Nothing yet. They're probably struggling to hold the castle. We're trying to push forward with the negotiations, but..."
"No way the imperial family just sits tight and waits for negotiations to conclude. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before one of their search parties finds us."
"Don't worry. This warehouse isn't officially affiliated with the Olfsei family. We should have a few days of leeway at least. More importantly, keep an eye on the princess. If she commits suicide, we're dead."
Sorry, but we've already found you. Friede smiled proudly, even though it was the vampires who'd found Micha. Anyway, it looks like Micha's still safe for now. If they kidnapped her to use as leverage in negotiations, then they won't try to kill her unless talks break down. It's probably best to wait for Rolmund's werewolves to get here. Even a small squad of werewolves could easily take control of a building this size.
Friede waited and waited, but Rolmund's werewolves didn't come. Eventually, the sun began to set. I'm hungry... Friede took a quick break to buy some bread from a nearby stall and chewed thoughtfully on it as she went back to her stakeout. She wanted to check back with the palace to see how the rescue plan was coming along, but she was worried the kidnappers might try to move Micha while she was gone, so she couldn't leave for more than a minute or two at a time.
What's taking them so long... If she had a dog whistle she'd be able to contact the other werewolves, but unfortunately, she didn't. Plus, considering the kidnappers had used dog whistles earlier, they'd likely suspect any message coming via whistle. Friede couldn't transform, so communicating via howls wasn't possible. Granted, even if she could, the kidnappers would definitely take notice of wolf howls in the middle of the city.
I wish I could use magic to contact people like Granny Movi. Friede had heard that Gomoviroa was developing a tool that would allow everyone to do just that, but since she didn't have it in her hands right now, it didn't matter.
While she waited, the conversation inside started taking a dark turn.
"Any response from Archduke Lekomya?"
"Not yet. The merchant we gave the blackmail letter to hasn't left the archduke's manor."
"Do you think Lekomya thought he was one of us and tortured him for information?"
"He may have just executed the merchant on the spot. The man may look soft, but he's merciless to his enemies. It's hard to say what might have happened."
The conversation died down for a bit, but then someone muttered, "So in the end...we still know nothing?"
"Pretty much. So what do you wanna do?"
"If imperial soldiers find us, we won't be able to hold this building. I doubt we'll be able to escape either. The count told us to dispose of the hostage and flee if we think it's necessary."
What?! Friede felt a chill run down her spine. She never imagined a Rolmundian noble would dare kill someone from the imperial family. But then again, they're starting revolts all the time, aren't they? If they're willing to kill political enemies on the battlefield, why would they shy away from assassinating them? Wh-Wh-What should I do? At this point, Rolmund's werewolves still hadn't arrived.
Friede had no way of knowing it, but they were still combing the city since the vampires' report hadn't reached them yet. They were desperately trying to figure out where Micha might have gone before her trail went completely cold. Friede had held out this long believing they were coming, but she couldn't wait any longer. She recalled the promise she'd made Micha earlier today.
"I promise if anything happens I'll come save you, Micha. Even if Rolmund and Meraldia go to war, I'll be on your side!" There was no way she was going to break that promise. If Micha died because of Friede's indecision, she knew she'd regret it for the rest of her life.
I'm coming, Micha. Making up her mind, Friede did some quick calculations regarding her strength compared to her enemies'. Her eyes still stung a little from the maryweed powder, so her eyesight wasn't as sharp as normal. Moreover, since she'd snuck out of the palace, she was unarmed. Meanwhile, it was hard to get a good picture of how many enemies were inside, and what weapons they had.
This is really reckless... She'd been taught never to pick a fight she couldn't win. However, she surmised that there couldn't be more than a few people inside, since this building wasn't really designed to hide ambushers. Maybe I can't win in a head-on fight, but I bet I could beat them if this was a "hunt." Werewolves were hunters by nature, not warriors. They camouflage themselves as humans, and strike from above or behind without warning. Friede thought as hard as she could to come up with a plan of attack.
The easiest thing to do would be to make some noise to distract the enemies, then rescue Micha...but that's dangerous. The kidnappers would only be distracted for a short while by the diversion, and they'd be on high alert once they realized what was happening. They might even try to kill Micha before Friede got to her. In which case, my best bet is a stealth approach. Rolmund is cold, so the rooms are made small and airtight to keep heat in. I should be able to stay out of sight, and small noises will probably go unnoticed. Friede still cast a silencing spell on herself just in case, muting sounds made close to her body. It was a very handy spell for sneaking into places.
I heard dad used this spell when he protected Zaria from the Senate. Friede reassured herself, remembering what she'd seen from the Black Werewolf King plays. If I just do what dad did, I'll be fine... She jumped up onto the roof of the warehouse, landing without a sound.
* * * *
At around the same time, Micha was beginning to realize her life was in danger. The talking on the other side of the door was getting more heated, and she occasionally heard the sounds of scraping metal. There were a number of armed men outside her door now.
"Can we escape through the sewers?"
"No. Ever since those gladiators led by Draulight escaped, all the sewer exits leading out of the city were boarded up tight."
"Tch, so we won't be able to take the hostage with us. Fine, let's kill her and get out of here. If it's just us, we should be able to escape."
The kidnappers couldn't smuggle Micha out without getting spotted, but since their identities weren't known, they could still slip away if they didn't have her. Fortunately, it seemed the kidnappers were reluctant to kill her.
"No, wait. It'd be easy enough to kill her, but that'll limit our options. Let's think about this carefully. This is a crown princess we've got here. We slit her throat, and we'll be hunted for the rest of our days."
"Yeah, Empress Eleora's tenacity is infamous. She'll chase us to the frozen seas of the north and beyond if we hurt her kin."
Aunt Eleora definitely can be persistent when she wants to... The people of Rolmund were lucky that Eleora kept her almost obsessive tenacity focused on politics and research, and not anything else.
Realizing that the situation could take a turn for the worse at any moment, Micha struggled harder to undo her bonds. Unfortunately, the thick rope was tied tight, and she could neither loosen nor cut through it.
If I could just get my hands free I'd be able to dispose of these hoodlums with auntie's Blast Grimoire. Of course, she knew in reality that would be impossible. It only has one shot, so it won't be much help... She needed someone to come rescue her.
Sighing, Micha looked up at the ceiling, and her eyes met Friede's.
"Wha—" she reflexively shouted, before hurriedly shutting her mouth.
Friede grinned at her through the grilled vent. Friede's here to rescue me! I'll be all right now! She's super strong! Micha had been about to give up, but now her fighting spirit was back. There was hope for her yet.
Just then, one of the kidnappers shouted through the door, "Hey, what's with the commotion, princess?"
Micha hurriedly started coughing and said, "It's... It's too cold in here."
"Yeah, I guess it's kinda chilly. Hold on, I'll bring you a blanket."
Crap! Micha looked back up, but Friede was already gone. She was relieved that Friede wouldn't get spotted, but it was also a little disheartening to have her rescuer vanish. The door swung open and a man in West Rolmundian formal dress walked in. This was the first time she'd gotten a good look at her kidnapper. He had a short sword sheathed at his waist, but Micha clamped down on her fear and tried to sound defiant.
"Where's my blanket?"
"Sorry, this is all we've got," the man said, throwing a rough jute bag at her feet. It must have held perfume ingredients originally, since it had a sweet scent to it.
Reminding herself that Friede was here now, Micha steeled her resolve and said, "This will do, but I can't put it on with my hands tied."
"Good luck."
"My wrists are getting sore too. Can't you untie me for a few seconds at least? I won't try anything stupid. There's no way I'd be able to escape, and even if I could, I don't know where I am."
In truth, Micha had a pretty good idea of where she was, but she was trying her best to play the part of the ignorant princess.
The man narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you plotting?"
"I have my pride as a princess to uphold. I won't do something as unsightly as struggle." Micha put as much haughtiness into her voice as she could muster and waited to see how the man responded.
He thought about it for a few seconds, then sighed.
"Well, it'd be pretty pathetic if I was scared of a single little girl." He undid Micha's bonds, and she did her best to keep the elation off of her face.
"Thank you. You're a kind man."
"Heh, don't mention it."
Though he was a kidnapper, he was still happy to receive praise. Micha knew now wasn't the time to make a move, so she kept up the act and wrapped the bag around herself, shivering slightly.
"Phew..."
"If you're that cold, I'll bring you some hot water later. It wouldn't do to have anything happen to our hostage."
"I'd like that."
Inwardly, she was disappointed that all he was offering was some water, but she wasn't planning on taking his charity anyway. After all, Friede was coming for her.
Once the man had left, Micha took stock of her possessions. Her Blast Grimoire was still safe. She pulled off the safety—which was shaped exactly like a bookmark—so that she could fire it at any time. The problem was, there were multiple enemies. When the man had opened the door earlier, she'd seen three others in the corridor. It was possible there were more of them in the building too.
Micha wasn't a mage, so she couldn't recharge the Blast Grimoire once it had fired. One shot was all she was going to get. The kidnappers think I'm unarmed. That's the one advantage I have over them. I just hope Friede can take care of the rest. She looked back up and saw that the grille covering the ventilation shaft was slightly warped. Something with a lot of power was clearly hitting it as the bars got bent further and further out of shape. Impacts that strong should have been making a lot of noise, but for some reason, they were totally silent. She must be using magic.
After a few more seconds of smacking, Friede finally succeeded in getting the grille out. She hurriedly grabbed it as it began to fall. Will it make a noise if it falls still? Micha thought to herself, spreading her bag out on the floor to help muffle the sound. Friede waited a moment for her to get clear, then dropped the grille. Micha wrapped it up in the bag and moved it to a corner of the room while Friede dropped down.
"Friede!" Micha shouted, but no noise came out. Still grinning, Friede pantomimed to her.
"You're using magic to erase noises around you?"
"Yep, that's right."
"Wow, that's convenient."
"Not right now it isn't."
The two of them chuckled to each other after using gestures and expression changes to pantomime that conversation out. Friede really did come for me. She kept her promise. Micha's respect for Friede went up a thousandfold.
Overcome by emotion, she hugged Friede. "Thanks for coming to rescue me! I love you, Friede!"
"What?! Whoa?!" After she'd had her fill of hugging, Micha released Friede and looked her over.
"So, how are we getting out of here?"
"Well, about that..." With a series of odd gestures, Friede started explaining the plan.
* * * *
"I brought you some hot water," the kidnapper said, opening the door. The captive young girl nodded, the bag covering her to her shoulders.
"I'll leave it here for you," he said, placing the mug on the floor, and she nodded again.
"All right, just wait a bit longer, and you'll get to leave." The moment he turned to leave, the girl launched a kick at his defenseless back.
"Gaah!"
He slammed into the door and slumped to the ground, unconscious. He'd smacked his head hard enough against the iron door to give himself a concussion.
"Too easy," Friede, who was wearing Micha's clothes, said with a smile.
Once the kidnappers decided they were going to kill Micha, they'd be a lot more alert around her. So Friede's plan had been to strike first and take them all out while they were off-guard. It was a bold, but reasonable plan. It'd be too dangerous to climb back up out of the ventilation shaft after all... Friede had barely made it down with more than a few close calls, so she doubted Micha could handle the climb. The princess was neither dressed for it nor had the agility and strength needed. If Micha attempted the climb and got stuck somewhere halfway, she wouldn't be able to free herself. For now, Friede was having her hide in the shaft entrance, but she'd made it clear that Micha wasn't to attempt the climb.
I hope Micha's doing okay up there. Friede started to turn around to check on her, but then she heard another pair of footsteps approaching the door.
"Hey, what happ—" The man didn't even get to finish his sentence before Friede hit him with a magic-enhanced punch to the face. There was a satisfying crunch, and the second man also fell to the floor, unconscious.
"Two more to go." Friede would have had trouble with four people at once, but she could take two, even if they managed to pincer her. But just as she was celebrating her victory, she heard a multitude of footsteps.
"Hurry!"
"Wait, did you hear that?!"
"What's going on here?!"
A group of men armed with rapiers and knives piled into the room. There were ten of them in total. That's too many! The scent that came in with them was reminiscent of the smell of the city. They must have only just arrived in this warehouse. They kept their swords pointed at Friede while they addressed the two guards who'd been here from the start.
"Hey, this place got compromised! The werewolves will be here soon! Kill the princess and get out of here!"
It appeared the reinforcements Friede had been waiting for were finally on their way. Unfortunately, she would have to protect Micha on her own until they got here. Friede didn't know what the situation was like outside, but they were clearly intent on killing Micha now.
The men surrounded Friede with their weapons brandished.
"Is this the princess?"
"That's right!" Friede shouted, but another one of the men shook his head.
"No, that's not her."
"Come on, there's no way the crown princess would look like that."
"Busted already?!" Friede didn't know why, but the men were apparently able to immediately tell she was an imposter.
"Whatever, kill her too! Someone go look for the princess!"
"I just told you, I'm Micha!" Friede boosted her physical abilities with magic and charged forward.
"Hiyaaa!"
She caught one of the men with a roundhouse kick, and he knocked over shelves and tables as he flew backwards. As she pivoted, she caught another man with a backhanded punch, then jumped off his back, high enough to touch the ceiling.
"Uryaaaah!" As she fell, she amplified her weight for just a second and crushed another man's shoulder blade with a well-placed dropkick. He fell to the ground, screaming in pain.
"I'm not done yet!" Friede shouted, while taking a second to catch her breath.
With this, she'd taken out a total of five guards, but there were still close to ten left. She no longer had the element of surprise either, and her foes circled her warily, their rapiers outstretched and ready to stab.
This isn't going to be easy... Friede would almost certainly hurt herself trying to parry their weapons bare-handed. Of course, she could use strengthening and healing magic to mitigate those injuries, but then she'd run out of mana keeping herself in fighting shape. I should just take them all out at once with a Soul Shaker. She'd be able to get them all with it, and it would help draw the mana in the room towards her. There was just one problem with that plan.
"Coordinate your attacks!"
"Got it!"
Her foes were rushing her all at once, giving her no opportunity to cast.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"
If she was just against one person, Friede would have been able to deal with them while focusing on casting, but this many foes required her full attention. Especially since they knew how to work as a team. I can't cast Soul Shaker like this! Friede needed to suck in a big breath before she used the spell, which would naturally slow her down. People usually kept their breaths short when they were fighting.
"Hah!" She danced out of the way of a rapier thrust at her stomach, then bent backwards to avoid one aimed at her neck. Just dodging wasn't too hard. Her kinetic vision was powerful enough that the assailants looked like they were moving in slow motion. But so long as she was focusing on dodging, she couldn't catch a moment to take a big breath.
I need an opening to breathe or... If she didn't hurry, her strengthening magic would wear off. She wasn't good enough at it to keep it active indefinitely, and she wouldn't get a chance to recast it once it was gone. But the worst was still to come.
One of the men thrust a hand into his pocket and shouted, "I'm gonna use the spice powder!"
"Wha?!" Friede shouted, her instincts screaming "Danger!" at her. Her nose still remembered the smell of the powder that had blinded her. They're going for my eyes! Friede's foes all pulled out protective masks with glass goggles. This was clearly a strategy they'd rehearsed. Friede tried to steal one, but the man unleashed the powder before she could.
"Uwaaa?!"
"Gyaaaa?!"
Two of the men had failed to put their masks on in time, and they rolled around the ground, moaning in pain. Their eyes and throats were goners. Clearly, these kidnappers didn't care about friendly fire, which made things all the more dangerous for Friede. She'd plopped the bag over her head just before the powder came out, so she hadn't taken any damage from the powder, but she still couldn't see.
"Get her!"
Friede relied on her hearing to dodge her enemies' attacks. She jumped from wall to wall, staying well out of her opponents' attack ranges. As she jumped around, she shoved over shelves and cabinets to slow her assailants. But she knew she couldn't keep this up for long. Sooner or later someone would get a lucky hit. Because they were in a closed room, no wind would clear away the powder either. Plus, taking a big breath now would mean sucking in a bunch of powder, so she couldn't use Soul Shaker either.
Wh-Wh-What do I do now?! Am I doomed?! Visions of her own death flashed through her mind, and she thought about the last time she'd been in a situation like this. Back then, dad had shown up to save me, but right now I'm the one who came here to save Micha! If Friede died here, Micha died with her. That thought bolstered her resolve. She couldn't afford to lose here. I'm pretty sure dad took a bunch of bullets and still... Wait, that's it! Just as a plan came to her, she heard Micha's voice in the distance.
"Friede, I want to help you out, but you're moving so much I can't shoot without risking hitting you!"
"That's fine!" Friede shouted, then hurriedly added, "Mana!"
"What?!"
Micha sounded confused, but Friede didn't have the breath to give her a verbal explanation, and she was too busy dodging to pantomime one. Please, just shoot me! One of the kidnappers' swords grazed the bag on her head. Motes of powder started filtering in through the tiny hole.
"Gah!" Friede gasped, as she held the cut shut and closed her eyes and nose. Since she was relying solely on hearing to move around, she frequently bumped her back or her shoulder against the walls. Half of her body was covered in bruises at this point. And her reckless dodging would only work for a few more seconds.
Another sword sliced through the bag, opening another hole. The thick jute actually provided a decent amount of armor for Friede, and without it, her face would have been laced with cuts by now.
Come on Micha, I need you! Wait, I've got it! Micha had said she couldn't aim because Friede was moving around too much. Steeling herself, Friede moved directly underneath the ventilation shaft and stood still.
"Micha!"
"Okay!"
The light from the Blast Grimoire was so bright Friede could see it through her closed eyes, as well as the thick bag. She absorbed as much of the shot's power as she could.
"All right, let's do this!" Friede shouted, feeling mana suffuse her. The bag had been blown away in the torrent of light, but Friede didn't need it anymore. She used a portion of the mana to neutralize the toxins in the powder around her, making it harmless. She then sucked in a huge breath and let loose with Soul Shaker.
"AWOOOOOOOOOO!" In a closed room like this one, her howl sounded ten times louder than usual.
"Waaah!"
"Argh!"
The masked men stumbled backwards, trembling in fear. Werewolves had been humans' natural predators since time immemorial. Fear of a werewolf's howl was baked into their DNA.
The battle ended immediately. All of the mana Friede hadn't been able to absorb started gathering around her thanks to the effects of her Soul Shaker. With this much excess, she'd easily be able to go another round. Relieved, Friede used strengthening magic to protect her skin, eyes, and nose from the powder and looked around the room. Yeah, we should be fine. The kidnappers were all trembling in fear.
"This is payback," Friede said, ripping the masks off of the petrified men. They immediately started writhing in pain as the powder assaulted their eyes and noses.
"Are you okay, Micha?"
"Yeah. I'm still in the ventilation shaft, and the wind from outside is keeping the powder away."
Friede looked up and saw Micha still holding the Blast Grimoire out in front of her with trembling hands. Friede couldn't tell if Micha was laughing or crying, but with how badly her hands were shaking, it was probably the latter.
Friede grinned, trying to reassure her. Remembering one of her dad's favorite catchphrases, she said in a joking voice, "Never fear, the wolf's here."
"Thank you, Friede. Thank you..." Micha sniffled, and for a second Friede wondered if some powder hadn't gotten into her nose after all.
Afterwards, Friede got a good scolding from every authority figure in the city.
"I am extremely grateful that you rescued Princess Micha for us. But if anything had happened to you, relations between Rolmund and Meraldia would have deteriorated. Please take more care of yourself," Archduke Lekomya said with a sigh.
Kurtz was standing next to him, looking resigned.
"You really do take after your father..." he said, unable to think of anything else to say. After a few seconds he stopped standing as stiffly and added, "There's a lot I want to say, but for now, I'm glad you're safe."
"Thank you, professor," Friede said with a polite bow. Lekomya and Kurtz exchanged glances, then started whispering to each other.
"Is she always like this, Sir Kurtz?"
"More or less."
"I suppose I should have expected as much from Lord Veight's daughter."
"You might find this amusing since you're a foreign lord, but I'm the one who has to educate her. I'm beginning to regret becoming her teacher."
Still bowing, Friede raised a hand and said, "Umm, I can hear you."
"That's fine, just stand there and listen," Kurtz said, clearing his throat. He then turned back to Lekomya and resumed whispering his complaints.
Once Kurtz had gotten it all out of his system, Lekomya turned to Friede and said, "You acted rashly, and your actions could have caused an international incident. You aren't fit to be part of the Meraldian delegation."
"I know..."
Everything Lekomya said was true, and Friede did feel bad about making things harder for him. But she knew she'd make the same choice to act if she had to.
Kurtz seemed to be able to tell that as well and sighed. "She'll do it again if the situation calls for it. She's just like her father."
"I can definitely see the resemblance," Lekomya replied with a wry smile. "As an archduke, I cannot formally condone your actions. But as a father, you have my deepest thanks. I will never forget that you risked your own life to save my daughter's."
Lekomya squatted down, placed a hand on Friede's shoulder, and smiled.
"I owe you more than you can ever imagine. Thank you so much. I promise I'll repay this debt one day."
"I-It's fine!"
It was an unnerving experience, being thanked by Rolmund's most famed noble. Still, Friede stood her ground. There was one thing she absolutely had to make clear.
"All I did was save a good friend. I didn't do anything worthy of special praise."
For a moment Lekomya looked taken aback, but then he smiled. "I see. Now that you mention it, I suppose you're right." He patted Friede's shoulder again. "But even so, I'm still grateful to you. Please continue to be Micha's friend from here on out as well. She needs people like you by her side."
"Of course, My Lord!" Friede replied with a happy smile.
* * * *
After Friede left, Lekomya went to the salon room granted to the empire's generals. Most of them were out helping suppress the rebellion, and there were only a few others in the room.
"That nearly became a disaster, Lekomya. I'm glad your daughter got out safe and sound."
"Thank you. But now I owe even more to Lord Veight, albeit indirectly." Lekomya took his seat and one of his friends poured him a cup of tea. He took a sip and said, "I thought maybe I could at least do a better job at raising kids than Lord Veight, but I haven't even managed to do that..."
"Is Friede that amazing?"
"Oh, yes, absolutely. I can't hold a candle to her." Lekomya threw his hands up in the air. "She's brave, sincere, and unbelievably kind. If she ends up taking over for her father, then Meraldia's future looks bright."
Lord Shawch turned to Lekomya and said, "Meraldia has far more demons living in it than Rolmund, and followers of all sorts of religions. It's not very unified. Do you really think it'll remain stable so long as Lord Veight's daughter is at the helm?"
"I do. She has her father's spirit. In a decade or two, Meraldia will have two Black Werewolf Kings."
"That's reassuring," Shawch said with a smile.
Lekomya looked around at the few generals present and said, "Now then, we'd be a complete laughingstock if we let a girl who came here as our guest do our jobs for us. Let's put an end to this rebellion and restore peace to Rolmund."
"Of course. We adults should be the ones to take care of dirty jobs like these."
Rebels were given the death penalty, without exception. A lot of blood would be spilled once this rebellion was put down.
Lekomya nodded, and placed a few documents on top of the table. "The bloody cleanup work is our responsibility. As is ensuring something like this never happens again. Let's get started, friends. I want to wrap this up before Meraldia's delegation goes home."
"Now you're just asking for the impossible," Lord Pieti said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"There's a guy on the other side of the mountains that does the impossible all the time. We better get used to doing it ourselves, since soon there'll be two people in Meraldia like that."
"Hahaha."
The generals looked over Lekomya's documents, then quickly got to work.
* * * *
After Micha was rescued, Friede was kept in the dark about Rolmund's internal affairs. Lekomya and the others didn't want to burden her with the knowledge that they'd carried out a bloody purge to ensure no rebellious sentiment remained. After all, she was still just a student. Originia itself was quite peaceful, and Friede and the others had many meetings and events to keep them occupied. The government hadn't paid for their trip here so that everyone could tour the city and eat sweets, after all. Friede had enough time to get used to Rolmund's cooking before the day of her departure arrived.
"You're finally going..." Micha said sadly.
"Mhm. The council wants us back," Friede replied.
"What a shame. I wish you could come visit again in a month, but I suppose that's not possible."
"That'd be a bit difficult, yeah."
Meraldia and Rolmund still hadn't officially built any diplomatic ties. Friede and Micha both knew it wasn't just a matter of having the time and money to visit.
But Friede wasn't going to let political difficulties get in her way. In a resolute voice, she said, "Let's both do what we can in our respective countries to make sure we can meet up and eat sweets again."
Micha looked momentarily taken aback, but then nodded. "Of course."
As they were saying their farewells, Eleora showed up. Lekomya and her other chief retainers were with her. There was going to be a formal send-off for the Meraldian delegation in the courtyard later, so all the important nobles were in the capital.
"I'm sure your efforts will bear fruit sooner than you think. Demon Lord Airia and myself are both hoping our two nations can forge an alliance too. Though I'm sure there will be a lot of negotiating that needs to be done first," Eleora said, patting Friede and Micha on the head. "The two of you aren't bound by the chains of the past, like the older generation is. Which means it's up to you to shape our future. I'm sure you'll be able to accomplish what we couldn't."
"Y-You honor me, Your Majesty. I'm, err, not worthy of such praise," Friede replied nervously, trying to remember the proper formal response. Eleora straightened up and looked at the palace's main gates.
"Come to think of it, I never did give you a reward. You saved our crown princess, we can hardly let you go home empty-handed."
"Y-You really don't have to! I'm flattered, truly, but I don't need a reward!"
Any gift Friede accepted would have diplomatic ramifications. She was well aware of that, and so firmly refused any reward for saving Micha.
But Eleora just chuckled and said, "I know you don't. But the thing about empresses is, we're allowed to do whatever we want." She pointed to the ostentatious gates leading in and out of the palace. "The main gates of the palace haven't been named yet. They need an appellation worthy of the entrance to the empress's house. And I've just now decided that Aindorf Gate is a fitting name. Archduke Lekomya, see to it that the name is engraved onto these gates as soon as possible."
Lekomya shot Friede an impish grin, then bowed reverently to Eleora.
"It has already been seen to, Your Majesty."
"Whoops, I forgot I already decided that a while back." Eleora gave Friede a friendly wink.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13_5.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
"Umm...how exactly... Huh?" Friede was still trying to process the knowledge that her surname would be on a foreign palace's gates.
"What's wrong? Do people not name their gates in Meraldia?" Eleora asked with a chuckle. She seemed to be enjoying Friede's reaction.
"They don't, actually..."
"The Aindorf name is quite famous in Meraldia. And now, everyone who enters Rolmund's palace will walk through Aindorf Gate."
"Whoa..." Friede muttered, only now realizing the implications of what Eleora had done.
"This gate's name will be a symbol of our two nations' friendship. You should rejoice, this is all thanks to the efforts of your delegation," Eleora said.
She's tricking me somehow. I can smell the lie on her.
"We can't let the fact that Micha was kidnapped become public knowledge, which is why officially we're naming this gate in the Demon Lord's honor. It helps that it's also Veight's surname. We're basically killing three birds with one stone." Eleora gave Friede a childish smirk.
Crap, she got me good. Friede hung her head in defeat.
"Y-Y-You really don't need to... Umm...thank you very much. It's a great honor..."
"Hehe, there's more than one way to play the game of diplomacy. Never forget that." Eleora fondly ruffled Friede's hair until it was a complete mess. Once she was done, Micha stepped closer to Friede.
"Be careful on the way back. I'll be sure to find plenty more delicious sweet shops for our next tea party."
"Guess I'll have to come back soon then!" Friede said, trying to inject some cheer into her voice.
Micha suddenly hugged her, so that Friede wouldn't see that she was crying. She stayed like that for some time, clinging to Friede until her tears dried.
* * * *
During Friede's stay in Rolmund, I made sure none of the rebels attacked the delegation, and even helped Eleora a little in taking down their leader. Blast Canes had become the standard in Rolmund, which made my life easier, since everyone's bullets just healed me.
Once my mission was complete, Lekomya begged me to come visit the capital for a few days, but I explained my reasons for wanting to stay hidden to him, and returned to Meraldia without Friede ever learning I'd been in Rolmund. I'd been in Krauhen for a few days, telling the viceroys what I'd learned in Rolmund, when Friede and the rest of the delegation returned. First, I made sure to get a full report from Kurtz.
"Rolmund's political situation has stabilized quite a bit over the past decade, and they've begun pouring resources into research and development, as well as streamlining their bureaucracy. I suspect their rate of technological advancement will rise sharply in the coming years."
"Thank you for your report, Technical Officer Kurtz. As I thought, building a friendly relationship with Rolmund is of the utmost importance. I'll do my best to convince the council."
Kurtz had a ton more written reports for me as well, which I pored over with Krauhen's viceroy, Belken. The demon army and the Commonwealth Council would need to evaluate the political and military significance of the reports independently, but I could at least summarize them so Airia and the other councilors wouldn't have to read them all.
Just as I'd finished organizing the reports, I heard a knock at my door. I figured she'd come around now.
"Come in," I said, and the door swung open. As expected, it was Friede who walked in.
"Da—I mean, Councilor Veight."
"Yes?" I asked, and Friede straightened her back and gave me a proper demon army salute.
"Friede Aindorf has returned from her mission in Rolmund."
"Well done."
"Oh yeah, dad, I've gotta tell you something!"
You couldn't even stick to formal speech for five seconds, huh? Sighing, I bowed to Belken and said, "Would it be all right if I took a short break to take care of some private matters, Lord Belken?"
"Of course. We've already finished examining the reports, so you may as well rest for the night. All that's left to do is have my secretaries make copies," Belken replied with a smile, and I led Friede into the courtyard.
"Did you grow taller while you were in Rolmund?" I asked.
"No one grows that fast, dad. Oh, but I learned how to properly shoot a Blast Cane from the empress!"
Oh god, what did you do? Friede excitedly told me about all that happened during her trip. I'd heard most of it already from Kurtz's report, but there were a few things I hadn't known about. For example, I hadn't known that Friede had snuck out of the palace with Micha. But it seemed like the two of them had become close friends. I hadn't expected that, but it meant diplomacy between our two nations would be easier. That was all well and good, but—
"Also, Micha's suuuuper nice! Did you know, her dad's Archduke Lekomya! He's Rolmund's greatest hero! Oh, and Micha's hair is so pretty! And she said this perfume suits me!"
All she's talking about is Micha. I'm sure hanging out with her wasn't all you did, but I guess I'll ask about the rest tomorrow. From what Friede said, it sounded like Micha was growing up to be a very competent heir. I guess Rolmund will remain stable for another generation, at least.
As Friede regaled me with stories of Micha, I spotted Joshua—one of the werewolves from Rolmund—running through the courtyard. Fahn was with him.
"Come on, run faster! If you can't fight while in your human form, how will you handle a surprise attack?!" she shouted.
"Y-Yes ma'am!"
Joshua looked pretty out of breath. Fahn was one strict drill sergeant, and Joshua was still just a kid. Her training regimen was likely too much for him. I should probably check up on him later. I turned back towards Friede and saw her staring at me.
"Who's that guy?"
"He's a werewolf from Rolmund. Some of them came here to train with us, so I had them join our squad."
"Dad...did you go to Rolmund too?"
Uh oh, the werewolf's out of the bag. She's gotten sharper. As your dad I'm glad, but I wish you wouldn't see through me so easily. I considered coming up with a cover story, but I really didn't want to lie to my daughter.
"I can't tell you the details, but yes."
"I knew it..."
Friede looked visibly disappointed. She puffed out her cheeks and said, "Aren't you being a bit too overprotective?"
From her perspective, this had been her first independent adventure, so it was hardly surprising she was mad to learn I'd come too. It was similar to how a kid would be annoyed if their parents came with them on a school field trip. Well, I guess I should at least tell her enough to clear up this misunderstanding.
"Don't worry, I never even came close to the capital. I was there for work."
"Council business?"
"Yeah, they had a secret mission for me. I'm afraid I can't tell you anymore, even if you are my daughter."
It was important to draw the line between my public and private life. Fortunately, it seemed that was enough for Friede.
She nodded and said, "I see... I guess I can't blame you then."
Thank god you're so understanding.
She gave me a big smile and added, "I achieved a lot while you were working! I made sure to properly build connections in Rolmund too."
"That's great."
Kurtz had told me about how she'd blown up half of the firing range and had beaten 30 imperial guards in a wrestling match, but it seemed like she'd made a lot of friends and learned a lot as well. Plus, even Kurtz had said that Friede left an extremely good impression in Rolmund, so I probably didn't need to worry.
I patted Friede's head and smiled at her. "Good job. I knew you'd make me proud."
"Ehehe."
"All right, let's go back to Ryunheit. Mom's waiting for us."
"Okay!"
And so the two of us returned to Ryunheit, only to discover sad news awaiting our arrival.
"Elder Schwaid passed away?!"
When I reached the werewolf quarter, I discovered that one of our village's elders had died. Over the last decade, our elders had slowly been dying of old age, and now there were only two left. Well, actually just one now, since old man Schwaid had been one of them.
"But he was still so full of vigor. How did he die?" I asked the last living elder, Lagar.
He slumped in his chair and hung his head.
"It was a transformation death. You've heard of them, right?"
"Yeah..."
A werewolf's transformation put a lot of strain on the body's muscles. It was rare, but sometimes that strain could prove to be fatal. If an old werewolf pushed themselves to transform, sometimes the muscles developed tumors that spread rapidly.
Lagar sighed and said, "He went out on a hunt to keep himself in shape, and when he transformed, he grew a lump in his throat. It killed him almost instantly."
That's awful.
Lagar looked up at me and muttered sadly, "I've gotten too old to transform myself... A werewolf who can't fight isn't fit to lead the pack."
"I guess we need to choose a new batch of elders then."
"We do...but you need to make sure the new elders meet the proper criteria."
"What criteria?"
In truth, I had no idea how a werewolf pack's elders were chosen.
Lagar stroked his wispy white hair and explained, "An elder must be a strong fighter, have a lot of experience, and have the support of the pack. But most importantly, they need to be an Invigorator."
"What's that?" I'd never heard that term before.
"An Invigorator is someone who gets a little younger every time they transform. Because of that, they live longer than most werewolves."
"Oh, like Vodd."
"Precisely. I sense the power of an Invigorator from him, but..." Lagar shook his head. "He won't do. He's basically my age. What's the point of naming a successor who won't outlive me? Besides, he doesn't want to be an elder anyway."
"Yeah, I can't see him enjoying the job."
Vodd did like looking after people, but he didn't like making decisions on behalf of a group. He was individualistic to the core, and wasn't suited to leadership.
"What about Fahn and Monza? They're both Invigorators."
They looked like they hadn't aged a day in the past decade. Plus, they were both strong, and had plenty of experience. Lagar, however, shook his head once more.
"No, not them. If they become elders, they'll have even less time to look for husbands. Besides, even if Fahn is fit for the job, Monza definitely isn't."
Fair enough. Monza had a bit of a sadistic streak, and she was far too capricious.
"You're purposely avoiding the man most suited for the job, aren't you, Veight?"
Oh, you noticed? I took a few steps back and shook my head.
"I don't wanna. I already have my hands full being a demon army general and a councilor. I can't take on any more responsibilities."
"But you're a skilled fighter, loved by everyone, have plenty of experience, and are an Invigorator."
Sure, but that doesn't mean I want the job. Lagar got up and walked towards me.
"We're living together with humans now. The days when we survived by hunting in the forest are long gone. Us old folk aren't suited to lead the pack in this new world."
"You've done a pretty good job so far."
"Only because you and the demon army have been there to mediate for us. In fact, you've been the de facto leader of our pack for a while now." Before I could argue back, Lagar added, "You're the only one of us who has connections with Rolmund's werewolves too. There's no denying you're the most important member of our pack. Besides, aren't you the one who allowed young Joshua to join us?"
"Only because Volka conned me into it. She wants to make sure her people are safe in case anything happens to Eleora."
Volka wanted footholds in Meraldia in case her pack was ever chased out of Rolmund. But stubborn old Lagar refused to budge.
"It doesn't matter why Rolmund's werewolves are doing this. The point is, you're the one who's making decisions for us, and you're the one who's making our pack stronger. You should be our leader."
"Oh, give me a break."
I wanted to retire as soon as possible so I could focus on researching magic with Master. If I became an elder, it'd take even longer before that would be possible. I understood where Lagar was coming from though. Being an elder was a heavy responsibility. It was a position you could only give to someone you had absolute trust in.
The only reason all of us werewolves could live comfortably in Ryunheit was because the werewolf squad serving under the demon army was working hard. And since I was the leader of that squad, it made sense to make me an elder of our pack. Also, the pleading look Lagar gave me made it really hard to refuse.
"Who knows how many years I have left? I can't keep looking after the pack for much longer. Please, won't you safeguard our people's future?"
It'd be inhuman of me to refuse him. Though, I guess I'm a werewolf, not a human.
Steeling my resolve, I said, "F-Fine... I'll be our elder until the next generation's ready to take over."
"Truly?"
"Yes, I swear it on my ancestor's fangs." I nodded solemnly, and Lagar jumped for joy.
"Hell yes! It worked, Schwaid!"
"Wahaha, you got him good!"
What...? That was Schwaid's voice, wasn't it? I turned around and saw Schwaid walking out of the closet.
"I thought you were dead, Schwaid... Wait, you guys tricked me?!"
"Deceiving your prey and striking when they lower your guard is how you pull off a successful hunt. This is what it means to be a true werewolf, Elder Veight."
Dammit, they got me good. While it was true my senses weren't as sharp in my human form, I still couldn't believe Schwaid had been stealthy enough to completely avoid detection. Older werewolves couldn't beat younger ones in a head-on contest of strength, but they were far craftier than we were. Wonderful. At least this means our remaining elders are still lively. Anyway...
"I can't say I approve of such devious methods."
"I mean, there's no way you would have agreed if we didn't go this far," Schwaid said defensively.
This is why I hate werewolves.
"We got forced into becoming elders when we were younger too," Lagar said with a grin. "Though, in our case, our elders beat the hell out of us until we finally said we'd do it. Wahahahaha."
"Man, I remember those days."
That's too violent for me. I liked my werewolf pack, but every now and again their bloodthirstiness surprised me. Well, I guess it makes sense to make someone good at negotiating with humans an elder, since we're going to be living with them from now on. Fine, I guess I'll do it. Schwaid and Lagar have worked for long enough anyway.
"Just so you know, I still have to prioritize my work for the council and the demon army. Also, even if I'm your elder now, I can't show you guys any favoritism."
The two elders nodded.
"That's fine. We weren't expecting you to ever do anything shady to begin with."
"You lead the pack the way you think is right. Us old-timers won't get in your way."
Well, I appreciate that at least.
"I don't think I can handle everything by myself, so can I make Fahn and Jerrick my assistants?"
"Go for it. No one's gonna argue with the new elder."
"We'll keep an eye on things to make sure nothing gets out of hand, but otherwise, just do whatever you want."
You totally plan to retire the moment I take over, don't you? It's not fair.
And thus, I became the newest elder of the werewolf pack, even though it was a responsibility I really didn't want. It was like joining your local city council, but while you could leave the council after a year or two, I was stuck with this role for life.
After returning to Ryunheit, Friede was accepted into Meraldia University's magic program. It had been what she was working towards until now, but it seemed she'd had a change of heart.
"Micha's a princess, so she's studying politics and military affairs too..."
After meeting Rolmund's crown princess, Friede was no longer sure about what she wanted to study. Airia and I sipped some tea while we gently watched Friede grapple with this newfound problem.
Personally, I didn't want my daughter to get involved in politics. Being a viceroy was a lot of responsibility, and it was dangerous too. But at the same time, Friede was the heir of the Aindorf family, which had served as Ryunheit's viceroys for generations. Even if Friede decided politics wasn't for her, she wouldn't be able to completely free herself of it. What mattered most though was Friede's own desires.
"What do you want to be in the future, Friede?"
"Hmm... That's a good question..." She reached for a cookie with one hand while massaging her forehead with the other. "Being a politician or a diplomat sounds like too much work. Same goes for being a general. But I guess being a magician isn't easy either?"
"It sure isn't."
Friede was beginning to understand how complex the world was. The job of a knight or general involved a lot more than just looking cool. And while it looked like politicians and diplomats got to live in the lap of luxury, they had quite a few responsibilities. Naturally, being a mage wasn't as glitzy a job as it seemed either. Research required a lot of patience.
Friede sprawled over the table and muttered, "Argh... I don't think I can do any of these jobs."
"Well, you can't right now, but that's what school is here to teach you."
"Did you study a lot too, dad?"
"Tons." Especially if you included the amount of time I spent studying in my past life.
Smiling, Airia patted Friede's head and said, "As long as you put your mind to it, you can become whatever you want. Just remember, each job comes with its own responsibilities. And no matter what job you pick, there's one thing you absolutely need to properly fulfill those responsibilities."
"What's that?"
Airia glanced back at me and chuckled.
"Love for what you do. You need to enjoy your job—be proud of it—or you won't be able to stick with it through thick and thin."
Now that's good advice. I nodded in agreement and said, "Airia's right. You have to pick something you think you'll want to keep doing for the rest of your life. That matters a lot more than how important the job seems, or how flashy it is."
"Hmm... But I don't know what I love doing..."
Yeah, I know.
Friede agonized over her choices for a while longer, then suddenly looked up at us. "I want to become stronger. I don't mean at fighting. I want the kind of strength that can save other people."
"Oh, that's a good way of thinking," I replied.
"But both politicians and mages have that kind of strength, you know?" Airia said. "A mage has the power to heal the sick, while a politician has the authority to build a hospital."
Realizing that epiphany hadn't actually brought her any closer to an answer, Friede once again sprawled over the table. After a few seconds, she suddenly muttered, "Oh, I know."
Looks like she's thought of something.
The next day, I received a visit from Fumino, who was now one of Wa's official diplomats.
"You want to send more survey teams into the Windswept Dunes?" I asked.
"Yes. The desert is massive. At this rate, it'll take hundreds of years to finish mapping the place out. We're hoping Meraldia will be willing to cooperate with us."
Creating land routes to Wa would facilitate trade, but those same roads could be used by a potential invading army. There was no telling if Meraldia's alliance with Wa would last forever, so it wouldn't hurt for Meraldia to have a hand in building those routes.
"Got it. I'll ask Zaria, Veira, and Shardier's viceroys for help at the next council meeting. Their cities are closest to the Windswept Dunes."
"Thank you very much, Veight," Fumino said, bowing her head. "By the way..." she glanced towards the door.
I smiled and said, "She's been like that all morning."
Fumino smiled as well and replied, "What a cute spy you have."
"She had an epiphany last night. I can ask her to leave if necessary."
"No, that's fine. I don't have anything confidential to discuss today."
But you will later? After Fumino left, I looked into organizing teams to map out the Windswept Dunes. I needed to hash out a budget and find out which people we could spare. I should get some council workers to do the preliminary work of getting these teams ready. That way, I'll have a proper budget estimate to give to the council at our next meeting. This sort of logistical work was annoying, but I was used to handling it thanks to my past life.
But before I could do much, the elder Garney brother came running up to me.
"Hey, Veight—I mean, elder! One of our youngsters got into a fight with a human!"
"He didn't kill him, did he?"
"No, it was a tavern brawl. The human's arm got broken though."
Every damn time.
"And who was this werewolf fighting with?"
"One of the soldiers from Beluza. They got into a fight over a bet on a card game."
Oh, then it's not too bad. I let out a sigh of relief.
"In that case, I'll talk to Grizz. We'll treat the soldier at the demon army's hospital."
If the werewolf had injured a civilian, I would have had to offer a public apology and everything. Oh yeah, that reminds me.
"Bring the guy who started the fight to my office later. I need to give him a lesson about the responsibilities of the strong."
"O-Okay..." Garbert gulped, and shot me more than a few worried looks as he walked out of the room. It was precisely because werewolves were stronger than humans that they needed to be more careful when in human society.
A little bit before noon, I forced the werewolf who'd started the fight into a wrestling match with me.
"Hiyaaa!"
I threw him using one of the martial arts tricks I'd learned in Wa, and he rolled across the ground before scrambling to his feet.
"Wait, elder! I didn't mean to hurt him that bad, werewolves are just stronger than humans! I couldn't help it!"
You just don't get it, do you? I tripped him up with a leg sweep while casting magic on him to make him light enough to float. I then magnified his weight—technically, I increased the force of gravity on him, but functionally it was the same thing—and he slammed into the floor.
"Gaaaah!"
No matter how well he broke his fall, that kind of force couldn't be easily dissipated.
Still in my human form, I waited to see if he'd counterattack.
"If the strong can't help but hurt the weak, then I guess there's nothing wrong with me hurting you either, is there?"
"Wha..." He'd completely lost the will to fight. "Y-You're joking, right, elder?! If you went all out, I'd be dead instantly!"
"I can't help it, I'm just stronger than you."
Up we go. I threw him into the air and hit him with a body slam.
"Ugaaah!"
"Come on, we're just getting started."
I hadn't even transformed, and I was only using the most basic techniques. There were joint locks and pile drivers I could use to really put on the hurt, but I didn't want to cripple him, so I was holding back.
"Survival of the fittest is the law all demons follow, right? No one would complain if I skinned you and used your fur for a rug."
"Wait, elder, I— Owwwwwww!"
I put him in a wrist lock, and he tried to roll away. Shouldn't you have a higher pain tolerance if you're a werewolf? I let go of him when he started panting and plopped down on the ground next to him.
"See, it's no fun when someone stronger than you beats the crap out of you, right?"
"Yes... I-I thought I was gonna die..."
"There are plenty of people stronger than you in this world. Hell, there are even people stronger than me out there."
"There's no way anyone's stronger than you!" He jumped back to his feet, and I reached up to pat his head.
"If I ever fought a Valkaan, I'd be killed in one hit. I may be strong, but even I have limits."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Nope."
It had taken every ounce of strength just to deal the finishing blow to a Hero who was already on the verge of death. I'd gotten stronger since then, but I still wouldn't stand a chance against a Hero—or I guess Valkaan, since "hero" had just become a generic term now—who was at full strength.
I healed the young werewolf's wounds and said, "Being strong doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want. If anything, your responsibilities grow as you gain strength. It's not really a good thing, becoming stronger."
"Then why did you get so strong, elder?"
I didn't really have much of a choice.
"Anyway, I hope you've learned your lesson. Don't use violence against humans. As the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, I'll have to punish you if you break Ryunheit's laws."
"O-Okay."
That aside, why has Friede been spying on us this whole time?
After lunch, I began preparing for the upcoming council meeting.
"The man called Karankov that Friede met was almost certainly Shallier, the former Lord Bolshevik. I guess he fled far to the north, where the empire can't reach him. It sounds like he's enjoying his new life at least."
Parker, who'd also met Shallier, nodded in agreement. "That would make sense. Sternenfeuer hunters and fishermen still live up there. They must have taken him in... Actually, knowing him, he probably ended up uniting them."
"I wouldn't be surprised if he's their leader. He certainly managed to mobilize quite a few people and demons to help search for Micha when she was kidnapped."
"That was probably his way of paying you back."
From the looks of it, Shallier's connections still ran deep. Since Friede had been heavily involved in the Micha kidnapping incident, we had a lot more intel on it than we would normally. Archduke Lekomya had sent me a private letter detailing what had happened as well. The man was meticulous to a fault. I was honestly impressed by how far he'd come.
Parker stuck the Sea Tiger bone on my desk against his rib cage and cackled at the result.
"Hey, Veight," he said after a few seconds. "Shallier was stripped of his nobility, but he clearly has a lot of influence still. Are you sure he won't make a play for the throne again?"
"Wouldn't you understand a fallen noble's feelings best of all, Parker?"
"Ouch. Now that's harsh. But I suppose it's true that his personality is similar to mine."
It is?
Parker continued messing around with the bone as he muttered, "The Bolshevik's second son inherited the family name, while the third son went to Meraldia and became one of Woroy's retainers. There's no need to worry about the family line dying out. As the eldest son, he basically has no responsibilities left."
"Is that how it works with nobles?"
"I was the eldest in my family as well, so I understand where he's coming from."
You do? Sighing, I looked out the window.
"Anyway, I don't think we need to worry about 'Karankov the Hunter' starting a rebellion anytime soon."
As I said that, I could sense Friede's scent grow distant. She was done spying on this meeting, it seemed.
I signed off on the report detailing the movements of the Sternenfeuer cult in Rolmund and added, "This document will prove extremely useful in our negotiations with Rolmund. Make sure everyone in the demon army's top brass sees it."
"You got it."
Man, what is Friede up to?
In the evening, I went to visit Airia in her office, a bundle of documents in my arms.
"Do you have a moment, Demon Lord?"
"Yes, I just finished dealing with city affairs, so I... That's a thicker stack of documents than usual."
She looked pretty tired, so I spread out the papers onto the table for her.
"I went through all the reports from the delegation that went to Rolmund and took note of everything important. The short of it is that the mission was a success, and it would be worthwhile to keep sending delegations regularly. Also..." I handed Airia one stack and began rifling through a second. "Wa wants us to send survey teams to help them map out the Windswept Dunes. The desert is dangerous, so I think it would be best if the teams came from the demon army's ranks. I'll present my proposal to both the council and the army generals for approval."
"Understood."
"Lastly, a civilian werewolf gravely injured one of Grizz's men. Apparently, the fight broke out because of a gambling argument. I've already sternly reprimanded the werewolf in question. It wouldn't do to have a demon killing civilians, even by accident."
"Of course. The last thing we want is strife between humans and demons."
These were all issues I'd taken on as Airia's representative, so it was important for her to be kept in the loop. I couldn't make important diplomatic decisions of my own volition, of course, but that was why I drafted proposals for Airia and the council to look over and vote on. I was doing a pretty good job as vice-commander, if I did say so myself.
On an unrelated note, I could sense Friede was close by again. Since it was just Airia and me in the room, I figured now was as good a time as any to figure out what she was up to.
"Friede, I know you're there."
"Hyaa—"
If I didn't already know you were here, that scream would have given you away.
"You can stop hiding. I'm not mad, so come out."
"O-Okay..."
The door creaked open and Friede walked in. She looked a little embarrassed, but also determined. It was clear she wasn't just trying to play a prank on me.
"Why exactly did you follow me around all day?"
Fidgeting awkwardly, Friede replied, "I wanted to know what kind of work a vice-commander does..."
"You're curious about my job?"
"Yeah."
Oho. Realizing that I really wasn't mad, Friede cheered up a little.
"Hey, dad, is being a vice-commander fun?"
"Absolutely." I smiled and added, "I get to help out someone I respect, and it's the perfect job for an average guy like me."
"Average?"
Is that really so hard to believe?
Friede gave me an incredulous look, but then she smiled. "In that case, I want to be a vice-commander too!"
"Okay, but whose?"
"Hmmm..."
"Just letting you know now, Airia already has a vice-commander, and it's me."
Friede cocked her head as she thought.
"Then...what if I became Micha's vice-commander?"
"She's the princess of another country."
"Yuhette?"
"If you want to be the vice-commander of a Sonnenlicht bishop, you're going to have to join the clergy yourself. Think you can do that?"
"No way."
I wasn't exactly thrilled to hear Friede wanted to be a vice-commander. While I personally thought it was an important, worthwhile job, I wanted her to do something with more public recognition. Preferably something that wasn't too dangerous either. Of course, I knew that was just a parent's selfishness talking.
"Why not become someone who gets a vice-commander of their own?"
"No, I wanna be a vice-commander. I mean, you look like you're having so much fun at work, dad."
Well I am, but...
Smiling, Airia interjected, "You want to help other people, right? That's a splendid goal to have, Friede."
"I do!"
"But helping others isn't as easy as it looks. If you want to be a vice-commander of the Demon Lord, you'll need to learn at least as much as your dad."
"I-I see...but that makes it worth it."
Hehehe, sorry, Friede, but I'm not handing over the title of Demon Lord's Vice-Commander to anyone, not even my daughter. Friede turned to me, a determined look in her eyes.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13_6.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
"Dad, I want to become a vice-commander and help someone do their job better. Can you teach me how?"
"There isn't really a manual for this kind of job..."
I hadn't expected this, but it did seem this was what Friede really wanted to do. Refusing her here would make me a failure of a father.
"In that case, how about you help me out with my job on your days off from school? But remember, your studies still come first."
"Yes! Thank you so much, dad! I'll study too, I promise!"
"Good, good."
I wasn't sure I'd be able to teach Friede properly while also doing my job, but this, too, was one of a parent's responsibilities. I'll make it work somehow. And thus, Friede became an apprentice vice-commander.
That night, Airia gave me an exasperated look as we got into bed.
"Veight, because of you, all of our brightest kids want to be vice-commanders instead of leaders. Did you know that?"
"You're kidding, right?"
"Myurei wants to be Ryuunie's vice-commander even though he's Lotz's viceroy. There are a bunch of other cases too."
Okay, but how is this my fault?
What kind of work should I have Friede do now that she's my apprentice? In the first place, a vice-commander's duties change a lot based on who they serve. As the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, my primary duties involved traveling and serving as her representative abroad, since her position didn't allow her to leave Ryunheit often. Plus, Airia was far better at handling domestic issues than I was. The members of her household, as well as the officers the council had dispatched to assist her, were better at helping her with those than I was.
While I was still agonizing about how to train Friede, Airia got out of bed. She put a drop of perfume on each of her ankles, then started combing her disheveled hair. Noticing I was watching her, she turned and smiled. I spoke the thought that popped into my head at that moment.
"You haven't changed at all... If anything, you've gotten even prettier."
Blushing, Airia shook her head. "That's not true at all. I'm already an old lady with a teenage daughter."
"You're far too modest." I grinned.
Maybe it was just because I'd spent so much time with her, but it really did feel like Airia had gotten more beautiful as time passed. Then again, Kite and Forne say the same about their wives.
Airia suddenly changed the topic in an effort to hide her embarrassment.
"By the way, about Friede..."
"Yeah?"
"If she's going to be the vice-commander of a councilor or a general, she's going to need to study math, debate, history, and accounting. Fortunately, the elementary track gave her an introduction to each of those subjects."
"You're right. The elementary track's thorough enough that people who've only completed it still manage to find decent jobs."
The elementary track only taught up to what would have been middle school level back in Japan, but that was pretty impressive in this world. Only the wealthy were able to get that much of an education normally. Most commoners were barely literate enough to write their own name. Some of the more studious commoners learned how to read and write properly by studying Sonnenlicht scriptures, but the vast majority didn't bother.
"She might be inexperienced, but she does have a basic understanding of how to handle paperwork. Which means the best way to teach her would be to show her how I usually work."
Hmm... Bringing her along on one of my trips would probably be for the best. I can't be showing favoritism either, so I could bring a few other kids who wanted to be vice-commanders as well.
As I was hashing out the logistics of bringing a bunch of kids with me, Fumino walked into my office.
"Veight, about the teams I wanted you to send to the Windswept Dunes..."
"I've already calculated a budget, but I'm trying to figure out where we'll pull the funds from. Expeditions into the desert are expensive."
"Actually, we have a problem."
Fumino looked uncharacteristically grim. I put down my pen and gave her my full attention.
"What happened?"
According to Fumino, one of Wa's survey teams had gone missing.
"During our first expedition, we were able to establish a forward operating base. But the scouts we sent deeper into the desert from there all went missing. The team trailing behind them had been close enough to see them initially, but then a sandstorm rolled in. After it'd passed, the scouts were nowhere to be found. We want to send a rescue party, but the desert is exceedingly dangerous. It's entirely possible the rescue party will go missing as well. The other survey teams who were out retreated back to base when they heard about the disappearance."
"That was a wise decision."
If the remaining survey teams went missing as well, we'd have even less information. I didn't think they were heartless for retreating to safety instead of trying to look for their comrades.
"I guess that proves the interior of the desert is as dangerous as we believed. Your previous expedition had casualties too, didn't it?"
"Yes. We lost people to the harsh climate, as well as to the dragonkin bandits and monsters that inhabit the desert."
Baltze had at least managed to take care of the bandits recently. In fact, they'd been so enamored by his fighting prowess that they were now helping Wa map out the desert.
"The desert has been drained of all its mana, so most of the monsters your teams encountered were scorpions and smaller bugs, right?"
"That's right. There's also bloodsucking cacti. When unsuspecting people or animals come to them to try and harvest water, they stab them with their needles and suck them dry."
I actually wanted a bloodsucking cactus sample for research purposes, but they were dangerous enough that no one had managed to get a cutting.
"None of those are dangerous enough to wipe out an entire team though."
"Precisely. Some natural phenomenon may have taken them all by surprise, but it's also possible that unknown monsters live deeper in the desert. Either way, we can't progress any further until we determine the cause of the scouts' disappearance."
Ah, I see where this is going.
"I take it that's why you came to me for help?"
"Sharp as always," Fumino said with a grin.
For some reason, everyone seemed to think I could solve whatever problem they had. I mean, they're usually right, but still.
After Fumino left, I started thinking about who I should put on the rescue team. Normally, I'd include Kite without hesitation, but he was now Meraldia's High Sage, meaning he was the top-ranking magician in the country. He was in charge of numerous highly important research projects, so I couldn't take him along "just because" like I used to be able to. If the worst happened, Meraldia would lose its brightest mage.
I guess I should just take my werewolves, like usual. We wouldn't be able to resupply anywhere, so five squads was probably the most I could take. Hamaam would definitely be part of the group since he and his squad were highly knowledgeable about the desert, while the rest would be stamina-filled youngsters. Oh yeah, I should bring Parker as well. He'd help round out the team.
At this point in time, I had completely forgotten about Friede.
The next day, I made my way to the Windswept Dunes accompanied by 16 handpicked werewolf soldiers. Of course, Friede was with me as well.
"She's finally following in your footsteps..." Airia had said with a worried face when she'd seen us off.
We were traveling to the desert by ship so that we could meet up with the remainder of Wa's survey teams. It was an uneventful trip, and we landed on the southeastern coast of the desert without incident. The Windswept Dunes looked much like Tottori's sand dunes, but much larger in scale. Also, this desert stretched out all the way to the horizon.
Friede put on her goggles and hood, then looked excitedly out at the desert. "Wow, this is so cool! When you said there was nothing but sand, I thought it'd be like the gravelly kind I'd seen before. But this is so soft and smooth and pretty!"
"The sand in the Windswept Dunes has been eroded down to extremely fine particles. It's kind of like flour. And just like flour, you don't want any in your mouth or nose, so keep your hood on."
"Okaaaay!"
Friede's tenacity never ceased to amaze me. She hadn't gotten seasick on the ship either. In fact, she loved the sea breeze. I'd been hoping she'd feel too queasy to keep going and would stay behind with the one werewolf squad guarding the ship, but I'd clearly underestimated my daughter. Though I was impressed by how far she'd come, I stayed focused on the task at hand.
"Remember, Friede, we're not here to sightsee. Our priority is meeting up with Wa's survey team."
"Oh, right! My apologies, Commander Veight!" Friede gave me a crisp salute.
Good, you're learning how to properly address me in public.
The moment she saw my change in expression, Friede lowered her hand and asked, "Did something good happen, dad?"
"Not really," I said. If only you could keep it up for more than a few seconds. "Friede, you and the other kids will stay towards the back and only observe, okay?"
"Understood, Commander Veight."
Great, you're using my title again. The other kids who'd come along were Shirin and the new werewolf boy, Joshua. Some of my human students had wanted to come as well, but considering the danger, I'd only allowed demons to accompany me. Plus, while Shirin and Joshua were still young, they were skilled enough fighters amply capable of taking care of themselves.
Parker, who was also with us, wiped some dust out of his joints and said, "The sand in my bones is wearing them down. They're the last connection I have to my physical body, so I'd prefer to keep them in peak condition. Although, it's not like my soul is contained in them, so if I lose this skeleton, I can just use another!"
Wait, I didn't know that.
"Veight, look over there, by the inlet. Isn't that Wa's survey team?"
Parker pointed in the distance, and I saw a few tents surrounded by a makeshift fence. A small flag flapped in the wind. It bore Wa's crest as well as a...paw print? That has to be the grimalkin's standard. I can't imagine it's anything else.
"Let's go," I said.
As I thought, it was grimalkin who came out to greet us as we reached the camp. There were 20 of them, and there were a few dragonkin with them too. The dragonkin were native residents of the Windswept Dunes, not members of the demon army. They had light brown scales and called themselves the sandscale tribe. Thanks to Baltze's efforts, they were friendly towards both Wa and Meraldia. We provided them supplies, and in return, they pledged not to raid our caravans. Until recently, they'd lived as bandits, but thanks to Baltze, they were turning over a new leaf.
Given their adventurous nature, the grimalkin were Wa's sailors and traders. Part of the reason why they gravitated towards those jobs was because they couldn't find work doing anything else. At any rate, the ones here were all civilians.
"I'm the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, and a member of the Commonwealth Council, Veight Von Aindorf."
The dragonkin exchanged glances with each other, then bowed to me. Though they looked outwardly unfazed, I'd spent enough time around dragonkin that I could tell they were shocked. Also, the things they were saying made it very clear.
"The aide to Meraldia's ruler..."
"Have we done something to anger the Demon Lord?"
"But we haven't broken our pledge...or done anything wrong."
Hehehe, that's right, you better be scared of the Demon Lord. Baltze's godlike swordsmanship had awed the sandscales, and they all assumed anyone he served had to be even more amazing.
It wouldn't do for them to misunderstand, though, so I hurriedly explained, "No, you haven't done anything to anger her. In fact, the Demon Lord is quite worried about your safety. She doesn't want any more of your tribesmen to be taken by the desert. I came here to prevent any further casualties."
The sandscales bowed again.
"The Demon Lord's kindness knows no bounds. I swear on our tribe's honor, we will do everything we can to assist you."
"Thank you." I nodded. "We intend to cooperate fully with you as well."
I was hoping they'd officially join the demon army, but I knew Wa was also looking to recruit them to expand Wa's influence. I didn't want to step on any toes by preemptively inviting the sandscales to join us. Meanwhile, the grimalkin were acting oddly guarded.
"This failure isn't our fault."
"Yeah, we did our job as the rear guard."
"We even tried looking for the humans and dragonkin when they disappeared."
Aha, I see now. Unsurprisingly, Friede and the other kids were excited to see grimalkin for the first time.
"Wow, they're so cute! They're like the canines!"
"Miss, we're much cuter than any canine. Meow."
"That's right. And we're not lazy either. Meow."
The grimalkin started adding "meow" at the end of their sentences to look cuter to Friede. Man, you guys are so obvious.
I separated the grimalkin from Friede and the others, then asked, "So, what did you do that you're so guilty about?"
"Absolutely nothing...meow."
Sorry, guys, but I'm more of a dog person.
"Let me guess, you're guilty that you feel glad you all survived because you dragged behind a bit?"
The grimalkin's hair stood on end. "That's not true! The human captain even said to follow behind him and the scouts!"
"Yeah! That's why we slept in late and ate long meals."
I see, I see. I turned back to Friede and explained, "Grimalkin are a lazy and selfish race. Well, I guess that's true for pretty much every species, but these guys are especially lazy and selfish."
"Now that's just mean..." one of the grimalkin said.
Honestly, it wasn't their fault. For generations, they'd been able to survive while doing no work at all.
After a little while, I managed to make the grimalkin confess the details of what they'd done.
Wa's survey teams were made of a mix of humans, dragonkin, and grimalkin. The humans did the actual investigation, while the dragonkin served as their guards. The grimalkin were basically just assistants, and they'd marched a bit behind the main party. This explained why they'd been out of the sandstorm when it had appeared. However, after the storm subsided, the rest of their team was nowhere to be found. And that was basically all they'd done.
I folded my arms and looked down at the trembling cat-people.
"You guys are civilians, so I doubt the Chrysanthemum Court will judge you too harshly. I'll put in a good word for you as well."
"Th-Thanks."
"Please forgive us..."
Though the grimalkin looked contrite, I knew they were thinking something along the lines of "You better forgive us, or we'll never help you again." They needed a reminder of who was on top here.
"But if you want to escape punishment, you'll have to help the demon army out. And in the demon army, we have strict rules. If you break them, any of the officers have the right to reprimand you however they see fit. In fact, if you really mess up, they can even execute you on the spot."
"Yikes!"
While this was technically true, no one in the demon army actually exercised capital punishment. Or rather, anyone who did had long since died during the disastrous invasion of the north. All the commanders who'd freely executed their subordinates had been abandoned by them when Arshes came calling.
Once I'd finished threatening the grimalkin, I smiled.
"But if you do your work properly, you'll be paid handsomely. I'll also throw in the booze and dried meat we brought on our ship as a bonus. We even have some fishing equipment for you."
"Now we're talking!"
"I suddenly feel like working. Meow!"
Grimalkin could be easily bribed—so long as you made sure never to pay them in advance.
My makeshift search party consisted of 17 werewolves, 1 half-werewolf, 5 dragonkin, 6 grimalkin, and 1 skeleton. Added together, I was commanding 30 people in total. The rest stayed behind, either at the camp or on the ship. Of course, the best place to start would be checking out the place where the scouts had disappeared. Though, I already had an idea of what had happened to them.
After half a day of walking through an endless sea of sand and rocks, the dragonkin leading us came to a sudden halt.
"This is the place..."
This looks exactly the same as the rest of the desert.
Friede must have been thinking the same thing, since she said, "How can you tell? It doesn't look any different from the places we passed."
"It's easy enough to tell, human child."
The dragonkin soldier looked confident in his declaration. I suspected they possessed the same ability migratory birds did to calculate their location, and I explained as much to Friede.
"Just like birds, they probably have an internal compass."
The concept of magnetism didn't exist in this world, so I couldn't use it in my explanation.
"I see..." Friede gave the dragonkin a curious look, but they just stood there, their expressions inscrutable.
"We were the dragonkin who remained behind to guard the grimalkin when the sandstorm appeared," one of them said. "It was important for us to know where we were relative to the main party at all times, which is why we know where they disappeared."
"I see, so the answer to the mystery lies somewhere around here," I mused.
According to the dragonkin, the sandstorm had been short, but fierce. The winds had been strong enough that the grimalkin had needed to cling to the dragonkin to keep from being blown away. However, they hadn't been strong enough to move a fully grown human or dragonkin. Indeed, that was why the grimalkin had been able to use the dragonkin as anchors.
"If the secret doesn't lie in the skies, then..." I looked down, and everyone followed suit. "It's gotta be in the ground."
One of the grimalkin suddenly spoke up, "But sir, I investigated the spot where the main party vanished. If whatever made them disappear came from the ground, how come I didn't vanish too?"
You have a point. But after pondering it for a bit, I was able to come up with a theory.
"So grimalkin were fine, but humans and dragonkin were not. Let's think about what might want to attack larger creatures but not smaller ones."
"Is there anything like that?"
That's what we're about to find out. I recalled the secret gait the elders had taught me the other day. If I combined it with my strengthening magic, I would be able to test my hypothesis.
"Parker, lend me your head."
"Oh, will my wisdom finally come in handy?" Parker asked happily, glad to finally have something to do.
I shook my head and replied, "No, I mean I literally need your skull."
"You think that counts as a pun?!"
"No, and I'm not interested in getting into a pun competition with you anyway."
Please just take your head off and give it to me. He finally did, and I tucked it under my arm. I didn't need anything from the neck down, so I left it as is. I then cast a noise-suppressing spell on my feet, muting the sound of my footsteps. Since the spell effectively silenced sound vibrations, it also damped the vibrations one underground might feel from my footsteps. Next, I made my body lighter by reducing gravity's pull on it. I was now only a fifth as heavy as normal, roughly the same weight as a grimalkin. Finally, I used the gait the elders had taught me to step as softly on the sand as I could.
Impressed, Parker muttered, "Wow, you're not even leaving any footprints."
"Quiet. If you talk, it'll defeat the purpose of the noise-suppressing spell."
"Fine, I'll just talk like this then." Parker was now talking directly to my spirit, which was something only necromancers could do. But you're supposed to ask for permission first, instead of surprising me like that. Regardless, I was now stepping as softly as the average grimalkin did. So far, whatever was underground hadn't reacted.
"All right, I'll be right back."
"Are you seriously going off by yourself again, vice-commander?" Hamaam asked in an exasperated voice, and I waved his complaints away.
"I'm the only one who can do this. Besides, scouting in smaller numbers is safer. You guys wait here."
"But you're the Demon Lord's vice-commander, you can't just—you know what, never mind."
Hamaam had known me for long enough that he knew trying to dissuade me was pointless. I smiled at him and said, "If anything happens to me, take Parker's body and retreat immediately. Since I'll have his head, he'll be able to tell exactly where I am at all times."
"Please don't use me like a homing device..."
"It's a sign of how much I trust you, dear brother."
"R-Really? Hehe, fine, I guess I'll help. You just can't do anything without your right-hand man, can you?"
Well, right now, you're just the skull in my right hand, but sure.
Friede gave me a worried look. "Dad, are you gonna be okay?"
"Don't worry. I already have an idea of what's going on here. And like I said, if anything unexpected happens, Parker will save me."
Parker protested, "I mean, I'll do everything I can, naturally, but why do you like sticking your neck into danger so much?"
"Because if I take care of it, no one will have to die."
"Perhaps, but your methods are still misguided! When will you learn the error of your ways?"
Never. Now let's get going. A strong wind began to whip up as I carefully and quietly walked to the spot where the main party had vanished.
Parker seemed bored without his limbs to do things with, so he started up a telepathic conversation. "The way you're walking is strange. What kind of technique is that?"
"It's a secret that only werewolf elders are taught. It was originally created to hunt other werewolves."
Werewolf elders were traditionally veteran fighters, but there was no way an older werewolf could beat powerful youngsters like the Garney brothers in a head-on fight. But demons only ever followed the strong. And there were occasionally werewolves that broke the pack's laws, and needed to be punished. Assassination techniques that worked against other werewolves came in handy for situations like that. Elders only ever employed this technique when they had to punish one of their own.
"The elders know how to use mana to erase the sound of their breathing, heartbeat, and even their scent. Sensing a surprise attack from one of them is nearly impossible," I explained to Parker.
"I see, so this is their trump card. I guess demons do value power over everything else."
As a former human, Parker found demon customs amusing. After a brief pause, he added, "You think something dangerous is lurking underground, don't you? And whatever that something is, it reacts to weight and noise."
"Yep. It could be a predator, or just a quicksand pit that would only trap you if you weigh enough."
Though, if it was quicksand, I had no doubt the dragonkin would have been able to spot it. My guess was that it was a predator of some sort. Unfortunately, I had no way of sensing things underground, which was why I'd brought Parker along.
"Is there anything with a soul underneath us around here?"
"No humans or demons, but...there is this huge, somewhat diluted soul. With the steps you're taking, it's about forty paces ahead and...pretty far underground." There was a hint of uncertainty in Parker's tone. "It's alive, whatever it is. But it lacks the vitality most living things have. Its mental activity is really subdued as well."
All right, that clinches it. Smiling, I turned around and pointed out the spot Parker had marked to everyone. The dragonkin and werewolves nodded silently. I began slowly making my way back.
When I was halfway across, Parker intoned, "Hey, couldn't I have just gone on my own? I'm lighter than a grimalkin, so if they could walk over this thing just fine, then so could I."
Oh yeah, I didn't think of that. Without his clothes, Parker was just a pile of pretty light bones. I guess I was biased since I thought Parker wouldn't be suited to covert ops-type stuff... I'll be more careful not to let that sway my decision-making next time. After I made it back to safety, I called everyone over and relayed my findings.
"I know what the threat is. It's a large predator hiding beneath the dunes. Apparently, it's not very active normally, so it probably lies in wait until prey comes to it."
By staying dormant, it was likely able to keep its metabolism low enough that it could go months or even years without catching prey. Since it clearly wasn't interested in chasing down things to consume, it probably didn't cause much of a scene if its food escaped. I hope, anyway.
I needed a plan for taking this thing down.
"This creature will come out in a flash and try to swallow its prey along with the surrounding sand. And it won't move until its prey is right on top of it."
Eyes sparkling with curiosity, Shirin said, "Commander, let me be the one to run over its hunting spot. I'm lighter than an adult dragonkin, and I know how to fight."
Why are youngsters always so reckless? I thought.
Smiling, I patted his head. "I respect your enthusiasm, Shirin, but there's no need for anything so dangerous. All we have to do is make a big enough impact right above it. Skuje, set your Blast Rifle's output to minimum. At my command, I want you and your squad to shoot the spot I specify."
Skuje and his brothers were the youngest members of my werewolf unit, but they weren't kids anymore.
"Got it, boss."
"Everyone else, ready your Blast Rifles for maximum output. Sandscales, I recommend you prepare your long-range weapons as well."
The dragonkin warriors nodded at me. "We will use our spears then. They can be thrown like javelins, and we can attach slings to the tips to hurl rocks."
"Sounds good. Once our Blast Rifle shots are spent, we may have to retreat or chase down our weakened prey. Your weapons will be integral then."
"Understood."
Finally, I turned to the grimalkin. "I want you guys to take our luggage and back up to safety. Students, your job is to protect the grimalkin."
Friede, Shirin, and Joshua frowned at me. They were disciplined enough to not talk back to their commander, but I could tell they really wanted to fight. Sorry, kids.
In an attempt to cheer them up, I said, "Serving as the rearguard might be a boring job, but it's exactly the kind of role that vice-commanders are suited for. Plus, it's only after you learn how to be an effective rearguard that you can be trusted to fight on the front lines."
As he reattached his head to his skeletal body, Parker quipped, "You say that, but the moment you were made Master's vice-commander a decade and a half ago, you started fighting on the front lines. I was the one doing all the negotiating back home with the other demon races."
"I negotiated with humans too, it just happened to be on the front lines." Man, back then I was using intimidation and bribery to get what I wanted... Anyway, this is no time for reminiscing. I've got a monster to fry.
I turned to my werewolves.
"Get into shooting position, everyone! Skuje, you and your squad fire warning shots at the designated point from the maximum range possible! The rest of you, advance slowly and keep an eye out for any movement!"
"We move after the warning shots are fired, correct?" Hamaam asked.
"Yes." I nodded. "Operate under the assumption that there's a monster living beneath the sand. Try to get as close as possible without being noticed. My guess is this monster senses vibrations people make when walking on the sand and reacts to those. The warning shots should hopefully create larger vibrations that muffle your walking."
"I see."
Things would get a bit hairy if this monster had other forms of superhuman perception, but such abilities usually came at an evolutionary cost. Like all other living creatures, monsters evolved through natural processes, so I doubted this thing had sacrificed general functionality for such specialized perception.
After giving my werewolves their orders, I turned to the dragonkin.
"Once the battle begins, I want you to advance at whatever pace you feel is safest. If the enemy counterattacks, please prioritize covering the werewolves in the vanguard."
"As you command."
Oh yeah, I should probably give this carefree skeleton something to do too.
"Parker, keep tracking the enemy's soul. I want you to let me know the moment it makes a move."
"Already on it."
Man, why do you always have to be so competent? Anyway, I guess it's time for another massive monster hunt. Reminds me of when I'd fought that giant octopus in the Sea of Solitude.
"Skuje Squad, fire!"
At my command, the four werewolves began firing warning shots in quick succession. Fifty meters away, there was a small explosion in the ground as the bullets impacted. A second later, a huge depression formed where their shots had landed. Sand began pouring into it from all sides like a waterfall. It reminded me of when an antlion sprung its trap, scaled up to an insane size.
"Keep firing warning shots at the surrounding area! Spread your fire out to confuse the enemy! The rest of you, advance!"
My remaining werewolves slowly began closing in. Skuje's squad's shots didn't have much power behind them, but they still created large enough vibration ripples to mask the werewolves' steps. Puffs of sand rose up wherever the bullets hit before being snatched away by the wind. The other werewolves and I tried to stay close to where the bullets were landing as we made our way to the depression. We couldn't approach too much or we'd be sucked in, but we had to get close enough that our shots could hit.
"Hamaam Squad, tie lifelines around all of us. I'm coming with you."
"But, vice-commander... You know what, never mind." Hamaam sighed as he tied a rope around my waist. Once we were secured, we looked out over the edge of the sandpit.
"There it is..."
At the bottom, I could see a giant orifice. It was hard to judge with how far we were, but at a glance, it looked to be roughly 3 meters wide and resembled a lamprey's mouth. The creature was likely a worm of some sort, but if its mouth was that big, then it was a train-sized worm. The mouth was filled with rows upon rows of sharp, barbed teeth. If you fell in, there'd be no escape.
"That's a lot of teeth, vice-commander."
"Yeah, and it's pretty smart to boot."
"What makes you say that?" Hamaam asked, cocking his head.
Trying not to trip on the slope, I explained, "It has only exposed its mouth. And that mouth is filled with so many teeth that its inner organs are protected by them. Arrows won't be able to harm it like this."
"You're right... I hope our Blast Rifles can."
To be honest, I wasn't sure if they would. Unfortunately, I couldn't allow such a dangerous predator to roam free in the desert.
"Hamaam Squad, begin firing at its mouth. Aim as best as you can to slip through the teeth."
"Roger."
Hamaam and the others hefted their rifles in one hand while keeping the other firmly on their ropes. They kind of looked like spec ops rappelling down a helicopter. Hehehe, they look so cool... It was probably a good thing that the demon army had begun resembling modern Earth armies in terms of tactics.
As soon as the first bullet hit the worm's teeth, it spat a geyser of sand up at us. We continued raining bullets down on it, and every now and again it would shoot up another mouthful of sand. I couldn't tell if that meant we were hurting it, or if it was just some conditioned reflex to being attacked. It looked like it was being damaged, so I had everyone continue firing.
"Vice-Commander, our light bullets are being diffused by the sand."
"Seems like it's got an endless supply of it to throw at us too. Well, whatever, keep firing in waves. Once you're out of bullets, switch out with the next squad."
I stayed behind and pulled out my trusty Ryuuga. You're not the only one with unlimited ammo, you mysterious monster. Converting my mana to bullets, I fired on full-auto at the worm. Occasionally, I got blasted by some sand, but never hard enough to hurt. And so long as the rope didn't fray, I wouldn't fall any lower even if I lost my footing. That said, being covered in sand was not a pleasant experience. And since we were in the desert, there weren't any nearby rivers for me to wash off in.
At any rate, it looked like my bullets were having an effect, so I decided to keep on shooting. The other werewolves rotated in and out to shoot however many bullets they had as well. Meraldia's latest Blast Rifles had bullet magazines now. You could swap out the magesteel blocks that served as the ammo repository when one ran dry. They were difficult to mass-produce, though, which was the biggest hurdle for widespread adoption right now.
This worm tracked people using vibrations in the ground, but we were just standing in place and firing, so there was nothing for it to pick up on. Plus it was thrashing around and causing a bunch of vibrations itself, so even if we moved a little, it wouldn't be able to tell. Problem is, can we kill this thing before we run out of bullets? Even my supply of mana wasn't endless, and we were running out of spare magazines.
"Ah! I'm sorry, boss, I accidentally dropped a magazine...and it was a fresh one too."
I watched as a valuable block of magesteel slid down the sand into the worm's open maw.
Smiling at the werewolf who'd slipped up, I said, "It's fine. As long as you're safe, that's all that matters. Go back up and swap with someone while you grab another."
"Yes, sir!"
Skuje's squad was the first to run out of bullets. The warning shots they'd fired had lowered their ammo reserves, so it wasn't too surprising.
"Vei—I mean, elder! We don't have any magesteel magazines left!"
None of them were mages, so they couldn't recharge the spent blocks either. Guess I've gotta bring them in after all.
"You guys stay on rope-holding duty then! I'll get us more magazines from the rearguard!"
I pulled out my mana-powered communicator. The design was based on Eleora's communicator earrings, but had been tweaked to be sturdier and easier to mass-produce. The trade-off was that it had to be a bit bigger—about the size of a smartphone.
I connected it to the communicator Friede and the others had and shouted, "Friede, bring all of the magesteel magazines! Hurry!"
"G-Got it, dad!"
She sounded pretty nervous, probably because I was being more curt than usual. Also, when we're on duty you're supposed to call me by my title, not "dad." Ah well. It's a tense situation, I guess.
A few seconds later, I heard Friede shouting, "Daaaaaad! Da—I mean, Captain Veight!"
There we go. Looking up, I shouted, "Don't get any closer! Hand the magazines to Skuje's squad and get back to the rear!"
"Y-Yes, sir!"
She gave me a proper salute, but just then a spray of sand hit her in the face.
"Waaagh?!"
She staggered, and her feet slipped down the slope, sending her careening into the pit.
"Ah?!" someone—probably me—shouted.
She slid down the steep sandy slope, straight towards the worm's open maw.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13_7.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
Friede tried her best to regain her footing and stop her descent, but the fine-grain sand was too slippery. Unlike the rest of us, she didn't have a lifeline tied to her. Worse, she had bags of dense magesteel slung over her shoulders, making it harder for her to maneuver than usual.
"Da—" Before Friede could even get one full word out, I transformed. I needed to save her before she reached the worm's mouth. A world without TV and internet might not be too bad, but I couldn't live in a world without Friede. No way I'm letting this stupid worm have you.
"I'm coming, Friede!"
After transforming, I ripped off the rope at my waist and dashed down the sandy slope.
"Wait, boss!"
"Veight!"
"Elder!"
I could hear people shouting behind me, but I didn't have time for them right now. My daughter's life was in danger, and that was all that mattered. Airia didn't give birth to you so you could be worm bait! Using strengthening magic to upgrade my speed to the limit, I ran down the slope faster than Friede slid, and grabbed her just before she fell into the worm's mouth.
"Dad!"
"Don't worry, you'll be okay now!" I wasn't actually sure of that, but I had to get her out of this one way or another. This was my job as Friede's father.
Using the momentum I'd built up with my run down, I jumped just before my feet touched the worm's barbed teeth. It wasn't a great jump, since my footing was awful and the sand was too soft to get any real purchase, but it was enough to get me over the mouth. I tried scrambling up the opposite slope, but even with my strengthened limbs, it was tough going.
"Dammit!"
Friede was light enough that her added weight wasn't a problem, but the sand absorbed the force of my legs, so I had nothing to brace against for traction. The harder I struggled, the more I got buried in the sand.
"I'll throw you a rope, boss!"
The werewolves up above were desperately trying to help, but the ropes they threw down kept getting buried in the sand coughed up by the worm. Besides, even if they weren't, I would have to jump across the worm's mouth again to reach them. It had been a risky enough gamble the first time; it would probably be suicide if I tried it again. What's the most surefire way to save Friede?
I was running out of time. Despite my struggling, I was slowly but surely being drawn back to the worm. I had a minute or so at most. There wasn't enough distance to get a running jump to try and reach the other side. But I also didn't have the strength to climb up this slope. I needed a different approach.
Friede squeezed my shoulder, looking scared. Just then, I realized something. There was only one thing I needed, and we had it.
"Friede."
"Wh-What is it, dad?" She sounded worried, so I gave her a reassuring smile.
"I'm going to throw you over. Time your jump with my throw so you can get as far as possible."
"What?! W-Wait! What about you?!"
"Don't worry; once you've gotten to safety, I'll take care of this oversized worm."
I cast strengthening magic on Friede, boosting her leg strength and making her lighter for a short duration.
"I'll explain later, there's no time. Get ready!"
The fear receded from Friede's face, and she gave me a confident nod.
"Okay!"
I held Friede in my palm and got into a shot put stance.
"GOOOOOOOOO!" I howled, throwing Friede as far as I could. She jumped at the perfect time, causing her to rise even higher.
"LET'S DO THIS!"
Thank god we're in sync. I guess playing these kinds of games with her when she was younger really paid off.
I was waist-deep in sand now, since throwing Friede had made me sink even further. Meanwhile, Friede had flown high enough to get out of the pit and was beyond my line of sight. Well, that was a stressful few minutes. Now, all I had to do was rescue myself. With how deeply I was buried in the sand, though, that was proving more difficult than I thought.
Just then, I heard Friede shout, "You better come back, dad! You can't die here! Do you know how mad mom will be if you do?!"
Once you became a parent, you had an even greater responsibility to take care of your life than ever before. I had no intention of this being my end. That being said, I didn't really know how to extricate myself from this mess. Friede had been able to use me as a launching pad, but there was nothing but sand in every direction. No amount of downward force would be enough to propel me out of this. Plus, only my arms were free now. At this point, it almost felt like it would be easier to let the worm eat me and kill it from the inside, but I suspected that would bring its own complications.
This worm has been swallowing its prey live for generations; it probably had ways of making sure its meal didn't escape its stomach. If it can swallow beasts, armed humans, and even magesteel magazines without— Wait a second. I've got it. There was no need for me to get swallowed. I had a much better snack for it right here.
I looked down at the bags full of charged magesteel that Friede had left behind. Eleora had taught me long ago that magesteel could store a significant amount of mana—and if overloaded, it'd explode. That was how she'd blown up Ryunheit's main gates over a decade ago. I had no clue how resilient this monster was, but I doubted it could survive an explosion big enough to blow up a city's gates.
I dug the bags out of the sand and started pouring mana into them. The magesteel began to expand, the same way smartphone batteries did before blowing up. This is kinda scary, actually. Once the magesteel started bubbling ominously, I cut off the flow of mana and let the sand carry the bags away. I then turned to see how the worm was doing. I was also being carried to the worm—albeit slower than the bags—but I couldn't afford to rush things here.
I raised my Blast Rifle and took careful aim. Just before I got swallowed, I poured as much mana as I could into a single shot and fired it into the worm's mouth. The recoil lifted me a little out of the sand, and that was all I remembered before losing consciousness.
I must have been out for a few seconds at least, if not longer. The first thing I heard upon waking back up was Friede's voice.
"Dad?! Daaaaaaaad!"
It sounded oddly distant. From what I could tell, I'd been completely buried in sand. I'd strengthened my lungs and taken in a big gulp of air just in case I'd been swallowed, and the extra air was coming in handy now. There was enough sand weighing down on me that I could barely move a muscle. A human would be trapped here, but with a werewolf's superhuman strength, I could probably crawl my way out eventually. Before I could even get started, though, Friede's voice suddenly got a lot closer.
"Here! I found him, Dad's buried under here!"
"The air's so dry even we can't smell him, so how can you tell?"
"Easy! There's mana gathering around here! You can tell too, right, Parker?!"
"You're right. The flow is so faint I nearly missed it, but mana is indeed gathering around here."
Enough with the explanations. If you've found me, then help dig me out. Eh, screw it, I'll just bust out of here in one go. Judging by how well I could make out everyone's voices, I wasn't buried too deep. I should be able to take care of this much sand at least. Using my remaining mana, I cut through the sand. The grains were fine enough that a cutting motion just caused the sand to be blown away instead of sliced through like rock. The surrounding sand hurriedly started pouring in to fill the gap, so I waded my way out before I got buried again.
Oh good, I can see sunlight. The hot air of the desert smelled fresh after my short stint as a buried mummy. I breathed a sigh of relief as I popped out, brushing the sand out of my fur. Looking around, I saw that everyone was here: my werewolves, the sandscale warriors, and even the grimalkin. They all had sticks and shovels in their hands, and were looking at me in shock. Why does this feel so awkward?
I brushed some more sand off my shoulders and asked in my most vice-commandery voice, "Is everyone all right?"
In unison, my werewolves shouted, "That's what we should be asking you!"
Sorry I worried you guys.
* * * *
Friede stared at her father, who was coated in sand, but looked completely unruffled. This is my fault... If I hadn't been so careless, he wouldn't have had to risk his life like that, she thought.
She'd been so focused on fulfilling her orders that she'd forgotten to be on her guard around the monster. As a result, Veight had been forced to rescue her. Things had worked out because Veight was the strongest general in the demon army, but if he hadn't been, Friede shuddered to think about what might have happened to her.
I need to apologize. There were plenty of people she didn't know here, like the dragonkin and the grimalkin, but this was no time to be acting embarrassed.
"Da—I mean, Captain Veight."
"Hm?"
He turned around, giving Friede the same gentle look he always did.
"I'm sorry. Because of my carelessness, you—"
"You don't need to apologize, that wasn't your fault. If anything, I should've had the foresight to ask the extra cartridges be kept near us from the start." Veight scratched his head awkwardly. "This happens every time. Once the battle starts, I forget about the little details, and it comes back to bite me later. It's because of me that you were even exposed to such danger in the first place. Go ahead and rest."
"Huh, but..."
Friede had expected to get yelled at, so she wasn't sure how to react.
Brushing yet more sand off of himself, Veight smiled at everyone. "We can have a proper debriefing later where we go over what I did wrong. But for now, let's secure the area. We need to make sure that monster's actually dead."
One of the werewolves stepped forward. "Boss, that monster got blown into so many pieces we can't even tell what parts of it are left."
"Err, I guess just check on the remains then. Are there any bits of tooth or skin lying around anywhere?"
"I...don't know?"
People started digging through the sand, looking for whatever remnants of the worm they could find. It seemed that was all Veight had to say about Friede's apology.
After a bit of digging, people started unearthing various monster parts.
"It really is in pieces..." Veight said with a sigh, folding his arms. "I was hoping to bring it back as a study specimen, or at least get a chance to sketch how it looks."
"...Says the guy who blew it up," Parker said with an exasperated look.
Friede watched on blankly, until the young Rolmundian werewolf, Joshua, walked over to her.
"Lady Friede, your dad's amazing."
"You can drop the lady."
"Really? But great-grandma said I need to be polite since I'm representing everyone in Rolmund's werewolf pack..." Joshua sighed, but then his eyes sparkled, and he added, "The way Master Veight fights is so cool! And werewolves here using these Blast Rifles is totally different from how we use Blast Canes in Rolmund too! Everyone's so skilled!"
"R-Really? I guess they are."
Friede wasn't interested in becoming a soldier, so she didn't know too much about how good or bad the training was for Meraldia's troops. Joshua was on food distribution duty today, so he started opening up the bags of hardtack and dried meat as he talked.
"I always thought werewolves were meant to transform and attack their enemies up close, but Master Veight fought the worm from a distance the whole time. It was just like how Rolmund's soldiers fight."
"Hmmm..."
"Rolmund's werewolves use Blast Canes too, but only when we can't manage with our claws and fangs. We're not as good at shooting as you guys, by a long shot." His expression clouded over. "Meraldia's werewolves are so much more advanced... I bet Rolmund's werewolves could progress this far too...if only we had a leader as good as Veight."
Shirin walked over while Joshua talked. "How are you doing, Friede? Are you able to help?"
"Oh yeah, I'm doing just fine!"
Friede gave him a smile, and Joshua turned to Shirin with a frown.
"Can't you let her rest for a bit?"
Shirin shook his head and replied, "We need to prepare our camp soon. The temperature drops sharply at night in the desert. We came here to help, so this is our chance to do something useful for everyone else."
For reasons Friede couldn't fathom, Shirin didn't seem to like Joshua much. The werewolf boy didn't look happy about what Shirin said, but he didn't argue.
"Fine. But if you want help, just ask me. Friede was nearly eaten. She needs time to rest."
"I know, I won't ask more of her than she can handle," Shirin replied with a cold nod.
Friede walked with Shirin to where they were setting up camp. Once the two of them were far enough away from Joshua, Shirin muttered, "He's...not a bad guy."
"I know."
"But I just can't find it in me to like him."
"I see."
But I have no idea why.
* * * *
At around the same time, the sandscale warriors were setting up their camp as well.
"That was a surprise," one said as he pitched a tent.
"You can say that again. To think such large monsters existed right outside our home territory. I understand now why our ancestors told us to never venture beyond our boundaries."
The other dragonkin shook his head. "It's true that learning what lay deeper in the desert was a shock, but I was referring to that werewolf general." He turned to look at Veight, who was conferring with his squads. "He showed no fear when challenging that behemoth worm, and he was able to slay it without losing a single warrior. Do you think we would have been able to do the same?"
"Definitely not. Our only ranged weapons are spears, bows, and slings."
The dragonkin fell silent for a few moments.
"When I faced the Azure Knight, I was amazed to learn that such skilled swordsmen existed in the outside world."
"Our clan has always had strong warriors, but it's at least understandable that another dragonkin would be able to best us. But now we were outdone by a werewolf. Not only that, but his display of strength made it clear he's on a different level from the rest."
"Agreed. I now see why he was made the Demon Lord's vice-commander. Furthermore, it stands to reason that the Demon Lord he serves and the Demon Empress above her are even stronger."
None of the sandscales had met Airia or Gomoviroa, but demon logic dictated that those who stood at the top were the strongest. And they had no other frame of reference for how leaders might be decided.
After another brief silence, the dragonkin nodded to each other.
"It seems the world outside the desert is filled with powerful demons..."
"We need to decide whether to stand with them or not. Once we return, we must hold a clan meeting."
"Yes. It would be reassuring to have the protection of the demon army. I've heard that they're on good terms with Wa as well. We won't have to worry about war with the Easterners if we pledge ourselves to the Demon Lord."
That signaled the end of the conversation, and the dragonkin finished setting up their camp in silence.
* * * *
Hamaam and the others surrounded me the moment everyone else left.
"Vice-commander."
"Yes?"
"Why do you have to blow things up every single time?"
I don't really have a proper answer for that. I guess maybe because I always equated blowing the enemy up with victory in the video games I played in my past life? In all fairness, blowing this guy up did lead us to victory. Of course, I knew my actions had put us in a pickle now.
"We're out of spare magesteel magazines. What are we going to do now?" Hamaam asked pointedly.
"Good question..."
I hadn't exactly planned on using our ammo reserves as explosives. Man-made magesteel wasn't quite developed yet, which meant the loss of a few dozen pounds of it constituted a significant expense. I'd probably need to write a formal apology when I got back. But first, I needed to figure out what we were going to do from here on out.
"If we encounter another giant worm, we won't be able to kill it the same way."
Not to mention, my method required getting up close and firing a high-powered shot at an already unstable chunk of magesteel. Even if we did have more, it wasn't the kind of method I was eager to repeat. I'd had enough of being buried in sand. Plus, it wasn't as though anyone else could safely do what I'd done.
"I doubt there are many more of those things, but it's probably wise to regroup for now. If we push in too deep and get killed, we won't be able to give anyone a report of what we found."
"I mean, we probably wouldn't all die if we kept going... At the very least, I know you'd get out just fine, Veight." Skuje said with a smile, and everyone nodded.
Do you guys think I'm invincible or something? I scratched my head and said, "It's pretty pathetic that we have to retreat already, but it's even more pathetic to keep going just to save face. Let's not do anything rash and go back while we still can."
"Says the most reckless guy among us."
Oh, shut up, I mentally retorted. "Anyway, we'll camp here for the night, then head home in the morning. I'm pretty sure the scouts we're looking for were eaten by this thing."
Unfortunately, I blew the worm up, so if any of the victims' belongings had survived being in its stomach, there was no way we were gonna find them now. The most we'd been able to recover in our search were some corroded bits of metal. I couldn't really tell if they were remnants of the scouts' belongings or just pieces of magesteel though. Kite would be able to do a more thorough investigation of their origins, probably.
After the werewolves dispersed, Parker showed up. "It's been a long time since we were in a real fight," he said in a wistful voice.
Stop reading my mind.
"Yeah, it has. It's been so long that I've gotten rusty. There were tons of holes in my battle plan, and I did a horrible job of commanding the battle. As a result, I nearly let my daughter die."
The advanced technology I'd brought in had saved me, but as a commander, I'd made an utter mess of things.
Sighing, I gave Parker a wan smile. "I think I'm going to stick to raising the next generation from now on. There's no need for me to be on the front lines."
"You might believe that, but do you really think everyone else will let you retire so easily?" Parker cackled. "Of course I don't plan on letting you retire that easily either."
"Weren't you the first one who told me I should have, way back when?"
"No way! Did I really?!"
Don't play dumb with me. That settles it. I'm gonna retire if it's the last thing I do. Just you watch.
Since I blew up all of our spare ammo, the investigation team would have to turn back earlier than planned. It was too late to return now—but tomorrow, we'd leave for the ship.
"Dad, are you still up?" Friede asked, climbing up the hill to where I was. I was a bit away from the main camp, stargazing.
"I'm surprised you're still up. I know we're just going back tomorrow, but there's no telling what might happen. You should get some rest while you can."
I didn't really have any right to lecture her, though, since I was still up too.
"Want an orange before bed?" I asked, taking one out of my pocket. I'd packed a ton to make sure no one got scurvy. Since we were already going back, I'd given out extra rations to everyone. There was no point in lugging all that food home.
Friede was a big citrus fan, so she happily sat down next to me.
"Let's split it in half."
Sorry, but you don't get to decide that. As your dad, it's my job to give you a little extra. I split the orange roughly in half and gave Friede the slightly bigger piece.
"Once you've finished this, go to sleep, okay?"
"Okay! Thanks!"
What a cute smile. Friede's smile looked exactly like my mother Vanessa's smile.. I was glad she took after her grandmother in that regard.
A cool night breeze blew past as we gorged on the orange.
"Hey, dad, where did this orange come from?"
"Beluza's orchards. Specifically one of the ones Garsh runs."
"Ah, I knew it. No wonder it's so sweet."
Despite being a heavy drinker, Garsh had a huge sweet tooth and didn't actually like bitter-tasting food or drink. As he'd gotten older, his love for sweets had grown, while his tolerance for alcohol in turn went down. Man, this reminds me of the fruit we got back on earth.
"This really brings me back..."
"It does? Why?"
"Hmm... Yeah, I should probably tell you."
It was about time my daughter learned that I'd been reincarnated. I didn't want to hide anything from her, and she was old enough to understand. Maybe it would weigh down on her, knowing the truth about her father, but she still deserved to know.
"How much have you learned about reincarnation so far, Friede?"
"Huh? Umm... I learned a tiny bit when I was studying the basics of necromancy. When people die, their souls go into the cycle of rebirth, and they get born anew. But they lose all of their memories."
It was because almost no one remembered memories of their past lives that the reincarnation theory was still a theory. Friedensrichter and I weren't enough data points to prove anything.
I turned to Friede and explained, "The truth is, I've actually experienced reincarnation firsthand. I still have the memories of my past life."
Friede nearly dropped the orange slice in her hand and gave me an odd look.
"H-Huh? Really? You do?"
"Yep. I found someone who corroborated some of my memories too, so I know it's not just a delusion." I gave Friede a big smile. "Also, in my past life, I was a human. And I lived in a completely different world from this one. In that world, demons and magic didn't even exist."
Friede stiffened up in surprise. I know this is a lot to dump on you at once. Sorry about that.
"But don't worry. I've had these memories ever since I was a kid, so this isn't anything new for me. Plus, the memories of my past life have helped me out a ton. Also Airia and Master—I mean, Principal Gomoviroa—know this too."
There was no way I would have been able to make peace with humans with just a werewolf's sensibilities. I knew the only reason I was happy now was because I'd made full use of my past life's memories.
Friede was staring blankly at the orange in her hands, so I added, "I was able to achieve so much because I had a whole extra life's worth of memories to pull from. I'm not as special as everyone thinks. Had anyone else from my world been reincarnated as Veight, they would have been able to do the same."
A werewolf's strength and innate magical talent, combined with the backing of a powerful modernizing army like the demon army and the knowledge of the modern world, were more than enough advantages to handle any problem.
In a sad voice, Friede said, "But...I don't want any dad except you..."
"Haha, fair enough. Sorry, I probably should have worded that better. I don't want anyone replacing me either."
After reincarnating, I'd been blessed with the perfect job, the perfect boss, the perfect friends, the perfect teacher, the perfect wife, and the perfect daughter. There was no way I was handing this life over to anyone else.
"Anyway, my past life wasn't a very happy one. I can't really say it was a horrible one either, but at the very least, I wasn't satisfied with it. Now, though, I have you."
"Are you happy now?"
"Of course. How could I not be when I have a cute daughter like you?"
"Fuhehehe..." A huge grin spread across Friede's face.
I was being serious, you know. I went on to tell Friede more about my past life.
"Back when I was human, I learned how complicated their society could be. And how terrifying humans were in the right situation."
Demons had a hard time grasping human values, but I understood them intrinsically. I had a good handle on how varied people reacted to threats, flattery, and so on. That was how I'd managed to turn most people I met into allies.
"The only other knowledge from my past life that's really come in handy here is knowing how to make gunpowder—or make sodium explode."
"Why is it all explosives?"
I wish I'd spent more time studying biology or natural sciences. If I did, I'd know how to do more than blow things up.
"I'm sure if someone smarter than me had reincarnated as a werewolf, they would've done a much better job. Unfortunately, this is the best I can do."
It was a little sad that I hadn't achieved more, but I'd done my best at least. And I was rewarded for it, so I didn't mind too much.
"Anyway, that's why I keep saying I'm just an average guy. Wait, how did we get on this tangent?"
"Don't ask me." Friede gave me a reproachful glare and said, "Still, I think you're amazing, dad. No one else could have done what you did."
It felt nice to be praised by my daughter, even if I wasn't sure that was true.
"Don't worry, you'll be surpassing me soon enough."
"No way. That's never happening."
"Oh, it is. Don't worry, I'll train you up to make sure it does."
"Are you trying to kill me?!"
"Hahahaha." I patted Friede's head, tousling her hair. "Don't worry. I know you can do it."
"You really think so?"
"I guarantee it."
As biased as I was, I honestly couldn't see Friede ending up as an average person. As long as Meraldia had her, both humans and demons had a bright future ahead of them. I had no basis for that belief, but I was sure of it all the same.
"Umm, so you know how you mentioned you were a human in your past life and everything?"
"Yeah?"
After a long pause, Friede looked hesitantly up at me and asked, "You're still you, though, right? And you'll stay that way?"
"Of course."
I'm Veight. Now and forever. In as cheerful a voice as I could muster, I said, "I may have lived in a different world before, but right now I'm Veight Von Aindorf the werewolf. I'm the Demon Lord's Vice-Commander, and your dad. That won't ever change."
I had no intention of returning to my original world or going back to my past life. Sure, I had a few lingering regrets, but there wasn't any way back that I knew of. And even if there was, I had Airia and Friede here.
Friede studied my expression for a few seconds, then finally ate the orange slice in her hands.
In a slightly embarrassed voice, she murmured, "Dad..."
"What?"
She bowed her head to me. "Umm, I still want you to be the one to teach me how to be a vice-commander. Gah... I'm not good with emotional stuff like this."
"Did you have to add that last bit?"
"I mean... It was too embarrassing to say with a straight face."
I get it, but this was one of those moments where you're supposed to hold it in.
The two of us fell silent for a bit, then Friede gave me a curious look and asked, "Hey, dad?"
"Yeah?"
"What kind of place was the world you lived in during your past life?"
It was way more technologically advanced than this one, but it was also suffocating to live in... I didn't want to burden Friede with depressing stories, though, so I decided to tell her about only the cool parts. But what cool parts should I mention? Planes and tanks probably won't seem that amazing to her, considering Master can do the same things they can with just magic. Wait, I got it.
"Well, for starters we had potato chips, which were these fried, thinly sliced bits of potato that were sold in these airtight bags."
"Uh-huh."
The stalls in Ryunheit sold something similar, so Friede wasn't too impressed. Just you wait, we're getting to the cool part.
"But the thing is, by bagging these potato chips, you could make them last way longer than usual. They'd taste fresh, even after three months. They didn't get moldy or damp or anything either."
"How? Did the people making them use magic?"
"Nope, no magic. And you could find them at every store in the world. There were enough bags of potato chips that the stores never ran out either."
"No way!"
In this world, popular goods sell out all the time. There wasn't a steady supply chain yet.
"Also, a bag of potato chips this big would only cost you a single copper coin... Less, even. In some places, you could probably get three bags with that much money."
"That's so cheap!"
"It's all thanks to the power of industrialization."
Potatoes were relatively cheap in Meraldia, but cooking oil and firewood were a bit more expensive, so the fried potatoes sold at stalls cost a pretty penny. My gluttonous daughter drooled as she thought of a world where you could buy food for almost nothing.
"That sounds nice... I could stock up on snacks using just my allowance."
"You wouldn't have to stock up, you could just buy more whenever you want. In my old world, shops operated well into the night, since they had electric lighting."
"Really?! And people actually came to shop at night?!"
Yep. I was pretty much a night owl shopper myself.
"Also we had machines that could heat and cool air, so our buildings stayed cool in the summer, and warm in the winter without using any fire. Oh, and shops also had people whose sole job was to help you find what you were looking for."
"How did your stores have all that and still make a profit while selling everything for so cheap?! Wouldn't you go bankrupt?!"
"You bring up a good point. Nice observation." I smiled and explained, "So for starters, it wasn't just food these shops sold. They had a bunch of other, more expensive goods for sale as well, and they kept operating costs to a minimum across the board."
I held up my fingers and ticked off one by one the other things companies did to increase their profit margins.
"First of all, they had a stable supply of raw potatoes. Agricultural technology in my world was extremely advanced, and you could harvest massive quantities of produce with just a few people. We also had ways of preserving food so those harvested potatoes could be used year-round. And whenever there was a bad harvest, we could buy them from somewhere else without worrying that they'd go bad during the journey."
Friede nodded along, intrigued. Though, unless a series of typhoons hit Hokkaido multiple years in a row, you probably would never have a bad harvest year in Japan. Of course, there was a non-zero chance of that happening, but it wasn't very likely either.
Chuckling to myself, I added, "We also had ways of frying and packaging the potatoes en masse, which made it a lot cheaper than making each potato chip individually. There were also well-paved roads, which made transporting the finished product to stores a lot easier as well. With all these technological conveniences, the shops in my world could sell things cheaply and still turn a profit."
After a brief silence, Friede nodded.
"So what you're saying is...there's no way Meraldia can manage that."
Bingo, I thought. Then I replied, "We could probably make a single bag of similar-quality potato chips with Master and Ryucco's help, but..."
It would take them quite a lot of time and effort. Even if we paid Master and Ryucco a paltry sum of 700 yen an hour, a single bag would still take 100,000 yen to make. If not more.
"We don't have mass-production and sophisticated transportation systems in place yet, so there's a limit to what we can do," I explained.
"Figures..." Friede hung her head in disappointment, and I smiled at her.
"But I'm impressed you were able to follow along with my explanation. That was a pretty complex concept."
"That's because you already explained the importance of systems during one of our lectures, dad. You're the one who said a weapon that can't be slotted into an existing system is worthless no matter how powerful it is, remember?"
Oh yeah, I guess I did. But I was still proud of Friede for retaining that information.
"That's why it makes sense that you'd only be able to make things that cheap by combining a lot of complicated systems together to create one big supply chain," she said bluntly, like it was obvious.
It made me realize how much effort must have gone into creating a society where I could buy potato chips so cheaply I never even considered the cost. You only ever notice what you took for granted once it's gone, huh?
"Hey, Friede. Don't you think it'd be nice to make Meraldia into a country where anyone can buy as many bags of potato chips as they want for cheap no matter where they are?"
"Yeah!"
"Then we're both going to have to work harder than ever before. The road to modernization is a long one."
"Yeah, it really feels that way."
First of all, we needed to ramp up the production of potatoes, olives, and rapeseed. Then we could worry about the logistics of transport and preservation.
In an excited voice, Friede asked, "What other cool things were in the world you lived in?"
"Let me think..."
I looked up at the clear desert sky full of stars and thought about what to tell Friede next.
* * * *
My dad's a little different from regular dads. He's famous in Meraldia and Rolmund, and everyone thinks he's amazing. I do too, honestly. He's done a bunch of really incredible things, but the biggest of all he's done is make peace between humans and demons. Apparently, he was the first to do that in Meraldia's entire history.
Even though dad's a demon, he's really good at negotiating with humans. He managed to win over all the humans who were against him, and unite Meraldia. The demons respect him as much as they respect the Demon Lord, and the humans are confident that they'll be able to live peacefully with demons because he's here. But now I know dad's secret. He was actually a human in his past life. Not only that, but he retained his memories from then. That's why he understands humans so well.
When you know the truth, everything starts to make sense. Everyone thinks it's weird how dad knows so much about humans, but that's because they don't know he has human memories. Of course, a werewolf who remembers being human would be able to get along with both sides. That's why dad always claims he's not special. Now that I know why, it's kind of funny. It's just like him to say that. He's serious to a fault. I'm just glad he hasn't changed.
He still loves mom, he loves to read, he's always nice to people, and the few times he gets angry, he gets real scary. He still sucks at picking out clothes, and he always does everything everyone asks of him, but there's always a smile on his face despite having so much work to do. That's the dad I know. But mom and I are probably the only people who think of him that way. To everyone else, he's a living legend, the Black Werewolf King who serves the Demon Lord.
I know they all say dad's amazing, but I don't think they get what makes him really so. To be honest, I'm not sure what that is yet either. But I think I will once I learn a bit more.
"Dad, I'm gonna study harder than ever."
"That's the spirit. But be sure to study the things you actually want to. You need to enjoy it."
"I do?"
I give my dad a confused look, and he nods deeply.
"Principal Gomoviroa's creed is that students should study what they enjoy. You're more motivated to learn things you like, and if you enjoy what you're learning, you'll be more willing to stick with it when it gets tough."
"Did you learn that from your past life too?"
"Nah. School in my past life sucked...although a lot of what I learned there did come in handy here." Dad pats my head with a wry smile. "Thanks, Friede. I'm glad you've grown up enough that I could tell you the truth about my past."
"Ehehe, you're welcome."
I feel like dad's been treating me more like an adult ever since I returned from Rolmund. It's nice, but it's also kinda embarrassing. All right, I'm definitely going to make him proud!
"Dad, I'm gonna study harder than ever."
"You just said that five seconds ago."
Whoops.
* * * *
After cutting the investigation into the Windswept Dunes short, I returned to my peaceful life in Ryunheit. Occasional fights with giant monsters were fun, but now that I had a family, I much preferred staying at home and doing safe busywork. I was an elder now too, so I needed to take better care of myself. Besides, I'd gotten rusty.
"I feel like I've gotten a lot better about not being reckless, Master," I said as I handed my report to her.
She had a thick book in her hands and was staring at an odd contraption of unknown purpose, with a bunch of magic circles on it. Sighing, she looked up at me and said, "Was that meant to be a joke? No matter how old you get, you simply cannot sit still, can you?"
I don't think that's true. I gave her a confused look and she stretched, tapping her shoulders with her staff.
"Do you want a massage?"
"No, I'll be all right. You really need to do something about your habit of charging into fights at every opportunity. I also wish you would stop blowing up every adversary you encounter. That was a very valuable sample you blasted to bits."
I couldn't argue with that. But then Master smiled and floated up to eye level.
"I'm joking. I have no doubt anyone else would have had an arduous time simply coming back alive. You did a splendid job of discovering why the scouting party had vanished, and of taking care of the threat that had killed them. There is nothing for you to apologize for."
Master was always so soft on her disciples. I didn't mind though.
Just then, Friede poked her head in the room. "Da—I mean, Lord Aindorf, there's something I need to tell you."
You don't have to be formal here, you know. Master chuckled and said exactly what I was thinking.
"Fear not, Friede. Right now I am just simple old Movi. You don't need to stand on ceremony. Feel free to call him 'dad.'"
"Oh, what a relief," Friede said, the tension draining from her shoulders. I felt bad that my station made things harder for her sometimes.
She handed me a small scrap of paper. It was rather high-quality parchment. The top of the paper was signed "Thousand Salt Note" in elegant cursive. Salt, huh?
"This is Mao's doing, isn't it?"
"How did you know?!"
He isn't being very subtle. All right, let's see what's going on here.
* * * *
A short time before Friede barged into Gomoviroa's room, she was at Mao's shop to buy some salt for a magic experiment.
"So you want salt to use in a necromancy purification ritual?" Mao asked, cocking his head. "Do you know if sea salt or rock salt is better for that?"
Friede cocked her head as well and replied, "I'm not sure, actually..."
The bodyguards surrounding the two mimicked their masters' gestures. Friede flipped through her textbook and said, "The book doesn't specify."
"In that case, it might be worth experimenting to see which is better, don't you think?"
"Yeah, that's a great idea. Would you be willing to help me out, Mao?"
Friede immediately jumped at a chance to do some research. Mao smiled, and Friede smelled what other werewolves called a "hunter's scent" from him.
"If you find info about which salt is better, please let me know. I'd love to advertise that my salt is the one Meraldia's university uses for its experiments."
"On second thought, maybe I won't try this experiment."
Friede knew she had to be careful around Mao, since he tried to turn everything into an opportunity to make money.
"Sea salt's expensive, so just give me three boxes of rock salt."
"Thank you for your purchase. I'll have it delivered by evening. Will you be paying with cash or credit?"
"Movi—I mean, Professor Gomoviroa will be paying for it from her research budget, so please put it on her tab."
"Understood. If you'd just sign here, please."
Mao slid a promissory note towards her. They were in common use in Meraldia and the surrounding countries now. It was easier for merchants to issue them and then collect all of their earnings at once at the end of each month.
As she signed the note, Friede muttered, "These really are convenient. Silver and gold are too heavy to carry everywhere, so it's nice that people can do business with these notes."
"Indeed. They're essential for trade to flow smoothly. But for a while now, I've been wondering if we can't make trading goods for currency an even smoother process." Mao pulled out a thin strip of paper that had "Thousand Salt Note" written at the top. "This is what I've come up with."
Friede picked up the note and stared at it.
"What exactly is this?"
"Simply put, it's a document that can be exchanged for one thousand silver coins worth of salt."
"Unless you're salting an entire ranch's worth of meat, I don't think you'd need that much salt... How is this a more convenient way of trading for goods?"
Mao chuckled. "Allow me to explain. With this, you can go to any of my branch stores, and exchange it for a thousand silver coins worth of salt. Meaning it possesses a value equal to that much salt, for that much money."
"Okay... I'm following you so far."
Just thinking about that much salt made Friede's mouth go dry. But Mao's explanation wasn't done yet.
"Let's assume that I bought a thousand silver coins worth of goods, and paid for it using this thousand salt note. The merchant I bought them from might not be a salt merchant, and has no use for that much salt. But now he can pay for whatever goods he needs to buy with the same thousand salt note."
"He can?"
Mao puffed his chest out proudly.
"I pride myself on being one of the richest merchants in southern Meraldia. Moreover, I've built up a reputation of being trustworthy. Everyone knows I will honor any pledge I make, especially when it comes to business."
Mao had indeed built up his empire by fostering relationships of trust with everyone he dealt with. People knew he wouldn't cheat them. He claimed that he was just emulating the Black Werewolf King's way of life, but Friede at least knew he was doing it because it led him to greater profits.
"Furthermore, this note is valid even in my retirement or death. Naturally, I have more than a thousand silver coins worth of salt in my warehouses, so I can easily pay out at any time. Though, I doubt most people would bother since that would be a lot of salt," Mao added with a smile.
Friede looked down at the note again.
"Hmm..."
"It's a ground-breaking idea, wouldn't you say? With this, people won't have to walk around with heavy bags of silver and gold. The market price of salt is relatively stable, and besides, I'm promising a certain currency's worth of salt rather than any specific weight."
"You're right."
But something about this just doesn't feel right to me, she thought. Holding the note close to her chest, Friede tried to figure out where this bad feeling was coming from.
Mao took out a whole stack of the notes and gave Friede a puzzled look.
"Is something wrong?"
"Well, it's just..."
After a few more seconds of thinking, Friede realized what was bothering her about this. He's basically invented his own money. The flow of gold and silver coins had been controlled by the central government since the era of the Senate. Minting new coins without permission was punishable by death. The thousand salt note Mao had created wasn't made of gold or silver, but it had the same value as regular currency. Won't Mao get in trouble if I let him go through with this? Worried, Friede came to a decision.
"Mao!"
"Yes?"
Friede held the note up to him and said, "Can I ask Da—I mean, Councilor Veight if it's okay to circulate something like this?!"
"Uhh, sure? I just made promissory notes a little more convenient, so I don't think it should be an issue, but..."
Unlike Friede, Mao didn't seem to notice the problem with his invention.
* * * *
After hearing Friede's explanation, I sighed. That idiot nearly got himself hanged.
"Well done, Friede. You did the right thing by telling me."
"Ah, thanks. So this really is dangerous then, huh?"
"Yeah, if these notes started circulating, we would have a huge problem on our hands."
And Mao would be in hot water. From the looks of it, Master hadn't been able to follow this conversation at all.
"This seems like a convenient enough invention to me... Granted, I could simply transport a thousand silver coins via teleportation if I had to."
"It's not the portability that's the problem," I explained to Master. "Mao has just invented paper money—a new form of currency. This was how money was issued back in my world."
"Oho."
"The problem is, currency is supposed to be issued by a government institution, not individuals."
If Mao had been dealing in smaller denominations, I could have overlooked this, but a thousand silver coins was equivalent to a few million yen. Meraldia's monetary economy was still small, so even a few hundred of these banknotes would disrupt it entirely.
"Even if Mao only has enough salt to honor a few of these notes, he can afford to print more, since he knows no one will actually come to collect the salt. Naturally, that would be illegal, but he'd never actually get caught. Because if he started running low on salt reserves, he could use the money he got from people exchanging their notes to buy up more salt."
"Hm?" Master gave me a thoughtful look.
In response, I added, "Plus, if he issues too many of these, the value of currency itself will go down."
"Will it?"
"In the same way that magic is the act of converting mana into natural and supernatural phenomena, currency is converted into actual goods. In neither case are you creating something from nothing."
I wasn't sure how well my analogy came across, but I figured this would be the easiest way to tie economics to something Master understood.
"Ultimately, it's nothing more than an exchange. If there's more currency floating around and less goods, the value of goods will naturally go up. Conversely, the value of currency will go down. In my old world, we called this inflation."
That reminds me, I wonder how the Zimbabwe dollar is doing these days...
Master cocked her head again, looking like a student who failed to comprehend the lecture. She turned to Friede and whispered, "Do you understand what he's saying?"
"Sort of, yeah."
"O-Oh..."
Master was no good at politics or economics. Unsure of how to explain in a way that she would understand, I finished off by saying, "Even if we restrict Mao to printing only as many notes as he has salt to cover, he'll get to double his assets on paper. It would give him far too much influence and power. Other merchants would quickly realize what was going on as well."
"I have...absolutely no idea what you're saying."
If Master put her mind to it, she could easily figure out the intricacies of economics, but she was one of those people who refused to put any effort into things that didn't interest her. It was a bit of a shame, honestly. Meanwhile, Friede seemed to have grasped the gravity of the situation.
"A-And those merchants would try to emulate him, right? Since they knew they wouldn't be punished for it."
"Exactly. There would be dozens of competing currencies on the market. And, since they weren't issued by the council, we would have no way of tracking just how much currency is in circulation. Things would get real bad real fast."
I wasn't an economist, so I didn't know all the details, but I was pretty sure this would lead to a bubble that would eventually burst and bankrupt every merchant playing the currency game. This was a realm I knew far too little about. Until I could study economics a bit better and lay down sensible rules, I'd need to ban paper currency. The world wasn't ready for it yet.
"Okay, Friede, I order—no, I'm asking you to take care of this privately. I'd rather not go to an official about this."
"Understood, Councilor Veight." Friede gave me a crisp salute.
"Grab Mao by the scruff of his neck and confiscate his bills before he accidentally bankrupts himself and everyone else. I'll explain everything to him properly as soon as I'm free."
"Yes, sir."
And so, I was able to stop Mao from causing an economic crisis. After looking through some old records, I discovered that similar cases had happened in the past, and none of them had ended well. When small quantities were involved it was fine, but whenever people started issuing larger notes, the Senate then stepped in to take care of things. I wish they'd made some laws about issuing currency if they'd dealt with such cases before.
In the end, I had no choice but to call a large-scale meeting of the council and the merchant guilds to hash out fair laws about how far individuals could take promissory notes. Since Mao had created his notes before the laws had been put in place, he wasn't punished, and it was just recorded that he'd created a certain amount. We managed to wrap everything up nicely, all thanks to Friede. Meraldia's economy and my old friend's reputation were safe because of her.
"You did a great job, Friede. You've become more reliable than ever."
"Ehehe, really?"
"I'm proud of you."
At this rate, I really might be able to retire soon. Maybe I can get Airia to retire with me, and we can go on a hot springs trip to Wa. That'd be nice.
"What are you grinning about, dad?"
"Hm, oh, I'm just happy at how much you've grown. Hahaha."
"Reeeeally?" Friede gave me a suspicious look. She'd definitely grown enough that I couldn't trick her as easily as I used to.
Friede had gone off to talk to Mao, so I explained the whole situation to Airia.
"We've closed the loophole that would've allowed Mao to print his thousand salt notes, and we're looking into how to set sensible laws that will allow us to print paper currency. I suspect we'll end up with a joint team made of lawyers belonging to the council as well as Mao and the other prominent merchants."
"I see. Thank you for taking care of that, Veight." My beautiful wife smiled as she took the report from me. "This was Friede's discovery, right? By the time the council would have realized the same thing, we would have had an economic crisis on our hands. We were only able to change the laws in time thanks to her."
"Yeah, I'm thinking it's about time we can trust her with bigger jobs. She wants to join the administrative side of the demon army, so it'd be good for her to get some practical experience."
"But she's still a student," Airia said, a worried look on her face.
"Meraldia is developing at an unbelievable pace, so we need to train the new generation faster than I would like. I know it's not fair to burden our children with problems the adults should be solving, but we need as much help as we can get right now."
Airia mulled over my words for a few seconds, then nodded.
"You do have a point. With how quickly Meraldia has been growing, we'll need to write new laws and tackle novel issues more and more frequently."
"It's a real headache, all right. At this rate, I won't actually have any less work even if we get the new generation to help out," I muttered, and Airia chuckled. Did I make a joke?
"It's just funny how you complain about having more work to do when you're the one making all that extra work."
"Excuse me, I'm trying my best to have less to do here."
"The only reason this issue with Mao arose was because you signed trade treaties with Wa and Kuwol which helped Meraldia expand its economy. You're also the one who worked so hard to ensure the cities and roads are safe, and that our fledgling industries have room to grow."
Airia gave me a knowing smile, and I looked down to see an unfamiliar object on her desk. It was an expensive-looking red glass paperweight. Paperweights were a common enough sight on most people's desks, but this looked like one of the Black Werewolf King products Forne was selling. The glass had been carved into the shape of a werewolf.
Clearing my throat, I asked awkwardly, "My Lord, I see you have acquired a new item on your desk there..."
"Oh, this? While you were gone, Forne's troupe performed the Princess on the Precipice play for us here in Ryunheit."
Airia fiddled with the glass paperweight, looking a little sad. The red glass was carved in such a way that it looked like the werewolf in the center was surrounded by flames. That werewolf's definitely me, isn't it? If I recall correctly, Princess on the Precipice is the play that covers Eleora's invasion of Ryunheit. It was pretty popular since Forne heavily advertised the fact that Eleora herself had gone to see it once. Of course, it was even more popular in Ryunheit, since it was about the city. Why do I have a feeling that Airia's going to say something I really don't want to hear?
Warily, I said, "I guess Forne wants to drum up pro-Rolmund sentiment since we're trying to forge an alliance with them. It's exactly the kind of thing he'd do."
"Indeed. And once we start trading with Rolmund as well, our economy will expand further."
Yep. And we're going to have more complex situations we'll need to untangle. I get that we're going to have a lot more work ahead of us, so please stop messing with that paperweight. The way you keep pressing against the center is scaring me.
"Airia."
"Yes?"
"Once you're done with work for the day, would you, umm...like to go see a play with me? A different one from Princess on the Precipice."
"Are you inviting me on a date?" Airia's expression brightened immediately, and she got halfway out of her chair.
I put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down and said, "For your smile, I'll do anything. So please stop fiddling with that paperweight."
"Huh? Oh, this?"
Realizing what she'd been doing, Airia blushed awkwardly and put it back down. Oh, you weren't doing it on purpose? In the center of the flames, the carved figure of me embraced an exhausted Eleora. I could see why she would be feeling a little jealous.
"Where did you get this?"
"Forne gave it to me as a gift. He said it signified the friendship between Meraldia and Rolmund. I was pretty surprised, though, he offered it to me in public right on stage after the play had ended. There was no way I could refuse."
That's an abuse of power, dammit! Stop doing things that cause backlash against me!
"I guess I better make it a council rule that you're not allowed to do impromptu gift-giving ceremonies like that."
"Yes, I think you should. But let's leave work for another time, shall we?"
I could tell by how excitedly Airia was fidgeting that she really wanted to go to that play with me. Smiling, I ran my hand through Airia's hair.
"Yeah, we've done enough work for today. Now it's time for family. Friede's matured quite a bit too, so maybe we should take her as well. It's like she underwent some kind of transformation in Rolmund. I still need to reward her for realizing the problem with Mao's notes too."
It'll be nice to take her out to a fancy dinner and praise her to high heaven together. I'm sure she'll love it too. But while I thought this was a great idea, Airia didn't seem too happy about it.
"It's important to spend time with our daughter, but can't we leave it for tomorrow? I want to be alone with you today."
"Okay, okay. Don't give me that look, I promise tonight will be just for you."
It wasn't easy being a Demon Lord's Vice-Commander.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/copyright.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
Copyright
Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
by Hyougetsu
Translated by Ningen
Edited by Meiru
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 Hyougetsu
Illustrations © 2019 Nari Teshima
Cover illustration by Nari Teshima
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2019 by Earth Star Entertainment
This English edition is published by arrangement with Earth Star Entertainment, Tokyo
English translation © 2021 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property.
J-Novel Club LLC
j-novel.club
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: December 2021
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/signup.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-13-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/toc.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 13
Table of Contents
Cover
Color Illustrations
Characters
Map
The Story So Far
Chapter 13
Afterword
Bonus Short Story
About J-Novel Club
Copyright
Landmarks
Color Images
Table of Contents
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/afterword.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
Afterword
Hello everyone, Hyougetsu here. I'm starting to think I'm one of those overpowered isekai protagonists that masters whatever skill they have right after they get reincarnated. I started uploading this web novel onto Narou in late July, and not even a month later I got an offer for it to be published. It was honestly pretty surprising.
I'd been hoping this work would get published eventually, but even I didn't think it would get picked up so soon. When I first got the offer, I thought someone was playing a prank on me. However, I recognized the name Earth Star Novels, so I decided to humor them with a reply. And seeing as you're reading this afterword right now, clearly it wasn't a prank. But for me at least, it still doesn't feel real. I keep expecting someone to pop through my door and tell me I've been punk'd!
Leaving that aside for now, let's talk about the novel itself. I ended up not editing very much of the web version for the published version, which was a bit of a shame, but I did at least get to add in an extra chapter. I decided to make it about Veight's past since I'd gotten a lot of requests for that on Narou. What do you think guys, was it to your satisfaction?
By the way, I structured the start of the web novel the way I did because I wanted to make sure it wasn't paced too quickly. I wanted it to be the kind of thing you could read a chapter of in your spare time during lunch or something. Basically, I want to write the kind of story you can pick up pretty much whenever. I don't know about everyone else, but I always get tired reading really long paragraphs on my phone, so I made sure to keep the sentences short and snappy. It's also why I had the story start up in the middle, where Veight's already risen a good amount through the demon army's ranks. Of course, there's a lot to tell about his life before he became vice-commander as well, and I'd love it if I could keep writing these extra chapters about his past exploits.
Anyway, my biggest edits for the published novel were making the sentences and paragraphs beefier. After all, novels are the kinds of things you can read leisurely at home, and there are pictures to break things up if it gets too dense. I've got my editor-in-chief Itagaki-sama and my editor Saitou-sama to thank for helping me format everything better. I'd almost completely neglected the visual elements of a book, and their advice was extremely helpful in deciding how to structure things. I'd also like to thank my readers for giving me all that feedback on Narou. There's nothing that makes authors happier than knowing people love their work.
Incidentally, my editor Saitou-sama is super reliable and extremely patient. Every time I went to him for advice, he'd sit me down and walk me through everything. Not only that, he was able to get the book through the publishing process surprisingly fast, and he always replied to my emails right away. Though, he also sometimes sends garbled walls of text that are hard to decipher, or puts little jokes in the subject line to mess with me. He's a pretty interesting guy, so much so that I kind of want to put in a character based on him in the story. Regardless, it's all thanks to him that I was able to put out a quality publication in such a short time. Thank you so very much, Saitou-sama. I'll be relying on you for everything from here on out as well. When I think back to how much help it took to get this book published, I'm really grateful that it made it out the door at all.
Also, I'd like to thank my wonderful illustrator, Nishi(E)da-sama for his lively and impactful drawings. At first, I'd only had a very vague idea of what Veight was supposed to look like in his human form, but when I saw Nishi(E)da's rough sketches I realized that must have been how I'd wanted him to look all along. All of Nishi(E)da's other character sketches were amazing too. Me and Saitou-sama both agreed that Airia looked really cool, and that Jerrick looked really sexy. Thank you so much for bringing my book to life. I can say with confidence that his illustrations have influenced the way I'm writing my characters in the web novel, too.
Lastly, I'd like to thank my readers on Narou for supporting this series. Without you, it might have been buried forever. I look at each and every one of your comments, and treasure them all. I'll continue updating the Narou version as well, where hopefully you can read the story in more bite-sized chunks (Though doing daily uploads now might be a bit tough.) I plan on exploring more of Veight's past and the setting at large in the published novels, so I hope fans of the web novel check out this version too! There you go, there's my shameless self-plug. Buy my books! They have Nishi(E)da-sama's awesome art in them!
May we meet again in the second volume!
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/bonus.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
Bonus Short Story
I pointed to Firnir and shouted with conviction, "You're a werewolf!"
"What about me is suspicious!? If anything, you're more likely to be a werewolf, Vaito!"
Despite her protests, I could tell that she was slightly shaken. I decided to press her further and countered, "Both Monza and Sir Baltz were suspicious of you, and they both died. You're the only one foolish enough to kill everyone who accuses you!"
Airia, Melaine, and the others in the circle all nodded in agreement. Seeing a break in the conversation, Master raised her hand.
"Sunset has arrived. All players, point to the person you wish to hang."
Everyone unanimously pointed at Firnir. Looks like it's over for you.
"Awww."
Firnir hung her head and declared, "You're right, I was a werewolf!"
"Alright, that's one down!"
I pumped my fist in celebration. We were in the middle of playing a game of 'Werewolf.' I'd taught the game to all my friends during the Ryunheit independence festivities, and now that the party was winding down we'd all gathered around to play.
I'm sure most people already know, but Werewolf is a game where everyone is given different roles, and the villagers have to guess who the werewolves among them are. Each night, the werewolf kills someone, and each day, everyone discusses amongst each other and votes on one person to hang. It's a thrilling game of deception and deduction. Though I have to admit, it's got a rather dark tone.
At any rate, while I had played it once or twice in my old life, this was my first time trying the game out in this world. Since we were all beginners, myself included, I'd decided to keep the rules simple this time. The only roles we were going with were villager and werewolf. Once someone was hung, they were obligated to tell people their role, but other than that they could lie as they pleased. The villagers won once all the werewolves had been hung, and the werewolves won once they equaled or outnumbered the villagers.
I'd happened to draw the villager role in this round, and for the present, I was still alive. The night ended, and noon came once more. Master, who was refereeing the game, told everyone who the werewolves had killed in the night.
"Tonight, Kurtz was bitten to death."
Kurtz sadly got up from his seat and walked outside of the ring. There were only five of us left now: Me, Melaine, Airia, Fahn, and Jerrick.
"Now that Fir's gone, there's only one werewolf left."
Melaine opened up the discussion with a safe statement. She observed everyone's reactions, trying to glean as much information as possible. With the number of players we'd had, we'd decided on two werewolves. Meaning that with Firnir hung, only one remained.
"Between the werewolf attack and the hanging, we'll be losing two people each night. In other words, we only have two chances left to guess who the werewolf is."
Airia lapsed deep into thought after saying that. Though we fiercely debated who the remaining werewolf might be, we were unable to come up with any hard evidence for anyone, and our votes ended up all over the place. After a lot of deliberation, I voted for Fahn, mostly because she was the person I would be most scared of going up against if she was a werewolf. Jerrick had had the same idea, and he also pointed at Fahn.
"Well, looks like I'm dead. Too bad, though, guys, I was a villager."
Had she been a werewolf, we would have won right now. Dang it…
The next morning, Jerrick was killed by the werewolf. Rest in peace, friend. The only people left now were me, Airia, and Melaine. Since I knew I was a villager, either Airia or Melaine had to be the last werewolf. If I didn't pick the right person here, we'd be down to one werewolf and one villager. Meaning I'd lose. Now then, who's more suspicious?
"You know, Veight's probably the last werewolf. If he was a villager, he would have been killed by now."
"Wh-What kind of logic is that?"
"I mean, you're the best with words out of all of us here, aren't you? You'd be the first person the werewolves would want gone."
I don't know about that.
"I really don't think that's true, but…"
At that, Melaine glared at me.
"Who do you think is responsible for convincing Ryunheit to join our cause, huh?"
"…The Demon Lord?"
Melaine sighed.
"Alright, now I know you're suspicious."
"If anything, you're the one who's suspicious here, Melaine. It seems to me like you're the werewolf and you're just bringing out all these arguments to set someone else up."
Before I could say anything else, Airia interjected, "Without any concrete evidence, we'll just be going in circles. Instead of arguing about who seems more suspicious, why don't we decide based on everyone's past votes?"
"Yeah, that sounds like a much better idea."
Who Firnir had and hadn't voted for would give us a lot of valuable information. Especially since it was hard data, and not speculation. Werewolves naturally didn't want to execute their own kind, so they tended to avoid voting for their comrades. Furthermore, werewolves all knew who their comrades were. They voted on who to kill using their long-distance howls. However, it would look too suspicious if they were shown covering for each other openly, so they tended to keep their support as hidden as possible. However, their votes often betrayed their true allegiances.
"There were only two werewolves this time, so I doubt either of them voted for one of their own." Melaine nodded, and looked over the notepad she'd recorded everyone's votes in. "Let's see here. Everyone Firnir voted for in the first few rounds…were people she then killed."
She was so straightforward it was kind of cute. I looked over the notepad myself and checked who Firnir had voted for in the later rounds. Knowing her, she probably wasn't crafty enough to vote for one of her own comrades.
"It looks like in the last three rounds Firnir voted for Kurtz, Airia, and me."
Melaine was the only one she'd never voted for. That definitely cast suspicion on Melaine, but it was far from hard evidence. Unfortunately, there wasn't much time until sunset. Master looked over at the hourglass by her side and said, "Sunset has arrived. All players, point to the person you wish to hang."
After another few seconds of deliberation, I pointed to Melaine. Naturally, Melaine pointed to me. And Airia…pointed to Melaine. Melaine was being hung.
"What!?"
As she stood up, Melaine shouted, "But I'm a villager!"
Wait, what!? I turned back to Airia. Since I wasn't the werewolf, the only person it could possibly be was her. Outside, Firnir held up her werewolf placard and pumped her fist into the air.
"We did it, Airia! Our plan succeeded!"
"Plan?" I asked, and looked over at Firnir.
Firnir grinned and said, "Yeah, our plan to have everyone suspect me, so that Airia could make it all the way to the end! Aren't you glad, humans and demons are working together just like you wanted!"
"I mean…"
I turned back to Airia again. She gave me an angelic smile and said, "I'll be visiting your house tonight, Sir Veight."
She totally got me.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter1.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
Chapter 1
I don't remember much about my past life, but I'm also not that interested in learning about it. My name is Veight. I know it's hard to pronounce, but I still wish people would at least try to say it right. And right now, I serve the Demon Lord.
"Commander Veight, our troops have successfully infiltrated the city."
"Understood. There's no need to wait for my orders. Once the advance party gives the signal, charge."
"Yes, sir."
Werewolf. A word that refers to a half-human, half-wolf demon. In my human form, I look pretty much like I used to in my old life; an unassuming, plain guy. But transformed, I truly do look like a monster. I imagine most people find my jet-black wolf form to be terrifying, but personally, I think it looks cool. If anything, I'd say I hit the reincarnation jackpot.
At present, I serve as a commander of the Demon Lord's forces. Vice-Commander of the Demon Lord's third regiment. That's my current title. It sounds impressive, but regiments aren't very big, and there's other vice-commanders aside from me.
Right now, my command consists of 56 werewolves, and 200 canine combat engineers my commander loaned to me for this operation. Our target is a remote trading city. Its name was Ryunheit, and it had a modest population of 3000, along with a walled perimeter.
From within my position inside the forest, I looked down at the city we would soon attack. As I waited, a messenger ran up to me to deliver a report.
"The enemy possesses roughly 200 men. They're currently spread out throughout the city on patrol."
"You're certain of this?"
The young boy with a face of a beagle gave me a confused look.
"That's the report I was given from the werewolf team that infiltrated the city, sir. I wouldn't know how accurate it is..."
"Yeah, I suppose not."
Our mission this time was not to annihilate the city, but to occupy it. I strode forward and gave orders to my messenger squad.
"Tell all canine squads to advance. Stick to the plan."
"Yes, sir."
They ran off to their respective squads, while I turned toward the city and began walking forward.
Ryunheit was a city that specialized in trade, so its front gates were larger than most to accommodate caravans. That being said, it wasn't a very impressive gate. The walls, too, were not very high. In fact, they were made mostly of hardened mud, with the occasional stone or wooden bulwark. It was a wall meant to deter beasts and bandits, not withstand a siege.
Do they really feel safe with just that? A few guards watched over the main gate as a steady stream of traders and pilgrims trickled through. Most were let inside the city without question. Guess they'll let me in without a fuss, too. At the moment, I looked like an ordinary young man with black hair. Contrary to my expectations, however, the guard lowered his spear as I approached the gate. He wore a simple helmet and breastplate, and didn't seem particularly strong.
"You there, halt. I don't recognize you."
I came to a stop and pulled a bird-shaped whistle out of the sack on my back.
"I came here to deliver an order of toy whistles to one of my clients, the Betun Traders."
"I see."
The guard took the whistle and blew lightly into it. Out came a shrill tone, like whistles anywhere would.
"Fun to play with, right?"
"I...guess?" The guard awkwardly returned my smile and passed the whistle back to me.
"Alright, you can pass."
"My thanks."
Just then, a disturbance occurred further down the road.
"Monsters are coming!"
"Heeeeelp!"
A group of merchants were running for the gates, all of their wares held in their hands.
The guards sprang into motion, running forward to surround the merchants.
"What kind of monsters!?"
"C-Canines! Monsters with dog faces! They're armed to the teeth!" one of the traders stammered, pale-faced.
"There's hundreds of them!"
"Hurry up and get rid of them for us!"
The guards exchanged glances and got to work.
"Ring the bell! Three times!"
"Someone inform HQ! Send messengers to the other gates as well!"
"Close the gates! Everyone, inside!"
Panic engulfed the people. Travelers dithered back and forth while citizens scooped up their children and ran for safety. On the other hand, the soldiers worked as a cohesive unit. It was obvious they were well-trained. Not only that, they had excellent morale.
Meanwhile, I squeezed my way into the city along with the fleeing crowd. Once I was inside I found a relatively secluded corner, pulled out one of my whistles, and blew it with all my might. This one made no sound—no sound that could be picked up by human ears, at any rate. Us werewolves heard the dog whistle loud and clear.
It was time to begin the next step of our plan. In order to not appear suspicious, I headed to the city's center along with the rest of the citizens. That was also where the viceroy's mansion happened to be.
Before long, the inside of the city was engulfed in chaos as well. "The monsters are here!"
"There's werewolves, too!"
It seemed my werewolf unit that had infiltrated the city earlier had gotten to work. The streets were in turmoil, but the city garrison was busy with the enemies outside and could do nothing to help. Even if they could, they didn't have enough information to act. Conflicting reports of canines outside the gates and werewolves inside had left the army confused and disoriented.
"There's canines inside, too!"
"Don't worry, the army's pushing them back!"
"O-Oh, alright then."
Their forces truly were in complete disarray. Still, I wish they'd be able to tell the difference between cute-looking canines and fearsome werewolves. We're nothing like dogs!
Everything appeared to be going according to plan, and none of the complications I'd been worried about cropped up. Which meant it was time for me to join the fray. I took a deep breath, and unleashed my inner beast, beginning my transformation.
"UWOOOOOH!"
I don't think I'll ever get tired of how awesome that feels. I felt power surge through me. It brought along a rush of euphoria that left me feeling like a giddy little kid.
Of course, the people around me weren't nearly as excited about my transformation.
"Eeeek!"
"Kyaaaaaaa!"
"It's a monster!"
Excuse me? I'm no monster. I'm a demon. People often mistake us for monsters, but werewolves possess intelligence and culture, we're a proper race. I mean, come on. Humans are mammals just like horses and wolves, but no one goes around screaming "Oh my god, it's a mammal!" when they see a person. So yeah, we technically fall under the 'monster' category, but I'd prefer it if people called us demons. As I'm sure you can tell, this is a pet peeve of mine.
"S-Sir! There's a wolf monster here!"
I said I was a demon, not a monster!
I smiled tiredly as I watched people flee before me. Since I had a wolf's head at the moment, I don't doubt everyone saw it as a feral grin, not an exhausted smile.
"Don't worry, I don't plan on eating any of you." It's no good, no one's listening. It seemed I'd caused a bigger panic than I'd intended. People bowled over entire market stalls in their haste to escape.
In the span of a few seconds, the street had become empty. Everyone had fled into nearby buildings, or narrow back alleys. Thanks to my superior sense of hearing and smell, I was easily able to tell where they were hiding. I know I look scary, but the fact that people are this terrified of me still kind of hurts. I used to be human too, you know. Besides, I thought my transformation was kinda cool, like the ones superheroes have in movies... Ah well.
I heaved a weary sigh and kicked off the cobblestoned ground. My leap propelled me a good three stories into the air. From this height, I was able to get a good view of the whole city. As planned, my werewolf squad had the viceroy's manor surrounded. The few guards protecting the manor had already been mauled beyond recognition.
"I told them to avoid killing as much as possible... Oh well." Once a werewolf got going, it was hard for them to hold back. I ran across a series of rooftops and jumped down in front of the manor. Unfortunately, that was the same time a squad of reinforcements happened to show up as well.
"Protect the viceroy!"
"Chaaarge!"
The five soldiers drew their weapons and charged. I sent the first of them flying with a back kick, then turned around and started attacking in earnest. I shattered one soldier's sword with my bare arms, then jabbed his breastplate with my knuckles. I couldn't use my claws, or I'd kill him.
"Gaah!"
Crap, did I overdo it again? Holding back's harder than I thought. I dispatched the other three with low kicks, too afraid to use my arms against them. As it was, even my weak kicks shattered the soldiers' legs, but at least that was something I could fix with magic later. In the blink of an eye, all five of the soldiers were lying defeated on the ground.
"I'll heal you later, so just sleep there for now," I said as I jumped up to the manor's second-story window.
Compared to the glass in my old world, the glass here was far more crude. Not only was the window's thickness uneven, it was filled with translucent bubbles that made it difficult to see through. Still, a pane of glass like this would have cost about a month's income for a rich noble here. I smashed it without hesitation and strode into the viceroy's manor.
The room I'd broken into was the viceroy's own office. I'd examined the building's blueprints before, and as I'd expected, the viceroy was here.
"Who are you!?"
I found myself being glared at by a woman in her early twenties. She was wearing a male official's uniform, however, and a saber hung from her waist. She cut a rather gallant and dashing figure in the uniform; it was clear she was used to wearing men's clothes. My guess was she normally wore them to work.Though I guess now's not the time to be thinking about that.
A quick glance around the room told me there were no guards. Neither my nose nor my ears picked up traces of anyone else in the room. And my werewolves had the outside of the manor surrounded. I bowed politely to the viceroy, doing my best not to antagonize her.
"I am Veight, Vice-Commander of the Demon Lord's third regiment. You would be Viceroy Airia, correct?"
"None other."
Pale-faced, Airia nevertheless put up a brave front as she nodded. Unfortunately, she couldn't hide the trembling in her voice. She may not have had the fortitude of an emperor, but she would still make a fine general. A better one than me, that's for sure. Out of respect for her courage, I tried to be as non-threatening as possible.
"My forces have captured your city. Further resistance would be meaningless. I advise you to surrender."
"I will not!" Airia clenched her fists as she shouted. Why was it that people in power inevitably all had problems listening to other people?
"Ryunheit is an important lynchpin of our alliance! I will not allow it to fall into demon hands!"
Looks like I'm going to have to get a little violent, or we won't get anywhere.
"Then die," I snarled, baring my fangs.
As expected, the viceroy shrunk back in fear. Her trembling was understandable. She was up against a werewolf after all. Our claws could rend plate armor, and our legs could carry us faster than a galloping horse. A tiny girl such as herself had no chance against me. I took a step forward and put even more pressure on her.
"I will at least give you the honor of a noble death, befitting of your station. Draw your sword."
Airia brought a trembling hand to her waist, but because of her fear she couldn't even get a good grip on the weapon. She clearly wasn't used to fighting.
"I-I am the V-Viceroy of Ryunheit... Marquis..."
In her confusion, she'd started declaring her name. Normally, in duels in this world, you did that after drawing your weapon, not before.
I grinned and roared at her. Though it wasn't a very loud roar, the remaining windows vibrated from the force. Airia let out a yelp and fell backwards, her saber dropping from her limp fingers.
"Hiii—"
It was a pretty comedic reaction from my perspective, but I could see why she was so terrified. Had I still been human, I'd have pissed my pants facing a werewolf.
I snapped my jaws shut and sat down on the lavish rug in front of her. There was no need to intimidate her any further.
"That puny saber won't even be able to put a scratch on me. And even if you could somehow beat me, it's too late to save your city. Surrender."
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter11.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
Airia once more picked up her blade, but this time pointed it at herself. Pale, lips trembling, she said, "Th-Then I'll..."
"Wait, hold up!"
I hurriedly snatch the saber out of her hands. What is she, crazy!? In my haste, I'd grabbed the sword by the blade. It wasn't sharp enough to cut through my tough hide, but it still hurt. About as much as gripping a plastic ruler really tightly by the edges would.
"What point is there in killing yourself!? Think about this rationally!"
"Rationally?" Airia looked up at me with a dumbfounded expression on her face. It seemed she was too shocked to think straight. I sighed and looked her in the eyes.
"Look, our army's already taken the city. We've tried our best not to kill any of the citizens, but I understand why you're scared. With me so far?"
"Y-Yes... I understand." Airia nodded over and over, like a terrified child. I nodded back and continued my explanation.
"We do plan on ruling this city from now on, but we have no intentions of killing you, or turning you into our slaves."
"What?"
Is that really so surprising? Unable to comprehend what she'd just heard, Airia followed up with a question.
"Th-Then, what on earth did you come here for?"
I guess the humans have some misconceptions as to what we actually do. Ah well, I suppose I should explain.
"We don't want a slaughter. To be honest, we'd prefer you all to keep going on about your lives normally. And for that, we'll need a human leader. See where I'm going with this?"
"Umm... You want me to continue being the viceroy?"
"That's right."
Thank god she's an understanding person.
"We need your help to keep friction in the city to a minimum, so please just surrender and cooperate with the demon army. If there's any demands the humans have as well, we're willing to listen, so long as they're not unreasonable."
I waited patiently for Airia's response. Though she still appeared to have a few misgivings, the light had returned to her eyes. She sure did come to her decision quickly.
"If I found you've lied to me in any way, I'll rally the citizens to fight back with everything we have. Are you still sure you want to make that offer?"
"That's fine by me. The Demon Lord personally gave me full authority over administration of this city."
I nodded my consent, and Airia got to her feet. She held out her hand, and I obediently returned her saber back to her. She held it reverently for a few seconds before respectfully offering it back to me.
"I, Airia Lutt Aindorf, Viceroy of Ryunheit, formally surrender to the Demon Lord's army. I humbly request that you have mercy on my men."
"I hereby accept your surrender."
With that, the battle was officially over.
Events progressed rapidly after that. Airia collected her terrified servants and began giving out orders.
"Get me the messengers. Tell all units they are to cease hostilities immediately. We have surrendered to the demon army."
Crap, that reminds me. I need to let my men know it's over too.
"I'm gonna start howling, but don't be scared. I'm just contacting my men."
Airia's servants had looked like they were about to faint just from seeing me, so I was trying to be as considerate as possible. I turned to the window and howled as loudly as I could.
"AWOOOOOOO!"
Anything made of glass in the room shivered, and the servants all screamed and fell on their backs. A few of them wet themselves. Oops. I guess that was my fault. Still, with that, my orders reached every corner of the city. Coded within my roar was the message.
"Commander has been defeated. Gather."
Seconds later, a series of howled replies reached my ears.
"On our way."
"Roger."
"No injured in our squad."
The howls faded away after everyone finished their reports. The fighting, which had been going overwhelmingly in our favor, came to an end. I just hope those guys didn't kill too many people.
Soon enough, all of the werewolves gathered at the plaza in front of the viceroy's manor. Each and every one of the men and women under my command looked quite intimidating. And though they were under my command, they technically weren't my subordinates.
"It's been a while since I last went on a rampage. Were battles always this tiring? My poor hips ache." A gray-haired werewolf walked up to me and grinned. It was Vod, the old geezer who lived in my neighborhood. In his human form, he looked like a kindly old man with white hair.
"It was probably good for you to get some exercise, old man. When you get to our age, you gotta keep fighting or you'll go senile." Mary, the old lady who ran the nearby grocery store grinned at Vod. She was a kind woman who always threw in a few freebies when I shopped at her place.
"Oh? We're done already?"
"Holding back tired me out more than if we'd just been allowed to cut loose..."
The werewolves I'd led for this operation were all my friends and neighbors. Which was why they acted so friendly with me. Werewolves always hunted in packs. Those who lived in the same town were all part of one pack. Whenever they had to fight, they'd fight together like this.
That being said, werewolves were also demons. And there was only one thing demons respected: strength. Werewolves were no exception. Those who doubted my power and ability to lead started voicing their complaints.
"Hey Veight, how come we're being so soft on these humans?" A large werewolf with a striking crimson mane looked up at me. He was Nibert Garney, the younger of the Garney brothers. His elder brother, Garbert, strode forward and voiced his discontent as well. "Did you forget how many of our ancestors were hunted down by human scum like these? We should slaughter the lot of them."
I had been friends with both of them since childhood, and I knew they were stronger than me. In general, werewolves with red manes were stronger than others. So much so that they were given exaggerated nicknames like 'hunters of the blood moon' and so on. That being said, they were definitely tough. And because they had such confidence in their skills, they were unhappy with the fact that they were taking orders from me.
Ah well. As someone who used to be human, having to solve everything with violence is just a pain. But that's the only thing that'll get through to these two.
I leapt out of the second-story window and landed in front of the Garney brothers.
"Got a problem with my orders?"
The two of them exchanged glances. They probably thought they could take me if they attacked together. As expected, they puffed out their chests and attempted to intimidate me.
"That's right, I don't like your half-assed attitude. I should be the leader of this pack!"
Both brothers were a head taller than me, and they certainly looked imposing. It was obvious they wanted a fight. The other werewolves could tell as well, and they backed away to make space. No one else wanted to challenge me, it seemed.
I glared at the two brothers and said firmly, "I'm the one in charge here. If you don't like my orders, beat me down and take my position by force."
"You sure you wanna say that?"
The Garney brothers grinned. Among the werewolves here, they were the strongest. Not only did they have burly bodies, they had trained constantly. One of the two always took the championship at the annual wrestling contest we held every harvest festival.
In a fair fight, I wouldn't even be able to beat one of them, let alone both. Even when we were kids, I'd never been able to beat either of them no matter what I did. But right now, I was a vice-commander of the Demon Lord's army. For one, very good reason. I smiled.
"Let's see if you're still saying that after you hear this."
I unleashed a howl completely different from the ones before. Shockwaves of sound blew through the streets, shaking trees and buildings. This time, all of the windows in the viceroy's manor shattered.
"Ugh!"
"Uwaah!?"
The Garney brothers staggered backwards. The other werewolves crouched on the spot, rooted there by fear. A werewolf's roar had the power to instill fear into the hearts of men and beasts. Its effect was weakened on those who had a strong will to fight, and it was entirely ineffective against demons of the same class or higher. Naturally, this meant it was useless against other werewolves.
However, my roar was laced with mana—enhanced by the power of magic. For I wasn't a warrior, but a mage. Vice-Commander of the Demon Lord's third regiment, Veight the Werewolf Mage. That was who I was.
The spell I'd used in this particular instance was called 'Soul Shaker.' By manipulating the mana around me, I was able to turn my roar into something that could affect other demons as well. The spell's primary effect was actually to seal away the magic of any humans in the vicinity for a short period of time, while simultaneously improving the power of my allies' spells. It just also happened to possess the secondary effect of striking terror into the hearts of anyone who opposed me, regardless of how brave or determined they might be. Trying to break free from my spell with willpower was akin to resisting anesthetics with resolve.
Naturally, the Garney brothers were unable to do a thing.
"Uwaah..."
"B-Bro—"
In their current state, I could kill the two of them with ease. I slowly walked up to the pair of them, and lightly tapped their stomachs with my fists. Seeing the two of them tremble, I grinned.
"Trust me now?"
I disabled my magic, and the brothers both sucked in deep breaths. Though they'd regained the ability to move, they no longer possessed the will to fight. Their ears drooped, just like beaten dogs. Finally, the older of the Garney brothers opened his mouth. His fur, which was usually bristling with vitality, seemed oddly colorless. It was proof he'd submitted.
"Y-Yeah... I won't disobey you anymore... You're...the boss."
"That's right." I turned to the other werewolves with a smile. "Our third regiment has captured the trading city of Ryunheit! From now on, violence in the city is expressly forbidden, except in cases of self-defense!"
The werewolves lowered their heads in assent. I then began explaining our plan from here on out.
"Our objective is to transform this city into a forward base for the demon army's future operations in the area. In other words, harming the citizens or the city's infrastructure runs counter to our goals, understand?"
"No, I don't get it, actually," the younger of the Garney brothers replied. He wasn't looking for a fight anymore; he genuinely just didn't understand. While the Garney brothers were tough, they were also dumb as bricks. They always had been. I decided to simplify my explanation enough so even idiots like them could understand.
"Okay, look. This city is like a tasty deer meant for the Demon Lord's army. So you fools better not make a mess of it and rip it to shreds before they get here. Anyone steps out of line, and I kill them."
"Ahh, I get it now."
This time the Garney brothers nodded their understanding. I wasn't sure if they'd really understood or not, but I'd have to settle with this for now.
The older brother folded his arms and muttered, "You think we'll be able to live together with the humans, though? Seems to me they're all ready to kill us in our sleep."
He did have a point. The animosity coming from the inhabitants was palpable.
"Figuring out how to make things work is my job. In fact, I'm the only one capable of doing it, so you guys better listen to my orders."
"Y-You got it, boss."
At my glare, the two brothers nodded hurriedly. After confirming their obedience, I turned back to the other werewolves and continued my speech.
"Anyway, as far as meals go, you will be well-fed as long as you are here. If you want to hunt, you're welcome to hunt as much as you like in the nearby forest. The only thing you're forbidden from doing is attacking humans. Are we clear?"
To be honest, it was kind of tough giving orders to my friends and neighbors. Which was probably why my speech had gotten a little awkward at the end. Still, it seemed everyone was willing to cooperate.
"Hohoho, no problem, kid. I'm fine with following your orders."
"Besides, it'll be good to get a rest before the next battle."
Since the elders had shown their support, the younger werewolves followed suit.
"Man, I'm starving! Hey Veight, when do we get to eat?"
"And where are we staying, anyway? You're not gonna tell us to camp out, are you?"
"Oh shut up, you brats! I'll get all that sorted out too, so stop bugging me!"
The werewolf squad had been understaffed, so we'd padded our numbers out with everyone from the elderly to kids barely old enough to fight. The only people still in our village were the very elderly, a few sick people, and kids too young to be useful on the battlefield. Oh, and their parents.
We may have looked like a fearsome crew, and we definitely were pretty ferocious in a fight, but it's not like our unit was made up of veteran fighters or anything. The two kids who'd badgered me earlier were barely in their teens. This was a city of 3000, while my werewolves numbered a mere 56. Even if I included the 200 canine corps waiting outside the city, I didn't have the manpower to fight back in the event of a revolt.
Are we really going to be alright? Even I wasn't sure I'd be able to maintain control.
I may have captured Ryunheit in under an hour, but keeping it was going to take a lot more work. The biggest issue was the number of casualties. I hadn't expected it to be so high. There hadn't been any werewolf casualties, but the number of slain Ryunheit soldiers was staggering. Everyone had done their best to hold back, but even so, 70 men had died in the attack, with over a hundred more gravely injured. If we'd fought at full strength, it's possible we would have wiped out Ryunheit's entire garrison.
I used my shoddy healing magic skills to heal as many of the soldiers as I could. My magic could only do as much as a hospital in my old world would have been able to, but considering the medical development of this world, that in itself was really fortunate. At a hospital here, there was a high chance you'd die from infection or poor quality medicine, so the soldiers had it well off by comparison.
I went to the last injured soldier and put my hand over his broken bones. I'd only dabbled in healing magic in order to properly learn strengthening magic, but I knew enough to deal with simple wounds like these. Shocked, the soldier looked from my hand to my face as he felt the pain recede. That should do it.
"Any other injured?"
I transformed back into my human form and swept my robe back. I'd maintained my wolf form while healing in case any of the soldiers tried to attack me, but it appeared that had been a needless worry.
Mages were the elites of this world. They were far more important than even doctors or lawyers were back in my old world. Even in a decently large city such as this one, there probably wasn't anyone able to match my magical skills. In general, demons tended to make better magicians than humans. Which meant that, to these soldiers, even my crappy healing magic must have seemed remarkable. Though their wounds had been healed, the soldiers still appeared tense, so I decided to reassure them a little.
"Few have the courage to stand and fight when face-to-face with a werewolf. Even fewer have come out of a tussle with one alive. We may have been holding back, but that doesn't change the fact that you are hardened warriors, worthy of respect."
I doubted they were happy to be praised after hearing we'd held back, but I needed to emphasize the difference in strength between us. This was just the best way I could think of doing it without also hurting their pride. Dealing with people sure is difficult.
"Your Viceroy, Airia, has promised to hold a service for the seventy men who fell in battle. They may have been my enemy, but they were truly brave soldiers."
If anything, I'd say they were more unlucky than brave, seeing as they died even though we held back. 'Course, no one would be happy to hear that. Better to make them into heroes. I bowed to the remaining soldiers and left the barracks.
Man, that was awkward...
There was a mountain of things I still needed to do. First, after agonizing over whether or not to let the canine corps in, I ended up compromising by letting them camp right outside the castle gate.
Canines were weak. In a fair fight, they'd lose even to the average farmer. If I let them into the city and the people decided to revolt, it'd be impossible to protect them. I didn't have enough werewolves to guard them all. It was smarter just to leave them outside for now. And since I was leaving them near the walls anyway, I ordered them to a thoroughly investigate said walls. Canines were primarily silversmiths, and they were far more skilled craftsmen than werewolves. If there was anything strange about this city's walls, they'd discover it straight away.
Canines were light eaters, and they had brought their own supplies with them, so I didn't need to worry about feeding them for now. Feeding the werewolves, on the other hand, was going to be quite an ordeal. Most werewolves ate more than an Olympic athlete, including myself. Fortunately there weren't too many of us, so I was able to convince the viceroy to pay for our meals. As long as you kept them fed, you could keep werewolves docile.
For safety reasons, I split my squad into two groups and had them lodge in separate places. My squad was to stay in the viceroy's manor, while another would stay with the canines to protect them. The problem was, I didn't know who to appoint as leader of the other squad.
Both of the Garney brothers were out of the question. I needed to keep them under constant supervision, or who knew what kind of trouble they'd cause. They were idiots, after all. Ideally I'd ask one of the elders to do it, but once a werewolf returned to their human forms, they had the stamina of a normal human their age. The fighting this afternoon had been fierce, and I wanted to let them rest.
As I was deliberating, a woman slightly older than me walked over. She was another of my neighbors, Fahn. She also happened to be my first love. Back when we were five, I'd asked her to marry me. To which she'd said yes, with a smile.
"Veight, would it be alright if I take charge of the second squad?"
"That's fine by me, Fahn-onee... I mean Fahn."
Whoops, I almost used the nickname I'd called her by when we were kids. Fahn snickered in response and nodded.
"We just have to guard the canine unit and keep watch over the gates, right? I've become pretty good friends with those guys, so just leave it to me."
Come to think of it, she was a big fan of dogs. When we'd been marching she'd spent most of her time cuddling with the canines. Plus, she was dependable, and someone I could trust. Not only that, in terms of pure strength, she was stronger than me. I'd need magic to beat her.
She always won the girls' wrestling tournament back in our village, and she'd be able to give even the Garney brothers a run for their money. In fact, she was the only person who intimidated them. Seeing as she wasn't lacking in qualifications, I wasted no time in appointing her the commander of the second squad.
"Alright, you've been promoted to Vice-Captain. Here's a list of the members I was thinking of assigning to your squad. If you want to swap any of them out I don't mind."
"Let's see here... Yep, this'll be just fine. Just leave the rest to me."
Fahn winked, causing my heart to skip a beat. I kept my excitement off my face, and said in a commander-like tone, "I'll be counting on you, Fahn."
"You got it, Sir Vice-Commander."
She bowed to me with a smile, took the list from my hands, and walked off. I wonder what she'd say if I asked her to marry me now?
"This is more exhausting than I thought..." I sighed as I looked out at the city, dyed orange by the dying light of the setting sun. I was sitting in one of the viceroy's guest rooms, which I'd appropriated for myself. Should citizens decide to revolt, I didn't have the manpower to settle things peacefully. The only way to maintain my hold on the town would be to kill anyone who resisted. I really hope nothing happens.
Just then, I heard a knock at my door.
"Enter."
Ryunheit's Viceroy, Airia, walked into the room. As promised, I hadn't stripped her of her title. Not only was she a competent leader, she had the trust of her people. It would have been a waste to replace her. Now the only problem was whether or not she'd cooperate with us as promised. At this point, I still couldn't be sure. One word from her would be all it took to incite the citizens to revolt. It was possible she'd try and gather her elite guards to try and assassinate me too.
Of course, nothing she might try would actually pose a threat, but it would still mean I'd failed to occupy Ryunheit peacefully. Airia watched me curiously and said, "Is something wrong, Sir Veight?"
"Ah, no, it's nothing. Anyway, what did you need, Lady Airia?"
Since we were both leaders of our respective camps, it was imperative that we treated each other with courtesy. Airia looked down apologetically and said, "I have managed to suppress any discontent in the city. At present, I don't think the citizens will attempt to revolt, or escape."
"I see, that's good to know. I'll probably have to restrict the freedom of the residents for a little bit while things settle down, but I aim to have this city running normally as fast as possible."
For some reason, my words made Airia look even more apologetic.
"That shouldn't be a problem. However..." Airia trailed off. She seemed to be picking her words very carefully. Whatever it was she wanted to say, she was having a hard time saying it.
"Is there something you need from me? If it's within my power to grant, I don't mind hearing out your request."
"Oh no, that's not it... The thing is, Sir Veight..."
Her expression grew even more troubled. This was a good opportunity to show off how tolerant I could I be to my conquered subjects.
"Don't worry, I promise not to resort to violence, no matter what it is you have to report."
After seeing my serious expression, Airia finally decided to talk.
"The truth is, there is one complication with regards to the soldiers stationed here."
"There is?"
I thought they'd surrendered quietly, but I guess that wasn't the case. According to Airia, the problem was that the city's garrison didn't actually belong to her. The soldiers stationed in Ryunheit were actually under the direct command of the Meraldia Commonwealth, which Ryunheit was a part of. In other words, only the Meraldian senate could give orders to the men.
Before the city-states in the region had coalesced into a single nation, they had often fought with each other. For this reason, when Meraldia had been formed, it had been decided that only the senate had authority over the troops stationed in each city. Without the senate's permission, no large-scale orders could be given. The Meraldia Commonwealth was comprised of seventeen city-states of varying sizes. It lay due east of the Great Forest that the demons had made their home, so conflicts between them and the demons were common. In fact, at the start of the current war, the Demon Lord's army had had its hands full dealing with the subjugation army Meraldia had dispatched.
Regardless, I could understand that Airia was dealing with a rather complicated situation. Just to make sure, I confirmed I had the facts straight.
"So what you're saying is, even if they have agreed to surrender, you don't have the authority to force them to cooperate with us?"
"Precisely. All I can do is implore that they acquiesce."
As far as I could tell, Airia wasn't lying. It turned out, humans gave off a peculiar odor when they lied. One that a werewolf's sensitive nose could easily pick out.
"That's definitely a problem."
I folded my arms and lapsed into thought. There's only 200 soldiers left, but I need them to maintain public order. If the city's garrison refuses to cooperate with us, then I'll have to ask my werewolves to patrol the streets instead. But there's not nearly enough of them, and they're not suited to this kind of work. Plus, if my men are busy keeping the peace, I'll only have my canine unit to fight the army Meraldia's undoubtedly gonna send to recapture the city. There's no way I'll be able to win with just them.
"Hmm..."
A normal demon would have attempted to threaten the soldiers, or kill half of them to make an example out of anyone who resisted, but that wasn't my style. Rule through fear inevitably invited revolt. And maintaining just the right amount of fear so that people obeyed you, but not enough that they felt compelled to fight back, was far too much effort. The risk of pushing your populace over the edge was always present, too. Besides, as a former human, I wanted to avoid killing humans outside of the battlefield.
Seeing my troubled expression, Airia timidly asked, "You're not going to make an example out of the soldiers?"
"Do you want me to?" I said with a wry smile, and Airia firmly shook her head.
"No, not at all. I simply thought you would turn to force to resolve this issue."
"Forcibly imposing your will on others works for demons, but not for humans."
I could understand the soldiers' concerns. If they chose to side with us, they would be tried as traitors if Meraldia successfully retook the city. After thinking about it for a while, I decided it would be better to give up on obtaining the soldiers' cooperation.
"I can see why it would be a difficult choice for them. In that case, as long as they're willing to disarm, I won't ask for anything more. Please let them know that."
"Understood...and thank you for being merciful."
Airia breathed a sigh of relief upon learning that I wouldn't do anything horrific to the soldiers. Her business concluded, she turned to leave. When she reached the door, she hesitated for a few seconds, before ultimately turning back to face me.
"Umm..."
"What seems to be the matter?"
At my urging, Airia gathered her resolve and opened her mouth. "If all you want is to maintain order, you could ask the merchants guild to patrol the streets instead."
"The guild?"
"The various branch offices of the guild have always helped patrol the city and maintain the fire brigades. Too much crime would negatively impact business, so they have an incentive to keep the city safe."
I see, so they're basically like a neighborhood watch. I'd lived in a large city in my previous life, and I had been raised in a werewolf community in my current, so such a possibility hadn't even occurred to me.
Airia continued without waiting for my reply, "This city's guild falls within my jurisdiction. They might not make for as effective patrols as armed guards would, but it wouldn't hurt to ask I imagine."
I mulled her suggestion over. Her proposal was certainly beneficial for me, but it didn't serve her interests in any way. In fact, it would make her indebted to the merchants guild. I needed to know why she was doing this before accepting.
"Why would you go so far to help me?"
Her response wasn't one I was expecting.
"Because I'm grateful to you, Sir Veight."
"You...are?"
The last thing I had expected was for her to be thanking her conquerors. Airia's expression softened and she continued, "During the battle, you and your men didn't attack anyone other than the soldiers. Even though with your strength, you could have easily started slaughtering the citizens."
"I suppose that's true."
I could have, but there really wouldn't have been any point to it. Nor was it really a reason to be thanking me. However, it seemed Airia thought differently. She bowed her head and said, "I hope you will continue showing such mercy to the people of my city. If cooperating with you will help ensure that, then I will offer up everything I can."
So if it's to protect her city, she's willing to negotiate with the demon army, huh? Even if Ryunheit did get retaken by Meraldia's forces, they wouldn't be able to try the citizens as traitors, since they had been acting under the viceroy's orders. It seemed this cross-dressing woman was no mere coward, nor a simple pushover. She let herself get flustered a little too easily, but she was otherwise a hardened realist who was well-suited to her post. Now that I knew where she was coming from, there was no reason to not to accept her aid.
"Thank you. I promise to repay this debt someday. So I would like you to use your authority to mobilize the merchants guild."
"Understood."
Airia smiled in relief. It was a rather beautiful smile.
Thanks to Airia's assistance, I was able to solve all of my most pressing issues and get a good night's sleep. I did post a watch, just in case, but the city remained quiet through the night. By the next morning, life in Ryunheit had already returned to a relative degree of normalcy.
"Last night, we caught some thieves who were hoping to go unnoticed during the confusion of the occupation."
One of my werewolves came to report that to me first thing this morning. He was looking at me with something akin to hero worship. My standoff with the Garney brothers yesterday must have left an impression.
"What should we do about them, sir? Execute them as a warning to others?"
Had he been in his wolf form, I don't doubt that his tail would be wagging back and forth right now. He looked just like a puppy begging its master to play with him. However, execution was a little extreme. I shook my head.
"We're soldiers, not police."
"Po-lice?"
He tilted his head in confusion, so I explained it in simpler terms.
"Basically, let the humans in charge of keeping order handle it. They'll be punished according to the laws of the city. Speaking of which, what do Ryunheit's laws say the punishment for stealing is?"
I turned to the human secretary sitting next to me, and she hastened to reply.
"In the case of theft or property damage, reimbursement equal to the value of the stolen or destroyed goods must be paid. In the event that reimbursement cannot be made, the criminal is sentenced to forced labor until they have repaid twice the value of the lost goods."
"There you go. Send them to work in the fields until they've paid off their debts."
"Why farm work?"
"Because we've got two hundred fifty-six new permanent residents here, and they need to be fed."
Naturally, I was referring to us. I could get by requisitioning supplies from the citizens, but if I kept doing it for too long they'd begin to resent us. Nothing nurtures a grudge like an empty stomach. As the day progressed, plenty of other people showed up with minor issues that needed resolving.
"The merchants who ended up trapped here because of the fighting are requesting that we let them leave the city so they can resume their journeys."
"According to the canine unit, the sewer system that runs beneath the castle walls is in dire need of repair."
"The Garney brothers are asking for more food."
I was stuck taking care of one problem after another.
"Tell them that no one is allowed out of the city at present. As for their goods, buy all of their stock at a premium and tell them to stay at an inn for now," I replied at once.
The problem is, how am I going to pay for all that... I guess I have no choice but to ask Airia. I just keep putting myself further in her debt.
"It'll be dangerous if we leave the sewage system alone, so tell the canine unit to start repairs immediately. Make sure you post guards around the area as well, it's possible enemies might try and sneak in through there."
Unfortunately, the 200 strong canine unit wasn't large enough to handle this project on their own. Since they worked in shifts, only 60 of them were active at any point in time. Finding manpower to assist them wouldn't be easy though.
"And as for the Garney brothers, give them more work and tell them to buy extra food with the money they earn. If they wanna eat, they better make themselves useful."
It was almost noon, and I hadn't even had breakfast yet. Now was probably a good time to take a break and get some food. I rose to my feet and stretched my limbs.
"Phew..."
"Good work." A cute, childish voice answered me. Surprised, I turned around to see a young girl sporting a pointed hat and a cape. I instantly dropped to one knee and bowed.
"I am gladdened by your return, Commander Gomoviroa."
"How many times must I tell you, call me Gomo."
Commander of the Demon Lord's third regiment, Gomoviroa the Great Sage, puffed out her cheeks unhappily. She looked just like a child. However, this child-like girl was the strongest mage in the Demon Lord's army, and though she was human, she was one of the Demon Lord's closest aides. She also happened to be my magic teacher.
"I could never. At least allow me to call you Master."
"Why must you insist on being so stubborn?" Gomoviroa sighed, but in the next second her annoyance vanished and she smiled. "No matter. You did well, capturing Ryunheit as swiftly as you did."
"It was all thanks to you, Master. By the way..."
If my master had arrived, that would mean her personal squad of elites should be here as well. I was banking on them to help with managing the city. Gomoviroa's smile grew wider as I trailed off.
"I see my Bone Spears are in high demand. Fear not, I have sent my two thousand men to rendezvous with the canine squad."
"One step ahead as always, I see."
My master's specialty was necromancy. The skeleton warriors she raised were all skilled warriors who moved with precision. If we had her 2,000 Bone Spears, we would be able to hold out against human armies several times larger. Not only that, since they were undead they didn't require food or rest. My master heaved another sigh.
"I certainly hope you aren't thinking something like 'Undead soldiers don't need food, so I won't have to worry about upkeep if I have them.'"
"Uhh, well..."
"Have you no consideration for the amount of effort it takes to create them? Each and every one of my soldiers is crafted with love and care."
"Says the woman who makes hundreds every day."
"Did you say something?"
"Oh no, not at all."
While my master was an accomplished mage, she wasn't a very skilled strategist. So it wasn't surprising that she didn't understand my hardships.
"If food is your concern, could you not just requisition supplies from the citizenry? Even humans do it to each other."
"I'd rather not, if I could help it. I don't want the people to resent us."
"You are certainly asking for a lot, wanting the people you conquered not to resent you," she said with a chuckle. Though my master was human, her thought processes were just like a demon's. If she felt like it, she could obliterate the viceroy's manor with a snap of her fingers. In fact, she could turn the entire city to ash in less than a day without a second thought. It was hard to say whether she was really even human anymore.
That being said, she still remembered what it was like to be human, and she was part of the more moderate faction within the Demon Lord's camp.
"Though I suppose it was because of your considerate personality that I took you on as my disciple in the first place. I would never teach my secrets to one who thirsts for blood."
"Glad to hear it."
I still clearly remember the conversation we had the first day I met her.
"You wish to become a magician? Why would a werewolf turn to magic?"
"I'm...not really that strong. But I want to be!"
"For what purpose?"
"I want to protect everyone in the village. Also... I kinda want the other kids to respect me more."
"You're one honest kid... Very well, I suppose we can at least find out whether or not you have the aptitude to use magic."
"Really!? Thank you so much!"
"But know that if you lack the talent, you will have no choice but to... Are you even listening to me?"
Gomoviroa smiled wryly at me; she must have been thinking back to the same conversation.
"I knew it was theoretically possible for werewolves to possess the necessary talent, but I never thought you would come so far. A shame you have no affinity for necromancy whatsoever."
"Well, I am a werewolf."
I was most skilled in body strengthening magic, mostly because I could only use magic that affected living creatures directly. If I were to explain it in RPG terms, I was basically a support buffer class. And though I'd originally taken it up as just a hobby, I'd become somewhat proficient in healing magic as well. Thanks to my magical abilities, I'd become one of the strongest werewolves around. And since werewolves were one of the stronger demon races, in terms of overall rankings, I was pretty high up there. My career had ended up stalling at mere vice-commander, though...
"By the way, Master, what are you doing here? I thought you were staying in the castle?"
When I'd talked to her at the Demon Lord's castle, she had said she would remain there. The second and third regiments had planned on invading multiple cities simultaneously, and so the commanders had planned to remain behind with the reserves and dispatch them as the situation developed.
Still smiling, Gomoviroa said, "I stayed behind to support the army most in need of assistance. It seems to me that would be yours, would it not? All of my other disciples were provided with ample soldiers, so they have no need of my help."
"I-I guess that's true."
So we really did spread our forces too thin. Still, under my command we'd managed to capture our assigned city. I puffed my chest out proudly.
"Though, I did manage to capture my city with the smallest squad out of everyone. With zero casualties, too. Pretty impressive, wouldn't you say?"
"I will admit you did well in utilizing your werewolves' unique traits to their maximum, but I also have no doubt you spent the night cowering in fear of a revolt."
"How did you know?"
"I know your personality in and out, boy."
With a smile, she floated into the air and alighted on my shoulder.
"Is there anyone you can delegate leadership to?"
"Ah, yes. I've already put Fahn in charge of the unit at the castle gates, so that's one burden off my shoulders. Did you meet her on your way in?"
"Ah, that girl you fancy."
"How do you know that?"
"I know your tastes in and out, too." She grinned mischievously. "Teasing aside, I would like to borrow you for a moment. We need to report to the Demon Lord."
"You want me to go too?"
I found it strange that the Demon Lord would want to listen to a report from a mere vice-commander. Normally, it was the commander's job to send reports to him. However, Gomoviroa shook her head and said, "The Demon Lord expressed that he wished to hear the particulars from the general who led the operation. Stop asking questions and follow me."
My master chanted a spell in a singsong voice. A second later, my vision grew blurry and the space around me warped.
* * * *
—Gomoviroa's Memoir, Page 160—
My beloved disciples have grown up splendidly. They have risen to prominent ranks in the Demon Lord's army, and all lead a squad of soldiers. My werewolf disciple, Veight, has made much progress as well. As far as I am aware, he is the only werewolf mage in history. That makes his growth all the more spectacular. Though I must admit, he is quite a peculiar child. One would have to be peculiar to aspire to be a mage as a werewolf, but that's not the only thing odd about him. It's true his talents lie in strengthening magic, but even so, his understanding of a person's body is phenomenal.
Take, for example, detoxification. It is known that concentrating one's magic in the right side of their stomach when attempting to expunge poisons is the most effective method. The prevailing theories as to why are either that toxins gather in that area of the body, or that somewhere near there lies an organ that assists with detoxification. When I'd first taken Veight on as my apprentice, he'd already known that. Once I'd taught him the basics of detoxification magic, he seemed to understand instantly why his right flank was the correct place to concentrate his mana. To be honest, it shocked even me.
Veight seems to have a natural sense for which parts of the body need the application of strengthening to achieve the effects he wants. As such, he knows that the best way to alleviate exhaustion is to focus mana into one's right flank. And that to slake thirst, mana should be applied not to the throat, but one's waist. He even knows that focusing on the back and waist muscles, rather than one's arms or legs, is more important when it comes to close-combat fighting.
These are all things normal practitioners don't notice until they have accumulated more experience. And yet, Veight figures out the optimal way to apply each spell the moment he learns it. It's possible I may have picked up a hidden genius. But the reason I value Veight isn't just his magical talent. His perspective on life is nothing like a normal demon's. For a werewolf, he's unbelievably passive, and slow to anger. Though he is by no means physically weak, he's unsuited to the style of combat most werewolves prefer. But his wisdom and unorthodox methods are precisely what the demon army needs right now. It is for this reason that I have not yet passed down my final techniques to him. For him to reach his peak as a simple magician would be a colossal waste of his talents.
There is an ancient saying that goes "To serve muddy water in a cup of gold is the height of folly." I wish for him to grow further before bestowing upon him the secrets of magic. However, the fact that I have taught this to all my disciples but him seems to have given him the misconception that he is inferior by comparison. This misconception will need to be remedied eventually. After all, it is my hope and expectation that he will reach the pinnacle of strengthening magic.
Regardless, I have recommended Veight to the Demon Lord. My other disciples are of course all splendid as well, but he alone is special. There is no one like him within our nation.
It is my firm belief that he will accomplish great things.
* * * *
—The Demon Army's Operating Headquarters, Grenschtat Castle—
While the castle name sounded impressive, the truth was it was just a run-down border castle. It had originally been a human fortress that had been abandoned centuries ago after an internal conflict between human kingdoms. The demons had found it much later, repaired it with magic, made it nigh-impregnable, and were now using it as their forward base. The fortress was surrounded by a dense magical fog that made it both invisible and impossible to approach. Any human that touched the fog would be left paralyzed, and sensors inside the mist would inform the castle of their location. Even if the humans sent an army, they would just be annihilated before reaching the castle.
I walked through the mist, my master riding atop my shoulder. To us demons, the fog just felt mildly pleasant. Teleportation magic was sealed within the castle, so we had no choice but to go on foot from the main gates. I was in my werewolf form to avoid causing any misunderstandings with the guards.
"Despite how creepy it looks, it's actually kind of nice here."
"I happen to be a human, so I'm afraid I cannot say the same—but I suppose it's not unpleasant, at least."
So she really has thrown away half of her humanity. The dragonkin guarding the gates recognized my face and let us pass without question. All of the guards within the castle were highly skilled dragonkin. They belonged to the first regiment, which was headed directly by the Demon Lord himself. As I strode across the castle's courtyard, I sensed a figure approaching from beyond the mist. Whoever it was, they were massive.
"Him, huh?"
At Gomoviroia's muttered words, I too realized who was coming. I would recognize that stench of blood anywhere.
"If it isn' da third regimen's commander."
The mist parted to reveal a giant with the face of a beast. He was easily three meters tall. Twice my height. He was also an ogre. Ogres in this world didn't look too different from how RPGs had envisioned them. He was wearing only a crude loincloth and carried a massive steel club.
This man, Dogg, happened to be a Vice-Commander of the second regiment, and the general who led the ogre corps. His name might have sounded funny, but laugh at it and you'd likely get your brains bashed out. Apparently, among ogres, the name meant 'Mad Dog.' Which, to be honest, just made it sound more laughable.
Without even the barest hint of respect to my master's title, he gave her a coarse greeting before turning to me.
"Goin' ta give your report? Took ya long enough," he sneered.
I guess that means he already finished giving his. He couldn't have beat us here by more than a few minutes at most, but all this lump of muscle cared about was winning, even when it wasn't a competition. When he saw I wasn't going to take the bait, he tried to needle me some more.
"I dun care if ya took down a tradin' city or whatever, is it really worth comin' all da way back here to report about in person? I'll have ya know I took down da minin' city of Boltz."
Dogg puffed his chest out proudly and raised his club up high. Is that really something to get that excited about?
"Do ya get what dat means? I took down a minin' city. Dat means tis got ore. Tradin' cities dun got no ore. Dat means dey worthless."
Oh, that's where he's going with this. Basically, he was trying to emphasize how much better his achievement was. I doubt this halfwit understood what kind of value a trading city might offer us. In fact, most of the people in this world, whether they be human or demon, seemed unable to understand a lot of simple concepts. I knew just how important a stable flow of goods was to a nation's economy, but it would take far too long to explain that to him, so I didn't bother. Instead, I just shrugged my shoulders.
"Must be nice to have it easy."
Dogg's face flushed bright red. Apparently, ogre blood was as red as human blood.
"Are ya makin' fun of me!? I'm da strongest, smartest, ogre der is—I'm da great Dogg!"
Smartest, huh... Well, I guess most ogres have the brains of a toddler. Since he's at least as smart as a middle schooler, I guess that does make him the smartest.
"And I happen to be a werewolf mage. A genius like you should easily be able to tell which of us is stronger, right?"
"Of course! Me!"
Oh god, he's a moron. I turned back to my master for backup, but she'd floated a short distance away and was now watching impassively.
"You two vice-commanders have fun, now."
"Master..."
My master found fighting as much of a pain as I did. Sighing, I turned back to the ogre.
For demons, power was everything. The weak submitted to the strong. I guess I'll give him a taste of what I can do.
I glared at Dogg and said, "Stop blocking my way with your fat ass, weakling."
"What was dat!?"
Without warning, he swung his massive club down. But I wasn't fool enough to let it hit me. To a werewolf's superior eyesight, his club looked like it was falling in slow-motion. I leapt backwards, and Dogg's club smashed into the ground in front of me, sending stone splinters flying everywhere.
"Oi, don't go breaking the Demon Lord's precious castle."
If he really wants to fight that badly, I suppose I can indulge him.
"Rowdy kids like you need to be punished."
Ogres tended to be physically stronger than werewolves. Considering the difference in size between them, that much was obvious. With their massive clubs, ogres could easily mow down scores of enemies with one swing. When it came to brute force, they were the best. However, there was one fatal flaw with their physiques. Due to their size, they were abysmally slow. That being said, it still took a good deal of courage and skill to take the initiative against one. Especially because dealing a serious blow to their tough hides with a single attack wasn't easy. Even if you could, that wouldn't stop their swing from crushing you. They were quite a terrifying opponent. For humans, anyway.
While I mused on the ogre-human matchup, I dodged another one of Dogg's blows. No ogre could give me trouble, vice-commander or not. Dogg's club, which wasn't even spiked, wasn't much of a threat when it was that slow. And I wasn't nice enough to give him time to get off a third swing. I leapt forward and drove a powerful kick into Dogg's chin.
"Ugwah!?"
A human's skull would have shattered from that blow, but ogres were made of sterner stuff. I managed to crush Dogg's jaw, but that was all. He really was built like a tank. Most other foes would have thrown in the towel at this point, but Dogg hadn't risen to his position by backing down.
Fighting spirit still burning fiercely, Dogg swung his club up at me.
"Whoa."
His aim may have been poor, but if even one of his blows struck home I'd be down for the count. I hopped out of the way and prepared to land the finishing blow. Come to think of it, Master's watching me right now. Maybe I should use a little magic. I twisted my fingers into a magical sign and poured mana into the palms of my hands.
"Sorry about this."
My claws began emanating a dark light, and a second later they were enveloped in black flames. I'd used a spell that temporarily enhanced the sharpness of a weapon. I dug my flame-wrapped claws into Dogg's shattered jaw.
"GRAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
After pushing my way inside his face, I grabbed a fistful of cracked and broken bone, and crushed it in my fist. Even Dogg couldn't bear that kind of pain. He dropped his club—all will to resist gone. Against a human opponent I could have ended the fight long ago, but with demons you had to beat them thoroughly or they'd never accept you. I had to prove to him beyond a shadow of doubt that I was stronger. And so, I mercilessly flipped his body around and lifted him up by his broken jaw, forcing his body into an awkward position. Had his neck not been so thick, it would have broken.
"Feel like surrendering now?"
Stubborn to a fault, Dogg only screamed in pain. Looks like I've got no choice.
"Fine, I'll just put you to sleep, then."
I slammed his head against the ground. His skull was tough enough to break boulders, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell unconscious. That last blow must have given him a concussion. The rest of his body slumped to the ground with a thud. He wouldn't be getting back up any time soon.
If there was no one better in a contest of strength than ogres, there was no one more suited to murder than werewolves. And though this fight had been brutal, it was rather standard when it came to contests of strength between demons. It was because demons were so prone to violence that humans feared them so.
"Alright, that's enough. Mmm, that was a good match."
Her tone made it clear that she didn't care one way or another about the fight. She floated down and healed Dogg's shattered jaw with healing magic, then patted him on the shoulder.
"Your gallant display was most impressive. I see your title was not just for show."
"O-Oww... Gah...it hurds..."
Though his wounds should have been healed, Dogg was still groaning in pain. It appeared my master had used the most painful recovery spell to heal him. She'd strengthened Dogg's own natural healing powers. Doing so drained his scant mana reserves to close his wounds, but left him in excruciating pain until he was fully healed. My master definitely had a cruel streak to her.
Once she was finished, my master turned around and smacked me on the head, a displeased expression on her face.
"What kind of fight was that? I expect better from one of my disciples."
"Y-Yes, Master..."
I thought I'd won pretty handily, but apparently my master wasn't satisfied. Still floating in front of me, she muttered, "For a moment, I feared he might defeat you. Seriously, were you trying to give this old lady a heart attack?"
Oh, she was just worried. She may have had a cruel streak, but Gomoviroa was also pretty protective of her disciples.
We left Dogg to his suffering and went to meet the Demon Lord. This would mark my second meeting with him. When we arrived at the imposing steel doors that marked the entrance to his chambers, I took a few deep breaths. The Demon Lord was the strongest demon in the realm, a true king who ruled over tens of thousands of people. If he wanted to, he could kill me with a puff of his nostrils.
"Commander of the third regiment, Gomoviroa, and my Vice-Commander, Veight. We're here to deliver our report," My master said in a calm voice. A second later, the massive double doors creaked open. The Demon Lord's room was modest, but stately. Polished obsidian pillars lined the halls, each giving off an ethereal gleam. They had been gilded with the canines' famed silver. Black was the main motif of the room, but it was highlighted with occasional silver accents.
Personally, I thought a little more silver would have been better, but it was possible he'd kept it subdued to make people want more. If the room had been filled with silver, it wouldn't have left as lasting an impression on visitors. Also, it just wasn't practical to have your entire room decorated in silver. The dragonkin guarding the Demon Lord's personal chambers had black scales, and they were armed with short spears tipped in silver. They fit perfectly with the overall theme of the room.
A deep voice boomed from the back of the room.
"Enter."
I involuntarily flinched, but it wasn't like I'd done anything wrong. Plus, I had my reliable master at my side. Maybe I'll mess up my greetings a little or something, but it should be fine. Besides, even if I died, I might end up getting reincarnated again. I calmed my nerves and tried to walk as confidently as possible. My footsteps echoed across the vast room.
Wait a second. That's weird. My footsteps aren't sounding when my feet actually touch the ground. If I had to guess, the positioning of the pillars caused sound waves to be reflected out of time within the room. My decision to walk boldly had brought me a valuable piece of information. I had heard that dragonkin were all pragmatists, and it seemed that really was the case. Even with art, they found a use for it.
Dragonkin were basically the lizardmen you see in RPGs. However, they loathed being likened to lizards. And in truth, they were far more intelligent than the lizardmen you saw in games. They just happened to look draconic. The main reason that they served as the Demon Lord's personal bodyguards was because the Demon Lord himself was a dragonkin. There was no special race of demons that the Demon Lord had to belong to. And the man currently holding the throne was Demon Lord Friedensrichter. As you might expect from the Demon Lord, he was no ordinary dragonkin. For one thing, he was as large as an ogre. Most dragonkin stood just shy of two meters tall, which made him massive. Furthermore, his scales weren't the usual dark brown or green that most dragonkin had. No, they were a fiery red. In fact, it often looked like he was wreathed in flames. His horns were long and intimidating, proof that he'd lived a good number of decades.
What frightened me the most about him, though, was his mana. Since I was a mage, I could see the mana swirling around him. He was overflowing with such a huge quantity of it that he expelled a little with each breath he took. It was unthinkable for one person to possess so much. Most dragonkin didn't possess anywhere close to that amount. I probably wouldn't be able to beat him even if I had my entire village and my master backing me up. That was how huge the difference in strength between us was. As a demon, I had no choice but to respect him. I squeezed out what little courage I could and addressed my lord.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter12.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
"Vice-Commander of the third regiment, Weremage Veight, reporting."
Weremage was a title I had received directly from the Demon Lord. All of the demon army's generals were granted a unique title. Only the rank and file soldiers didn't have any.
The Demon Lord turned his golden eyes onto me. I reflexively stood up a little straighter.
"I have successfully captured the trading city of Ryunheit. At present, the city is under our complete control."
"Well done." His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a weight that made even the pillars shake. With this, my report was finished. I figured I'd get to leave back now, but it seemed that wasn't the case. "I would like you briefly explain the tactics you used to capture the city," he continued.
"Y-Yes, sir!?"
I hastily saluted and thought about how best to answer this question. I guess I should just explain the final plan.
"I launched a surprise attack against the viceroy's manor, my lord. I had my werewolves infiltrate the city under the guise of travelers, then used my canines to create a diversion."
The Demon Lord watched me silently for a few moments. Should I have explained it in more detail? While I was worrying, the Demon Lord nodded in satisfaction.
"You effectively utilized your werewolves' unique traits for this battle. But tell me, what benefits did this grant you?"
Now that was an easy one to answer.
"I was able to keep my forces' casualties to a minimum. On top of that, it made ruling the city once it had surrendered an easy task."
"Explain to me the importance of the former point."
He just won't give it a rest, huh? But this was another easy question.
"Werewolves are the elite troopers of your army, my lord. They are not easily replaced. Considering the overall situation of the war, I thought it prudent to conserve my forces as much as possible."
"Very well, now explain how your surprise attack achieved the latter point."
Figures he'd ask about that, too. This reminds me of when I was studying for entrance exams... Since demons fundamentally valued strength, they didn't nurse grudges over their defeats, regardless of how they were beaten. After all, if they didn't like the result, they could always challenge their opponent again. But humans weren't like that. If you killed their comrades, they would resent you forever. Even if they submitted at first, they would just wait for a chance to get their revenge. That was their nature.
"The surprise attack allowed us to limit damage to the enemy's forces. This was done to prevent the humans from harboring grudges against us. I have opted to let the viceroy retain her position as well, and have obtained her cooperation in managing the city."
At that, the Demon Lord roared.
"HOW IS THAT SUPERIOR TO RULE THROUGH FORCE!?" The air in the room changed.
Crap. This is the worst question he could have asked. Let me repeat it, demons firmly believed in rule through force. The Demon Lord was no exception. However, my methods went against that philosophy. Since I had attempted something unorthodox, I now needed to prove why my method was superior to the orthodox one. But doing so would make it appear as if I criticized the Demon Lord's methods.
Impatient, he rumbled loudly, "Answer me!"
"Y-Yes, sir!" I steeled my resolve. At this point, my life was in peril whether I answered or not. "I believe that avoiding needless bloodshed and turning the conquered humans into our allies is the surest way to win, my lord."
Well, the cat's out of the bag now. As I'd feared, the dragonkin guards didn't react favorably to that. On the surface, they looked as stoic as always, but I could smell the bloodlust coming off of them. They were getting ready for a fight.
What do I do now? Should I just try and flee, or take at least a few of them down and hope I'll get reincarnated again?
However, it appeared the Demon Lord himself didn't seem too bothered by my explanation. He nodded indifferently and said, "Very well, you are dismissed."
It appeared my audience was over. The bloodlust that had filled the room moments ago vanished as fast as it had appeared. I heaved a sigh of relief. Guess I'm not dying here after all. Just as I was about to turn to leave, the Demon Lord spoke again.
"Such a method of rule requires ample funds. I will grant you ten thousand silver coins to use as you see fit."
"You are most gracious, my lord!"
"If you find this to be insufficient, you have my permission to request more."
In truth, I had just started worrying about how I was going to pay for everything I would need. The fact that the Demon Lord had understood that from my earlier explanation proved that he was much sharper than other demons as well. I can see now why even master respects him.
Gomoviroa, who had been silent until now, finally spoke up, "Are you certain about this, my lord? That is a rather large sum to send over to a single city."
"I do not mind." Indeed, the Demon Lord seemed utterly unconcerned about the amount. "The second regiment required no funds to conquer their assigned territories. I see no reason why the ten thousand coins they brought me as spoils should not be sent to a unit who has more need for the money."
"Understood. Allow me to thank you as well, on behalf of my disciple."
My master bowed deeply, and this time our audience truly was over.
It was only after we left the Demon Lord's chambers that I could breathe normally again.
"I thought I was going to die there, Master."
"You always were quite the coward."
My master smiled wryly at me from atop my shoulder.
"The Demon Lord may act intimidating, but he's a surprisingly kind man at heart. Unless you commit a grave blunder, he won't punish you."
"I wish you could have told me that earlier..."
I turned away, pouting, and she gently patted my head.
"I expected you to know this already, O inexperienced disciple of mine."
"Well, excuse me for being inexperienced..."
As we walked out into the courtyard, an ogre appeared from the fog. Dogg. I eyed him warily and said, "Still wanna go?"
But he shook his head and stepped out of the way.
"I dun wanna admit it, but I lost."
As always, strength was justice. Those who didn't submit to the strong didn't live long in the demon world.
"You're a lot more docile than I expected."
I kept an eye on him as we passed by, but he didn't try anything. All he said was, "I'll knock ya flat next time."
"So you still wanna go after all?"
I can't believe he hasn't learned his lesson even after I beat him to a pulp. But then, I guess that's how demons are. Personally I just found it a chore, but the strong weren't allowed to turn away challengers.
"Ya better be ready for me, punk!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Dogg watched me go with a creepy smile on his face.
After we left the castle, my master turned to me and said, "Don't let your previous victory get to your head. He's no ordinary ogre."
"Yeah, he seems like he actually understands battle tactics a little."
I nodded, and Gomoviroa followed up with, "Not only that, he understands the importance of honing his skills. Because he trains, he's much faster and stronger than other ogres. He lacks many of the usual weaknesses enemies his size would have."
"Really?"
"Well, I suppose he would still be no match for a werewolf." Master happily patted my head. "He may be a genius ogre who will go down in history, but your abilities far outstrip his. After all, you are my disciple."
She hopped off my shoulder and alighted on the ground.
"Now then, I unfortunately have paperwork I must see to, so I'm afraid this is where we part ways."
"What about the Bone Spears you left behind?"
"They will listen to your orders. Feel free to use them as you please. Don't hesitate to call me if you need my assistance. I will come anytime."
"Okay..."
It was a bit disheartening to know that she'd be leaving, but she was the most skilled commander the demon army had. I could see why she had to go.
"Alright, I'll do my best to keep Ryunheit in demon hands."
"Mmm, keep a close on the Meraldia army's movements. Also, do not underestimate humans. They are capable of more than you know."
"Yes, Master."
Gomoviroa waved to me with a smile, then chanted a short spell. A second later I was in Ryunheit, inside my room in the viceroy's manor, where I had been before I left. I hope things didn't get out of control while I was gone. I had only been absent for about an hour. At least, I guessed it was around that long. There were no clocks in this world.
"Oh wow, it's already here."
Bags of silver coins lay piled up in a corner of the room. It seemed the Demon Lord was expedient, on top of everything else. He must have had one of his mages teleport the money here for me. There were a number of things I wanted to pay for before the day was over, so I was glad he'd worked quickly.
"Alright, let's get all this administrative stuff out of the way."
I returned to my human form and got to work. First, I took out a map. Before I did anything else, I needed to figure out my future defense plans. Meraldia was a nation composed of an alliance between 17 city-states. While the Meraldian Senate was the highest authority, they still didn't wield absolute power over the city-states.
Conquering all of Meraldia was the Demon Lord's current goal. He had sent his second regiment to conquer Meraldia's northern cities, while the third regiment had been tasked with taking the south. At present, three of Meraldia's northern cities and two of their southern cities had fallen.
"The second regiment's going pretty fast..."
As an aside, the 'city' Dogg had captured wasn't part of the 17 main cities. In fact, it wasn't a city at all, just a small town, which meant his achievements weren't particularly relevant here. Though, it was interesting to note that the second regiment was actively conquering key strongholds in addition to their assigned cities, since it meant the army was probably going on a rampage through the country.
Well, all they have to do is kill people and break things. If that was all our mission entailed, we would be much faster too. The question was, how would Meraldia's army respond to this invasion? Meraldia's primary purpose was to maintain order, and to defend the cities participating in the alliance, but their standing army was small, and had no experience in siege warfare. Furthermore, they couldn't just dispatch all of their forces and leave the remaining cities unguarded. My guess was that they would siphon a few soldiers from each city and combine them into one force. But even then, they'd only be able to muster a few thousand men, meaning they'd only have enough to attack either the north or the south, not both. At least not at once.
"If I had to guess...they'll probably go north?"
The second regiment was rampaging across Meraldia's northern countryside. Because they'd advanced recklessly without heed to the high number of casualties they were racking up, they'd even sacked Schverm, the lynchpin of the northern defense line. Meraldia had supposedly stationed 2000 of their elite heavy cavalry, along with another 3000 of their infantry, so I was actually surprised the second regiment had managed to take it. I can't imagine how much bloodshed it must have taken to capture the city. The thought left a bad taste in my mouth.
At any rate, if Meraldia was going to be focusing on the north, I wouldn't have to worry about our defenses for a while, at least. Though maybe I should double-check how many men I can muster, just in case. First, there was my unit of 56 highly trained werewolves. Individually, they were strong, but they were also few in number. Second, I had my 200 canines. However, they were tiny, and unsuited to combat. Even with their larger numbers, they wouldn't be as effective as my werewolves. Fortunately, my master had also lent me 2000 of her Bone Spears. Those skeleton warriors were tough. Not only were they immune to arrows, their coordination was impeccable. So long as they were here, I had nothing to fear.
All in all, my army was 2256 men strong, but I only had to worry about feeding 256 of those men. Undead warriors had no need for food or sleep. Thank you, Master.
"What're you grinning about, Veight?"
Startled, I looked up from the map to find Fahn looking down at me.
"Wha? Wh-What do you need, Fahn?"
"Well the thing is, I could use a little help. I don't know what to do with the Sonnenlicht Order."
"Oh, those guys."
There were a number of different religions within Meraldia, but the one with the most influence was the Sonnenlicht Order. Their doctrine espoused cooperation between all and charity for the poor, but many elements of the church ascribed to a much more totalitarian interpretation of the religion's tenets. Plus, for all their preaching of cooperation and harmony, they were extremely intolerant toward nonbelievers. Fahn toyed with her ponytail as she heaved a weary sigh.
"The bishop's making all sorts of demands in the name of his faith. Like how we have to let him open prayers again and let his Seekers leave the city so they can continue their pilgrimages and stuff."
"Hmmm."
I folded my arms and considered my options. Letting the believers pray wouldn't cause much of an issue. It was possible they might start plotting something if we let them gather in number, but it wasn't like forbidding assembly would deter revolutionaries anyway. Allowing them to leave on pilgrimages, however, was a lot harder to approve. The Sonnenlicht Order had a number of sites that they considered holy, and, according to the documents I'd hastily gathered, all believers were required to go on a pilgrimage to at least one every two years.
"Ryunheint's got a population of about three thousand, and nearly forty percent of them are part of the Order. That's a good twelve-hundred people."
"Yeah, and half of them need to do a pilgrimage this year." Fahn replied with a troubled expression. I totally sympathized. I scratched my neck and weighed the possibilities.
"If we let them go, a hundred or more regular civilians could easily try and slip into the group to escape."
"Don't forget that there might be spies mixed into the group when they come back."
"Oh yeah, didn't think of that."
Fahn saw the worried look on my face and said, "Guess we'll have to forbid it, won't we?"
"Yeah. But I'd like to avoid restricting their religious practices, if possible."
I came to a decision and stood up. I'd learned all too well in my past life how much strife and bloodshed could be born from religion.
"Ask the viceroy to gather all the leaders of all the faiths in the city here."
"All of them?"
Fahn's eyes went wide with surprise. I nodded firmly.
"The Sonnenlicht Order, the Mondstrahl Church, even those who lead pagan cults."
As I expected, the meeting had a very awkward start. Everyone shot wary looks at me as they entered the audience chamber. First came the bishop of the Sonnenlicht Order, the spiritual leader of nearly half the city's population. After that was the Mondstrahl Church's head medium; about 20% of the city looked to her to connect them with God. Lastly, the shamans who led smaller cults in nature worship or animism filtered in. Because this was a trading city, there were more faiths represented here than in most places. There were even a few people who worshiped werewolves. Unlike the others, they broke out into tears when they saw me. I didn't mind them getting emotional, but I'd really rather not be worshiped. Once everyone was gathered, the Sonnenlicht Order's bishop stood up, his stately robes brushing against the ground. He was middle-aged, but he had the build of a fighter.
"My name is Yuhit, I serve as this city's bishop for the Sonnenlicht Order. You are the demon army's Commander, Lord Veight, correct?"
"Correct. I am the demon army third regiment's Vice-Commander, Veight." I said in a dignified tone, and placed the petition he'd sent on the table in front of me.
"I have read your petition. Before I give you my reply, there is something I wish to tell all of the religious leaders in this city. It is for this reason that I have gathered you here. May I please have a moment of your time?"
The bishop nodded in agreement.
"So long as you give us your reply afterward."
He's surprisingly calm. When I'd read the petition I'd gotten the impression that these guys were all religious zealots, but this bishop seemed rather reasonable. Seeing as I had everyone's attention, I decided to move to the main topic.
"This is how the Demon Lord's third regiment has decided to handle the matter of religion within Ryunheit."
Everyone's expressions stiffened. Well, everyone but the werewolf worshipers, who were hanging on to my every word. No seriously, stop worshiping me. I pointedly avoided meeting their gazes and continued.
"We will respect your religious freedom and allow you to freely practice your faith within the city, just as you have been until now."
I smiled, and the religious leaders all breathed a sigh of relief. A few of them even smiled back. Whoops, now's not the time for this. I still need to warn them.
"However, the following three things are hereby forbidden. First, under no circumstances are you to take hostile action against any member of the demon army. Any such act will be seen as an attempt to revolt, and an insult to the Demon Lord's majesty. That being said, we have no intention of forcing you to worship our Lord. All I ask is that you respect our authority."
I swept my gaze across the room. No one seemed to find my first rule disagreeable.
"Secondly, you must follow the laws of Ryunheit. So long as I rule, secular law supersedes religious law."
Again, no one voiced any discontent. Though if anyone was unhappy with my edicts, they'd probably take it up with Airia anyway. But it was the third edict that was the most important.
"Finally, I will not allow any acts of persecution against those of other faiths. If you wish for your religion to be respected, then you must respect other religions in turn."
Surprisingly, the bishop seemed the least taken aback by this proclamation. Because the Sonnenlicht Order had the largest following, there was a huge pressure to convert. Not only because they were the majority, but also because of how hard they pushed their religion onto others. However, the missionaries themselves believed they were doing good, so I thought the bishop would protest this edict. Especially since, from his perspective, it probably looked like I was favoring the other religions over his.
"Our army has no interest in forcibly converting any of you, nor will we allow any other religion to forcibly convert others. Just as we worship the Demon Lord, the citizens of Ryunheit shall be free to worship whichever being they please."
The werewolf worshipers broke out in tears, but I ignored them. Naturally the bishop didn't seem too happy, but his reaction was milder than I expected. After all, I had effectively banned them from proselytizing. But that was also why I'd decided to throw them a bone. I smiled at the bishop and said, "However, we will respect the Sonnenlicht believers' tenets and allow them to go on their pilgrimages. As this is wartime, certain restrictions will be placed on how many can travel and where they can go, but it will all be done in accordance with Ryunheit's wartime laws. Do you have any objections?"
The bishop quickly painted his frown over with a smile and bowed.
"I humbly thank you for your magnanimity. I did not expect you to allow us such freedom."
He's a sly one, alright. Still smiling, I continued.
"All I ask is that you don't incite a rebellion."
"Hahaha, but of course."
Yuhit laughed, and this time there was real human warmth behind it. I still didn't trust him completely, though. He was someone I'd definitely need to keep an eye on in the future. I'd only called everyone here to explain my decrees, so the meeting ended once I had done so. The other leaders had had a few requests of their own, but I'd forestalled most of them by allowing everyone freedom of expression. While the other leaders were filing out, the Mondstrahl Church's medium walked up to me. From the looks of it, she was in her mid-thirties. Unlike Yuhit, who had come dressed in ostentatious robes, the medium wore simple civilian clothing.
"Lord Veight, you have my gratitude. On behalf of all of Mondstrahl's followers, I thank you for your generosity." She bowed deeply. Though she didn't say it outright, it was obvious her followers had been harassed by Yuhit's before. Without waiting for a reply, she continued, "I and all of my followers will wholeheartedly support you, Lord Veight. However, please understand that our support does not extend to the Demon Lord's army as a whole."
While working for the Demon Lord's army might have been a step too far, it seemed they were willing to assist me personally at least.
"Thank you. Mondstrahl's precepts of respecting individuality and achieving enlightenment through diligent study are quite respectable, in my opinion. Unfortunately I cannot give your religion any preferential treatment, but I promise I will continue treating you as fairly as possible."
Never thought I'd find myself talking like a politician. Then again, I guess I technically am a politician right now. These were all the words of encouragement I could give her right now. Mondstrahl's medium nodded with a smile and proffered her hand to me. I took it. Come to think of it, this is probably the first time a werewolf and a human have ever shook hands.
"Lord Veight, if you ever find yourself in need of assistance, do not hesitate to call on me. I shall use my magic to aid you, inexperienced though I may be."
"You're a mage?"
Still smiling, she said, "My apologies for my late introduction. I am Mitty, the headmistress of Ryunheit's astrology academy."
If I was being honest, I did prefer the Mondstrahl Church over the other religions. Because their teachings emphasized individualism, enlightenment through knowledge, and an overall policy of noninterference, the majority of their members were craftsmen and mages. Though they were few in number, they were highly influential. Of course, they were still in a tenuous position because they were the minority, but it still wasn't wise to make an enemy out of them.
"Thank you very much, Lady Mitty. I happen to dabble in the magical arts myself, so I would love the opportunity to talk with you further in the future. I look forward to our partnership."
As a werewolf, my specialty lay in body strengthening magic. Most humans, however, had an affinity for scrying magic, magic that let one see into the past or future. If I had to guess, it was probably because it was human nature to be obsessed with fortune-telling. Due to their anxieties and hopes for the future, they naturally tended toward scrying.
This meeting proved more fruitful than I expected. I mused as I headed back to my room. I had no time to rest, though. There were plenty of other things I needed to do to keep the population's discomfort to a minimum. And they all needed to be done before Meraldia's army showed up on my doorstep.
The 10,000 silver coins the Demon Lord had gifted me proved more useful than even I predicted. Firstly, it allowed me to afford decent accommodations for my canine teams. I'd asked Airia to announce that I was looking to buy up older homes and unused inns, and almost everyone living near the viceroy's manor had hurried to offer me their property.
"Well, this area has turned into the demon army's base now. I can see why so many of the wealthy residents would want to move."
Airia reported to me with a troubled smile.
"Do you wish you could move somewhere quieter too?"
"I am this city's Viceroy, and so I will not leave this manor. It is my duty to make sure you fulfill your promises to me."
What an upright governor.
In order to avoid any future complaints, I made sure to purchase all of the property at higher than market value. With this, I was finally able to let my canine army into the city as well.
"Sir Veight, thank you so much for finding us places to stay!"
"What an amazing house! And you're even giving us silver coins!"
"Those are to pay the bills! Don't go smithing them into something else!"
Now that I'd gotten those overexcited canines into their new pens, I could finally close the main gate. That alone did wonders for the city's security. My master's undead knights would have terrified the citizens had I let them into the city, so I kept them on standby in the nearby forest. Unfortunately, the forest was off to the west. If Meraldia was going launch an attack, it would come from the north, which meant we would get no advance warning. Incidentally, the forest they were hiding in was the same one we'd used to launch our surprise attack. It was dense enough that no one would be able to spot the undead warriors, even from the city walls. Because they were undead, they didn't need to make campfires that might be spotted from a distance, nor did they get restless. Until I gave them new orders, they would stand like statues within the woods.
Buying everyone lodging had cost me a total of 3000 silver coins. I knew it would cost a lot to comfortably house 256 people, but the hit to my coffers still hurt. All that was left now was the upkeep costs to feed everyone. In this world, a day's worth of meals cost around 1-2 silver coins. With that, an average person could eat their fill. Depending on the location, the value of a single silver coin went anywhere from a couple thousand yen to 10,000 yen. Mary, the old lady who ran the general store, was the one who currently handled our finances. I went to ask her how long we could keep everyone fed with our current funds.
"You know how we are, us werewolves eat like ogres. It's costing us 300 silver coins a day to pay for food."
"Are you kidding me?"
That meant we'd be out of money in less than thirty days. Should I ask the Demon Lord for more money? No, that's not a good idea. In truth, the demon army didn't have much money to begin with. Demons didn't really use human currency. Even when they pillaged human settlements, they were more interested in looting food and clothes than money. If I don't have any other options I'll go back to the Demon Lord for money, but for now let's see what I can do on my own. This might end up being the first real test of my governing ability.
"Those who don't work, don't eat!"
I addressed to the 200 canines gathered in front of me.
"Once the sewer systems are repaired, you'll all be working in the fields!"
We would be stationed in Ryunheit for quite some time. Which meant we needed to find a long-term solution for our food costs.
"This is an important job, as we need a source of income to pay for food. I understand some of you may be dissatisfied with hard labor, but..."
To my surprise, the canines' eyes starting sparkling. One of them stepped forward and said in an enthusiastic voice, "Leave it to us, Sir Veight. We will work hard to fulfill our duties!"
"V-Very well... You guys are a lot more excited about this than I thought."
They all responded at once, "That's because we love digging holes!"
Well, I guess they are dogs.
We may have been conquerors, but until now we were also freeloaders. At least with this, we wouldn't have to resort to pillaging. The last thing I wanted was the citizens working against us when Meraldia's army finally arrived. For that reason, it was imperative we earned their goodwill. Not being hated wasn't good enough. We needed them to be happy under our rule.
"You want us to take care of thieves?" The Garney brothers grumbled about their new post, but their dissatisfaction was the least of my concerns.
"The city garrison won't cooperate with us, which means mundane tasks like these are our job now. You can rough them up a little if you like, but don't kill them."
"You're sure asking for a lot, Veight..." The younger brother mumbled unhappily.
"If the city falls into anarchy because of our arrival, we'll be a laughingstock. I want people talking about how much better life's gotten now that the demon army is in control, not the other way around. If you do a good job, I'll give you extra meat rations."
"Hell yeah! We'll do it!"
Thank God they were so easy to manage. The next few days kept me so busy I could barely catch my breath. Due to our sudden invasion, travelers passing through the city had become trapped here. On top of that, I still had to deal with the Sonnenlicht pilgrims. I didn't want to let anyone who'd seen our tactics firsthand out of the city. Not yet, anyway.
With no other choice, I made a statement to the effect of "The demon army's most vicious warriors are still fighting in the nearby regions, so for the citizens' safety, no one will be allowed out of the gates for some time." The few believers who absolutely needed to go on a pilgrimage were granted a special religious wartime pardon, which was jointly signed by Airia and Yuhit.
There were a number of other laws that needed to be revised, and negotiations with the trading guilds that needed to be settled, but thanks to the viceroy and all the religious leaders' help, I was able to get everything finished. In human society, most things couldn't be solved by force. However, thanks to this less violent approach, Ryunheit was able to return to normalcy in a few days. The city had lost some of its vigor because trade was still halted, but we'd just have to live with that for a while longer.
"Sir Veight, I have a report from the gate garrison! There's a group approaching the city from the south!"
A canine messenger ran up to me, his breath coming in short gasps. I stopped signing the document in my hands and turned to the shiba-faced canine.
"What do they smell like?"
"Like us, sir!"
I grinned.
"They're here."
I'd finally gotten the one thing a trading city absolutely needed to survive: traders.
"Are you the Commander of this unit, Veight?"
A canine with a beagle's face asked me as I arrived at the front gates. I nodded.
"Yeah, that's me. Vice-Commander of the Demon Lord's third regiment, Veight. I guess I'm technically the one in charge here."
I held out my hand, the canine gripped it in a firm handshake.
"My name is Kuu. A pleasure to meet you. You have my thanks for keeping my brother safe."
"Zoi's an excellent soldier. It's reassuring to have him on my squad."
Zoi was one of the canine youths who'd served as part of my messenger corps during the assault. I hadn't been lying when I said he was an excellent soldier either. At some point, I wanted to promote him to a management position within the canine squad. The fact that his older sister had come here as well was no coincidence. I'd known from the start that I would need to bring in merchants after I captured the city, so I'd gone to the canine merchant association before the operation. When I heard Zoi's older sister was one of their merchants, I figured I might as well ask them to send her.
Negotiations went smoothly. The canines jumped at the opportunity to trade with humans. Their only demands had been that the demon army guarantee their safety.
Behind her, Kuu's merchants were unloading their cargo. It seemed they'd carried everything here on hand carts. Impressive, considering how much they'd brought.
"What cargo did you bring?"
"Deer jerky, carved horn ornaments, parquetry, and our famed silverwork pieces." Kuu puffed out her chest proudly. "Most of it is handicrafts, but the quality is far superior to what human artisans can make, so I'm sure they'll sell."
Canines had smaller and more dexterous hands than humans. Plus, the natural padding over their fingers made them perfectly suited for crafting. For procedure's sake, I ordered my canine soldiers to inspect the goods.
"Check over the cargo. If I find anyone accepting bribes to allow smuggled goods through, it won't be pretty."
"Yes, sir!"
A canine with a dachshund's face started organizing the inspection. Goods from outside Meraldia were rare here. Demon-made goods all the more so. Ryunheit's merchants would almost certainly be dying to get their hands on these. That reminds me, I almost forgot about my other favor.
"Hey, Kuu."
"Yeah, boss?"
Kuu was in the middle of bribing one of my soldiers with a piece of jerky, but she turned around without batting an eye. I didn't bother reprimanding her, and instead asked, "I'm looking to buy charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter. Do you think you could find some for me?"
"Hmm...shouldn't be too much of a problem, I think. But what are you planning on doing with all that?"
I grinned in response.
"Military secret."
Now that I had a steady stream of funds, it was time I got started developing gunpowder. I came from a world of advanced science, though it was easy to forget that at times.
* * * *
—Viceroy Airia's Official Records—
It is with great surprise that I, Airia Lutt Aindorf, find myself writing this record. A few days prior, my city of Ryunheit came under attack by the Demon Lord's army.
It has been scant more than a year since my father passed away due to illness and the Senate appointed me his successor. While the demon army's recent movements were worrisome, I did not expect them to launch such a sudden assault on a trading city. I did not think demons were capable of understanding the value of trade. That assumption led me to be careless. Because of my immaturity and inexperience, I was unable to do anything against the sudden demon assault.
The commander of this army is a werewolf with jet-black fur. I unfortunately know very little about werewolves, but supposedly they turn into wolves during the full moon and attack people at random. Also, I've heard that only silver weapons can hurt them. According to the histories I've read, humans drove them to extinction long ago. That's the extent of my knowledge on them.
But seeing as they still exist, whatever knowledge I have on them can't be trusted. Especially considering how they attacked the city in the middle of the day. When their commander made it to the manor, I prepared myself for death. I thought I would be eaten. But when the black werewolf grabbed my saber out of my hands, this was what he said: "Please surrender and cooperate with the demon army." He promised not to needlessly slaughter the citizens, and asked me to surrender. I had no choice but to comply. His werewolves had overpowered Ryunheit's soldiers without any effort. We couldn't beat them. Surprisingly though, only 70 men had actually died, and the demon army's commander even healed those who were still alive.
He kept his promise not to hurt the people, even when I thought he might make an example out of the soldiers for not taking orders from him. It was a relief, but also very confusing, for both me and the soldiers. To be honest, I find the Vice-Commander Veight's government policy to be rather strange. He gathered all of the religious leaders of the city just to tell them that religious freedom would be respected. We'd all been expecting him to force his religion on to everyone, so this too was both a relief and rather confusing. How does allowing us this much freedom benefit him? That being said, the citizens are certainly happy with his rule. We were terrified at first, but he seems reliable. Which has led to us steadily coming to support the demon army...no, Veight's rule. He is completely unlike any demon I have ever seen. Upon taking control of the city, he forbade all looting. If he needs something, he will of course take it, but only after paying a fair price for it. When he told me he needed space to lodge his soldiers, I thought I would be forced to vacate my manor, but instead, he went and bought houses for everyone. This is the first time I've ever seen such a well-mannered occupation force. It's unsettling. From the stories my grandfather told me, it sounds like the Meraldia Unification War was far more brutal than this.
Most surprising, perhaps, is that Veight understands that this is a trade city. He is actively working on maintaining public order, and even brought demon traders in to stimulate our economy. Naturally our merchants were wary of dealing with demons at first, but now they're more than happy to trade for demon goods. The canines are upright and honest traders. Furthermore, their goods are all of the highest quality. There haven't been any issues at all. It honestly baffles me.
But still, I won't lower my guard. Veight is still a demon, and his master is the Demon Lord. I mustn't forget that he took this city by force.
However, he appears to be a wise, rational, and considerate person. It's possible Ryunheit will prosper more than ever under his rule. But for all that, there's something unfathomable about the man. I must remain vigilant. But every time I see how peaceful Ryunheit is, it becomes a little harder to stay suspicious of him. And ever since the demon army took over, my own job has become easier...
In fact, I find ruling the city together with Veight to be almost enjoyable. I pray Meraldia retakes this city swiftly. Before I find myself charmed even further by this werewolf.
Please, hurry.
* * * *
Half a month had passed since we took over Ryunheit. Now that trade was flowing through the city once more, it had become a much livelier place. That being said, before we arrived it had been a crossroads for multiple trade routes, so it wasn't as bustling as it used to be. But in return, it had a brand-new business opportunity: trade with demons.
"How's business?"
I had come down to the southern gate to see how the canine merchants were doing. There were only a few dozen of them. They'd opened up about 10 or so stalls, and the thoroughfare was filled with...more canines.
"Ah, Veight." Fahn, who was in charge of the southern gate, turned to me and smiled. "Business is good. Look, the canines gave me a bunch of silver gifts!"
"How many times do I have to tell you not to take bribes..."
I sighed as Fahn showed off her shiny new silver ring and necklace. Considering the average demon's mindset, explaining why bribery was bad was an extremely difficult endeavor. In the end, I just gave up.
"Hey Veight, how come canines are so good at smithing silver? I thought their hands made silver rot?" Fahn asked idly, twirling her ring between her fingers.
"That's just nonsense humans made up."
"Why?"
Fahn tilted her head in confusion, so I continued my explanation, "Human craftsmen can't hope to match the canines in skill, so they started spreading unsavory rumors about them."
That was why, in the past, the canines were driven from their mining towns and were forced to hide in the forests. A tragic tale, really. The fact that most canines didn't even resent humans for the persecution they suffered just made them all the more pitiable. Anyway, I needed to get back on topic.
"Are things working out fine with the human merchants?"
"Yeah, everything's great. They were pretty scared at first, but they got used to the canines in no time. Must be because they're so cute."
Upon closer inspection I noticed there were a few humans mingled in with the throng of canines. They still seemed a little nervous, but once one started negotiating prices they fit right in.
"I'm buying your whole set of fifty silver spoons, so don't you think you could at least knock the price of five off of them?"
"Three's as high as I'm willing to go."
"I'll take it."
"Excuse me, sir canine. But don't you think some coastal sea salt would be a wonderful product to sell back home?"
"Well, most of us like sugar more than salt."
"You're in luck, then. I've got plenty of sugar too, though it'll cost you."
Yeah, things are definitely going well here. Though they might not have much value as fighters, I was still glad I'd brought the canines with me. I saw Fahn drooling as she eyed some of the other silver jewelry on sale, so I reminded her again, just in case.
"Remember, if a dispute breaks out, make sure you report it to Ryunheit's merchant guild. Do not, under any circumstances, take matters into your own hands."
"Yeeeeah, yeah."
Though her tone was frivolous, I knew Fahn had a strong sense of responsibility. Everything would be just fine. I hope.
I decided to take a short break and bought myself a couple of tropical fruits one of the traders had brought. I bit into one that looked similar to a pineapple but with green flesh.
"Do these really taste good?"
"Mmm, I like them at least."
The Porzoi-faced canine watched me curiously as I paid him for the fruit. They had a wonderful aroma, and weren't overly sweet. It made me realize most of the fruit in my old life had had way too much sugar. Now that I think about it, I don't even know what this green pineapple-thing is called. As I was musing over such things, the canines and werewolves in the market suddenly started to get rowdy.
"What's going on?"
My ears sensed the source of the disturbance even before I got my reply. Someone had blown the emergency dog whistle. Three blasts, and they'd come from the northern gate. That meant an enemy attack. Before I could even start giving orders, Fahn got to work.
"Get everyone inside! Shut the gates!"
I gulped down the pineapple-thing inside my mouth and transformed on the spot.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
That sent the nearby humans into a panic, but I didn't have time to worry about them right now. I needed to be in this form to howl orders.
"AWOOOOOOOOO!"
At my order to assemble, everyone began to move. They all recognized my distinctive roar. I swept my gaze over the men stationed at the southern gate and picked a few out.
"Jerrick, Monza, Hamaam, get your squads and follow me! The rest of you, wait here until I give further orders! Protect the citizens!"
At my command, the three squads I'd picked out transformed. Even more people started screaming, but there was no time to waste.
"We move!"
With 3 squads, totaling 12 werewolves in number, following behind me, I headed north. As we made our way across the rooftops, I heard a few other roared messages.
"Enemies."
"Close."
"Strong."
Looks like we really are under attack. Only werewolves could communicate instantly over long distances like this. However, because of how simple the howls were, more nuanced information like tense or verb conjugations couldn't really be conveyed. For example, the message I'd heard that said 'strong' could have meant anything from "The enemy's strong, I've fought them," to "The enemy looks strong." Please don't tell me the fighting's already started. As I passed by the viceroy's manner, I took another 3 squads with me. I now had 24 werewolves behind me, almost half our total force. As I arrived at the northern gate, I found the canines on watch cowering in fear.
"Sir Veight, enemies!"
"Yeah, I got that. You don't have to keep blowing the whistle. Where are they?"
I jumped up to the lookout tower on the walls. The other werewolves found their own spots to observe the enemy from. Hamaam, the werewolf with dark-brown fur was the first to spot them. He'd come from a desert region, so his eyesight was better than other werewolves.
"Commander. Judging from their banners, that appears to be Meraldia's army. My guess is they came from Thuvan."
Thuvan was the industrial city to the north of Ryunheit. Their archers were supposedly some of the best. However, it made no sense for them to attack. Monza, who had a rather laid-back personality, casually tilted her head.
"But Thuvan isn't that big, is it? And from the looks of it, between their infantry and cavalry they have around four hundred soldiers total."
"They don't have any siege weapons either," Jerrick, the blacksmith's son, pointed out.
Ryunheit was much bigger than its population suggested. A mere 400 troops wouldn't even be able to surround all the walls, and they didn't seem to be carrying anything to break down the gates with either. But unless they were led by a madman, they hadn't come here just to die. If they were planning to fight, it was because they thought there was a way to win with their relatively low numbers. I could think of only one possible scheme.
"Monza, Scuzi, take your units and guard the gates! If anyone attempts anything suspicious, apprehend them!"
"Roger!"
"Yes, sir!"
Eight of my werewolves dropped down to the gate below. I really hope I'm wrong about this... I still wasn't sure this was the right decision, but I decided to bring out my trump card just in case. I ordered the rest of my men to be on alert, and then I started chanting.
"You who have returned from the Gate of Gevina, you who have been barred from the Gate of Haurun, behold. In my right hand, I hold the frozen sun."
My body was enveloped in a swirl of mana, and my right hand began glowing with a cold light. This was one of necromancy's most basic spells. One that allowed you to give orders to undead under your command. The spell itself was akin to flipping a switch with your mana, so even someone like me could use it. I raised my right hand high, and ordered the Bone Spears hidden in the forest to advance.
Mobilizing 2000 undead soldiers against an army of 400 might have been overkill. To be honest, I'd wanted to hide their existence until the decisive battle with Meraldia. But I'd rather be doubly sure than hold back my forces and potentially let the enemy into the city. Better to just remain vigilant and crush this army with all our might.
Unfortunately, the one drawback to undead soldiers was that they were slow. Their top speed was a slightly fast marching pace, which was why they were best suited for ambushes. As expected, the Meraldia army saw the Bone Spears long before they closed in. Yeah, there's no way they're catching up in time... The enemy broke out of marching formation and reformed into battle lines with their cavalry at the fore. It looked like they were planning to charge the city in one go. Are they seriously going to just abandon their infantry? The infantry had picked up the pace as well, but they were still slow enough that the Bone Spears would reach them first. I'd be able to crush their formation.
As he watched the army approach, Hamaam muttered, "They've got about...fifty cavalry."
Not too much, then. Cavalry were expensive, after all. Especially horse archers.
"What's the plan, Vice-Commander? I don't think horse archers alone can get through the gates, but..."
Hamaam would have preferred to sit and watch, but I shook my head. I turned to the 16 werewolves still on the walls and shouted, "Intercept those archers before they make it to the gates! Hamaam, Vodd, Slain, Jerrick, take your squads and follow my lead!"
The other werewolves looked at me in surprise, but they knew the pack leader's orders were absolute. They nodded resolutely and leapt off the city walls after me. Though the wall rose a good four stories high, all of us landed softly on the ground. Everyone got into their four-man squads and prepared for battle.
"Hamaam, Vodd, Jerrick, you've got the left! Circle around and flank the enemy on their right!"
Right-handed archers held their bows with their left hands. That meant firing to their right, especially on horseback, was difficult. My men responded instantly and dashed off toward the enemy's right.
"What about us, boss?"
Jerrick and his squad looked up at me. After judging the distance between us and the enemy, I confirmed with a reply. "Jerrick, you and your squad are going to be my bodyguards."
"You got it, boss. We've got your back," Jerrick said with a grin, his glossy gray fur standing on end.
Thuvan's famed horse archers had continued galloping toward us while I was giving orders, and we were now within bowshot. However, none of them made any attempt to let loose. I had no idea why they weren't firing, but that gave us an opportunity. I sucked in a deep breath and howled as loudly as I could, casting the spell I was most proficient in: Soul Shaker. But at this distance, even a mana-enhanced howl didn't have much effect. At point blank, Soul Shaker would have left the soldiers cowering in fear, but they were far enough away that they didn't even balk. Owing to the amount of stamina it took, it wasn't a spell I could cast consecutively, either. I need to be more careful about how I use it in the future. Fortunately for me, these particular soldiers had been mounted. Though the soldiers were unaffected, their horses were not. They slowed to a walk, unwilling to get any closer. Some of them got so spooked they bucked their riders off. The sudden shift in speed caused some riders to crash into each other, and even more of them fell off their horses. Their formation was a mess. And I knew the twelve werewolves I'd sent to circle around wouldn't let this chance pass them up. Now then, I guess I should help out.
"I'm going to start casting support magic. I need you guys to cover me."
"You got it. We'll keep those arrows off ya."
Jerrick stepped protectively in front of me. The other three in his squad guarded my sides.
I began sucking in a series of deep breaths. With each one, I absorbed some of the mana in the air. Once I'd gathered enough, I converted it into a spell.
"O blood-drenched moon, grace these crazed warriors with thine light."
The surrounding area grew dim. A second later, the mana swirling around the battlefield gathered around the werewolves.
"Ooooh... Here it comes."
Jerrick wagged his tail happily. The rest of his squad looked expectant as well. I could feel the power welling up inside me as well. A cool breeze wafted over the plains, and suddenly we all felt protected by something. This was another one of the strengthening magic spells I was proficient in: Blood Moon. It wrapped all of my allies in a shroud of mana, offering some protection against enemy attacks. The twelve werewolves I'd sent ahead were close enough that they were affected too. Now that my spells were in place, it was time we joined the fray as well.
"Let's go, men! Wipe them all out!"
"Yes, sir!"
Since joining the demon army, this was the first fight in which they'd been allowed to kill with abandon. The werewolves trembled in anticipation.
"Guoooooh!"
"Uwaaaaaah!"
The Meraldian archers fell into a panic. The werewolves rushed in faster than a galloping horse, barely giving the soldiers time to fire back. The advantage of having mounted archers was their increased mobility and range, but with their horses panicking, they were no different from infantry. And since shortbows were more suited to archery from horseback, their bows didn't even have the force of a yeoman's longbow. All of their advantages had been stripped away. However, it still wouldn't do to underestimate them. I dodged the few arrows that came my way and rushed into the knot of archers. Because of how fast I was going and how fast arrows flew, it was actually a difficult task to dodge while maintaining speed. Though I made it out unscathed, one of Jerrick's men took an arrow and went down. A few members of the flanking team had been shot as well. Don't any of you die on me now. I didn't have time to turn around and see how everyone else was doing, though. We needed to bring the battle into close quarters as fast as possible, or we might still get picked off.
"Graaaaaaah!"
With a mighty roar, I swept up at the bowman closest to me. My talons shredded right through his chainmail, and a fountain of blood erupted from his chest. He let out a gargled scream, then fell silent. I tossed his limp body aside and moved on to the next foe. This one had an arrow to his cheek and was aiming at another werewolf further away.
"Not on my watch!"
I leapt onto a fleeing horse and snapped his bowstring as I passed. My claws took a few of his fingers with it, and the soldier screamed in agony. Sorry, but you're the ones who started this fight. I left the fingerless soldier alone and went to find another enemy still capable of fighting. I pushed further into the enemy ranks and laid about with my talons. Archers dropped like flies, their light armor offering no protection against me. Before long, even I'd become swept up in the thrill of the fight. Then, all too soon, it was over. No enemies were left standing. The only things left alive were a few horses.
"It's over, boss."
Jerrick turned to me with a smile. His fur was slick with blood. Throughout the fight, he'd continued guarding me diligently. It was thanks to him that I was unscathed.
Looking out into the distance, I could see my Bone Spears had intercepted the enemy infantry. Because of the overwhelming difference in numbers, it was more of a slaughter than a battle. To be honest, I would have preferred letting them escape, but I couldn't allow anyone who'd seen our werewolf forms to leave alive. I didn't want anyone informing Meraldia of our presence here. Even without orders, the Bone Spears would win the battle, but I still raised my right arm and said, "Surround them."
They switched from a defensive formation to an elimination one. The Bone Spears formed walls of soldiers to box in the enemy on all sides. Once they'd maneuvered skeletons to the enemy's rear, the Bone Spears began their advance. There was nowhere left for the Meraldian army to run. All that was left was to use our superior numbers and coordination to grind them into dust. The sounds of battle continued for a few minutes longer, but eventually the battlefield fell silent. Skeleton warriors took no prisoners. So long as their designated enemies continued to draw breath, they wouldn't stop. With this, the first battle to defend Ryunheit ended with our overwhelming victory.
Despite that, this battle left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't regret my choice to leave no survivors; as one of the Demon Lord's commanders, that had been the right decision. But that didn't mean I'd enjoyed such a brutal elimination. That being said, it was obvious from their equipment and numbers that they hadn't come here to negotiate. If I could have just peacefully convinced them to go home, I would have. But even if it had been necessary, that didn't stop me from being depressed over it. What kind of idiot general ordered such a reckless attack anyway?
On our side, we'd only had three injured werewolves. The ones who'd been hit by arrows.
"The three of you fought bravely. Don't worry, with my magic you'll be fine in no time."
I praised them for their valor while healing their injuries. A couple other werewolves had taken minor scratches and bumps, but they were fine, for the most part. I suppose I should have expected as much from werewolves. I left the rest to Jerrick and hurried back to the castle gates. There was one thing bothering me about this attack.
"Ah, Commander."
Monza greeted me with a troubled expression. Looks like I guessed right.
"Over here. We found these guys hanging around with knives in their hands."
She pointed to a group of men sitting on the floor. There were silver knives stacked on the ground next to them. Their faces were a bloody mess, and I timidly asked Monza, "Don't you think you went overboard?"
"They tried to run, so I just made them a little more obedient."
Monza grinned. She may have had a laid-back personality, but that also meant she could torture others with a carefree smile on her face.
I turned to the men and asked, "Who are you guys?"
The three of them flared up.
"We just came to see what all the commotion was about!"
"Yeah, all your infernal howling just made us scared!"
"You're the one who needs to explain himself!"
How stubborn.
"Okay, so why were you all carrying around knives, then?"
They fell silent. Ryunheit's laws forbade citizens from bearing arms. Of course, small knives like that were necessary for cooking and the like so it wasn't strange for someone to own one. I took one of the knives and drew it from its embroidered silver sheath.
"I see."
The blade, too, was made of silver, with a carving of a flower inlaid into the flat of the blade. Canine work, for sure. All of the other knives were made of silver as well. Silver was both heavy and soft. It wasn't suitable building material for tools. However, humans were under the misconception that only silver could hurt werewolves. Unlike the rumor that canine hands made silver rot, this rumor hadn't been spread by people. It had been spread by us werewolves. In order to convince people to attack us with soft, pliable weapons. I glared at the men and pressed further.
"What were you trying to do?"
No one replied. I raised my voice.
"No one would use a silver knife for cooking or cutting rope. So let me ask you again. What were you trying to do with these? Talk."
They stayed quiet, so I bared my fangs at them. Though they kept their expressions blank, I could smell the fear coming off their sweat. Finally, one of them opened his mouth.
"Th-These knives are our letter openers."
"Oh really?"
They were trying to pass them off as paper knives. Well, considering they were silver, that was probably the only excuse that sounded realistic. Still, it's not like anyone would fall for that crappy excuse.
"So you came here to see what all the commotion was, while bringing your letter openers with you?" I grinned wickedly. The three of them fell silent again. I looked up and said in a voice loud enough that the nearby citizens could also hear, "Find out who these men are. Once you do, hand them over to the viceroy. I'll let her decide how to deal with them."
I wanted to show the people I was giving final authority over to their human leader. Monza shackled the three men and took them away. As I watched her go, Scuzi came up to me and asked, "You sure that was a good idea, Veight? The viceroy's a human. What if she goes easy on 'em?"
My decision didn't seem to sit well with the young man. To be honest, I wasn't the happiest with it either. I frowned and explained, "We don't have any other choice. If we start executing citizens, they're not going to take kindly to our rule. Besides, while they're obviously suspicious, it's not like they actually committed a crime."
"I...guess you're right, but..."
Scuzi still wasn't satisfied. Can't blame him, really. He was a demon, so it was only natural that he'd find it strange I, the victor, was showing so much consideration for the defeated. After all from his point of view, if the citizens rebelled, we could just kill them all. But if we did that, it'd cause problems much further down the line.
"Humans are easy to please. If you treat them with scorn, they'll be quick to hate you. But on the other hand, if you treat them well, they'll follow you. To be honest, I wish we could execute those instigators too, but it wouldn't be a good idea."
"If you say so..."
He still wasn't fully convinced, but in the end, he was still a werewolf. While he didn't hesitate to voice his dissent, he'd still follow his pack leader's orders.
"Just leave these things to me. I promise I'll get us the biggest achievements in this war."
"Yes, sir!"
I gave Scuzi a friendly slap on the back, and he finally smiled.
Just then, the front gate opened and Jerrick returned with the other fighters. I'd asked him to survey the battlefield earlier.
"I found some weird stuff, boss. Take a look at this. They were using silver-tipped arrows."
He held out one of the arrows the enemy had been using. I leaned in for a closer look. As he'd said, the arrowhead was silver. Jerrick tapped the arrowhead with his finger and said in a disgusted voice, "This silver's been cast. They must have been in a real hurry. It looks like they melted down their silver coins to make these. You can tell it wasn't forged properly."
I lapsed into thought for a few seconds.
"These were obviously made to fight against werewolves."
"Yeah, no doubt about it. Silver's softer than iron. Normally, you'd never use it for a weapon."
"Which means Thuvan's somehow discovered that werewolves are the ones who captured the city."
"I don't get it. All I know is that thanks to them using silver arrows, none of us got hurt too badly."
Jerrick shrugged. He really was a blacksmith, through and through. The fact that information had been leaked wasn't something he needed to worry about. Unfortunately, I did. I folded my arms and muttered, "How does Thuvan know werewolves are here?"
Since taking Ryunheit, we hadn't let anyone in or out of the city. Well, except for the canine merchants. But they only traded in places under the Demon Lord's control, so there was no reason for any of them to have gone to Thuvan.
"This is definitely strange."
As I looked over the city, I felt a seed of dread settle in the pit of my stomach. Somehow, information was leaking out.
The main gates opened again, and this time Vodd's squad walked in.
"I finished burying the dead. Never thought I'd see the day I'm holding funeral services for humans."
"Thank you, Vodd."
Vodd might have just been a retired old man now, but in his youth, he'd been a mercenary. He'd pretended to be human and toured dozens of battlefields.
"By the way, Veight. There's something you need to see." The grizzled, white-haired old man held out a bow. "This is one of the bows the enemy was using, right?"
"Mmm. Rather small, don't you think?"
Vodd cracked a smile and continued.
"Horse archers tend to use shortbows, but this is small even for a shortbow. You wouldn't normally use something like this on an open battlefield."
"...You mean it's meant for urban warfare?"
"It is indeed."
According to Vodd's explanation, these smaller bows were designed to be used in confined spaces like city streets. They were lacking in power but were much more maneuverable.
"But they're bad for sieges, right?"
"Indeed they are, my boy. Going by their equipment, it seems these louts were expecting to waltz right through the gate."
That proves it. The only reason they'd attacked with just 400 was because they'd come up with a plan to get inside the city. I thought back to the men Monza had captured. I'd sent her squad to the gates precisely because I'd been worried about something like this happening. It seemed that had been the right decision. The Thuvan army's plan had most likely been to launch a surprise attack. They'd organized and equipped their unit under the assumption that we hadn't stationed an army on the walls.
The 50 horse archers armed with silver arrows would have been used to keep us werewolves pinned down within the city, while the 350 infantry soldiers gained control of the streets. That was why they'd sent their cavalry out ahead. The archers were meant to have used their superior mobility to burst through the gates before we had time to respond. According to the plan, their conspirators would have opened the gates for them. Once they were in, they'd bait my werewolves out and then use their mobility to keep a fair distance while pelting them with arrows. The wide streets of a trading city like Ryunheit were perfect for cavalry maneuvers. After they'd whittled down our numbers, their infantry would flood into the city. The canines would be both outnumbered and outmatched, so at that point retaking Ryunheit would be easy. That seemed to have been the gist of the army's plan.
But most of their assumptions had turned out to be false, so their plan had crumbled before it even began. Whoever the enemy general was, he couldn't be very competent if he had ordered an attack like this without first thoroughly doing his research. Either that, or circumstances had forced his hand. Had I known, I would have captured some of the soldiers and interrogated them. But once the thrill of the hunt had taken over, I'd stopped thinking...
The first battle to hold Ryunheit ended without incident, and it turned out the post-war cleanup was much more of a hassle than the battle itself had been. Most of the citizens didn't even know what had happened; though they did vaguely realize that a battle must have taken place outside the walls. And the only people who would be fighting against us would be humans. Which meant most of them knew we'd killed more people. Even if we'd thought of it like a proper 'battle,' I didn't doubt most of the people saw our actions as simple murder. They saw war between humans and demons differently than war between humans and other humans. The question was, how was I going to handle them?
First, I made sure my subordinates had properly buried all of the dead. When I arrived at the spot, I saw a nice, neat row of graves. It would have been nice if we could have prepared gravestones for all of them too, but this would have to do. The graves were a bit plain, but that was just how werewolves were. Maybe I can get the city's stonemasons to make one for us. I offered a small prayer to the men who had been my enemies, and then headed back to the viceroy's manor. Whoops, I almost forgot to change back into human form. Better do that before I go into the city.
When I returned to the manor, I was greeted by loud yelling.
"Veight!"
Fahn stalked up to me while dragging the Garney brothers behind her. The last time I'd seen her this mad was a decade ago. What on earth happened?
"Veight, sit your ass down right there!"
Uh oh, she's mad at me. I didn't know what I'd done to anger her, but disobeying Fahn was never a good idea. I did as I was told and sat down in my chair.
"Wh-What's wrong?"
"Don't give me that crap!"
Fahn slammed her palms down on the desk in front of me. The Garney brothers who she'd been holding on to stumbled backwards.
"Veight, in that last battle you charged right into the middle of the enemy, didn't you!?"
"Y-Yeah."
I nodded meekly. Fahn shot me a withering glare.
"How can you, the commander, just charge ahead of everyone like that!? If something happened to you, who'd be left to control the skeletons!?"
She does have a point. I'd completely forgotten I was supposed to be commanding an army. Ever since being reborn as a werewolf, I'd come to enjoy fighting a lot more. Even if I had my old memories, this was still the body and brain of a werewolf. The amount of adrenaline, or whatever the equivalent was, pumping through my system during a fight was a lot more than it would be for a human. Actually, that's probably something worth researching.
"Are you listening to me!?"
"Uh, I'm listening, I'm listening!"
I involuntarily straightened my back. Fahn pulled the Garney brothers close and leaned forward.
"You're not just Veight, the kid who lives next door anymore! You're our boss. Got that?"
"Yeah...you're right."
Yeah, I'm definitely the one in the wrong here. When she saw my apologetic expression, Fahn softened her tone.
"Really, you need to be more careful. You're the only one we can count on here. None of us have any idea how to handle humans..."
It was true that if I died, there wasn't anyone else who could take over managing my current occupation plan. Chances were, whoever took over would just slaughter everyone here. I bowed my head in sincere apology.
"Sorry, Fahn. I acted rashly. I'll be more careful and focus on leading from now on."
"Good. Just leave the fighting to us."
Fahn finally smiled. It was like the sun had just come out from behind the clouds. But still, I never knew being in charge was so troublesome... With Fahn's anger appeased, I got back to work. There were a few things I needed to address right away.
"Uhh... Oh yeah. Did you put the captured men in prison?"
The younger of the Garney brothers nodded, "Yeah, all six of them. We put them in different cells, like you asked."
"Thanks. Who's watching over them?"
"Monza's squad."
If Monza was handling it, there was nothing to worry about. If I ever had to make a secret police force, she'd be the one I'd choose to head it. She was that kind of person.
I stood back up and gave everyone their orders.
"Alright, I'm going to go question them. Until I'm done, make sure no one's allowed near their cells."
"I take it that's my job?" Fahn stretched leisurely and gave me a thumbs up. "I am technically the second-highest ranking person here. Don't worry, I'll keep everyone else out."
"Thanks. I'm counting on you."
Now then, it's time to see what these guys have to say.
* * * *
—Fahn's Diary—
I remember Veight when he was little. He was a strange one. Even though he was a guy, he wasn't rowdy like the others. He didn't get super excited about wild hunting, either. Actually, I think he was the only boy in the village that didn't like going on wild hunts. They're so much fun, though.
When a boar's coming at you all like 'bwaaaah' and you stop it with a 'dwooosh', it feels so awesome. If you transform too early, your prey'll get away, so the real thrill of the hunt is staying in your human form until the last possible second. I know there are some guys out there who like transforming right away and chasing down their prey, but personally I think that 'dwooosh' moment when you stop something that's charging at you is where all the excitement's at. Man, wild hunts are so much fun.
But well...it's probably because Veight's the way he is that we can take it easy in the army. How'd it all start again...?
When I first heard Veight had become a mage's disciple, I wasn't that surprised. It felt right, somehow. Even though he was younger than me, he was really smart. He knew all sorts of things none of us did. And he was like, really precocious too. He treated me like a proper girl and everything.
Oh yeah, I remember there was that one time he protected me. I think it was back when he was around 10 or so? Anyway, we were attacked by this huge bear on our way back from picking wild herbs. He jumped on it before I had a chance to do anything. If he'd left it to me I'd have ripped it apart in no time, but he told me, "It's my job to protect you!"
I was pretty amazed. That was the first time I'd ever seen that quiet kid fight so ferociously. He was just 10 years old, yet he actually managed to kill the bear. Though, he was all beat up by the time the fight ended. Now that I think about it, Veight's always been pretty reckless...
But you know, everyone else in the village just treated me like one of the guys, so that was the first time anyone had tried to protect me. To be honest, it felt really nice. Back then, Veight was just like a baby knight.
Oh yeah, come to think of it, when we were little he'd always follow after me asking if I'd marry him. I wonder, is that proposal still valid? Because I'll gladly marry you anytime, Veight.
* * * *
"Ah, Commander." Monza turned to face me as I descended the last few steps to the prison. "Here to question them?"
"Yep. Mind recording the meeting for me?"
"Sure."
Monza left lookout duty to the other three members of her squad and followed me to the cells. I picked out the oldest of the six men being held captive and took him to an empty room. He appeared to be in his mid-40s and was dressed in neat, prim clothing. While the quality of his clothes' fabric wasn't as high as what nobles could afford, it was still expensive.
"What's your name?"
There was no reply. If he didn't want to answer, that was fine. Judging from his appearance, he was definitely part of Ryunheit's upper class, which meant I could just ask around and I'd easily be able to get his name.
"Monza, you think we'd find out who he is if we stripped him naked and put him on display in the city square?"
Monza realized what I was trying to do and she quickly began scribbling notes with her pen. While she was writing, she lazily replied, "How about we just kill him and ask the next guy? No need to waste our time."
"Might as well."
Though the man kept his expression flat, I could smell the fear in his sweat. A little bit more, and he'll break.
"If we're gonna kill him anyway though, may as well find out who his family is first."
At my implicit threat, the man paled visibly. His fear transformed into full-blown terror. This scene reminds me of those cop movies I used to watch in my old life. Didn't think I'd end up acting one out myself... After letting him stew in his terror for a few seconds, I said quietly, "You were trying to assassinate my werewolves, weren't you? If you don't answer truthfully, I'll kill you right here."
This wasn't an empty threat. If he still insisted on remaining silent I'd dispose of him and move on to the next guy. The man silently opened and closed his mouth, agonizing over whether to talk or not. Finally he came to a decision and said, "N-No."
"Then what were you after? Talk or you die."
The man faltered, but then eventually said, "W-We were just trying to find out what was going on..."
"You know, I hate liars. Commander, let's just kill him."
At Monza's words, the man flinched. I had to admit, Monza was pretty good at scaring people. Since she was playing bad cop, that left the role of good cop to me—which was exactly what I preferred.
"Now, now, Monza. He hasn't done anything...yet. As long as he's willing to cooperate, I don't see why we can't let him live."
"It doesn't look like he's all that willing to me... Maybe he'll talk if we start killing off his family."
"Calm down, there's no reason to go that far."
Even I couldn't tell if Monza was being serious or not now. Judging from how aghast the man looked, he probably had a wife and kids. Not only that, he cared more about them than he did for his own life. I softened my expression and said, "So you ran out to see what was going on with a silver letter opener in your hands. Is that right?"
"Y-Yes."
The man nodded hesitantly while gauging my reaction. That was the same story he'd given when we'd caught him. I grinned.
"So then, there's no reason not to tell us your name, is there? If that's all you were doing, the demon army has no reason to harm you."
In other words, if he didn't give his name it would prove he had been doing something shady. Which meant there were ample grounds to execute him. It seemed this man was no idiot, and he understood that too.
"My name is Kozun... I'm the branch manager...for the Lafour company's western branch."
The Lafour company was one of the merchant guild's most influential members. And this Kozun was apparently the manager of one of their stores. Perfect. It shouldn't be too hard to get the rest out of him now. Once someone gave into fear and confessed even the smallest of details, squeezing other information out of them became easy. Because after they'd divulged one thing, they lost the ability to judge what they should and shouldn't keep quiet about.
"The western branch you're talking about, is that general store with the pointed yellow roof? The other traders told me how they admire your fair business practices."
"Th-Thank you..."
It was my job to engage in friendly banter and get him to lower his guard. Meanwhile, Monza should still have been glaring sharply at him from behind. I could tell from Kozun's expression, that she was doing a good job.
"The Lafour company has done a lot to assist us in keeping the peace within Ryunheit. You have my thanks for that." The unsaid implication was, of course, that his boss was one of my subordinates. No shopkeeper would want to go against their employer. After reminding Kozun of his position as one of my conquered citizens, I returned to questioning him. "I'll ask you one more time. Are you sure you weren't trying to assassinate one of my werewolves?"
"I-I wasn't! I swear!"
The man hurriedly shook his head. It looked like he was done staying quiet. I grinned wolfishly and said, "If that really is the case, the demon army won't do anything to punish you. Naturally, we will do no harm to your family or your career, either."
Once again, the unsaid implication was that if he was plotting something, he and his family would be slaughtered. Veiled threats went a long way in teaching people their place. Still smiling, I continued applying the pressure.
"If you're telling the truth, we'll let you go back to your family, and this will all end as a simple misunderstanding." I patted the man on the shoulder reassuringly, before delivering the final blow. "Oh yes, I'll return your silver knives to you as well. I'm sure you need them for your work. But it's easy to lose something this small, so you shouldn't walk around with them too much."
In other words, I was saying "Stop skulking around with these." The man nodded vehemently. With this, he'd probably learned his lesson. If he hadn't, well then I'd just kill him next time he tried anything. I'd prefer not to, but if I had to play the villain to maintain control, I would.
After that, I interrogated the remaining men one by one. Each one gave me a little more information to work with. The second interview went like this: "I heard quite a few interesting things from Mr. Kozun."
I laid my elbows on the table and crossed my arms. The man sitting in front of me withered.
"U-Umm...did he say anything about my..."
I grinned.
"As long as you speak truthfully, you'll be allowed to return home safe and sound. But if you tell even one lie..."
Behind me, Monza began transforming into her werewolf form. The young man nearly fainted then and there.
"Are we clear?"
His interrogation went rather smoothly. However, like Kozun before him, he clammed up when I asked him what they were doing there. Whatever secret they may have been hiding, a little intimidation wasn't enough to wring it out of them. Hmm, what to do?
After the last interrogation was finished, Monza tapped her notepad thoughtfully and muttered, "They're all different ages and have different jobs. I was convinced they'd be part of the same pack, but now I'm not so sure."
"The second guy definitely sounded like he knew the first. All the other prisoners seem to know each other, too." I looked into my mirror and straightened out my appearance. "There's no way a bunch of guys who happened to be in the same place, all carrying silver knives, don't know each other. They're definitely hiding something."
Monza looked up from her notepad and smirked.
"Should we torture 'em, then?"
I shook my head in response.
"If we go too far, the citizens will start to resent us. I think this is as far as we can go for now. Let's set them free."
"H-Huh? Are you sure?" Monza asked, a hint of disappointment in her voice. She probably wanted to have some fun with them. Fortunately, I knew just how to cheer her up.
"Don't worry, we're not letting them go just like that. I want you to tail them all for the rest of the day."
"Aha, so that's how it is. Sounds like fun." Monza clapped her hands and grinned. But then a second later she tilted her head in confusion. "Wait, I've only got four people in my squad..."
"Don't worry, I'll let you have Vodd and Hamaam's squads for this. Split into pairs and make sure one of you is watching your target at all times. Got it?"
"Aye, aye, sir."
I left the rest to Monza and returned to my room.
"Sir Veight!"
As I'd expected, Airia came running up to me not long after I returned. Fahn was standing behind her, shrugging her shoulders. Looks like a lot happened while I was down there. Airia's complexion was pale, and she was clearly flustered. Though I suppose that was to be expected. She was currently following the demon army's orders, and that demon army had just annihilated an army comprised of her former allies. That put her in a complicated position.
"I heard there was a battle outside the city. Please tell me the details! Also, who are those men you took into custody?"
I bade her to take a seat and sat down myself before starting my explanation.
"A Thuvan army of 400 men attacked the city, so I sent my forces out to intercept them. The men I captured were ones I found skulking around the northern gate during the battle. They were all armed with silver knives."
"Silver knives?" Airia looked confused for a moment, but then it dawned on her. "Don't tell me, they were trying to attack your men!?"
"I don't know for sure yet, but that seems to be the most likely explanation."
I purposely said that as nonchalantly as possible and leaned back in my chair. Growing even more flustered, Airia pleaded, "P-Please show them mercy. I don't want to see my citizens' blood spilled in the streets."
"Believe me, Lady Airia, I don't either." I grinned wickedly and said, "To be honest, I'd rather not have killed those Thuvan soldiers either. But as one of the Demon Lord's vice-commanders, I am duty-bound to fight."
I gauged her reaction before continuing.
"Likewise, as I hold this city in the Demon Lord's name, I am required to punish any who would defy his rule. Do you understand?"
I purposely phrased my words in a way to make her think that I would execute them. Though in truth I was letting them go so I could find out who was the mastermind behind the operation. The blood drained from Airia's face.
"W-Wait! Please! At least investigate further!"
"Unfortunately, maintaining public security is of more importance than confirming their guilt. I have no choice but to punish anyone who seems suspicious."
Airia looked like she might faint. Unfortunately, I hadn't come here to make friends. If necessary, I'd use coercion to get what I wanted. Though if I pushed too hard, I'd achieve the opposite of what was desired, hence why I offered Airia a deal.
"That being said, these men haven't done anything yet. And so, their lives are still hanging by a single thread."
The story of the spider's thread flashed through my mind as I said that. To be honest, I did think this was an underhanded way of handling matters, but considering what they'd attempted, I'd say it was warranted. By all rights, I should have executed them then and there. Airia waited for my verdict with bated breath. A part of me enjoyed seeing her terrified expression.
"I have no reason to let would-be assassins go free, but I do owe you a debt for assisting us in patrolling the city. I suppose I can be merciful, just this once."
"Th-Thank you very much..."
Airia breathed a sigh of relief and slumped onto the table. Was she really that nervous? Well either way, I've repaid my debt to her now. Seeing as I wasn't planning on killing them either way, you could say what I'd done was devious. But at the end of the day, that was how negotiating worked. Besides, I was a devious person. So I made sure to get as much as I could out of this exchange.
"However, I would like you to make sure no else tries to do the same. If anyone tries something like this again, it won't end with just their arrest."
That wasn't an empty threat, either. I was serious. If anyone tried to hurt me or my men again, I'd slaughter them without mercy. It seemed Airia realized I wasn't bluffing either, as she hurriedly nodded and said, "Understood. I'll make sure everyone under my command knows not to defy the Demon Lord's army. Most of the citizens have been told already."
"Thanks for your cooperation."
Honestly, I wasn't sure how much weight her word had, but it wouldn't be wise to ask for more. The most important thing about getting what you wanted through threats was knowing when to quit. If you push too hard, you lose everything. All that was left now was to see what Monza and the others found.
Three days passed before Monza came to knock on my door.
"Commander, are you free?"
"Yes, come in."
Monza slipped into the room without making a sound. Despite appearances, she was a master hunter. She pulled out a bundle of documents and placed them on my desk.
"This is everything we found out about the six guys we trailed. To sum it up, they're all members of the Sonnenlicht Order. They all go to the same shrine for worship, and they always go at the same time. That's the only connection between them that we could find."
"I see."
So, the common thread between them was the order. In which case, the surprise attack from a few days ago suddenly made sense. Unless they'd breached the main gates, Thuvan's archers would have been useless. No one would have attempted such a reckless tactic unless they had some reason to believe the gates wouldn't pose a problem.
Monza grinned and asked, "Want me to kill 'em all for you?"
By 'all', she was referring to the Sonnenlicht Order in its entirety. It seemed like overkill, but for demons that was normal. Anyone who bared their fangs at the strong had to be prepared for death. However, I didn't want to take such a hardline approach with humans. It would just make the city hate us.
I shook my head and said, "Don't eat your chicken until it's laid eggs. Let's monitor the situation for a while longer."
"Tch."
Monza clicked her tongue in displeasure. She was being pretty cheeky toward her boss. But I knew that was just her way of venting her frustration. So I grinned evilly and said, "I want you to keep an eye on Yuhit... That guy who runs the Sonnenlicht Order. If he does anything suspicious, report to me right away. Also, find out his history; I want to know if he has any connections to Thuvan."
"Aye, aye, sir," Monza said with a lazy salute.
It turned out I was right to mistrust Yuhit. Apparently, the man who had been appointed bishop of the Ryunheit flock had originally come from Thuvan; he had been serving as a deacon in Thuvan before his promotion to bishop of Ryunheit. Naturally, that meant he knew a good number of people there. Furthermore, more than half of the Meraldian soldiers stationed in each city were devout followers of Sonnenlicht. And if that wasn't enough, Monza had brought even more proof.
"Also, it turns out those six guys are huge fans of Yuhit. They're some of his most zealous missionaries. All of the nonbelievers aren't very fond of them." Monza idly sniffed the tea leaves in my room as she gave her report.
"Oi, those are my favorite leaves. Don't leave the container open, you'll weaken the aroma."
It had taken ages to find tea in this world that resembled Japanese tea. I snatched the box out of Monza's hands and locked it inside my desk drawer.
Monza scowled and grumbled, "Don't be so stingy, Boss. Anyway, what do you want me to do next? Can we finally..."
"Afraid not."
I smirked and said, "From now on, I'll handle the bishop. You go back to watching the six men. I'll be taking Jerrick's squad with me to see Yuhit."
"Why? Oh, are you going to kill him yourself?"
"No... Why do you want to kill him so badly, anyway?"
Perhaps killing for the sake of it was natural for demons, but I couldn't bring myself to accept that way of thinking. I opened another one of my desk drawers and took out a sealed envelope.
"I'll deal with humans the human way. Don't worry, just leave it all to me."
"But you're a werewolf too, Commander."
"I suppose that's true."
There were multiple Sonnenlicht shrines scattered throughout Ryunheit, but only one temple where official ceremonies were held. Ryunheit's temple was a majestic stone edifice.
I'd come during the night, so the only illumination was a series of lamps leading to the temple entrance. The flickering of the lamps caused the giant sun carved into the arch above the entrance to glow with a mystical light. I ascended the stone staircase and told the guards at the front door that I wished to meet with the bishop.
"Veight, Vice-Commander of the Demon Lord's third regiment humbly requests an audience with the bishop, Yuhit."
I was led into an opulent waiting room, where I sat and waited for Yuhit. After a few minutes, the old man entered the room.
"My apologies for the delay. The evening prayers ran late."
"Oh no, it's my fault for coming here unannounced."
Now then, let the battle begin. I started by apologizing for imprisoning six of his followers. This was a light jab to see how he'd react.
"As it was an emergency, I had no choice but to thoroughly investigate the six men's backgrounds. While it may have been necessary, please forgive me for my rudeness."
"Oh no, you have nothing to apologize for."
Hmm, he doesn't seem too shaken. I didn't smell any emotion from him either. Seeing as he was a bishop who led over 1000 people, I suppose it made sense that he wouldn't be easily read.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter13.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
"By the way, is it true that you hail from Thuvan?"
I didn't miss the slight twitch in his eyebrows. However, his voice remained calmer than a still lake.
"It is indeed. Why do you ask?"
Trying to play dumb until the bitter end, huh? I was the one in a position of strength here. If he wanted to feign innocence, I had no obligation to indulge him.
"Bishop Yuhit, did you incite Thuvan's Sonnenlicht followers into attacking us?"
He didn't bother to deny it. He just fell silent, probably because he knew I wouldn't believe him even if he did deny it. After a moment, Yuhit heaved a weary sigh and muttered, "Back in Thuvan, I used to raise pigeons inside the temple."
I didn't do anything to interrupt him, and he continued.
"When I came here to Ryunheit, I brought some of those pigeons with me. They still remember the route to Thuvan's pigeon house."
Ah, so he used carrier pigeons, basically. This time, it was Yuhit who asked me a question.
"Are you going to kill me?"
I didn't answer his question. Instead, I said, "Because of you, I was forced to fight four hundred men I held no grudge against—and killed all of them."
At that, Yuhit paled. It had been a battle on the open plains, so Yuhit probably thought most of them had retreated. In truth, had it been a normal battle they probably would have after losing 100 or so of their number.
"A-All of them?"
The bishop's voice trembled. I grinned wolfishly, intimidating him further.
"You seem to have underestimated us, bishop. The Demon Lord shows no mercy to those who defy him." I watched him drown in despair for a few seconds before leaning close and saying, "Opposing us was a foolish move, bishop. But I have to know, why did you feel the need to go so far? Was granting you freedom of religious expression not enough?"
Yuhit sighed again and scratched his cheek.
"Humans..."
He trailed off. Then, gathering his resolve, he pushed forward.
"Humans can never allow themselves to be ruled by another race!"
Ahhh, I see now. As a former human, I could understand his feelings. Having to submit to werewolves was likely a vexing experience. So instead of getting angry, I simply asked about what I needed to know.
"Is that your opinion as a leader of the Sonnenlicht Order?"
Yuhit shook his head.
"Of course not. It's simply my own personal stance."
"Funny, isn't it? Even though you hate us so much the very thought of cooperating with us disgusts you, you lack the power to drive us away."
I gave him a sardonic smile. Whether he lived or died was up to me. If I felt like it, I could send his head rolling across the crimson carpet right now. Despite that, Yuhit didn't flinch. He stared me in the eyes and said, "It is humans, not demons, who deserve to rule this world. Just as they have for centuries."
Any other demon would have scoffed at him, but I understood his pride. That being said, we were the ones who were controlling Ryunheit through force. Mere words wouldn't be enough to wrest that control out of our hands. Moreover, the fact that he refused to accept demon rule meant that I couldn't meet his demands. I may have been a former human, but that didn't mean I was just going to give him whatever he wanted. Now that I understood his stance, I knew there was no point in discussing things any further. I brought my face to within inches of his and gave him the most malevolent grin I could. I'd practiced evil grins for just this kind of moment.
"Interesting. Then let's settle this case with the power of humans."
I pulled the letter out of my pocket.
* * * *
—Bishop Yuhit's Journal—
As I walked through Ryunheit's gates, I turned back to look at them for what would probably be the last time. I would likely never walk through those gates again.
When I learned the demon army was comprised of only a few werewolves and a few hundred weak canines, I thought that Thuvan's famed horse archers might be able to defeat them. The commander of Thuvan's garrison was actually my best disciple, from when I was a deacon there. So when I told him the situation via carrier pigeon, he didn't hesitate to start recruiting soldiers in secret. However, not even a city's viceroy possesses the authority to mobilize troops without Senate approval. A mere garrison commander would normally be executed for marching without orders.
Despite this, 50 of Thuvan's horse archers agreed to go with him anyway. Not only that, 310 civilians volunteered to be infantry for the expedition. I'd thought that as long as they were armed with silver weapons, an army almost 400 strong would be able to drive out the demon army. As long as my disciples here could get the gates open, Thuvan's archers would be able to storm the city. I was certain that there were enough sympathizers within the city that we could suppress the demons once Thuvan's army was in. It was a gamble, but one with good odds. Or so I thought, anyway...
That werewolf saw through all of my foolish schemes. According to the report my followers brought back to me, he only sent a dozen or so werewolves to deal with the army of 400. And yet, if what that werewolf commander told me is true, those dozen men were more than enough to slaughter every last soldier.
Not only that, he'd managed to capture all of my agents and successfully deduced that I was the mastermind behind the battle. I had honestly been prepared for death at that point. In fact, I'd been prepared for death since the moment I resolved to fight against the demons. Even if it meant betraying the viceroy's decision to coexist, I had wanted to save Ryunheit from those werewolves' clutches. If all it took to achieve that was my life, it would have been a small price to pay.
But even after my defeat, the werewolf commander didn't kill me. He listened to my story, and even more surprisingly, he seemed to understand my viewpoints. I can scarcely believe it... He's a demon, the enemy of mankind. He shouldn't be able to understand my feelings. Yet I'm certain of it. The things I said resonated with him, even if only a little... Naturally, he didn't admit as much to me. But when he finished his questioning, I could have sworn I saw a look of profound disappointment on his face. It vanished quickly enough, though, and was replaced by a sardonic grin. I doubt I'll ever forget the words he spoke next.
"Interesting. Then let's settle this case with the power of humans."
He then handed me an envelope and said, "This is a letter addressed to the viceroy of Thuvan. It contains the details of the battle, including the fact that we buried the dead. Seeing as you're so popular in Thuvan, I think you'd make the perfect messenger to deliver it."
While he didn't strip me of my rank, sending me off like this is tantamount to exile. Naturally he didn't say that explicitly, but I'm not so foolish that I can't see it for what it is. The question is, why didn't the werewolf commander simply kill me outright? As I begin the trek home, it is that question that hounds me.
Though I don't wish to admit it, it's possible he did so out of pity. Unbelievable as it is, that werewolf might have sympathized with me. Unfortunately, his act of kindness is a meaningless one. For once I reach Thuvan, I will almost certainly be executed. The deaths of the 50 archers and 310 volunteer soldiers are my responsibility.
Even if the viceroy forgives me, I cannot forgive myself. But I would much rather die at the hands of my comrades than to my enemy's plot. Then again, it's possible this is all within that werewolf's calculations too. He wishes for me to die at human hands. That way he won't have to dirty his own, and Ryunheit's citizens will be none the wiser.
Not only that, with me gone there will be no one left among Sonnenlicht's clergy to take up the flag of rebellion. All of his problems...solved in one fell swoop. This werewolf is a terrifying tactician.
But that matters no longer. I staked my entire life on a showdown with the demon army, and I lost miserably. All that's left for me is to use what little time remains to atone for my blunder.
I'll return home to Thuvan. And there I will die.
* * * *
I watched Yuhit depart from atop the watchtower. While he may have been an enemy, and a poor strategist to boot, I couldn't bring myself to hate the man. There were probably plenty of other people like him who couldn't accept that they'd suddenly been conquered by a band of grotesque monsters.
Well, Yuhit'll probably be fine. Officially, I'd granted him the position of Viceroy Airia's personal messenger. Plus he was still a bishop, so Thuvan would probably treat him well. And since that annoying old geezer'll be stuck there, I won't have to worry about him anymore. Monza, who was watching along with me, didn't seem all that pleased, but that was hardly my problem.
"Are you sure you don't want me to chase him down and kill him?"
"Yeah."
I grabbed Monza by the head and held her back.
"Humans may be weaklings, but killing them's more trouble than they're worth. They're kinda like bees. Frail, but a pain in the ass."
"Oh yeah... I really don't like bees."
When she was a kid, Monza had tried to imitate a bear and smashed a beehive to get at its honey. To this day she was still afraid of bees. At least that got her to understand.
I jumped off the watchtower and started walking down the main street. Monza hurriedly followed after me. I bought 20 meat skewers from a nearby stall and gave half of them to Monza as a reward for completing her mission.
"The Sonnenlicht Order should quiet down now, hopefully."
"Mmmm. This sauce is really good."
"From the taste, I think it was probably made with fermented beans or something."
"You know how to cook, Commander?"
"Nah, I just like eating different things."
It tastes just like soy sauce, but it's not like she'd understand if I said that.
As I'd hoped, the Sonnenlicht Order quieted down after Yuhit left. Without their leader, they had no real organization. And because I'd just sent him off to deliver a message, there was nothing for them to get angry about, either. Though, I doubted he would ever be coming back here.
Without him, there was no one left to make important decisions for the order. But they couldn't elect a new bishop, or it'd cause problems when Yuhit came back. Hence, they were forced to wait for a Yuhit who would never return.
Airia was the only one who'd realized there was something suspicious about his departure. One day, she came over to ask me if anything had happened the night I'd met with him. Of course, I had no obligation to tell her anything. This affair had been between him and the demon army; it had nothing to do with Ryunheit. In other words, the viceroy had no need to know.
"We just had a chat about pigeons." She didn't seem satisfied with that, so I elaborated a little more. "He was a very kind man."
"That's all well and good, but..."
She gave me a dubious look. I'm afraid you'll have to be content with that until the time comes that I can explain everything. Regardless, I had achieved what I'd wanted. While there were still members of the order dissatisfied with demon rule, they were no longer capable of doing anything. One of the books I'd read in my old life had mentioned how wounding your enemies hurt them more than killing them. I think I'm starting to understand why now.
Although many of Ryunheit's citizens had been worried at Yuhit's sudden disappearance, telling them he'd been dispatched as Airia's messenger had easily quelled that unease. In just 10 days, the battle outside the walls had become a distant memory in the minds of the citizens. Just as planned. As I was gloating to myself in the privacy of my office, I heard a knock on my door.
"Enter."
A young girl wearing a pointed hat strode into the room. It was my master.
"Where did you come from!?"
"From outside the door, you dunce. I knocked, did I not?"
Honestly, I shouldn't have been that shocked. I watched as Gomoviroa waved her hand and floated up to eye level.
"I heard you skirmished with the enemy."
"I did, Master. It went exactly how I wrote in the report."
After the battle, I'd sent one of the canines back to headquarters with a detailed report of the battle.
"My apologies, some of your Bone Spears were destroyed in the battle."
While it had been 2000 against 350, the infantry had fought to the death. It was a testament to how tough my master's undead soldiers were that only 100 of them were defeated. In a sense, you could have still considered it a flawless victory. I'd moved the surviving 1900 soldiers back into the forest, so they'd be ready for the next fight. However, Gomoviroa seemed unsatisfied still.
"It will take a whole day to restore that many soldiers..."
"That's not so bad, really. Thanks to that, we didn't lose any werewolves or canines."
"People like you will never understand a necromancer's pain."
Because of her youthful appearance, her complaints sounded like those of a pouting child. Oh yeah, I should probably tell her everything that happened after, too. I explained to her how the bishop Yuhit had been behind the assault, and how I'd banished him to Thuvan.
"I see. It's just like you to handle things in such a manner." Master nodded in approval. "By removing the organization's head, you paralyze its limbs. Though you used a rather roundabout method."
"But you would've done the same thing in my position, wouldn't you, Master?"
"I suppose I cannot deny that. Dealing with the people's resentment would be much more of a hassle, but it would depend on the situation." She looked up into my eyes. "I daresay you're far more human than me, the actual human here."
Gomoviroa grinned knowingly. It almost felt as if she could see through the fact that I had memories of a past life. Since she already dabbled in the secrets of life and death, she might actually believe me if I told her I was reincarnated. But if I did that, I'd have to explain what the previous world I'd lived in was like. It was still too early to reveal that to anyone. Master stared into my face for a few seconds longer before turning away with a shrug.
"I suppose studying under my tutelage caused some of my humanity to rub off on you."
"Th-That's probably it."
She didn't bother pursuing the matter any further, and gave me a carefree smile.
"Regardless, you did well in protecting this city, and dealing with the instigators of the attack."
"Th-Thank you very much."
"So now, you needn't worry about explaining yourself to the Demon Lord."
"Huh?"
Dumbfounded, I watched as my surroundings began to twist and warp. Seconds later, I was standing in the fog that surrounded Grenschtat. I sighed heavily and transformed out of my human form.
"So why exactly do I need to explain my..."
I trailed off as I turned around. Master wasn't next to me. It appeared she'd teleported me here alone.
"Is she staying behind to look after Ryunheit while I'm gone?"
I tilted my head quizzically and headed to the front gate.
Grenschtat castle was the acting headquarters for all three regiments of the demon army. The first regiment was composed entirely of dragonkin elites. They also functioned as the Demon Lord's personal bodyguards. No one knew exactly how strong they were, but my guess was they were tougher than the second and third regiments combined. All of the dragonkin clans had sworn absolute fealty to the Demon Lord, so they were also his most trusted regiment.
The second regiment was made up primarily of ogres and giants; demons with high destructive power, mostly. They also tended to be the most aggressive of the demon races, hence why I had a hard time dealing with them. While they made for a strong army, they were also all muscleheads. You couldn't really rely on them for anything requiring finesse.
Lastly, the third regiment was composed of werewolves, vampires, and other races that possessed peculiar traits. Really, it was more just a mishmash of all the races who were too peaceful by nature to make it into the second regiment. Almost all of the other vice-commanders were also disciples of Gomoviroa the sage, which naturally meant they were also mages. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call us the demon army's brains. Unfortunately, the third regiment was also the smallest of the three. Our low numbers meant we could only take cities through unorthodox tactics or surprise attacks.
The three regiments always competed with each other to prove they were the best: Which regiment had the most achievements, which had the best-trained men—anything that could be turned into a contest was. And for some reason, the second regiment was being oddly showy today. Even the regiment's newest recruits were decked out in shimmering armor. They dashed through the corridors with nervous expressions on their faces.
"Is there a big operation coming up or something?" I mused to myself as I sat in the reception room, waiting for my turn to see the Demon Lord. The dragonkin guard who'd guided me here brought me some ironstone tea and chicken biscuits to tide me over while I waited. It'd be rude to say it, but ironstone tea really just tastes like rusty pipe water. The biscuits taste like hardtack, too. Even though it was the Demon Lord who'd supposedly asked for me, I was left waiting for quite some time.
I'd gone through all of the biscuits and was on my second cup of tea when the door finally opened. I stood up immediately, thinking the Demon Lord had come to see me, but it was just one of the dragonkin officers. He was Baltze, one of the first regiment's vice-commanders. He'd been granted the nickname "The Azure Knight" by the Demon Lord.
"It's been a while, Sir Baltze."
I saluted, and the blue-scaled dragonkin nodded lightly in response.
"Indeed. My apologies for making you wait."
As dragonkin had the faces of lizards, it was hard to decipher their expressions. From what I could tell, though, Baltze really was apologetic. He also seemed rather tired.
"The Demon Lord has only just concluded his war council and is rather tired. I beg your understanding."
"Of course."
I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be understanding here, but it looks like I came at a bad time. Guess I'll need to watch my words more than usual. I followed Baltze to the council room, a room which was normally reserved for the highest ranking members of the army. This would be my first time going inside it.
The moment I entered the room I brought my arm up in a crisp salute.
"My lord, Vice-Commander of the third regiment, Weremage Veight reporting for duty."
"At ease."
The Demon Lord nodded from across the large round table sitting in the middle of the room. Like I said before, dragonkin expressions were hard to read, so I had no idea what the Demon Lord was thinking. Our audience began with the Demon Lord asking me a question.
"Wight, there's something I must know."
I always hate it when he says my name. Because of how dragonkin mouths were shaped, they couldn't pronounce the 'v' in my name. So whenever the Demon Lord called me by name, it sounded like "Wight." I'm sure he thinks he's getting it right, but it just sounds so wrong to me. I'd risen all the way to the position of vice-commander, but it still hurt my feelings to be likened to a wraith.
The Demon Lord took no notice of my discomfort, and continued, "I have heard that you ordered large quantities of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter from the canine merchants."
"I have indeed, my lord."
Ah, so this is about the gunpowder. I was hoping to craft muskets for the canines, in order to raise their combat potential. Though canines were physically weak, they were quite dexterous and relatively smart. They'd make for good marksmen. That said, I wasn't sure explaining gunpowder to the Demon Lord would be wise. However, his next words upturned all of my expectations.
"Where did you learn the formula to create Dragon Breath?"
"Huh?"
You mean this world already knows about gunpowder? Seeing my confusion, Baltze stepped in to explain.
"Dragon Breath is a special powder that explodes when ignited. Its existence is highly classified. Even within the army, there are only a few dragonkin who know of it."
"I-I see."
Well, this isn't good. The Demon Lord observed me silently, waiting for my reply. If I didn't come up with a good explanation, I'd be executed for stealing confidential military secrets. I steeled my resolve and said, "When I was training under Master Gomoviroa, I read through her library of books. Based on my findings, I surmised that this combination of chemicals might be able to create an explosive powder."
"Mmm, from Gomoviroa's library?"
The Demon Lord nodded, and I continued my explanation.
"I ordered the materials to test my theory. I thought that if it worked, I could make better weapons for the weak canines. I had no idea this was meant to be a military secret."
I wasn't ready to tell anyone the truth, so I pinned everything on my master. If worse came to worst, I could always apologize to her later. Claiming I'd figured it out from her books was a pretty lame excuse, but it was better than staying quiet. However, it appeared that the Demon Lord bought it.
"I suppose I should have expected no less from the Great Sage's star pupil. I see you are not only a master strategist, but a master chemist as well. Very well. In deference to your wisdom, I will inquire no further into this matter."
Looks like I'm safe. It felt like every meeting with the Demon Lord shaved a few years off my life. Seeing my relief, the Demon Lord continued.
"However, I doubt even you would know the ratio needed to create Dragon Breath."
"Indeed I do not, my lord."
That was the truth. I had been planning on testing different ratios of each until I got it right. The Demon Lord shook his head.
"By weight, it is ten parts saltpeter, two parts charcoal, and one part sulfur. You would do well to remember that. However, because of how dangerous the mixing process is, I am afraid I must forbid you from making any."
I never knew you needed that much saltpeter... Still, what was the point in telling me if you're going to forbid me from making it?
As if reading my thoughts, the Demon Lord said, "Instead, I will grant you a small quantity of Dragon Breath. It is a fickle chemical that needs experts to manage it properly, so I will also dispatch a squad of dragonkin engineers to your city. Use them as you see fit."
"Yes, sir! Your generosity is most appreciated!"
"However, know that if this secret is leaked, you will be punished most severely."
"...Yes, sir."
Too late for regrets now.
All I could do was accept and salute.
"By the way, how goes your occupation of Ryunheit? I heard you were invaded by a small army."
Oh yeah, I still need to report about that. I explained to the Demon Lord how the Sonnenlicht bishop was behind the attack, and how I exiled him to Thuvan.
"I see, so the clergy used their influence to spur the people."
Demons had no organized religion. Their faith was tied to worshiping the Demon Lord, and normally a single Demon Lord reigned for decades or even centuries. However, the Demon Lord nodded in understanding.
"Faith can often drive humans to radical courses of action. Perhaps we have no choice but to subjugate them by force after all."
He wasn't wrong, but that was still the last thing I needed to hear. Unless I convinced him quickly, my plan for a peaceful occupation would go up in smoke. I hurriedly prepared an argument.
"F-Fortunately, I was able to limit unrest within the streets. As I banished their bishop without stripping him of his rank, the order won't be able to appoint a new leader. I'm confident that without someone to guide them, they'll remain docile."
The Demon Lord observed me carefully for a few seconds before asking, "If you wish to rule the city your way, you will eventually have to come to an agreement with the religious orders of the city. You understand that, correct?"
"I do, my lord. I am prepared to do anything it takes."
In truth, I actually had no idea how to deal with the order. I hadn't been much of a religious person in my old life, so I couldn't understand the feelings of the deeply devout. But I wanted to avoid killing outside of combat as much as possible. I'll figure something out, somehow. I wasn't sure whether or not I was able to convey my resolve to the Demon Lord, but he didn't push any further.
"From the start of this campaign, I had decided to leave ruling the occupied cities to the commanders in charge of subjugating them. So long as Ryunheit remains firmly under our control, I am willing to allow even your unorthodox methods."
"Thank you very much, my lord."
My life was going to get harder from here on out, but at least I'd survived this meeting. The Demon Lord continued by saying, "I just concluded a war council with the second regiment on the state of the northern battlefront. Are you aware of the current situation?"
"I have heard rumors that it's not progressing favorably."
Supposedly the second regiment had lost a lot of their earlier steam. At least, that was what the canine traders had told me. It appeared their information had been accurate, since the Demon Lord nodded.
"The humans' counteroffensive was fiercer than we predicted. In order to turn the situation around, the second regiment's commander volunteered to personally depart to the front lines."
I see now, so that's why all the second regiment soldiers in the castle are so dressed up. I looked down at the table for the first time and saw a large map dotted here and there with markers. A cursory glance told me that one of the three cities the second regiment had captured had already been retaken. Furthermore, the demon army seemed to have suffered consecutive defeats in the field.
The Demon Lord, noticing my interest in the map, pointed to a specific location with a knotted finger.
"I have heard that the two southern cities the third regiment took are still firmly under our control. They will play a vital role in our tactics from this point onward, so be sure not to lose them."
"Yes, sir!"
I straightened my back and saluted. The Demon Lord waved his hand, indicating that I should take a seat.
"Sit. The official meeting is over. From here on out, this audience will be an informal one."
Usually, only regiment commanders were allowed to sit in the Demon Lord's presence. While this was a great honor, I couldn't help but feel nervous. I timidly settled into the chair across from him. I glanced backwards and noted that Baltze was still standing. I kind of wish he'd sat with me, but he remained in parade rest, his expression unreadable. Still a little uneasy, I turned back to the Demon Lord and waited for his next words. Now that I was sitting this close to him, it hit me again just how intimidating he was. The whirlpool of mana swirling around him was so thick that just breathing required effort.
"For a long time now, I've been hoping for a chance to talk with you at length. Among my generals, you are by far the most unorthodox, and the most resourceful."
"Th-Thank you for your kind words."
The Demon Lord's tone was far more casual than before.
"For example, I've heard that you organized your werewolf soldiers into squads of four men. Knowing you, surely you must have a reason for picking four specifically."
I bowed my head.
"You're very perceptive, my lord. I did indeed."
I wasn't lying, either. Dangerous missions had a much higher chance of success if two people tackled them instead of one. That held true for both humans and werewolves. It was why the police always operated in two-man units. Back when I was in elementary school, we'd always taken swimming lessons in pairs, too.
However, I'd realized there was a limit to how effective a two-man pair could be. If one member of the team was injured, the other was forced to retreat with their injured partner, nullifying the entire team's combat potential. Even if their partner wasn't so seriously injured that they needed to retreat, a single person wasn't even half as effective as a pair.
Hence why I'd doubled the number from two to four. A four-man unit could withstand the loss of one of its members without losing too much of its combat capabilities. The remaining three could still fight as an effective team. And even if two of the four went down, the remaining two would still be able to fight at slightly over half capacity, since they could still operate as a team. Furthermore, four-man teams could split into two for scouting missions, where one team scouts out ahead while the other secures a base of operations. Though, none of this was something I'd come up with on my own. I'd learned it all from a game I'd played back in my old life, so it wasn't something I could take credit for. But you know, that's the first time anyone's asked me about that. After listening to my explanation, the Demon Lord nodded slowly.
"You have given me much to think about. Adjutant, please record Wight's earlier words."
Seriously, guys, it's Veight. I'm not some undead lich... Well, that's just how their vocal chords are, so I guess I can't blame them. Baltze penned down our earlier conversation with a practiced hand.
"I have recorded General Veight's words as requested, my lord."
Wait a second, Baltze just got my name right, didn't he? Ignoring my confusion, the Demon Lord changed the topic.
"Oh yes, this is a good opportunity to ask. Is there anything you believe the demon army does inefficiently or could implement better?"
"You want my opinion?"
I was just a lowly vice-commander. The title may have sounded impressive, but I was only a few steps above a middle-grade officer. I never expected someone of my rank would be asked to give his opinion on the workings of the army, and by the Demon Lord no less.
"Fear not. This is an unofficial audience, so you will not be censured for your statements."
That's not the problem here. In truth, the demon army was far more modernized than I had expected. When I'd first enlisted, I had been surprised to learn that the concept of supply trains had already spread throughout the army. Even this castle, Grenschtat, served as a resupply base for the front lines. It was because the first regiment guarded our supply lines that the second and third regiments were able to fight without worry.
Meanwhile, humans still relied on foraging and purchasing supplies from the locals to keep their armies fed. In extreme situations, they even let their soldiers pillage freely. Had I been reincarnated as a human in this world, I could have revolutionized their military by introducing supply trains, but the demon army had already figured things out by the time I'd joined.
Their recruitment and training methods were also highly organized. A fresh recruit in the demon army was transformed into a capable soldier in the span of a few months. The humans seemed to be under the impression that the Demon Lord was summoning legions of soldiers from hell, but the truth was he'd just created a very streamlined recruitment system. Seeing my expression, the Demon Lord gently nudged me to speak.
"There is no need for concern. Speak your mind."
"Yes, sir!"
I just don't really have anything to say... Oh, wait.
"With all due respect, my lord, there is one thing I noticed. It has to do with the army's command structure."
"Go on."
In the past few years, the demon army has grown monumentally. At first it had been comprised only of dragonkin soldiers, but as the army grew in popularity, demons of all races began to join. Because of its rapid expansion, there was a lot of confusion about hierarchy.
Take, for example, my position. Was I an Adjutant, or just a Vice-Commander? When I'd joined the demon army, it had been split into the Dragon Regiment, the Giant Regiment, and the Demon Regiment. In other words, the army had grown large enough that it needed to be split into regiments.
However, within each division, the hierarchy of everyone below Commander rank was rather vague. For example, Baltze was the Demon Lord's personal aide, and thus an Adjutant, while Dogg was a mere Lieutenant. On the other hand, I was Ryunheit's governor and held the rank of Field General. If we were to order our status in descending rank, it would go Baltze, then me, then Dogg.
At the same time, we all held the equivalent rank of 'Vice-Commander.' On top of that, no one knew whether Vice-Commander was a rank equivalent to Adjutant, or above or below it. One would assume they were equivalent, but who knew?
"Considering the current scope of the demon army, the chain of command is far too vague. I suspect that will cause problems later on."
I snuck a glance back at Baltze when I said that, and as I'd feared, his expression had stiffened up. I was probably the only person in the entire army to criticize it to the Demon Lord's face. However, the Demon Lord didn't appear angry. Instead, he nodded.
"An astute observation. But as demons only serve the strong, codifying ranks within the demon army would cause its own share of problems."
Wait, he's keeping them vague on purpose? Why?
"Were I to create a rigid ranking system, it would be more than likely that intelligent officers who are physically weak would rise above stupid soldiers who have nothing but brawn on their side. While that would be ideal from our perspective, demons haven't matured enough to accept such a system."
Ah, that makes sense. There's plenty of fools who like picking a fight with me, too...
"It is for that reason that I leave command structures within each regiment up to the individual commanders. Your point is a valid one, however. Eventually we will need to reform the system."
It came as a surprise that the Demon Lord was as critical of the 'survival of the fittest' ideology as I was. Regardless, I need to apologize for my rudeness.
"My apologies for overstepping my bounds, my lord. Please forgive my indiscretion."
"Of course. Besides, your observation was a valid one. I see now why you have had such success in governing Ryunheit."
A faint smile played across the Demon Lord's lips.
"I had wondered why Gomoviroa spoke so highly of you before, but now I understand."
Wait, what on earth did Master tell him? However, the Demon Lord didn't bother explaining any further, and brought the meeting to a close.
"I learned much from our conversation. From now on, I want you to deliver update reports in person. I'm expecting great things from you."
"Yes, sir."
With that, I was finally freed from my audience with the Demon Lord.
As I made my way out of the conference room, Baltze called out to me.
"Hold a moment, Sir Veight. Would you mind accompanying me for lunch?"
Dragonkin had an unsavory reputation because of their scary appearance, but in truth, most of them were wise, rational people. Baltze happened to be a rather quiet, gentle fellow. Though we were both vice-commanders, he technically outranked me. It would have been unwise to refuse him, so I agreed to lunch. Besides, I'm kind of curious what food the officers' mess hall has.
"Thank you for the invitation. I'm quite hungry, so I'll gladly accept."
The two of us headed to the officers' mess together. The dragonkin guards at the entrance let us in with a salute. We saluted them back and strolled through the double doors. I'd never had the opportunity to go somewhere this fancy in my old life, so I decided to thoroughly enjoy this lunch.
That said, the technology of this world was so far behind that a family restaurant back in Japan would probably have food just as tasty. A canine waiter came to take our orders. I got the deer saute along with a potato stew. Since it was lunchtime, I only got three orders of the saute. It wouldn't do to overeat in the middle of the day.
For some reason, Baltze was staring at me in awe, but this really was normal for werewolves. All he ordered was a grasshopper stir-fry; dragonkin were fond of eating insects. While we waited for our food to arrive, we chatted about the same things officers everywhere chatted about—work.
"Is the northern battlefront really doing that badly?"
"It is. Don't tell any of your men, but we might be pushed out of the north entirely."
It was precisely because rank and file soldiers weren't allowed in this cafeteria that we could have a conversation like this. Baltze sipped his lemonade and heaved a weary sigh.
"No one in the second regiment has any appreciation for tactics. They don't even surround cities during a siege. All they do is rush the main gate until it breaks and charge the city."
And because of that, it seemed the citizens of all the captured territories escaped before they fell and fled to nearby cities. They became refugees, in other words.
"And then, those refugees volunteered for the army and joined the campaigns to recapture their homes. Because they're fighting to get their lives back, morale on the human side is higher than ever. We've lost a lot more troops than we expected."
"But they're all hastily formed militia without any proper training. Shouldn't they be no match for the second regiment's ogres and giants?"
They may have been idiots, but they were tough. However, Baltze shook his head.
"As I believe you're aware, the Sonnenlicht Order's influence is strongest in the north. Because they're already used to religious hierarchy, they don't need much training to become capable soldiers."
The harsh climate of the north naturally led people to accept Sonnenlicht, which espoused cooperation and harmony. Mondstrahl's ideology of individualism and self-reliance would be a hard sell in a place where winters killed the lone traveler.
"They may be volunteer militia, but they have the discipline of real soldiers. They don't mind sacrificing their lives for the sake of victory. We've lost more men than I'd like to them."
The food arrived then so we put our conversation on hold and dug in. A werewolf's fangs were perfectly suited for tearing into gamey deer meat. Anyway, if they want to avoid a war of attrition, there's plenty of ways to do it.
"If you don't want to get bogged down in a battle of attrition, why not just focus on defending your captured cities?"
"Because everyone from that blasted second regiment loves wanton destruction. They've reduced the gates and walls of every city they captured to rubble." Baltze muttered angrily to himself as he picked at his stir-fried grasshopper. "The second regiment has no leadership and no rules. It's like they don't even realize they're supposed to be representing the demon army here!"
Sorry, it's not like I act like a representative of the demon army, either. We continued eating in silence for a few minutes until a newcomer entered the room.
"Oh, if it isn't Veight. Don't see you here often."
A beautiful woman with pale skin and black hair walked up to me. She wore a revealing dress which showed off her ample cleavage. I nodded to her and said, "It's been a while, Miss Melaine."
"I thought I told you to call me Lady Melaine."
"Don't wanna."
Melaine was another one of the third regiment's vice-commanders, but she was the highest-ranking among us. She was also Gomoviroa's top disciple, which technically made her my senior. Oh, and she was also a vampire, though she dressed like a succubus. Baltze greeted her as well and invited her to join us. With a smile, Melaine settled into the seat next to mine.
"So what secret deals are the Azure Knight and the esteemed governor of Ryhunheit making?"
"We're not doing anything of the sort. I was simply telling Sir Veight about the situation in the north."
Too serious to get the joke, Baltze calmly explained what we were talking about. Melaine flagged down a waiter, ordered a glass of ghost wine, and leaned back in her chair with a sigh.
"You sure have it tough, Baltze."
"I'm sure my troubles are nothing compared to you, Lady Melaine. You have to deal with ruling over humans, after all."
Like me, Melaine and her army were occupying one of Meraldia's cities. She was in charge of the city northwest of Ryunheit, Bernheinen. Her style of government was the polar opposite of mine, though. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It wasn't that bad. I just turned all the important people into vampires."
Indeed, not a single one of Bernheinen's nobles or generals were human anymore. Melaine's method of conquering Bernheinen had been rather unorthodox; she'd launched a night attack with about 100 of her vampires. Instead of capturing the city, they'd just made sure to transform the viceroy and the city garrison into vampires. After that, they'd let their new servants loose into the streets.
Though the events of that night were disastrous for the viceroy and his citizens, it was still a much better outcome than it could have been. At least with Melaine's strategy, the city was able to continue running like usual. Naturally, the converted vampires were forced to obey all of Melaine's orders, but otherwise, things hadn't changed much. As Bernheinen housed Meraldia's royal library and other educational facilities, Gomoviroa hadn't wanted it to get too damaged in the fighting. Still, I felt like Melaine might have overdone it a little by turning the city into vampires.
I idly watched as the waiter brought Melaine's drink. Thick white steam rose up from her glass of ghost wine, which she downed in one gulp.
"If anything, I imagine you've got it pretty tough, Veight. You haven't even brainwashed them. It's gotta be pretty hard getting regular humans to follow you. Just what kind of magic did you use on them?"
I'm just using my human memories as reference. Of course, I couldn't say that. So I cleared my throat and replied, "Werewolves are experts at blending in with human society, so we can understand them better than most."
"Hmmm." Melaine grinned and poked my forehead. "Well, our conquered cities are right next to each other so we may as well work together. Oh yeah, think you could start trading with us? Things have settled down on my end, so it should be safe."
"Yeah, I don't mind. As long as you're willing to secure the roads, that is."
"You crafty little kid... Well, I guess I can do that."
Melaine patted her bountiful bosom and winked at me. Baltze, who'd just finished eating, wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin and turned to Melaine.
"By the way, Lady Melaine, who will be put in charge of Thuvan's conquest?"
"Mmm, I'm definitely passing on that. My vampires have their hands full managing Bernheinen's defenses. Sorry, but I'll probably have to put one of our more promising new recruits in charge of that."
Oh, so we're taking Thuvan next? I only just got rid of Yuhit, so I hope losing Thuvan doesn't drive him back to Ryunheit... The three of us continued complaining about our respective responsibilities and our bosses for a while longer after that. While Master may have been a master necromancer, she had absolutely no interest in tactics. Hence, she'd focused on raising an army of undead warriors to overwhelm Meraldia with sheer numbers. Doing this meant all the strategic planning for the second regiment fell onto our shoulders.
It appeared that Baltze had his fair share of stories about the Demon Lord as well. Supposedly, the Demon Lord was always so focused on planning that unless someone else fed him, he'd completely forget to eat. And because he even spent his meals thinking with a serious face, the young dragonkin who served him his food were all terrified of him.
"To be honest, I wish he would be a little easier on himself. We'd be more than happy to share some of his burden."
Baltze looked somewhat lonely as he said that. He must really respect the Demon Lord. Seeing as it was the current Demon Lord who'd reformed the army into the organization it was today, I wasn't too surprised that he had a lot to think about. Strength alone wouldn't have been enough to get so many different races of demons to follow him. Even if they did worship strength, he would have needed wisdom and popularity to grow his empire this large.
I'm kinda glad I decided to join the Demon Lord's army now. With our lunch concluded, I shook hands with Baltze and headed out into the hallway together with Melaine.
"What are you planning on doing now?"
"I already finished reporting to the Demon Lord, so I'll probably go back to my city."
"How are you planning on getting there?"
Right as I asked that, Gomoviroa floated in through one of the castle's windows.
"So this is where you two were."
Melaine rushed over and embraced her.
"Master! I wanted to see you so bad!"
Normally it would have just looked cute if a young woman was hugging a little girl, but the young woman happened to be a vampire while the little girl was actually one of the world's most accomplished necromancers. Gomoviroa frowned in annoyance and pushed Melaine's face off of her.
"Stop clinging to me. You're smothering me. Besides, you spoke with me but moments ago."
"But I still missed you!"
If anyone else saw this they would be surprised, but all of Master's disciples were used to Melaine's behavior. She clung to Gomoviroa as if the witch was her mother. Gomoviroa pulled Melaine off her with some difficulty, then lightly smacked her head.
"It has been fifty years since I took you on as my disciple. When will you learn to show restraint?"
Melaine and I looked at each other and shrugged.
"Listen up, you two. The cities you captured will become vital to the future of this war. You've been informed of the situation in the north, correct?"
We nodded. If the northern front collapsed, we'd only be able to invade from the south, which would then make our two cities the new frontline for the war. Gomoviroa put a hand on each of our shoulders and muttered, "As your master, it was my responsibility to create a place for the two of you two freely enjoy studying the mysteries of magic. I am truly sorry that things have devolved to this point."
At heart, our master was a researcher. She truly regretted that her disciples had been wrapped up in a war. However, Melaine smiled at Gomoviroa and said, "Weren't you the one who taught us that practice is the only real teacher, Master? Plus, this is a perfect opportunity to practice to our hearts' content. I'm sure Veight agrees too."
"Absolutely. Besides, it's because we're here that this war hasn't had too many casualties yet."
It was up to us, the third regiment, to make sure the second regiment didn't get too out of hand and slaughter everyone. Naturally we wouldn't be able to stop everyone from dying, but as long as we were around, both human and demon casualties would be kept to a minimum. Master nodded and patted us on the head.
"I'm blessed to have such wonderful disciples. It pains me to burden you, but I will be needing your assistance in the battles to come as well."
"Okaaay, Master."
"You can count on us."
The two of us smiled and bumped fists with each other.
After that, Gomoviroa teleported us both back to our respective cities. Fortunately, the city could still function despite my frequent absences. Airia handled most of the day-to-day operations of running the city, and my squads handled the rest. Of course, final responsibility for everything still lay with me. And so, I was hardly surprised when I found a stack of documents awaiting my approval upon my return.
"The hell is this?"
All the businesses in the northern, eastern, and western sectors of the city had signed a petition they'd delivered to me. Supposedly, since the canine traders had set up around the southern gate, business had dried up in the other sectors. Like that's my responsibility... Still, if I didn't address this, a lot of people would go out of business.
"Hmm... Oh, I know."
I could just grant all the other store owners permits to open stalls in the southern sector. That should tide them over until trade with Bernheinen starts. Since it was northwest of us, once goods were flowing the northern and western districts would start to flourish again. As for the east...I guess I could have the canines open up a workshop there.
With that, most of the city would be taken care of. All the other reports weren't as serious; just a warning that the Garney brothers had gotten drunk and ruined another bar, and a paper detailing the progress of the plantation the canines were cultivating, and so on. I'd have to knock some sense into the Garney brothers later. There was, however, one other report that caught my attention.
"A request to address the city garrison's issues, huh?"
Airia was the one who had submitted the request, and it had been co-signed by the commander of the city garrison. As each city's garrison was technically under the Senate's command, it was the Senate who paid their salaries. Naturally, this meant the garrison wasn't getting paid anymore. At present Airia was covering for their missing pay, but she couldn't keep it up forever, so she was asking me to handle it.
I'd underestimated the city garrison a little. Originally I had thought they were just your everyday foot soldiers, but it seemed they were specialists at maintaining public order. On top of that, many were career soldiers. There were only 200 of them, and if the city faced an emergency, they generally bolstered their numbers with volunteer militia. Apparently, the other cities had a similar system. But that meant each of the garrison soldiers needed to be able to lead, so they could take charge of squads of militia. Effectively, even the grunts were low-ranking officers.
"Hmmm..."
My intuition is telling me this is a good opportunity. If I negotiated this well, I would be able to get a very favorable deal for the demon army. I changed into something more formal and headed to the garrison barracks alone.
"Is the garrison commander here? The Vice-Commander of the demon army's third regiment, Veight, is here to see him."
When I arrived in the barracks courtyard, the soldiers were in the middle of their training routine. Even when they didn't have any work, they weren't slacking off. The soldiers exchanged uncertain glances, and a burly middle-aged man with a thick beard walked up to me.
"I'm Ryunheit's garrison commander, Wengen."
He had an imposing presence and looked pretty tough. Even though I knew I could tear him to shreds in my transformed state, I still felt a little daunted. And because the entire courtyard was filled with the soldiers' sweat, I couldn't read his feelings from his smell either. This might be a problem. I watched as Wengen's men crowded protectively around him. I should probably tell him why I'm here.
"I read over Lady Airia's request regarding the issue of your wages. I intend to discuss my decision with her as well, but I would first like to hear your opinion."
Wengen tilted his head in confusion.
"Our opinion on what, exactly?"
"You gentlemen have pledged your services to the Meraldian Senate, correct? That means your salary comes from them."
Therein lay the problem.
"Although you men have surrendered to the demon army, you are, of course, not part of it. Therefore, the demon army is unable to pay your wages."
The soldiers nodded; that much was obvious. I had to admit, their loyalty to Meraldia impressed me.
"That being said, you aren't the viceroy's personal troops, either. Though she is technically your commanding officer, she is not your employer."
"It is as you say."
Wengen nodded solemnly. I looked into the eyes of the man who stood head and shoulders above me and said, "Originally, your job was to patrol Ryunheit and maintain order in the city, but at present, my men and the members of Ryunheit's trading guild are filling that role."
The soldiers said nothing, but their expressions darkened. However, I maintained a cheerful tone throughout.
"I won't ask you noble gentlemen to swear fealty to the Demon Lord. You may remain the Senate's soldiers, but won't you at least help keep this city safe? If you agree to return to your posts, I will return your weapons and swear not to interfere in your affairs."
The soldiers were taken aback.
"You'll return our weapons to us?"
"You didn't come here to demand we serve you?"
"What're you playing at?"
Please don't think I'm as stupid as other demons. These soldiers were brave enough to face me, a werewolf, head-on without backing down. I wasn't so foolish as to believe I could break their loyalty with fear.
"If you're willing to take up your old jobs again, the viceroy will have an excuse to officially pay you. Ryunheit's laws haven't changed since we captured it. Your duties won't be any different than they were before."
The soldiers started whispering furiously to each other.
"We can have our old jobs back..."
"Won't that technically mean we're helping the demon army?"
"But keeping the citizens safe is our duty."
I waited for the hubbub to quiet down before continuing.
"Decide for yourselves whether you wish to remain absolutely loyal to the Senate, or if you're willing to compromise and serve the people of Ryunheit. The demon army will respect your decision either way."
Silence filled the courtyard. Reading the looks on his men's faces, Wengen finally came to a decision.
"Sir Veight, we would like to have our weapons returned to us."
"Understood."
I took the armory key out of my pocket and handed it over. Wengen gave it to one of his subordinates, who ran off with his squad. Within minutes, the entire garrison was armed once more. Wengen turned to his men and yelled, "Form up!"
Footsteps pounded on the hard-packed ground as the soldiers lined up into neat rows. Standing in front of 200 armed men left even me a little nervous. If these guys decided to try something like Yuhit had, I'd be forced to repeat the massacre of a few days ago. Wengen drew his sword in one fluid motion and barked out another command.
"All men, draw swords!"
Oi, don't tell me you're actually gonna fight? He continued in a booming voice, "We men of the Ryunheit garrison may be Meraldia's men! But it is our duty to protect the people of this city!"
Wengen lowered his voice, and his tone grew solemn.
"And thus, from this moment onward, we will temporarily be leaving the Senate's command! Under my command, we will return to patrolling Ryunheit! Lend your swords to this city, men!"
The soldiers all raised their blades up with both hands. Don't scare me like that, sheesh! I looked up and realized Wengen and the others were all staring at me.
"Sir Veight, there is something I've been meaning to tell you for some time now."
"Yeah?"
"Though you are far stronger than us, you don't treat us with contempt, nor do you belittle us. You always afford us the respect of warriors and negotiate as if we were equals. For that, we are eternally grateful."
If I were in their position, I would want to be treated with respect too, so it only made sense that I did the same for them. Wengen grinned impishly at me.
"That being said, you sure gave us a beating last time. I hope you can forgive our little prank. I just wanted to get back at you a little."
Wily old man. I smiled ruefully and nodded.
"Please don't try to scare me too much. I get easily frightened. The next time you do something like that, I'll have to report you to the garrison."
The soldiers laughed heartily, and I laughed with them. With this, the soldiers were able to start working again while technically maintaining their neutrality. Making humans do what you wanted really was a pain in the ass. Still, at least now my werewolves wouldn't have to work as hard.
After that, I was able to enjoy a few days of relative peace. Trade with occupied Bernheinen started up, and Ryunheit continued to prosper. Though all the traders coming from Bernheinen were vampires, I didn't mind, so long as they didn't cause any mischief. Thanks to the garrison's help, the streets were much safer than before, too. While the soldiers were still wary of us werewolves, I'd occasionally spotted human and werewolf squads chatting and joking with each other. Finally, the goods I'd been waiting for arrived.
"Thanks for bringing these all the way here."
I went to the southern gate to greet the squad of dragonkin that had arrived. They began unloading a number of waterproofed barrels from their carriage. The leader of the group stepped up and saluted.
"I am the captain of the squad transferred to your unit, technical officer Kurtz. I have with me twenty-four military engineers, all in good health."
"Understood."
I saluted back and raised my eyebrows slightly as I realized Kurtz had blue scales.
"Would you happen to be a relative of Sir Baltze, Sir Kurtz?"
"I would. Baltze is my younger brother. It brings me great pride to see how far he has risen in the ranks."
Considering their names were so similar, I'd thought that was a possibility, and it seemed I was right.
"Baltze has always spoken highly of you, Sir Veight, so I am glad to finally make your acquaintance."
It appeared Kurtz hadn't been granted a title by the Demon Lord, which meant he was just an average soldier. From the looks of it, he was more brains than brawn, so it had probably been smart not to promote him too far. If Dogg or the like picked a fight with him, he'd be flattened in seconds. However, I could tell from my subsequent conversation with him that Kurtz was a valuable asset. Chances were, the Demon Lord knew how important Kurtz really was, too. He was probably just as necessary to the army as I was, if not more.
I invited Kurtz back into my office, and we discussed the specifics of the Demon Lord's gunpowder over some of my prized green tea.
"Dragon's Breath is a very powerful weapon, but it is also very difficult to handle, making it inefficient to use."
I was hoping to create muskets with Kurtz's gunpowder, but if I let on how knowledgeable I was about guns, the Demon Lord might grow suspicious again. Besides, it was entirely possible he was already in the process of developing guns.
"However, I was able to create a much more stable mixture of Dragon's Breath that we were able to use in various weapons."
Oh, are we getting guns after all? I leaned forward, and Kurtz proudly held out a small spherical object. Looks like I was a little off. We've got bombs, not guns.
"This is one of our newest inventions, the Dragon's Jewel."
"Oho."
"It uses metals of various properties."
So a frag grenade, basically. Impressive.
"Red, blue, yellow, green..."
"Wait, what are you talking about?"
Kurtz smiled and said, "By burning the different metals, the jewel will create different-colored flames. Then by adding a primer, you can explode those multicolored flames in different patterns."
Wait, so the demon army's newest weapon is fireworks? Though it was rather disappointing to hear we didn't actually have weapons, the fact that Kurtz was able to develop fireworks meant his engineering skill was the real deal. Besides, there's still a way to put those fireworks to use.
"If we launch these into the sky, we can use your Dragon's Jewels to relay messages to units far away."
Kurtz looked up at me in surprise.
"You're absolutely correct. But how did you realize that so quickly?"
"I figured if the Demon Lord sent these to us, they had to have some kind of utility. It was really just a guess."
Dog whistles could only be heard by werewolves and canines, but signal flares would be understood by everyone. And these were both faster and much more visible than smoke signals. They could also be seen at night. They might not be guns, but I'll still gladly take these.
"That's a truly amazing invention, Kurtz. I suppose I should have expected no less from the esteemed Baltze's older brother."
"You flatter me. At any rate, I see you're every bit the shrewd general my brother said you were. You figured out the value of these Dragon's Jewels with a single glance."
I wouldn't really call myself a shrewd general, but it did feel good to be praised.
"By the way, I spotted a number of armed humans manning the gates earlier. Who were they?"
Kurtz had likely seen some garrison soldiers. It was probably rare to let defeated enemy troops remain armed in your city.
"They're the Meraldian soldiers who were stationed to Ryunheit."
"WHAT!?"
That was the first time I'd heard a dragonkin scream.
"Wait, wait, calm down."
"M-My apologies, sir. But aren't they our enemy!?"
Oh yeah, I guess that is how most demons would see it.
"They surrendered when we took the city. Now they're working independently to maintain order in Ryunheit. You can think of them as neutral guards now."
"Neutral, you say..."
Disbelief written all over his face, Kurtz looked out of the window, observing a group of soldiers. They were armed with swords and short spears; more than enough equipment to harm dragonkin or canines, if they so wished.
"Are you sure it's alright to leave them roaming around like that?"
To be honest, I wasn't sure myself, but since the werewolves alone weren't enough to patrol the whole city, I had no choice but to trust them.
"They've pledged their services not to the Meraldian Senate or their gods, but to the people of Ryunheit. I have faith that they won't start a fight in the city."
"I'm afraid I still don't understand..."
His worries were to be expected, but he'd get used to their existence soon enough.
Ryunheit was now home to werewolves, canines, dragonkin, vampires, and humans. While the werewolves were an aggressive lot, they swore absolute obedience to me and thus didn't harm anyone. On the other hand, the canines were perfectly amicable. Kurtz's dragonkin were all rational, intelligent types, and vampires weren't really any different from humans, except that they liked drinking blood. When I saw humans and demons of all kinds mingling together in the streets, I felt the exhaustion of the past few weeks melt away.
Though Airia's workload had increased, the amount of tax revenue she was bringing in had also risen, so she should have had no complaints. The real issue now was the conquest of Thuvan. Since the northern armies were on the back foot, us southern forces needed to achieve something. Unless we started racking up a string of victories, the demon army's morale would plummet. Demons only followed the strong. And while the Demon Lord himself boasted strength rivaling a demigod, if the army looked weak, it would lose the respect of its soldiers. People would start to desert. Master should be dropping in today, so I may as well report to the Demon Lord.
"Unfortunately, we lost another city to Meraldia's forces."
Having given my report, I was once again eating lunch in the officers' mess hall with Baltze. He looked more worried than when I last saw him. While picking at the grasshopper stir-fry he'd ordered again today, he sighed. I never thought I'd see the Azure Knight, the first regiment's pride and joy, look so defeated. Then again, I suppose he didn't need to keep up appearances for his men here.
"We can't get the different races in the second regiment to cooperate. They keep operating independently, each competing with the other to bring home the greatest achievements. And because our supply lines are in tatters, Meraldia's able to isolate and overpower squad after squad."
The Demon Lord had modernized his army by introducing supply trains, but it wasn't enough to solve everything. Because of how rapidly the situation changed at the front lines, the second regiment's generals were in charge of battle plans there. And in the second regiment, people like Dogg were considered skilled strategists.
"Apparently, the second regiment's been so hard-pressed that they haven't even had time to send a general back to report. I've been serving as a liaison between the Demon Lord and the second regiment in the meantime, but it really hurts having to bring him bad news over and over."
As he finished eating, Baltze pulled out a small paper bag from his pack. He poured a small pill-shaped rock into his hand and swallowed it whole. When he noticed my curious gaze, he said, "Oh, this? I've been suffering from stomach aches recently, so I got this gastrolith from the army doctor. It hasn't been doing much, though."
I guess this is what fantasy stomach medicine's like.
"You have my sympathies, Sir Baltze."
I was starting to grow pretty close to this dragonkin. Guess I need to work hard for the sake of my worrywart friend over here, too.
"I promise the third regiment will conquer all of Meraldia's southern territories. The situation in Ryunheit has calmed down now, so if you would like, I can help take Thuvan."
Baltze stretched his arms over the table and tightly gripped my hands.
"My lord is expecting great things from you as well, Sir Veight. Please bring us some good news so I may have something favorable to report to him for once."
Poor Baltze really had it tough.
It appeared the Demon Lord and Gomoviroa had held a secret council after that to discuss how the third regiment would conquer Thuvan. They'd decided who the commander of the operation would be as well, and my life got a lot busier after that. Ryunheit was the closest city to Thuvan, which meant it would serve as the invading army's forward base. I started by ordering the canine soldiers to begin building extra barracks outside the city's western gate.
"The incoming army'll be tired from their long march! All they need is somewhere to take shelter from the wind and rain! It doesn't need to be fancy or anything, just get it done fast!"
It was a pretty cruel thing to say, but I didn't have the resources or manpower to make something better on such short notice. According to what I'd heard, kentauros would make up the bulk of this attack force. Half-human and half-horse, they were basically centaurs, which I guess is what kentauros meant.
At any rate, they were a troublesome lot, mostly because each one required a room the size of a stable to house, which meant no place in the city was capable of lodging them. And we need to take care of 500 head of them... Actually, wait, they're a sentient race, not beasts, so I probably shouldn't call them that. This was why I was rushing to build new barracks as fast as possible.
"Sup, boss. So this is where you were."
The resident werewolf blacksmith, Jerrick, walked up to me. Shirtless and covered in sweat, he proudly held up a horseshoe.
"Kentauros' hooves aren't the same size as regular horses' so I had to make new ones from scratch. You think this'll do?"
"Don't ask me..."
I took it from him anyway, but it's not like I knew anything about kentauros anatomy.
"I trust your skills, though. I'll leave it to you."
"Alright then, I'll get back to work. You better not schedule me for any patrol shifts."
"Don't worry, I won't."
After he left, Fahn came up to me.
"Veight, what do kentauros eat? Hay?"
"Well, their upper halves are human, so I don't think they do, but..."
With demons you could never really tell, though. It was entirely possible they did just eat hay. I'd asked Fahn to prepare twice as much food for each kentauros as a normal human would eat. I doubted their appetites could match those of werewolves, but they probably still ate a lot.
"What do I do? We don't have that much meat lying around."
"Pretty sure us werewolves are the only ones that are hung up on meat. Just get some dried fruit, and bread too."
"Gotcha, I'll get right on that."
Fahn hurriedly ran off. Since each race had different customs and a different biology, providing for them was a Herculean task. While we were running around trying to get things ready, one of the canine guards came up to me.
"There are people approaching the southern gate, sir! About fifteen hundred of them!"
"F-Fifteen hundred!?"
"They appear to be cavalry!"
That's odd. There shouldn't be that many kentauros. I ordered the canines to halt construction and had them take refuge inside the city. What the heck is going on?
I rushed over to the south gate and ordered it closed. Once I was done, I howled to my werewolves to assemble. Upon hearing my emergency summons they all dropped what they were doing and rushed to the south gate.
"Veight, today's the day the kentauros arrive, isn't it? What's there to be worried about?"
"Yeah. Besides, no enemies would be coming from the south."
They may have thought it a needless worry, but I just wanted to be safe. Caution was what had saved me during the Thuvan incident. And while it was definitely hoofbeats that I heard in the distance, I couldn't rule out that they weren't human cavalry. As they grew closer, though, I realized they really were kentauros.
Their upper bodies were clad in armor, while their lower halves, about the size of ponies, were left bare. They looked rather gallant, dashing through the plains like that. Though that didn't change the fact that there were way more of them than I'd been told. They lined up in front of the main gate, and a kentauros on the smaller side stepped forward. They were armed with a short spear and a shield, the latter of which they whirled overhead to announce their presence.
"Hear me! I am one of the third regiment's Vice-Commanders, Firnir the Swift Gale! Open the gates and let us pass!"
Surprisingly, it was a woman's voice that rang out. Firnir was the name of the general who I'd been told would be coming, so that part at least fit the report. I jumped off the ramparts, my worried werewolf companions following behind me.
"I'm Veight, another of the third regiment's Vice-Commanders. This is the first time we've met, right?"
The kentauros girl nodded happily.
"Yep, it is! I'm no mage, but I also consider myself one of Master Gomoviroa's disciples! Nice to meet you, Vait-o!"
"Y-Yeah, nice to meet you too."
I can already tell this girl's going to be a handful.
After our initial meeting, I escorted Firnir and the other kentauros to the western forest.
"There are no facilities suitable for housing you in the city, so I had my men prepare a new barrack here. It's only large enough for five hundred people, though."
"Huh, why'd you make it so small?" she asked sulkily.
I sighed and explained, "Because that's how many people you said would be coming in your letter."
"Oh yeah. Truth is, I was only supposed to bring five hundred, but everyone said they wanted to come along, so... Ehehe."
Don't give me that! Left with no other choice, I told the canines to set up tents for the other kentauros. It wasn't much, but I couldn't just let men of the demon army sleep out in the open. This would have to do.
"Lady Firnir."
"I'm younger than you, so you don't have to be formal with me or anything," Firnir grinned childishly.
Is a cute, innocent girl like this actually capable of commanding an army?
"Alright then, Firnir. Listen up. We're not some disorganized mob, nor is this army a charity. You have to report things accurately, or you'll cause problems for others."
At my rebuke, Firnir straightened up and saluted.
"Yes, sir! I promise not to make the same mistake again!"
Good, she's more diligent than she looks.
"So please don't get mad at me, Vaito."
"Could you stop calling me that?"
Afterwards, I escorted Firnir to my office in the viceroy's manor. Firnir's hooves didn't do the manor's carpet any favors, and everywhere she passed turned into quite a mess. I'll need to apologize to the maids later. But first, business.
"The invading army will consist of your fifteen hundred kentauros, Melaine's three hundred Wax Corpses, and a thousand of Master's skeleton soldiers, correct?"
"You're not gonna participate, Vaito?"
Seriously, stop calling me that. It's embarrassing.
"I need to keep the werewolves here to defend Ryunheit..."
I doubted the garrison would rise up in revolt, but that was no reason to leave the city unguarded. No way I could move my werewolves in this situation.
"Don't you have the two thousand bone spears Master lent you?"
"I can't send those out either. I need them to defend the city."
Firnir smiled cheerfully and replied, "It's fine, even if Meraldia does send soldiers, it'll be to defend Thuvan first."
I looked over the map on the table. As Ryunheit was a trading city, it had roads connecting it to all other nearby cities. That made it easy to invade, but hard to defend. However, Meraldia was focusing most of their efforts on the northern front, which meant they didn't have many soldiers to spare for the south.
"Still, it wouldn't be wise to let my guard down."
Seeing my reluctance, Firnir leaned forward and said, "Vaito, conquering Thuvan is essential if we want to take control of the southern front... The future of the war depends on it. We absolutely cannot fail, so please lend us your strength."
Her gaze was surprisingly serious, and I nodded without thinking.
"I-I guess you're right..."
"Besides, if we take Thuvan, Meraldia will focus their efforts on taking it back, so Ryunheit will have a buffer city protecting it."
Firnir reverted back to her cheerful demeanor. However, that austere expression from earlier had been burned into my memory. Moreover, she made a valid point. It appeared she hadn't been appointed vice-commander just for show; she clearly had a good eye for strategy.
"Firnir, can you command Master's Bone Spears?"
"Nope!"
"Guess that's that, then."
Firnir's face fell at what she thought was a blunt rejection. But then I stood up and patted her on the back.
"I'll have to lead them, so ask Master for permission for me to go."
Firnir's face lit up again and she leapt forward and hugged me.
"Thank you so much, Vaito! You're the best!"
Seriously, please stop calling me that.
* * * *
—Firnir's Diary—
I met Vaito for the first time today. He's a vice-commander in the third regiment, just like me. Or wait, was he actually an adjutant? Well whatever, it doesn't matter. Anyway, Vaito's apparently a really strong werewolf. Master told me that he easily beat that famous general from the second regiment, Dogg. I'm pretty sure Dogg was supposed to be one of the strongest guys in the second regiment.
I still haven't fought any warriors stronger than me, so I'm really curious about how strong he is. Also, I heard that Vaito's supposed to be a really smart general too. He conquered Ryunheit with just 56 werewolves, and he didn't lose a single soldier. Now that's amazing! There's no way I could conquer a city this big with just 56 kentauros.
Not only that, he's supposed to be really good at magic too. I don't really understand magic that well, but that's what Master said, at least. Oh, and by Master, I of course mean the Great Sage Gomoviroa. I can't use magic, but I'm still one of Master's disciples.
Because Vaito's a werewolf mage, the Demon Lord gave him the really cool title of Weremage. It's unbelievable. He's a strong fighter, a smart tactician, and a skilled mage. The most awesome thing about him, though, is how he governs humans. Vaito used a totally different method than Melly did. He even let the human viceroy keep her position. Can you believe it? And now even the city's soldiers are on Vaito's side. I'm serious. I saw them patrolling the city earlier! We kentauros may look the same as humans from the upper half, but really we're nothing like them. After all, we're proud demon soldiers. So there's no way we'd know what humans are thinking.
I'd heard werewolves were meant to be really demon-like hunters, but apparently Vaito's not like that. Everyone says he can tell what humans are thinking. At least, that's what the rumors say. I wonder if he can read minds or something? Can he read my mind? No wonder he's so trusted by the Demon Lord. He's amazing.
I heard the Demon Lord even sent him some of his personal soldiers to help Vaito out. I actually saw them for a few seconds when we were walking through the city. Even Master, the commander of the third regiment, doesn't have dragonkin soldiers working for her.
I totally get why everyone calls him the demon army's strongest vice-commander now. But you know, what surprised me the most was meeting Vaito. It was a heart-pounding experience. Like, he's just so cool! Even though he's a famous commander that everyone talks about, he didn't put on airs or anything. He just talked to me normally! Just thinking about it makes my heart skip a beat! And even though I completely forgot to mention that we had three times as many people coming, he just handled it like it was nothing! I mean he did scold me, but he was really mature about it. That's why he's worthy of my respect.
Oh, and it's kinda cute how he looks annoyed every time I call him Vaito. The coolest thing, though, was when I asked him for reinforcements. I thought he'd just say no, but he's actually gonna come fight with us personally! Man, he's really just way too cool.
Ah, I shouldn't get too ahead of myself. The fate of the Kentauros race hinges on this battle. For centuries now, the humans have been expanding their domain, leaving us with less and less space to live. The plains are our home; if the humans turn all of those plains into farmland, we'll have nowhere left to go.
I guess demons who live in the forests or mountains don't have to worry about that as much. That's probably why kentauros end up fighting with humans more than everyone else. Our elder told me that our numbers have been dwindling. If things keep up like this, we'll go extinct. We tried to avoid all-out war for as long as we could, but now that it's come to this, we have no choice.
Originally, I'd only planned on bringing the 500 warriors of my tribe, but since our future is riding on this, warriors from all the other clans said they wanted to help too. And now we've got a full 1500! To be honest, it's kind of frightening being entrusted with the lives of so many. More than half our race's warriors are under my command right now. Our fate rests in my hands. One mistake, and I might doom our entire species. It's terrifying to think about.
That's why I begged Vaito for help. He's so famous, even people who aren't in the army have heard of him. Every kentauros knows of the Weremage Veight. Though Vaito spends all his time in Ryunheit, so he probably hasn't even realized that.
When I told my men Vaito would join the battle, they were so happy. I guess it makes sense; he's the strongest person in the army after the Demon Lord and the regiment commanders. There's no greater honor for a kentauros than being able to fight by the side of a seasoned warrior. I'm sure with him around, we'll be able to fight better than ever.
But I guess I shouldn't be relying on Vaito for everything... I need to pull myself together. I'll pile up as much experience as I can, and then become a splendid general like Vaito! Maybe he'll praise me if I do a good job during the battle.
* * * *
All of the generals participating in the upcoming battle were called to Ryunheit to hold one final strategy meeting. We borrowed one of the viceroy's rooms to use as our conference center, and began to strategize.
"Does anyone happen to know how sturdy Thuvan's front gate is?"
Melaine, Queen of all Vampires, rested her cheek in her hand as she spoke. She was Master's number one disciple, and a skilled necromancer in her own right. On top of that, she wasn't a half bad diplomat or strategist, either. However, she had absolutely no knowledge of tactics.
"Melaine, think back to how big the gate in your city was."
"Bernheinen just had an iron grille gate..."
Bernheinen was an old city, more famous for its scenery than anything else. Which meant that for quite some time, the demons had had no interest in it. Because of that, a simple gate had sufficed. If Thuvan's gate was as small as Ryunheit's, we'd be able to just assault it head-on. But because the city was Meraldia's industrial hub, I had no doubt they'd keep it well-guarded with state-of-the-art technology. Taking the city wouldn't be that easy.
Melaine's biggest strength lay in her ability to convert humans into her vampire servants, but that was also the only thing she was capable of. Ideally she'd be able to sneak in, bite their commander, and have him betray his city from the inside. However, while vampires in this world weren't weak to sunlight or holy crosses, neither could they transform into bats or fly in the sky. In fact, they were basically just bloodsucking humans.
"Veight, I know that look. You just thought I'm going to be useless in this fight, didn't you?"
"Nope, not at all."
"Even if we can't break down the gate, can't you just jump over it and use that...Soul Shaker spell of yours or whatever to beat everyone, Vaito?" Firnir, Master's newest disciple, asked casually. It was her first time being in a city, and she was currently enamored by the peculiar scent of the windows' glass.
"That's really just meant to be used in magic duels. It has a short range, and I can't cast it in succession, so it wouldn't really work for a large battle."
Besides, I'd read reports of the massive ballistae sitting on Thuvan's walls. Werewolf or not, even I'd die if a bolt the size of a javelin pierced me.
"As I feared, we have no choice but to send out the undead soldiers first and overwhelm the gates," muttered the Great Sage Gomoviroa.
Since she could summon undead no matter where she was, she was basically a mobile reinforcement base. That being said, 100 soldiers were the most she could create in a day, and that was if she ignored all her other duties. If taking the city cost us 1000 Bone Spears, she'd be tied up for 10 whole days replacing them. And naturally, we couldn't have one of our commanders leave her other responsibilities for that long.
The problem was, no one in the demon army had any experience with siege warfare. I guess it wasn't surprising, considering for the past few decades they'd just been skirmishing with the humans' subjugation forces. They hadn't had any opportunities to assault a castle or city, so it stood to reason that they had no knowledge of it.
Though it wasn't as if the humans had any real experience with siege warfare, either. It had been quite some time since the Meraldia unification wars, and no one had invaded a city since. However, my biggest concern was the same one that the other commanders here had: the relative rigidity of our forces. While kentauros were skilled fighters, they couldn't dismount within a city. Obviously not, seeing as their lower halves were part of them. That still put them at a disadvantage against Thuvan's mounted archers though, since they could dismount within the city and become regular foot archers.
It was this difference in adaptability that had led past demon armies to be defeated by human soldiers time and time again. Come to think of it, there was this one game I played back in my old life where all the demon units had restrictions on their equipment and low overall growth rates. They couldn't change classes, either.
Thuvan's main streets were wide to accommodate all the raw material they needed to import into the city, but the rest of the city was a chaotic mess of side streets and workshops all jumbled together. For kentauros who needed space to maneuver, it was the worst kind of terrain. Once we breached the main gate, Firnir's forces would have a hard time. Hence, it was imperative that we at least take the gates with minimal casualties.
The other option was of course to send Master's undead soldiers in. They were disposable, and perfectly capable of fighting in narrow spaces. However, they were also mindless creatures, and could only obey simple commands. They couldn't differentiate between soldiers and civilians, nor did they have the intelligence to comprehend the meaning of surrender. If we let them loose into the city, it would become a massacre. Our mission was to capture the city, not raze it to the ground.
If only we'd had a few giant stone-slingers from the second regiment, the main gate would have been no obstacle with their might. Or if we'd had a few dragonkin soldiers from the first regiment, they'd have no problem fighting in the city. Unfortunately, neither regiment was in any position to send over reinforcements.
Because of their unique characteristics, each race of demons was more or less locked into a particular fighting type. They couldn't be versatile like human soldiers. My werewolves were relatively more flexible, but there weren't many of us. The canines wouldn't be of any use in combat. And frankly speaking, Melaine's vampires weren't all that good in a fight either. Plus she had her own city to take care of as well.
It wasn't a very favorable situation, but coming up with a strategy regardless was the job of us commanders. The question was, what options were left? There were a few viable strategies for taking down the main gate, but as we didn't know just how sturdy Thuvan's walls were, we couldn't be sure any of them would work. As for occupying the city after that, we had no choice but to send the kentauros in and prepare ourselves for heavy losses. It appeared Firnir had already steeled herself for that.
Still, she clearly didn't want to lead her soldiers into death, hence why she gave Melaine a pleading look.
"Umm, Melly... I mean, Melaine, can't you just turn Thuvan's viceroy into a vampire?"
It looked like she treated Melaine with respect, but not me. Judging from her attitude, Melaine had probably scolded her harshly about it sometime before. Upon closer inspection, I realized there was a small lump on the back of Firnir's head. That was probably Melaine, huh. Melaine thought about it for a few seconds, but then shook her head sadly.
"Mmm, I don't think it's possible. It worked last time since they didn't know we were coming, but the humans are ready for us this time. Even if Veight or I tried to sneak in, magic would reveal our true identities pretty easily."
There was a reason humans had had the upper hand in these past few centuries of warfare. One of the simplest magic spells was a charm to detect whether or not someone was a demon. It was so easy to use that even apprentices could cast it. That was why our ancestors had left human settlements and created hidden werewolf villages to live in peace.
In the end, we were unable to come up with a solution, and started reminiscing about our early days training under Master. I could understand everyone's desire to treat this like a class reunion, but I really wish we could have come up with an effective plan first. It was then that I heard a knock on the door. Before I could reply, Airia timidly stepped into the room.
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Ryunheit's Viceroy, Airia Lutt Aindorf. This may be a little presumptuous of me, but I have prepared dinner for you all. If you would like, please come to the dining hall later."
Airia's arrival got the other girls excited.
"Veight, you never told me such a pretty girl is Ryunheit's viceroy! My, she looks so dashing!"
"Because every time you spot someone you like you try to suck their blood, Melaine. Seriously, you need to stop doing that."
If Airia was turned into a vampire, all my careful planning would go to waste. And that was the last thing I needed right now.
"Master, is Vaito popular with the ladies?"
"I'm not sure I'd say that. He's a rather serious-minded man, after all. Oh yes, back when he had just become my apprentice there was a time..."
Firnir's face lit up, and she leaned closer to Master. What are you, a middle schooler?
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter14.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
"Please tell me more, Master."
And why're you taking out a notepad, Firnir? Smiling, Gomoviroa started talking about my dark past.
"This happened when Veight was around your age. He was practicing exorcism magic when one of the evil spirits he was supposed to purify fell in love with him."
"A girl spirit!?"
"But of course. The spirit of a young human girl, no less. Hoho, that turned into quite the incident."
"Master, do you have to tell everyone that story?"
To be honest, it had been kinda scary having a spirit stalker. Before I knew it, she'd snuck into my room and tried to possess me so that we would be together forever. The whole issue could have been resolved if I'd let Master exorcise her, but I'd taken pity on her and tried to convince her to move on peacefully instead. It had taken a full week. It was thanks to that incident that she'd decided I had no aptitude for necromancy. In her own words, "While understanding the feelings of spirits is important, you must learn to keep your sympathy in moderation."
Well it wasn't my fault! Memories of my past life made it hard to just ignore her! Firnir looked at me and sighed.
"Vaito...if you're kind to every girl you meet, you'll just end up hurting them, you know?"
Look, that isn't my fault. I looked up ruefully and saw Melaine grinning at me.
"But you know, that spirit was totally his type. She looked kind of like you actually, Firnir."
"Really!?"
I waved my hands in dismissal.
"Firnir looks nothing like her! Not one bit!"
In truth, I'd been too busy trying to get rid of her back then to get a good look at her face. Still, it was better to deny any similarities, just in case. Firnir's face fell as she heard my rejection. See, this is all your fault, Melaine.
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Besides, wouldn't it be insulting to Firnir if I likened her to a ghost? Better to resolve the misunderstanding now.
"You are way cuter than she was, so don't worry."
At that, the entire room fell silent.
"Huh? What?"
Seeing her confusion, I hurriedly clarified.
"I mean look, there's no way a dead person could look cuter than a living one, right? Like, you're all healthy and stuff, and you've got a way more agreeable personality and everything."
For some reason, my attempts to smooth things over seemed to be making it worse. Firnir blushed and went quiet. Now it looks like I'm sexually harassing her! I guess praising her hadn't been the right move here. Melaine broke the silence with a pointed cough.
"Is that how you got Airia to fall for you too?"
She was glaring coldly at me.
"What...do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing. I'm sure an upstanding werewolf such as yourself is no womanizer."
There was something dangerous about the way Melaine was grinning. It just keeps getting worse.
"Look, Lady Airia's an important ally and strategic partner! We need her if we're going to coexist with the humans! So stop saying those kinds of suggestive things! You're being rude to her!"
"So she's your life partner after all, Vaito!?"
"Don't twist my words either!"
The two of them continued teasing me about my relationship with Airia for some time afterwards.
I lost my chance to convince them to try a different strategy, but whatever, I don't even care anymore. Besides, it'd probably be impossible to teach a bunch of mages how to run a siege... In the first place, I wasn't all that versed in siege tactics myself. Though the demon army had grown exponentially in scope, it lacked talented officers.
Next time I see the Demon Lord, I need to tell him to start teaching all his units how to run sieges. This is something our army needs. As I finished my preparations, I swore to myself that I'd ask him, no matter the consequences.
The next day, our army departed for Thuvan. Command of the operation had been given to Firnir the Swift Gale. The bulk of the invasion force consisted of the 1500 kentauros she'd brought with her. Melaine, queen of the vampires, led the army's reserves. She'd summoned 300 wax corpses to function as emergency reinforcements. Furthermore, my master, Gomoviroa, had summoned 1000 skeleton soldiers to serve as cannon fodder. Lastly, I'd brought along the 2000 Bone Spears she'd given me before to serve as ambush troops. All told, our army numbered close to 5000 troops.
On the other hand, Thuvan's population was roughly 5000. My guess was, their garrison usually consisted of roughly 150 to 200 mounted archers. And since I'd annihilated 50 of them in the battle a few weeks ago, they were likely undermanned. Mounted archers weren't easy to train. There was likely a good number of militia soldiers as well, but I couldn't begin to guess their exact numbers. Half the city's population was men, and I'd guess about half of those men were young and fit and willing enough to serve, so they had maybe around 1000 or so? According to the reports I'd read, all citizens of Thuvan trained with the crossbow, so most of them were skilled archers.
The biggest problem, though, was Thuvan's walls. They were larger and sturdier than Ryunheit's, and protected by the city's prized ballistae. They fired bolts with enough force to skewer through charging cavalry and destroy siege equipment. Considering how tough the city's defenses were, I honestly wondered if anything other than a surprise attack would work.
"We've finished surrounding the city, sir," Kurtz whispered in my ear. He was in charge of handling the gunpowder—or Dragon's Breath, as he called it—that the Demon Lord had given me. I'd brought him along in case a frontal assault looked hopeless and I needed to blow the whole gate off its hinges.
Thuvan strictly regulated the traffic coming in and out of the city, which was why there were only two gates, one each at the north and south. They liked to keep their technology a secret, so they kept a tight grip on the flow of information. However, this also meant we only needed to focus our assault in two places. Master's 1000 skeleton soldiers, Melaine's 300 wax corpses, and Firnir's 1500 kentauros were stationed at the south side. The undead would be used to take the walls, while Firnir's troops would be used to storm the city.
On the northern side, Melaine had taken control of the 2000 Bone Spears Master had given me. Once we'd finished our encirclement, Firnir sent off a messenger to demand the city's surrender. Her messenger didn't even make it to the gates before he was turned into a pincushion by a hail of crossbow bolts. Looks like they're not interested in negotiating.
The kentauros bristled with anger. Firnir's messenger had been clearly unarmed, yet the humans had shot him anyway. They wouldn't be satisfied until they had their fill of blood. A short distance away, Firnir waved her spear at me.
"Vaito! Could you send the undead soldiers in? Thanks!"
...You could stand to act more like a commander, you know. Well, whatever.
I nodded, twisted my fingers into the appropriate sign, and chanted, "You who have returned from the Gate of Gevina, you who have been barred from the Gate of Haurun, behold. In my right hand, I hold the frozen sun."
The spell used to command the undead never changed. By the way, Gevina was apparently the dark afterlife where spirits slept, and Haurun was the glittering world where spirits went to get reincarnated. I didn't know whether eternal rest or eternal reincarnation was better, but either way, it got these guys moving. The undead soldiers stirred at my words, and I ordered them to advance.
"First wave, raise your shields! Watch out for arrows!"
The skeletons raised their shields in unison.
"Your target is Thuvan's southern gate! Charge!"
500 skeletons raised their spears and shields and marched forward as one. Before they were even halfway across the field, a hail of arrows rained down on them. As I'd feared, Thuvan's crossbows had a long range. They packed quite a punch, too. Plenty of bolts pierced right through the skeletons' shields. While the skeletons may have been technically immortal, they still crumbled if their spines were crushed. Fortunately, they could lose as many ribs as they wanted and still be fine, which meant arrows were little threat to them.
Because of their slow march, however, more than half of them had been incapacitated by the time they reached the gates. More of them had survived than I expected. If the kentauros had attempted such a feat, they would have lost far more.
"Now it's just a battle of attrition."
I nodded at Kurtz's worried assessment.
"For now, we just have to endure. At any rate, time for phase 2."
I spotted Firnir waving her spear at me again, and I ordered the second wave forward. Their advance was timed so that they started forward just as the first wave crowded around the gate. I'd based this strategy on my experiences playing tower defense games in my old life. Though I was on the attacking side this time.
The first wave had taken severe losses, but thanks to their sacrifice, the second wave was able to approach relatively unharmed. After all, crossbows had to be rewound manually. At the rate the soldiers were firing, it was no surprise many of them were growing tired. Plus, a few of their weapons had probably snapped from repeated use. Furthermore, the second wave had Melaine's wax corpses. As the name suggested, they were undead soldiers made of decaying flesh. In other words, zombies. Thanks to their unique characteristics, they were the lynchpin of this strategy. The spell used to summon zombies allowed them to stay active for extended periods of time. In that time, however, the corpses continued to decay, and their waxy, rotted flesh burned easily. They were essentially walking candles. Normally that would be a weakness, but here it would prove to be an asset. The skeleton soldiers escorted the zombies to the gate, acting as unliving shields. Once the zombies arrived, as per their orders, they blew themselves up. It was too far away to make out the aftermath of the explosions from here, but chances were, the field in front of the city had turned into a grotesque spectacle. No doubt the gates were splattered with flammable, rotted flesh. The southern gates were made of sturdy, dry wood—the kind that burned fast.
Still, it was too early to celebrate. If Thuvan caught wind of our plans, we'd be in trouble. There were plenty of simple ways to prevent a fire. All the defending soldiers had to do was douse the gates in water and we'd be toast. Hence why I'd made such a big show of sending in waves of soldiers to attack. I needed to make it look like we were trying to brute force our way through. I'd never be able to order living troops to waste their lives so callously, but skeletons and zombies were already dead. They were just mindless puppets, devoid of both emotions and souls. Now that I no longer had to focus on commanding the undead soldiers, I took Kurtz and joined up with Firnir.
"Thanks, Vaito!"
"Everything's going smoothly so far. Also, stop calling me that."
All that was left was to set the wax-soaked gates alight. Unfortunately, none of our troops could get close enough to shoot a fire arrow without first being barraged by the defenders' bolts. And so I'd entrusted starting the fire to Master. The plan was to have her hit the gates with a bolt of lightning. If we'd had some copper wire, this would have been easy. No point in complaining about what we didn't have, though.
Gomoviroa's childish face scrunched up in concentration, and she started casting a complex spell.
"Sir, what exactly is Commander Gomoviroa doing?" Kurtz whispered, unable to hide his curiosity. That was what made him such a good engineer. The spell Master was casting right now wasn't a lightning spell. Offensive magic wasn't very useful in this world. Spells were usually centered around the caster, and had to follow the laws of physics once they were brought into existence. Which meant hastily chanted fireballs or lightning bolts were as likely to hurt the caster as they were their intended target. There were, of course, ways to guide spells so that you didn't hurt yourself, but considering how long it took to construct such magic, you were better off just smacking someone with a weapon. While I couldn't grasp the precise meaning of her chants, I more or less knew what she was doing.
"She's creating a pathway for the lightning right now."
"What exactly do you mean by pathway?"
Normally, when lightning struck the ground, it was because a pathway of ionized air had linked a thundercloud to the ground. Said pathways were created when there was a difference in charge between the ground and the cloud...or something like that. Anyway, the point was that if Master just fired a lightning bolt off right now, it was more likely to hit one of the armored kentauros than anything. Hence why she needed to create the pathway first.
"Essentially, she's taking aim so that her lightning bolt hits where we want it to. If she didn't do this, there's no telling where it'd go."
"I see..." Kurtz enthusiastically wrote down everything I told him in his notepad. "Can you use magic like that as well, Sir Veight?"
"Nope..."
Please don't remind me of all the magic branches I failed to master.
"Splendid. I'm ready now."
Upon finishing the pathway, Master instantly launched into another chant. This one only took seconds. Converting the mana in the air into electrical energy was far simpler than creating an ion pathway. Master finished casting and swung her staff down.
There was a blinding flash of pale blue light, and a thunderous roar that shook the very air itself. Master's lightning spells were unbelievably powerful. The bolt slammed into the gate, rocking its very foundations. The globs of flesh ignited, creating a massive conflagration.
"Yes!"
Firnir leapt into the air and raised her spear high.
"Alright, every—"
I hurriedly stopped her before she could dash off.
"Wait! The gate still hasn't fully burned down! If you go now while it's still standing, your men'll be wiped out!"
"Oh yeah." Firnir scratched her head and lowered her spear. "Nevermind! Stand by a little longer!"
The kentauros, who'd all been ready to charge, fell back into parade rest. Firnir was clearly a skilled leader, though she was a little too hasty. I looked over to my side and found Kurtz holding a long tube up to his eye and looking over at the gate. I didn't know he had a telescope.
"That's a pretty nifty tool you've got there. Mind if I borrow it?"
"You know what this is, Sir Veight?"
Crap. Telescopes are probably cutting-edge technology here. I quickly came up with a plausible explanation.
"You were looking through it, so I assumed it was observation equipment of some kind. From what I can tell, it uses glass to magnify things that are far away, right?"
"I-Indeed. I'm impressed you could deduce that so quickly."
Surprised, Kurtz handed over the telescope. Upon looking through it, I could tell the south gate had all but collapsed. There was no salvaging it now. The soldiers on the walls were pouring sand and water over it in an attempt to douse the flames, but it was too little, too late. However—I had made one, fatal miscalculation.
"They had an iron gate too..."
As I watched, Thuvan's soldiers lowered an iron grille into place behind the burning wooden gate. They had two layers of defenses. Thuvan was far better defended than Ryunheit had been. It made me a little jealous. Regardless, this was a huge problem. Iron didn't burn. I told Firnir what I'd seen, and her expression darkened.
"What do we do now, Vaito!? Is our only option to get the battering ram out and break through by force?"
Our "battering ram" was just a giant tree trunk plated in metal. It would take a long time before a makeshift ram like that broke down the gates. And we'd lose a lot of men in that time.
"Calm down. I made a backup plan since I thought this might happen."
I turned to Kurtz and said, "Bring me all of the powder."
"All of it!? Do you know how much is in that barrel!?"
"I know. Just do it."
At present, Kurtz was under my command, so he just saluted and did as I ordered. It took a couple of dragonkin to roll the barrel of gunpowder over to me, but I was able to lift it up with one hand. A werewolf's strength sure came in handy at times like these. The whole thing easily weighed around 100 kilos, though half of it was the barrel's weight. I was no expert on gunpowder, but I figured that was more than enough to take out a gate.
"I'll be heading out, then."
"Wait, where are you going, Sir Veight!?"
"To go blow up that iron gate..."
"You're one of our commanders! You can't put yourself at risk like that!"
While Kurtz was arguing with me, Firnir walked over and said, "If that's your plan, I'll help you out. Hop on."
"You're the commander of this army. We can't afford to lose you."
"And you're the governor of Ryunheit. It's not like you're any less important. If you can be reckless, so can I."
Kurtz looked like he was about to faint, but I ignored him and asked, "Alright, I'm gonna need the help of your fastest kentauros. Who would that be?"
I looked over at Firnir's men, and they all turned to her. The young girl puffed out her nonexistent chest proudly and said, "The Demon Lord didn't give me the title of Swift Gale for nothing. I'm our priestess, and our fastest warrior."
Upon closer inspection, I realized that the amount of mana inside her tiny body was far greater than that of the other kentauros. So she's as much of an exception among her people as the Demon Lord is.
As I was debating what to do, I heard a series of loud pops come from the other side of the city. Multicolored sparks erupted in the sky; a signal from Melaine. I'd left her a few dragonkin engineers so they could send messages with their fireworks, or as they called them, Dragon's Jewels. Kurtz looked up at the sky with his telescope and translated the signals for us.
"Enemies, main force, south... It appears the bulk of Thuvan's army is headed this way!"
They must have slipped out through the north gate. I'd told Melaine to keep out of their crossbow's range. The city commander had probably taken advantage of that and sent his cavalry out under the protection of the men on the walls. Which meant they'd probably be rounding either the east or west wall soon to strike at us.
There was no time to waste. I nodded to Firnir, and she raised her spear high.
"May our ancestors watch over us!"
She ripped off her helmet and threw it aside. Next, she unbuckled her armor and let it fall to the ground. She continued stripping until all she was wearing was a thin strip of cloth to cover her practically nonexistent breasts. Then, for some reason, she smiled.
What the heck is going on? Half-naked, she raised her spear and shield high and shouted, "Defensive crane formation! Prepare to intercept arrows!"
With practiced movements, the kentauros rearranged themselves. No human cavalry would be able to manage that as smoothly. Firnir walked up to the head of her troops and roused them with a speech.
"I don't need armor, for you brave warriors are my armor! So long I have you, I'm invincible!"
"UOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
The kentauros cheered. They weren't cheering because their commander had stripped for them, either. Firnir's speech had somehow gotten their blood pounding. The archers slapped their quivers while the fighters banged their spears and shields together.
Now that I think about it, didn't I read somewhere that kentauros considered extremely reckless stunts a mark of valor? Still, I didn't think they'd go so far as to ride into battle unarmored.
"Now is the time for us proud kentauros to show our valor! Let's do this, guys!"
"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
She sure was a charismatic leader. I could see why she'd been promoted to vice-commander.
Before long, I spotted dust clouds on either side of Thuvan's walls. It appeared the mounted archers had split their forces and come from both sides in a pincer attack. They were hopelessly outnumbered, and it was clear this was meant to be a surprise attack to take our commander's head. Unfortunately for them, Melaine had already warned us about their arrival, and we were ready to intercept. Fireworks were more useful than I thought.
"Steady, steadyyy!"
Firnir waited, letting them draw closer. They were almost within bowshot, but still, Firnir didn't make a move. Thuvan's archers drew back their bows, and Firnir finally shouted, "Chaaaaaaaaaaaarge!"
"UWOOOOOOOOOH!"
Both flanks surged forward as one, like one large living creature. The kentauros ignored the arrows whizzing past them and made a beeline for Thuvan's gates.
"Let's go, Vaito!"
"You got it!"
I shouldered the barrel of gunpowder and leaped onto Firnir's back as she thundered past. I'd been worried we'd have to deal with ballistae shots coming from the walls as well as from the mounted archers, but almost no bolts came from above.
"If the crossbowmen above fired now they'd hit their own troops too."
Because Firnir had waited so long to charge, we were pincered between the mounted archers and the crossbowmen on the wall. Naturally, that put us in a precarious position, but this also meant that the defenders on the wall couldn't fire their ballistae. The bolts were too unwieldy to aim with any accuracy, and they were just as likely to hit their own men as they were to hit the kentauros.
Firnir was a lot smarter than I'd given her credit for. Not only that, but she really was a cut above the rest of her men. Even though she had a werewolf and a 100-kilo barrel of gunpowder on her back, she was outpacing them with ease. She was sprinting so fast that it was actually hard to breathe. She definitely lived up to her nickname of Swift Gale.
In seconds, we'd closed in on the gate. Thankfully, a good number of our skeleton soldiers were still alive.
"Line up! Raise your shields!"
I had the skeletons create a path and guard us with their shields. A few defenders from above tried to shoot down at us, but thanks to the shield wall they had a hard time aiming, and most bolts missed. We safely made it all the way to the burning remains of the first gate.
"Firnir, when I jump off, get as far away from here as you can!"
"What about you?"
"I'll figure something out!"
As I shouted that, I leapt off of her back and dashed forward. I ignored the arrows flying past me and threw the barrel of gunpowder as hard as I could toward the gate.
"Eat this!"
I saw the fuse ignite, then a massive shockwave hit me and I lost consciousness.
In hindsight, my plan was beyond reckless. For starters, I'd used way too much gunpowder. But I hadn't wanted to hold back and not bring enough to blow up the gate, so I'd erred on the side of caution and used it all. Still, I'd overdone it by far.
"Haah!?"
My eyes snapped open and I took a look around me. It appeared the explosion had left me sprawled unconscious in front of the city entrance. I'd used so much gunpowder that the iron gate had been blown to bits. Apparently its hinges had been rusted, so it had been even frailer than I predicted. Unfortunately, because I'd used so much gunpowder, the skeletons had all been pulverized. Their bones littered the floor around me. Had I been a human, that explosion would have killed me for sure.
Originally my plan had been to rush the wall with the remaining undead soldiers after taking out the gates, but clearly that wasn't happening anymore. We needed to clear the soldiers above, or Firnir and her men would suffer huge losses charging into the city. And right now, I was the only person near the gates. Guess it's up to me. I leapt up onto the remains of the castle gates. Firnir would be here soon, so all I needed to do was buy us some time. I looked around and saw most of the soldiers were still lying on their backs from the force of the earlier explosion.
"Hear me, soldiers of Thuvan! My name is Veight, the undefeated general of the demon army! Face me, if you have the courage!"
I'd always wanted to declare a challenge like this to an enemy army. I'm glad I spent so much time in my past life practicing in secret. However, what happened next was beyond my expectations. Upon hearing my name, the militia started screaming in terror.
"Veight!?"
"It's Veight the Butcher!"
"The one who slaughtered our army of four hundred!?"
"We're done for!"
They threw down their weapons and ran as fast as their legs would take them. I tilted my head quizzically as I watched them go. Veight...the Butcher? But it looked like I wouldn't have time to ponder for long. Though the militia had fled, the garrison soldiers still stood their ground.
"Show that demon bastard the pride of Thuvan's army!"
A large man stepped forward. His whole body was covered in plate armor, and he was wearing a full-face helmet, so he looked more like a walking suit of armor than a person. He raised his mace and shield, not even flinching in front of my terrifying visage.
"So, you're the demon army's strongest werewolf, huh!?"
"Uhh, I wouldn't go that far..."
"Well, I happen to be Thuvan's strongest warrior!"
Great. He's one of those guys who doesn't listen when other people are talking. He casually swung his two-handed mace with just one hand and yelled, "My name is Luvarius, Captain of the Southern Gate Guard!"
Ah, so he's a famous general, too. In that case, I better accept his challenge. Unfortunately, that earlier explosion had damaged my vocal chords. I could talk just fine, but I wouldn't be able to use Soul Shaker for this fight. To make matters worse, all the surrounding soldiers were stringing their bows. If they loosed in tandem, I wouldn't be able to dodge all the arrows. Luvarius closed in, seemingly still intent on dueling me.
"En garde! I'll show you the mettle of the southern gate guards!"
That really doesn't sound as impressive as you're trying to make it sound. Still, that guy's mace was bad news. It was definitely heavy enough to hurt me. I wouldn't be able to ignore it like I would a sword.
"So long as I draw breath, I won't allow you to lay a finger on Thuvan's citizens!"
So he's more than just a battle-fiend. In that case, I should probably get serious myself.
"Bring it on."
I kicked off the flagstones and rushed forward. Blunt weapons tended to use gravity to their advantage, which meant they were almost always raised overhead and swung down. While the sight of an armored giant brandishing a massive mace was certainly intimidating, it was right before they attacked that you had the best chance of taking one down.
I threw myself at Luvarius' right arm while it was still raised. He tried to knock me away with the shield in his left, but a flimsy metal disc wasn't enough to stop me. I jumped up, used his shield as a stepping stone, and grabbed his right arm in my claws. I then landed behind him, twisting his arm backwards as I went.
"Guoooh!?"
Luvarius' shoulder popped out of its joint, and he screamed in pain. And since I was underneath him now, his body served as a shield against enemy arrows.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter15.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
But apparently the mettle of the southern gate guards was greater than I gave them credit for.
"Damn you!"
Instead of surrendering, Luvarius tried for an overhead throw with his disjointed arm. If he succeeded, I'd be lying face-up on the flagstones and an easy target for his crossbowmen. Unfortunately for him, werewolves were far stronger than humans. Even with his full strength, he couldn't lift me off my feet.
"Ngh! You cretin!"
Just give it up, dude. Realizing he couldn't throw me, Luvarius fell on top of me. Is he trying to crush me with his weight? It was a pretty bold, and actually rather smart move. Dropping to the ground gave him the added advantage of being able to move his disjointed arm again. Unfortunately, it was no use against a werewolf. For one thing, even in armor, he didn't weigh nearly enough. All told, there was probably only 100 kilos pressing down on me. I could carry that much in one hand.
"Up we go."
To prove my point, I lifted him up with one hand and held him in front of me. He tried to struggle free, but the armor restricted his movements.
"Surrender. You're only wasting your energy."
"What are you fools doing!? I don't care if it kills me too, shoot him!"
I could tell from his tone that he wasn't bluffing. After a brief moment of hesitation, the soldiers steeled their resolve and loosed.
"Stop!"
I threw Luvarius to the ground and activated the strengthening magic I'd kept in reserve. By enhancing my kinetic vision, I was able to see the bolts in slow motion and knock them all down in midair. Dang, that was close. If I'd been any slower, Luvarius would have died.
"Did you really think your puny arrows could hurt me?" I glared at the soldiers winding their crossbows. In truth, I'd be in trouble if they kept shooting. "If you continue to resist, I'll slaughter every single person in this city. But if you surrender, I'll spare your lives."
Ah, looks like they don't trust me. Though the soldiers did look shaken, none of them were ready to give up. Guess I need to be nicer about this.
"In honor of the courage you've shown, I'm willing to show you and the people of this city mercy. You stood your ground against the man who slaughtered four hundred troops. It would be a waste to kill you."
Perfect, now I sounded evil, and persuasive. But seriously, please surrender. To my surprise, it was Luvarius who capitulated first.
"Men...lower your weapons."
"Captain!?"
Luvarius struggled into a sitting position and said, "If that werewolf wanted to kill me, I'd be dead already. In fact, he purposely threw me out of the way to save me from being shot..."
He noticed, huh? Luvarius staggered to his feet, turned to me, and took off his helmet. A scarred, middle-aged face looked up at me. He must have been through a lot of fights to have a face that beat-up. He tucked his helmet under his arm and bowed.
"We surrender. I beg of you, have mercy on the citizens."
"As a general of the demon army, I swear no harm will come to them."
When I said that, the other soldiers all dropped their bows and swords. The kentauros flooded in right after, but then stopped when they saw that the fighting was already over. They looked up at me, dumbfounded.
In the end, conquering Thuvan took only an afternoon. When they heard that "Veight the Butcher" had captured the southern gate, the citizens and militia tried to flee through the north gate. But they were quickly surrounded by the Bone Spears I'd left with Melaine, and surrendered. The cavalry that had ridden out to engage the kentauros were overwhelmed by the kentauros' fierce attacks and surrendered. I barely even got a chance to fight... And thus, Firnir's kentauros army was able to occupy Thuvan with only minimal losses.
"That was way easier than I thought it'd be."
Firnir, who was now fully dressed, walked through the city streets together with me.
"Next time you pull something like that, at least keep your clothes on. You gave me a shock."
"You were shocked!? I'm the one who should be shocked."
Since we'd only just captured the city, the two of us were being guarded by a squad of kentauros. Though it was probably unnecessary. Thanks to my sharp hearing, I could hear what the citizens were fearfully whispering about me.
"So he's the werewolf general that killed four hundred men all on his own..."
"I heard he blew apart the gate with a single punch."
"All our militia and crossbowmen tried to bring him down, but not a single arrow reached him."
"I heard he killed the famous Captain Luvarius in one hit..."
I can hear you, you know? Don't you guys know that werewolves have good hearing? Also, I know rumors tend to get embellished, but isn't this a little much?
"By the way, Vaito, what was that thing you used earlier?"
Firnir was clearly referring to the Dragon's Breath. Unfortunately, that was a classified military secret, so I couldn't tell her. Kurtz, who was also walking with us, gave me a silent look. 'Don't say a thing,' he mouthed. So with no other choice, I replied, "A secret werewolf technique."
"Amazing!"
"Yeah, I guess it is..."
Thank god she's simple-minded. Anyway, where's this rotting smell coming from?
We picked our way to the main square where the viceroy's manor was supposed to be. Upon arriving, we found something rather strange. A section of the square had been cordoned off by an iron fence. A large cross rested inside the area, and a half-decomposed corpse was crucified to it. Chances were, the person had been a criminal on death row. Public executions of this nature weren't that rare in this world. Even in Ryunheit, there were public executions for murderers and the like every few years. What caught my eye, though, was what happened to be below the cross. A man was chained to the platform beneath it. Onlookers were throwing rotten food and mud at him, and he smelled like a latrine. I came to a halt, and my kentauros guards stopped with me. Firnir turned back and looked at me quizzically.
"What's wrong, Vaito?"
"There's something I want to make sure of."
I headed over to the cross. The man in chains was old, and wore only a threadbare gown. He was covered in bruises; people must have been throwing rocks at him earlier. Thanks to the squalid conditions he'd been imprisoned in, his wounds were all infected. He was utterly drained, and lay unmoving on his side. His breath came in ragged gasps and he was obviously on death's door.
"Vaito, is he someone you know?"
"I...don't think so."
Just in case though, I asked, "Is that you, Bishop Yuhit?"
The wounded old man slowly opened his eyes. Though his appearance had changed drastically, he was indeed the same bishop of the Sonnenlicht Order that I'd banished.
"Vei..."
His cracked lips trembled as he struggled to speak. I ripped the iron grille out of the way and rushed over to him.
"Yuhit!" Ignoring the stench that invaded my nostrils, I lifted Yuhit up and smashed the shackles binding him to the cross. "Get a hold of yourself! What happened to you!?"
Kurtz looked at the sign next to Yuhit's body and said, "It's written here: The rebel Belit is hereby stripped of his position as commander of the garrison and sentenced to death. The traitor Yuhit is to be chained up until he dies."
"Traitor!?"
I couldn't fathom Yuhit being a traitor. I mean, he had betrayed us, but he would never betray the humans. My guess was, they'd forced him and the commander to take responsibility for the failed attempt to retake Ryunheit. Considering the weight of the decision and the anger of the people whose friends and family were killed, I supposed it was a natural reaction. After all, what Yuhit had done was technically illegal. But that was no excuse to treat an old man so cruelly.
"Listen up, humans!"
I roared loud enough for my voice to carry across the square. A few of the people who'd been observing from the shadows shrunk back in fear. However, I had everyone's attention now.
"Is this how you do things!? Does stringing up a defenseless old man really bring you that much satisfaction!?"
"Hey, Vaito..."
Firnir tried to pull me back, but I shook her off.
"If you want him to pay for his crimes, then you should just kill him! What reason do you have to torture him like this!?"
Shouting calmed me down a little, and I suddenly realized how strange it was for someone in my position to be saying this. I had totally forgotten that, right now, I was one of the Demon Lord's generals. I needed to spin this into something demonic, and fast. Uhhh, wait, I got it. I hurriedly organized the story in my head and sneered.
"I must say, this is pathetic! Even when the enemy was at your gates, you wasted your time tormenting a pitiful old man! And thanks to the fact that you executed your own commander, taking your city was a piece of cake!"
I smashed the cross with a well-placed punch, freeing Belit's corpse. My sneer grew wider as I watched wooden splinters clatter to the floor.
"It's because you're like this that you've already lost twice to us demons! You had best say your prayers, for I won't show you any mercy!"
There was one more thing I needed to say, as Ryunheit's governor.
"This bishop here was sent as an official envoy of the demon army, and he is one of Viceroy Airia's diplomats! Your treatment of him is an insult to my city, and to the demon army!"
What was the point in working so hard to preserve Yuhit's title if they were just going to do this to him? His punishment was my responsibility. Even though I used to be human, I'd failed to anticipate that this would be their response. After threatening the citizens for a while longer, I turned to Firnir and said, "Alright, I've set myself up as the bad guy, so now you have to show you're the kind demon ruler. They're terrified of me, so if you just say some nice things, they'll cling to you."
"O-Oh... I see." Firnir nodded in understanding and yelled in a loud voice, "Uhh, don't worry everyone! I'm going to be the ruler of this city, so I won't let that scary werewolf do anything to you!"
She kept her voice reassuring, but she didn't forget to add, "As long as you don't defy me, at least!"
Yep, that's the way. Rumors of that incident spread fast, as rumors were prone to do, and in half a day everyone in the city had heard of it. Of course, they'd been exaggerated quite a bit. By the end of the day, I was apparently furious that the people of Thuvan had the gall to lock up one of my messengers, and I was looking to slaughter every one of them. Though in this instance, it was better not to set the record straight.
In the confusion following in the wake of the occupation, I snuck Yuhit out of the square and took him to the viceroy's manor. As I was settling into the room I'd commandeered, Firnir poked her head in and asked, "What are you gonna do with that old guy?"
"Since I made him a messenger of the demon army, I have an obligation to protect him."
"You do?"
I didn't, actually. It was normal to treat your messengers as disposable pawns in this world. Incidents like the one where Thuvan had killed Firnir's unarmed messenger were commonplace. Being a messenger for the army was a dangerous profession.
The viceroy's servants had cleaned and bandaged Yuhit's wounds, but he was so emaciated that he didn't have the strength to rise from his bed. It probably didn't help that he was running a fever thanks to his infected cuts. The simplest solution would be to let him die. However, I possessed the power to save him. I should at least try to heal him.
I wasn't too skilled at healing magic, but I had the scientific knowledge to know how to disinfect wounds, which gave me an edge. Since his infection was likely bacterial, detoxification magic, which had disinfectant properties, would work well here. Furthermore, I'd be able to bolster his immune system using strengthening magic. After that, I just had to feed him a steady supply of mana and fluids, and hope he made a full recovery. Whether or not it'd work was up to his god, though. Kurtz came with me to watch me treat the old man.
"You're a kind man, Sir Veight," he muttered.
"It's my fault he suffered. I feel like I owe it to him to save him this time."
"Aren't you worried he might betray you again after he's recovered?"
"If he does, I'll kill him myself this time."
Fortunately, it appeared my healing magic did the trick. That evening, his condition stabilized. Given time, he'd heal. When I went to see him, I found him awake and lucid. He was still weak, but he had enough strength to talk.
"Sir Veight... Why are you here? Wait, does this mean Thuvan has fallen?"
"Correct." I sighed, and continued, "Once you've healed, we're going back. Make sure you're ready to leave."
Yuhit's eyebrows rose up in surprise. He struggled into a sitting position and whispered, "You mean..."
"You're Ryunheit's bishop for the Sonnenlicht Order, aren't you? Or would you rather retire and spend your remaining days in Thuvan?"
After the initial shock passed, Yuhit closed his eyes and shook his head.
"No... I have no right to remain here. I'll return to Ryunheit."
I ordered a pair of skeleton soldiers to guard Yuhit and keep an eye on him while I went to check out the other rooms. As I approached the main office, I heard Firnir arguing with Thuvan's viceroy.
"You killed one of my messengers! Do you really think I'll show you mercy just because you surrendered?"
"I understand you're angry, but..."
Still in my werewolf form, I strode into the room.
"How're the negotiations going?"
Upon seeing me, the viceroy fell to his knees.
"I beg of you, please forgive us! I'll do anything if it means you'll spare our lives! Please, have mercy!"
Did he start crying just from seeing my face? While Thuvan's viceroy was the one who'd sentenced Yuhit to such an inhumane punishment, it was also true that Yuhit had committed a grave sin. I was willing to let that issue slide. So seriously, stop crying. The remaining negotiations went incredibly smoothly. I just had to glare or click my tongue, and the viceroy instantly acquiesced. After he'd accepted all of my conditions, the only thing left was to decide how to deal with him.
"Vaito, what do you think we should do?"
"I wouldn't want to sit at the same table as someone who orders the torture and death of unarmed messengers."
I bared my fangs, and the viceroy toppled out of his chair. Firnir clopped over and pointed her short spear at his neck. In a low voice, she snarled "You killed one of my messengers too. I hope you realize I don't like you very much."
"Eeeek!"
"You're not welcome in my government. Understand?"
The viceroy nodded fervently. Thuvan's viceroy was neither an incompetent man, nor an evil one. But both Firnir and I agreed that he couldn't be trusted. Average rulers weren't fit to use as allies. The only people we'd let join our side would be those who were exceptional.
We gave him the choice of retiring here or leaving for another city, and to no one's surprise, he chose to leave. Anyone who would abandon their subjects out of fear wasn't fit to work with us. I couldn't care less where he went. It'd be nice if he didn't end up like Yuhit, but if he did it wouldn't be my fault.
I'm glad Airia turned out to be one of the good ones. I should probably be nicer to her. Maybe I'll get her a souvenir from Thuvan. I wonder which she would prefer more, the ballistae we plundered, or the mounted combat strategy books we found?
I couldn't afford to leave Ryunheit unguarded for long, so I ordered Kurtz and his dragonkin engineers to pack up as soon as possible. As all the undead soldiers fighting at the southern gate had been destroyed, I'd only be able to take half the Bone Spears I'd given Melaine back with me; a mere 1000. It'd be nice if Master could make more, but considering her condition...
The remaining Bone Spears were needed to guard the city walls and the viceroy's manor. Their presence probably terrified the citizens, but the kentauros couldn't fight well in the city, so they were a necessity. It appeared Melaine would be staying behind for some time as well in order to help Firnir organize the city. I should probably say goodbye to her and check up on Master before I go.
As I walked into the main office, I found Melaine perusing Thuvan's most important reports. Master was lying on the bed nearby.
"Melaine, how's Master feeling?"
"As you can see, sleeping soundly. She won't wake up for a few days at least, I don't think."
During the battle, she'd expended all her mana supporting the kentauros and healing the injured. She was quite the terror on the battlefield. But in her sleep, she looked like nothing more than a cute, innocent child.
Though she was a powerful mage, Master's body was weak, and her heart wouldn't even beat without a steady supply of mana. Apparently long ago, back when she'd still been human, someone had almost killed her. She'd used magic to resuscitate her heart. One side-effect of that spell was that she'd stopped aging ever since.
Anyway, since she needed mana to survive, burning large quantities of it left her physically drained like this as well. There was a complex magic theory that explained the details of how mana interacted with her body. I wasn't able to fully understand it, but the way I interpreted it was basically that her HP and MP were the same now. I wasn't sure if that was technically correct or not, though. I'm a pretty shitty apprentice, huh?
In the end, it was two days later that I told Melaine to take care of the rest and hurried back to Ryunheit. Yuhit still wasn't able to walk, so we put him in one of the dragonkin unit's carriages. His family and most devout disciples followed after him. They had all asked to seek refuge in Ryunheit, and I'd found no reason to deny them. Apparently they'd been feeding him and treating his wounds in secret. It was the only reason he'd lasted as long as he had. Most of his disciples were engineers and former soldiers, so I figured they'd be useful to keep around. Now then, it's time to get going. I was worried about how my city was getting along. I bet there'll be a mountain of paperwork waiting for me. Maybe I shouldn't go back after all... Well, no point in complaining about it.
"All units, it's time to go home!"
1000 Bone Spears, 24 dragonkin engineers, and a couple dozen refugees safely passed through Ryunheit's main gates. The first thing that happened after my return was Fahn marching up to me and lecturing me about not being so reckless.
* * * *
—Melaine's Drunk Ramblings—
Fir! Firnir! Come over here for a sec. Eh, don't worry about the paperwork, it's fine. I'll get it done in a flash later. Come on, just sit with me for a bit. Pour me a drink, will you? Good girl.
You did a pretty good job today. As far as I can tell, the humans are being pretty obedient. It's all thanks to your management. It's nothing to get embarrassed about, really. Besides, if anyone tries to start trouble, I'll turn them into a vampire and make them my slave. So don't worry.
I guess I could just take a leaf out of your book and threaten to bring Veight back here too. Oh, hmm. Yeah, I guess you might be relying a bit too much on Veight's reputation. But honestly, I don't see anything wrong with it. Until you're able to handle everything on your own, you may as well use his name as a crutch. Seriously though, when did Veight get so big? Was I really so unreliable that he had to grow up that fast? Oh yeah, that reminds me of this one story.
You know how you kentauros have had it really hard these past few decades? Well, the vampires are the same way. Ah, thanks for the refill. 100 years ago, when I first became a vam... Err, nevermind. Basically, a while back, vampires were way more impressive than they are now. Our warriors were as strong as the best werewolves, and we could control humans just by staring into their eyes. And you know, back before I became a vampire, we were supposedly even more powerful. Ancient vampires could fly through the sky, transform into mist, and were like, totally invincible. Yeah, just like that.
Anyway, we've been growing weaker over the centuries. Modern vampires can't fly, and they can't control people just by looking at them either. Well, I guess we are practically immortal now, and we've built up a resistance to the sun and holy crosses, but that's really it. Because we got complacent with our strength, our race started this long decline. I actually went to Master's place to learn magic because I was worried we'd have no future unless I did something about our weakness.
That was when I first met Veight. He was just a little kid back then, a really cute little kid. But you know what he said when I told him all that stuff about vampires and how I was worried about our future?
"Regression is just another form of evolution."
At first I was just like, what's this kid yapping about? I thought he was just saying whatever because werewolves have always been strong and he'd never had to worry about stuff like that. The more I thought about it, though, the more I felt like I got what he was trying to say. Our ancestors had been really strong, but they'd been practically wiped out by humans. Meanwhile, we're doing just fine. We can pass through gates that have crosses carved into them no problem, and the sun can't hurt us. So we're way better at surviving than the vampires of the past. We might have lost a lot of our old strength, but we've become a lot more tenacious too.
When I figured that out, I realized that little twerp was a way smarter disciple than I gave him credit for. I figured I'd look after him as thanks, but it turned out he was way more mature than I thought. When I told him I'd realized what he meant, he said something about natural selection or something that didn't make much sense... And he said we were like the "Native Americans." Is that a werewolf term or something?
Anyway, the point is thanks to our Master, I found a way for vampires to survive in this world. Apparently most of our race has a strong affinity for necromancy. You know, I can make 5...no wait, 7...no wait, 10 undead soldiers in a day! And after I had some of my followers train under Master too, they were able to summon a single skeleton a day. You might not know this, but once you can summon undead creatures, you're considered a fully-fledged necromancer. I know Master can create like 100 in a day, but she's insane so it's different. Point is, now there's a way for us vampires to thrive. We just need to take our race in a new direction. Veight put it pretty well before; if we want to survive, we have to throw away our old selves. Have you heard of this saying? "Yesterday's sun will never rise again." I think it's pretty apt.
Okay, enough gloomy talk! Fir, you got any interesting stories to tell? Come on, I'm sure you've got a few. If not, we can always talk about love. It's obvious you've got a crush on Veight. You're so easy to read. Huh!? Of course not, he's like my little brother, there's no way I'd be in love with him. Seriously! Besides...that guy's way too dense...
He'll get reincarnated before he ever learns how to take a hint. Well, I'm rooting for you. If you ever need advice, you can always come to the beautiful Melaine. Big sister here'll point you in the right direction. Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me. I almost forgot about the documents. I'll handle them tomorrow.
Wait, you need them done tonight?
* * * *
After helping with the conquest of Thuvan, I spent some time solidifying my rule in Ryunheit. I wanted to give my report to the Demon Lord too, but I couldn't bring myself to ask Master to teleport me when she was still weak. I'd visit the Demon Lord after she'd rested up some. For now, I was making do by sending Kurtz to deliver any news to the castle. He entered my office after finishing his latest report and I turned to him and said, "Kurtz, you have no idea how grateful I am that you're around. If I asked one of my werewolves or canines to act as messenger, I wouldn't be able to explain what I mean by Dragon's Breath."
Over the past few weeks, Kurtz and I had grown rather close, and I casually handed him a meat skewer I'd bought earlier. It was the same one with the delicious sauce that I'd tried some time back.
"I'm partial to the skewers sold by the stall here. I hope you like them as much as I do."
"It's scrumptious."
Dragonkin were carnivorous, so of course they ate meat.
"I imagine this sauce would pair perfectly with locust."
"...Sure."
Though it seemed they still preferred insects above all. He downed a few more chicken skewers, and I treated him to a cup of my prized green tea afterward.
"I'm glad we were assigned a trading city. The variety of food here is wonderful. Would you happen to know what seasoning is used for this, sir?"
"It's a salty seasoning made by fermenting a certain kind of beans."
Nice to know soy sauce has fans, even in another world. Though I guess this isn't quite soy sauce. Kurtz nodded a few times then said, "I believe my lord might find this seasoning to his liking. Could you tell me where you purchased it? I think I'll purchase some with my earnings."
As I suspected, Kurtz was rather close to the Demon Lord as well. At the very least, he was close enough to know the Demon Lord's tastes. I better be extra careful not to say anything rude...
"I am also curious where you were able to grow such a fragrant tea without fermenting the leaves. If possible, I'd like to present this to the Demon Lord as well. Would it be alright if I took a few leaves back with me?"
"I don't mind. I just hope the Demon Lord likes it."
Considering how much trouble I'd gone to find these, I was reluctant to part with them. It wouldn't do to be stingy though. I could spare one box; I had another three hidden away, after all. Kurtz heaved a relaxed sigh and watched the steam swirling above his cup.
"Oh yes, I took the liberty of harvesting soil samples from both Ryunheit and Thuvan. I was thinking of taking them back to Grenschtat on my next visit and having the engineers there run an analysis on them."
"You guys can do that?"
"Some of my comrades have particularly sensitive tongues. Dragonkin have traditionally used taste to analyze the components of soil...it's possible there might be valuable ore veins nearby."
While their approach to research was academic, it appeared their technology still hadn't caught up to what they wanted to do. Hence why they still used methods like this for certain tasks. Afterwards, I handed Kurtz another pile of reports and saw him off as he left with his comrades through the south gate. Godspeed, Kurtz. I hope the Demon Lord likes soy sauce and green tea. May the love of Japanese food spread far and wide.
After seeing Kurtz off, I went to check up on Yuhit. While his recovery appeared to be progressing smoothly, the days of exposure and abuse had left him permanently weakened. He could no longer walk without a cane. I tried to spend as much time as I could with him, but his heart had been scarred by the experience.
"Is it really alright for a sinner such as myself to continue living? These old bones are responsible for the deaths of so many men, and the suffering of so many more..." Yuhit muttered sadly. I pondered his words for a few moments. Even in this world, where magic was real, the dead couldn't be brought back to life. Master could reanimate the dead soldiers' corpses if I asked, but they would still be soulless puppets. Not living people.
Theoretically, it was possible to reincarnate someone's soul into another life using transmigration magic, but as the reincarnated soul had no memories, there was no way to be sure it really did what it was supposed to. Besides, reviving someone without their memories in a different body kind of defeated the purpose of reviving them. No matter what anyone tried, the dead were dead. So in the end, all I could say to Yuhit was, "It's true that thanks to your actions and mine, four hundred of Thuvan's soldiers now lay dead."
Technically I'd just been doing the proper thing as a military commander while he'd committed treason, but now probably wasn't the best time to mention that.
"I don't regret my actions, but if you regret yours, then the only way to pay for your crimes is to save as many lives as you killed."
What I'd told him was an adaptation of the demon army's motto: Pay for your failures by succeeding as hard as you failed. Yuhit stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded.
"Save as many lives as I killed, huh..."
"If four hundred isn't enough, then save eight hundred, or even four thousand if that's what it takes. That won't erase your sins, but it's still better than moping around doing nothing." I rose to my feet and nodded to the bishop. "Hurry up and get better. I need you to lead the people of the Sonnenlicht Order. They're growing uneasy."
Without waiting for his reply, I strode out of the room. I hope that wasn't too harsh. Well, it's probably fine either way.
Yuhit did indeed return to his post after recovering, but his teachings were slightly different now. Before, he'd preached unity through force, but his sermon the night before had been far less totalitarian.
"I was foolish. To think that all humans need to possess the same values and same morals to coexist is the misguided wisdom of man. But the wisdom of God runs much deeper. After all, does he not give light to all, even those who believe in other doctrines? Surely that must mean..."
Apparently he'd begun preaching that coexistence with heretics and demons was the true path to enlightenment. I had no clue what had caused his change of heart, but thanks to him, the Sonnenlicht Order finally stopped causing trouble for the other sects. They started treating everyone they met with kindness, and even the coarse werewolves started to like them.
Soon enough, there was no one left in Ryunheit who wished to oppose the demon army. Both the city's garrison and its religious orders were happy to cooperate with us. The overall popularity of our rule also led to a most unexpected development.
"Sir Veight, do you have a moment? There's something I wish to discuss with you."
One evening, Airia came to visit my office. I finished signing the last of the documents for the day and looked up at her.
"By all means. What did you want to talk about?"
I waved at the chair across from me and she sat down. With a determined gaze, she looked right at me and said, "I was thinking of having Ryunheit secede from the Meraldia Commonwealth."
"You what?"
Stunned, I shot to my feet. I scrutinized her expression carefully, trying to see if this was some kind of joke. Are you sure you're sane?
At present, the demon army had total control of Ryunheit. But in the end, we were just an occupying force. Ryunheit was officially a member of the Meraldia Commonwealth. In other words, we were holding Ryunheit hostage, and were really nothing more than an invading force. Unfortunately, as far as humans were concerned, we were neither a legitimate army nor a legitimate state. And now that we'd conquered all the nearby cities, the only hope Ryunheit had of liberation was from Meraldia's main army. But if Ryunheit seceded from the Commonwealth, Meraldia wouldn't bother to save them. In fact, Ryunheit would make themselves Meraldia's enemy. Every city would turn against them. While I was still trying to formulate a response, Airia explained further.
"Once we've declared our independence, I was hoping we could form a formal alliance with the demon army."
"Wait, hold on a second."
I was glad she was interested in joining our side, but I couldn't help but be worried about what this would mean for her.
"You may be the viceroy and all, but you can't just decide something this important all on your own. Let's calm down and talk this through first."
"Fear not." Airia pulled a bundle of letters out of her pocket. "All of the merchant guilds, all members of the Sonnenlicht Order and Mondstrahl Church, and the city garrison have all formally agreed to my proposal."
"You're kidding."
After my initial shock wore off and I was able to think calmly about Airia's proposal, I realized it made sense. The odds of Meraldia rescuing Ryunheit from the demon army had become exceedingly slim. In which case, switching sides would be advantageous for the city. While I happened to be treating the citizens with respect, if I died in battle there was no guarantee my replacement would be as lenient. But if the city went independent and formed an official alliance with the demon army, Ryunheit's future would be secure. Still, this might be too bold a move.
"I'm surprised you're willing to bet everything on us."
Airia smiled and placed the stack of letters on my desk.
"Ryunheit's a city of merchants. Every decision we make, we make after carefully weighing the potential risks and rewards."
"And by your estimation, this reckless plan will bring you the greatest profit?"
Airia smiled awkwardly and said, "You're the one who convinced us of that, Sir Veight."
I did?
"After seeing how you governed the city, the people came to believe that the demon army was someone they could trust. Surely if you speak on our behalf, you'll be able to convince the Demon Lord to let us ally with you?"
I understood where she was coming from, but I still wasn't convinced. Seeing my hesitation, Airia leaned close to my ear and whispered, "I hope you'll be able to negotiate favorable terms for us, as we were the first city to join your side."
Aha, so that's your plan. She was a crafty one, this viceroy. In that case, I should respond in my capacity as the vice-commander of the demon army's third regiment.
"So you're throwing your lot in with the demon army then? Understood. I'll do everything I can to convince the Demon Lord."
I held out my hand and Airia gripped it in a firm handshake. There was something extremely invigorating about the smile she gave me.
* * * *
—Technical Officer Kurtz's Official Report—
• Sixth Scheduled Report (Classified) •
Author: Special officer Kurtz of the dragonkin engineering squad. Preliminary results are in. Though the investigation is still ongoing, I thought it prudent to file a report.
• On the State of Ryunheit •
Ryunheit's occupation is progressing extremely well. There is no chaos one might expect from a new government that was installed by force, and both the city's public safety and economy have suffered no damage. To my surprise, Ryunheit's garrison is assisting Sir Veight in maintaining order. Though they technically claim to be a neutral party, for all intents and purposes, they are cooperating with the demon army. Both me and my squad have attempted to analyze how such a thing is possible, but we have yet to come up with a satisfactory hypothesis.
The citizens hold no ill will toward the demon army either. I suspect the greatest reason for that is Sir Veight elected to respect the laws and customs of the residents.
More research is needed before I can create a conclusive report on the viceroy, Airia, but she appears to be a diligent ruler who takes her duties seriously. Details to follow in future reports.
• Thuvan's Conquest •
As Thuvan's defenses were sturdier than expected, the plan to coat its gates with rotted flesh then set them alight with lightning magic failed. The army's primary force, its kentauros were unsuited to urban warfare, while the undead soldiers that made up the reserves were unfit to charge the gates. That restricted our strategic options greatly. However, Vice-Commander Veight put his backup plan into action and successfully destroyed the city's gates. Thanks to his bravery, Thuvan fell with minimal losses. Unfortunately, his plan used up all of the reserve Dragon's Breath we had in stock. I would humbly like to request a resupply, so that we may resume manufacturing Dragon's Jewels. Furthermore, there were a few issues with Sir Veight's treatment of our classified weapon.
- He packed the extremely volatile powder into a large barrel.
- He performed no prior experiments to test the powder's effects.
- He used the powder in a reckless manner, putting himself, the commander, at risk.
- He made use of the Dragon's Breath without coming up with a plausible cover-up story beforehand.
I believe most of my complaints arise from the fact that I am essentially a civil officer while Sir Veight is a military one, but regardless, I will insist that he leaves the handling of unstable weapons to the experts in the future. However, I cannot deny that his novel usage of the Dragon's Breath has given me inspiration to develop a new style of weapon.
Moving on, the people of Thuvan are irrationally terrified of Sir Veight, and seem unlikely to resist the demon army's rule. As an experiment, I told three captured soldiers "Vice-Commander Veight would like to have a word with you." All three of them nearly fainted on the spot. It took quite some time to calm them down, and I decided that any further experiments would be too inhumane to perform. As a result of these and related experiments, however, I and multiple other technical officers, were able to confirm the different terms citizens of Thuvan use as nicknames for Veight.
Veight, the Killer of 400 Men. Veight the Butcher. Veight the Destroyer. Veight, Lord of the Undead. Veight the Werewolf General. Veight the Bringer of Dusk. From what I can surmise, that final nickname is related to the fact that Sir Veight used a bishop of the Sonnenlicht order as a mere messenger.
• New Equipment •
Upon first hearing about the Dragon's Jewels, Sir Veight was clearly disappointed. However, he was instantly able to grasp that these weapons were meant to be a signaling tool. Moreover, he was able to make practical use of them in his first battle, and successfully avoided a surprise attack by enemy cavalry. The consensus among the technical officers is that he understands the value of the Dragon's Jewels well.
His sharp insight extends to other tools as well. He was instantly able to grasp that my telescope was a device meant to aid someone in viewing far away objects. Not only is he a perceptive individual, he is flexible enough to apply what he discerns in unorthodox ways.
• Postscript •
Courtesy of Sir Veight, I have procured a number of interesting and delicious food samples. I am sending them together with this report. I pray you find them to your liking.
* * * *
The next time I had an opportunity to give my report personally to the Demon Lord, I brought up Airia's proposal to him.
"Mmm, I see..."
We were in his private parlor, and there was no one else in the room. For what functioned as his office, it was a tiny space. The Demon Lord nodded and said, "A bold proposition, but one that seems both reasonable and profitable. I trust your word, Wight, but what do you think of this viceroy?"
How many times do I have to tell you it's Veight, not Wight? Regardless, now was the time to vouch for Airia.
"In my experience, Ryunheit's viceroy, Airia, has been both rational and wise. She is always sincerely working for the sake of her citizens." None of what I'd said was a lie. I honestly believed she was a capable and wise ruler. "Furthermore, Ryunheit's forces and the forces under my command have a good relationship with each other. I doubt any fatal problems would arise from an alliance between us."
Now that the garrison troops and the Sonnenlicht Order had been pacified, the two groups who might have posed a threat were no longer an issue.
The Demon Lord listened to my case, then nodded solemnly. "This alliance would benefit us greatly. However, it would also greatly influence the future course of my army. I need to consider your proposal carefully."
So he needs more time after all... The Demon Lord flipped through the reports in his hand and asked, "Incidentally, I heard you used all of the Dragon's Breath that I sent you in the battle for Thuvan. Is that true?"
I figured he knew. I straightened my back and hurriedly explained myself.
"The outcome of the battle hinged on my plan's success, so I used it all to be doubly sure I would succeed."
Had we not broken through the gates, we definitely would have failed. I didn't regret my decision to use all the gunpowder there. I'll admit that I overdid it, but I only know that now with the benefit of hindsight. I expected the Demon Lord to get angry at me, but he just nodded silently.
"Understandable. However, this weapon is still a military secret, and not all of its properties have been explored, so refrain from using such tactics in the future. Are we clear?"
"Yes, sir!"
"In return, I shall adopt your suggestion and ask my engineers to start developing weapons we can use in sieges."
Oh, now that'll definitely help.
"I have also heard that the Dragon's Jewels proved useful in your battle. Now that their combat effectiveness has been proven, you are permitted to continue using them as you see fit."
"Thank you for your generosity."
If I could keep using fireworks from now on, it would be possible to plan more sophisticated strategies. That would definitely help in the battles to come.
The Demon Lord rose from his chair and stared out his window. The few plants that were visible through the fog were a vibrant green.
"It's almost summer. The perfect season for fireworks," he muttered.
"It is indeed, my lord."
Pleased at how our earlier conversation had gone, I nodded without thinking. Wait a second. Something's wrong here. The Demon Lord turned around and scrutinized me.
"What exactly are fireworks, Veight?"
"Uhh, they're..."
"The only weapons I provided to you were Dragon's Jewels. So I ask you again, what exactly are fireworks?"
"Well..."
It was then that I realized. The Demon Lord had switched to speaking Japanese.
"Looks like you understand Japanese, huh, Veight?"
Not only was he speaking it fluently, he no longer seemed to have any trouble pronouncing my name. This doesn't make any sense. Actually no wait, it does. Both me and the Demon Lord were former Japanese.
"Could it be that you're also..."
I chose my words carefully, but the Demon Lord answered casually in Japanese.
"Correct. Like yourself, I'm someone who was reincarnated."
Unable to control myself, I shouted, "You what!?"
The Demon Lord offered me a chair and continued in Japanese, "Here, take a seat and calm down. I'll explain everything from the beginning."
Too shaken to argue, I slumped into my chair. The Demon Lord started by prefacing with, "I'm not sure if the Japan I lived in and the Japan you lived in were from the same age, or even the same timeline, but..."
He then went on to explain that when he'd been reincarnated, the dragonkin clans were bickering amongst themselves. The cause of their divisions had been the humans. In order to mine the rich ore veins in the mountains, the humans had driven off the dragonkin clans living there by force. The displaced clans had been forced to migrate to mountains inhabited by other tribes, which had sparked conflict between the newcomers and the old residents.
Worried about the direction the race was headed in, the Demon Lord had used might to unite all the clans. Once he'd unified them into a cohesive force, he'd led them on a series of successful campaigns, and drove the humans out of the mountains. Then, in order to protect the habitats of demons all over, he formed the demon army and started recruiting from every race.
There had, in the past, been multiple demon heroes who'd earned the title of Demon Lord, but Friedensrichter was the first among them to lead an army composed of all demonkind. Thanks to the efficient, modernized army he'd organized, he was able to win battle after battle against the humans. By utilizing tactics from his own past life, he was able to transform the demon army into an invincible force. After all, the world in his memories was far more advanced than this one.
Damn, that sounds like a lot of fun. I wish I'd been able to do that...
"I never imagined there would be others who were reincarnated into this world. But then, I was so focused on my next battle that I never had time to consider the possibility. However, that changed when you appeared before me."
At first, the Demon Lord had thought I was just one of his more talented subjects. However, he'd noticed my distaste when he'd slipped up and accidentally pronounced my name as Wight, which had caught his attention. That alone, however, hadn't meant much. After all, everyone got angry when people mispronounced their names. And so, the Demon Lord had paid no further heed to it. He had, however, practiced hard to get my name's pronunciation right.
"You're surprisingly diligent about this stuff, Demon Lord."
"You were risking your life for me, so I felt bad about not at least getting your name right..."
It was only when I'd tried making gunpowder myself that he'd started to suspect I might not be from this world.
"Dragon's Breath...a.k.a. gunpowder. When you tried creating some yourself, I thought there might be a possibility."
In fairness to him, it was a staple for anyone who got reincarnated into another world and ended up becoming a soldier to try crafting gunpowder as soon as possible. It was at that point that the Demon Lord had purposely started calling me 'Wight' to gauge my reactions. However, it still hadn't been enough to convince him. Especially since a disciple of the Great Sage Gomoviroa might well have been able to invent gunpowder all on their own.
"At any rate, the reason I was so obsessed with the idea that there might be other reincarnated people here wasn't that I was getting nostalgic for my old life. I just wanted to recruit more people who had the same wealth of knowledge and shared the same perspectives on life that I did. Had you not governed Ryunheit the way you had, I probably would have lost interest in you."
While I had been on the Demon Lord's mind for a while, he couldn't give me any special treatment just because of a hunch, so he'd remained silent on the matter.
"However, you continued to succeed using your unorthodox style of ruling. Of particular note to me was how you'd captured Thuvan, and the fact that you'd won over Ryunheit's soldiers."
Though I hadn't realized it, apparently it was around that point in time that my fame had started to spread. The Demon Lord then took out a familiar tea tin, along with a fragrant jar, and put them on his desk. They were the green leaves and soy sauce substitute I'd sent him.
"When officer Kurtz sent me these green tea leaves and this jar of soy sauce, I knew this wasn't just a coincidence anymore."
"Wait, did you send him to me in an attempt to investigate my true identity, my lord?"
"No. My only intention was to have him assist you. Though I did also wish for him and the men under him to learn from your governing style."
That statement proved to me that Kurtz was someone the Demon Lord trusted. And as the Demon Lord had hoped, Kurtz sent back accurate reports on my actions and behavior.
"There is one thing that I do not understand, though. How is it that you never even suspected that I might also have been reincarnated?"
"How was I supposed to have even guessed?"
The Demon Lord replied with a straight face, "Shouldn't it have been obvious after hearing my name?"
"By name...you mean Friedensrichter?"
"Correct. It's a German word that means 'bringer of peace.' I gave that name to myself as a reminder to never let my power get to my head."
If you wanted me to guess that, you should have picked an English word.
"Most dragonkin names remind me of German words. So when I was crowned Demon Lord, I had no choice but to pick something similar as my new name."
Apparently it was because I hadn't reacted at all to his name that the Demon Lord had had such a hard time figuring out if I'd been reincarnated or not. How the hell would I guess something as obscure as that!?
"With all due respect, my lord..."
"Speak."
"This is all so sudden and my mind's still reeling from the shock, so..."
The Demon Lord didn't get angry. Instead, he looked at me apologetically and said, "Hold, I understand your confusion, but you have to consider my position here."
"I understand your position better than you think, my lord. But still, couldn't you have sent out a call for all reincarnators in the demon army to show up before you or something more straightforward like that?"
The Demon Lord coughed and hastily said, "Now wait just a second. This is still partially your fault for not knowing German. Naming myself Friedensrichter was the greatest compromise I could make, considering my situation."
Really?
"It would become problematic if word spread that I had been reincarnated, and that I was looking for others who were too. I have no doubt that pretenders claiming to come from a different world than ours would have tried to curry favor by saying they'd been reincarnated. I had to proceed cautiously in order to prevent anyone from abusing my authority."
I see. I hadn't realized being a leader required planning every move so carefully. Though I understood his reasoning now, I still hadn't sorted out my thoughts. And I was still a little confused. My confusion must have shown on my face, since the Demon Lord bowed his head and said, "My apologies for being so roundabout. I realize I handled this matter awkwardly... No, the truth is, I was simply afraid. Afraid of knowing for sure what you were."
"Oh, uh, don't worry too much about it. I may not be as experienced as you, but I get why you did it."
It was surreal to see the Demon Lord, who always looked so imposing, giving me such a meek apology. So much so that I felt kind of bad. I much preferred his usual intimidating self.
"Now then, I think it's time I talk about the real reason I called you here. As I am a demon, I wish to protect my people from the humans. But as a former human, I also cannot bring myself to hate them. My goal is to create a country where humans and demons can live in harmony." The Demon Lord stood up and walked over to my side. "I have no interest in who or what you were in your past life. I'm not particularly inclined to share my own past life either. But I believe you share these conflicting feelings of mine. So, will you fight together with me and help grant this impossible dream of mine?"
I didn't even need to think about my answer. I stood up and bowed to one knee.
"Right now, I am a werewolf, a proud member of the demon race. If it's to prevent the amount of demon and human blood spilt in this world, then I will follow you wherever your path may lead."
"Thank you for remaining loyal, Veight." The Demon Lord placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. "Now that I've confirmed you've been reincarnated like me, I know I can trust you. I have no issue with welcoming Viceroy Airia and Ryunheit into our alliance. I'll sort out the details later, after holding a meeting with the other commanders."
Perfect. I'm sure Airia'll be happy to hear this too.
"I'll be expecting great things from you in the future. Work hard for the sake of the demon army."
"Yes, sir! I'm still not sure if I've gotten over your sudden confession, but I'll do my best!"
"You sure are hung up on that..."
The Demon Lord smiled and shook his head. Heartened by his response, I smiled back.
"Well, no matter. I suppose I deserve a little grudge for that. Shall we eat dinner together? I need to talk to someone who understands my troubles."
"It would be my pleasure."
After dinner, we continued talking late into the night. It seemed the Demon Lord had had his fair share of troubles in the beginning too. He had wanted to improve the food shortages within the dragonkin clans by revolutionizing agriculture. However, dragonkin were carnivores that preferred eating insects, so even though he'd introduced staple grains and crop rotation, it didn't do any good.
"With no other choices left, I was forced to take up beekeeping and beetle cultivation."
"You started breeding...beetles?"
An image of the Demon Lord wearing a straw hat and digging through the mountains looking for insects flashed through my mind.
"Dragonkin have always been hunter-gatherers, so the idea of domesticating their food source was a novel idea to them."
"Getting everything up and running must have been tough, huh?"
The Demon Lord nodded and closed his eyes.
"I'd only read the basics of agriculture and animal husbandry in my old world, and I had no practical experience with either... Finding species that were good for breeding was extremely difficult as well. It took me and my engineers many sleepless nights to come up with an efficient system too."
Even though he could have left everything to his men, he suffered with them. He sure is dedicated.
"Thanks to my efforts though, all the bugs that used to be just delicacies became widely available to all dragonkin. Moreover, all the insects were high in protein, so they made a good staple food. Most dragonkin now are bigger and beefier than they were decades ago." The Demon Lord sounded a little proud as he said that. "The next species on my list to domesticate is grasshoppers. If it goes well, I'm sure Baltze will be happy."
Sounds like he's having a lot of fun doing this. The Demon Lord had brought a bunch of other technology to the dragonkin clans, but as expected, it had been tough. And, like agriculture, not all of them had stuck. After all, dragonkin were biologically different from humans. Even when it came to using swords, they didn't wield them in quite the same way. The skeletal structure of their shoulders and hands were completely different.
"I realized I couldn't just transplant human culture and technology to the demons as is. So I refined my approach."
He started teaching them more fundamental technologies and concepts, and then watched as they adapted those ideas to their needs. So kind of like giving them the start of a skill tree and seeing where they specced all their points. I had no idea if the Demon Lord had been a gamer in his previous life or not, but if he had I had no doubt he'd mained strategy games.
His biggest concern for the army had been how impossible it was to standardize things. For example, giant armor was too big for any other race to wear, and the amount of food a canine needed in a day to survive wasn't nearly enough for anyone else. Furthermore, every race ate different things.
His ideal had been to create an army that surpassed racial boundaries, but at present, he'd been forced to compartmentalize his units by race. The more I listened, the more I realized the Demon Lord was someone who really liked looking after people. And he had a diligent personality to boot. There wasn't a selfish bone in his body, and he had no interest in amassing fame or power. His only wish was to create a world where demons could live peacefully.
Thank god he ended up our Demon Lord. I felt like this ridiculously straightforward guy was someone worth devoting myself to. I promise I'll keep working hard as your vice-commander.
A few days after that meeting, Airia walked into Ryunheit's square wearing a formal gown. She turned to the people gathered there and proclaimed in a loud voice, "From this moment onward, Ryunheit shall leave the Meraldian Commonwealth, and form an alliance with the demon army!"
Her declaration was met with resounding applause. Everyone was smiling, from the residents of the city, to its soldiers, to the werewolves, canines, and dragonkin that occupied it, and even to the vampires and kentauros who'd come to witness this historic event.
"In celebration of Ryunheit's newfound independence, I have prepared a feast for you all! Everyone, eat and drink and sing to your heart's content!"
The tail end of Airia's speech was drowned out by a chorus of cheers. The Demon Lord, who I'd come to respect a lot more after our conversation the other day, had granted her the title of Demon Ambassador. As the name suggested, she was meant to serve as a bridge between humans and demons. While Airia was technically a civilian and not a soldier, the Demon Lord had bestowed upon her a rank equivalent to that of a regiment commander.
Wait, doesn't that technically mean she's higher-ranked than me? I idly sipped my drink and watched as Commander Airia walked over to me.
"Congratulations, Lady Airia."
"Thank you, Sir Veight."
She smiled and raised her glass in a toast. I rose mine in return and the two of us gulped down our wine. Until now, she and all the citizens of Ryunheit had been the demons' hostages. But from this point on, they were humanity's enemy. On the off-chance that the demon army was defeated, they would be executed to the last man. The sight of Thuvan's execution grounds passed through my mind. If I failed, she'd be the one strung up there. Of course, Airia understood that full well, too.
"From now on, our fates are interlinked, I suppose."
"That they are. Do you regret your choice?"
She shook her head.
"Not at all. In fact, I'm happy."
She's definitely a weird one. Her grin grew even wider and she said, "More importantly Sir Veight, I'm technically your superior from now on, aren't I?"
"Hmph, I guess so..."
She was an honorary commander now. Meanwhile, I was still stuck at vice-commander. Though I had sort of been promoted myself. I was no longer a vice-commander in the third regiment, but in the first. My direct boss was the Demon Lord.
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter16.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
Of course, that didn't change the fact that I was just a vice-commander still. I was fine with that, though.
"You're the best person to lead the humans under our rule, so it made sense that you got promoted. But the position of vice-commander suits an ordinary guy like me. Seeking out too much fame will just lead to ruin."
"Sir Veight...was that meant to be a joke?"
"Not at all. I sincerely believe you're a far more capable leader than me."
For some reason, Airia responded to that with a sigh.
"You should think more highly of yourself. You're one of the Demon Lord's most trusted generals, Sir Veight."
Is that really true, though? I mean I know I've been made the Demon Lord's personal aide, but I don't think that necessarily makes me someone that special in the army. Since the command structure in the army was still vague, even I wasn't sure just how much authority I had.
Regardless, from now on my job was to cooperate with Airia and transform this border trading city of Ryunheit into a frontline base that welcomed both humans and demons through its gates. To be honest, I wasn't even sure where to start, but I did know the demon army's battles were only going to get harsher from here on out. After all, we'd just spit in Meraldia's face by capturing one of their cities and then converting it to our side. Looking up, I saw the demon army's flag flying proudly from the roof of Airia's manor.
"I'll be counting on your support, Sir Veight."
"You got it. Looking forward to working with you, Lady Airia."
"You better work hard, for Ryunheit's sake."
"Just leave it all to me."
Wait a second, since when did I become Airia's gofer? I looked up dubiously, but she was just giving me the same innocent smile she always did.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/copyright.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
Copyright
Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
by Hyougetsu
Translated by Ningen
Edited by Meiru
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Hyougetsu / Nishi(E)da
Illustrations by Nishi(E)da
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2015 by Earth Star Entertainment
This English edition is published by arrangement with Earth Star Entertainment, Tokyo
English translation © 2018 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property.
J-Novel Club LLC
j-novel.club
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: September 2018
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/extra.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
Veight's Younger Days
I mentioned before that I don't remember much about my past life, but the truth is, I don't remember much about what happened right after I was reincarnated either. My guess is that my infant brain didn't have the capacity to properly process thoughts. The earliest memory I have is a fuzzy recollection of my father's funeral.
During my childhood, I lived in a secluded village comprised entirely of werewolves. It was a small village, situated deep within the woods. What I'm about to tell you is a story of what happened there when I was 10 years old.
* * * *
"Ooooi, Veight! Come on, let's go on a wildeboar hunt!"
The Garney brothers had come to invite me with them today too. Garbert, the older brother, was two years my elder, while Nibert, the younger, was the same age as me. Both of them had fiery red hair, a rarity among werewolves. While most werewolves were hunters that used stealth and surprise to their advantage, red-haired werewolves had monstrous strength and preferred to take their prey head-on. They had the pride to match their strength, and that made them reckless.
Wildeboars were a breed of particularly aggressive and dangerous boar that lived near the village. They picked a fight with any creature they thought they could beat. No human could survive the force of a wildeboar's charge. Hence why the last thing I wanted to do was go hunting for one.
"It'll be fine, we'll be coming with you. Don't tell me you're scared."
Of course I'm scared. While wildeboars were vicious, they were no match for a werewolf. They were smart enough to know that, too. If a werewolf was already in their transformed state, no wildeboar would dare approach. Normally, the people from our village hunted them by remaining in human form to lure them out, then transforming at the very last second. The thrill of the wait and the rush that came from overpowering your foe after trapping it was the main source of entertainment for the village's more immature kids. As I was already an adult—mentally anyway—I saw no appeal to hunting.
"If you want to catch a wildeboar, just use a trap. Didn't you two get blown away because you waited too long to transform last time?"
The Garney brothers sneered at my response.
"Hah, you really are a weakling, Veight!"
"There's no way a wildeboar's charge could ever kill us!"
Big words, considering the two of you were stuck in bed for two days after that incident.
"Either way, I'm not going. I need to help out with the fieldwork anyway."
It was just me and my mother at home. While everyone in the village pitched in to help each other and no one went hungry, my mother still had it tough raising me on her own. She was my one and only mother, so it was natural that I wanted to help ease her burden. Unlike these two brats, I didn't have time to be goofing off.
"Tch. Let's just go by ourselves, bro."
"Yeah, if we keep hanging out with this loser we'll turn chicken too."
By all means, do whatever you want. My mom in this world was called Vanessa. Naturally, she was a werewolf too. From my perspective at least, she was an extremely reliable single mom. And according to her, she was only 27 years old. If that was true, it would mean she'd had me at 17. Whenever I brought that up with her, she'd always pinch my cheeks and change the subject.
I picked up the basket at my feet and walked through the village. It was a tiny, dilapidated village made up of little more than a smattering of wooden huts. Barely 100 people lived within it. Thanks to the werewolves' natural strength we weren't doing too terribly, but it was still a declining village. Eventually I found my mother digging up potatoes at the communal farm on the outskirts of the village.
"Why hello there, Veight. You're not going out to play with the other kids?"
"Nope. I thought I'd help you with the harvest."
"That's my boy. If your dad was still alive, he'd be so proud of you."
My father had died when I was still an infant. Supposedly he'd perished protecting the village from a monster. Werewolves were technically a type of monster too, but we and the other sentient monsters called ourselves 'demons' to differentiate us from the more savage races. It was a mark of pride to us that we could develop cultures, societies, and cities.
Most monsters weren't able to create such a complex society. They were just savage, mindless beasts. As communicating with them was impossible, we had no choice but to fight them off wherever we found them. However, humans saw no difference between us and regular monsters. They attacked us on sight, and so we were forced to live in remote villages far from civilization, much like the one I lived in now. Idle thoughts like these crossed my mind as I helped my mother dig out potatoes.
I walked along a narrow furrow and carefully dug up another potato with my hoe. This world's potatoes weren't too different from the sweet potatoes back on earth. Never thought that field trip in elementary school where we went out to a farm and dug up potatoes would come in handy here.
"Mom, what are we gonna do with these potatoes?"
"The elder said this winter will be a long one, so all of these are going to be stored in the granary. It's a shame, but we won't be able to eat them yet."
Looks like we're not eating any baked potatoes this year. Sweets were hard to come by in the village, so I'd been looking forward to enjoying the sweet potatoes fresh. Ah well, come winter I'll be eating so many I'll get sick of them.
"You know, if you let them sit for a few months, they get even sweeter." Mom flashed me a grin. My mind was clearly an open book to her. I scratched my head, embarrassed that she'd seen right through my gluttonous thoughts. Then, as if she'd just thought of something, my mother asked, "By the way, did any of the kids head into the forest today?"
"The Garney brothers did. They said they were going wildeboar hunting."
My mother's expression grew grim.
"That's not good. Could you find them and tell them to come back?"
"I don't mind...but you know they won't listen to me, right?"
The Garney brothers were technically my cousins, but they both thought I was a coward. However, my mother just smiled gently and said, "Tell them the elder ordered them back. They'll listen then. There have been reports of humans sneaking around the woods recently."
That wasn't good. There was nothing more terrifying for a demon than a human. We would be in a whole heap of trouble if any of them discovered this village. Since we were much stronger than humans, we'd easily be able to kill a few strays who wandered close. But then the comrades of the people we killed would come looking for their missing friends. And if we killed them, they'd just send even more people. There'd be no end to it.
I dumped the potato I'd just dug out into my basket and brushed off my pants.
"I'll go bring them back."
"Be careful out there."
Now that I think about it though, I used to be a human in my past life. Which made it rather strange that I was scared of humans now that I'd been reborn into a werewolf. Though I was just 10 years old, in my wolf form, I was pretty strong. There was no way a human, who couldn't even beat a wildeboar, would stand a chance against me. Werewolves were overwhelmingly powerful when it came to one-on-one combat, but no demon race had fought against a human army and won. Even the legendary Demon Lords of the past hadn't been able to defeat the humans. To make matters worse, the humans had been steadily expanding their sphere of influence. Even this village wouldn't be safe forever. It was up to us to keep it hidden for as long as possible.
My thoughts were interrupted as a vaguely human scent entered my nostrils. I heard footsteps nearby, and I hurriedly threw myself into a nearby thicket. I peered out through a tiny gap in the leaves. A little girl entered my field of view. From the looks of it, she was the same age as me. She wore a pointed hat on her head and carried a long staff in her hands. Is she a witch? A forest full of wildeboars wasn't the kind of place a normal human girl would be able to survive very long in. She was either a highly proficient mage, or another demon. There was no guarantee she was an ally even if she was another race of demon, and if she was a human she was most definitely a foe. Either way, I needed to get out without getting seen and alert the Garney brothers. Before I could make a move though, the thicket behind me started rustling. Something was closing in at great speed.
"Huh?"
A second later, I was sent flying. The force of the blow knocked me out for a few seconds. When I came to, I was lying face-up on the path winding through the forest.
My entire body ached. Fortunately. even in our human forms, werewolves were tough. Everything hurt, but I hadn't taken any serious injuries. Looks like I'll be alright... Or not. I sat up, and saw myself face to face with a wildeboar. It was on the smaller side, but even small wildeboars were the size of a small car.
"Uwaaaah!?"
I hurriedly transformed into my wolf form, but that was the wrong move to make. Intimidated, the wildeboar did an about-face and ran off as fast as it could. However, the young girl I'd spotted earlier was now in its path. Without even bothering to consider who she might be or what the consequences of that were, I yelled out, "Watch out! Run!"
I ran after the wildeboar, but even in my werewolf form, my stunted child's legs weren't fast enough to catch up to it. The girl turned around and grumbled, "What's all this ruckus?"
Upon seeing the wildeboar, she touched the tip of her staff. A faint pillar of light sprouted from it and solidified into the shape of a sickle. The girl swung the sickle of light down at the wildeboar. The moment its tip reached the beast, it fell to the ground and skidded a few meters through the dirt. Well, that was anticlimactic. The girl shook her staff a few times, and the blade of light vanished into mist.
"Mmm. Deploying the spirit blade delays the spell's synchronization more than I thought. Perhaps I should alter the final stanza..."
She patted the tip of her staff while mumbling to herself. It appeared she thought nothing of the wildeboar she'd just ended. The girl sidestepped past the collapsed boar and trotted over to me.
"Are you alright, werewolf boy?"
"Y-Yeah...I'm fine."
It felt a little condescending to be treated like a kid by someone who looked no older than me, but I was too intimidated by her impressive display of magic to do anything but nod meekly. As far as I could tell, there weren't any wounds on the wildeboar's body. On the surface, it looked like there was nothing wrong with it. Whoever this girl was, she was dangerous. She noticed my terrified gaze, and then realized what her actions must have looked like to an outsider.
"Ah, my apologies for that. Should I drain the blood from its corpse for you? Werewolves eat these creatures, don't they?"
"I mean we do, but..."
I'm more curious about who you are. Without waiting for my reply, the girl walked back to the wildeboar and touched its hide.
"I'll use a draining spell to suck the blood out now."
Oh shit. She's definitely one of those dangerous wizards. Anyone who knows spells to suck out people's blood can't be normal.
"There was a time in the past when draining a person's blood was considered a valid medical treatment. Originally this spell was designed to aid in that treatment, but it's just as effective at killing people by desiccating them and draining the blood from slaughtered livestock."
The girl removed her hands from the wildeboar's hide, lecturing me on a rather terrifying topic all the while. Where the heck did that blood go? I was afraid to ask, but I had a feeling I knew the answer anyway. The girl's face was flushed, so it wasn't hard to guess. Still trembling in fear, I started when I heard another noise from the thicket behind me.
"Seriously, you need to stop transforming so early!"
"I thought you'd be able to catch it, bro!"
The Garney brothers burst out of the foliage. So that wildeboar had been their prey after all. They spotted me, and then the girl and the dead boar beside her. Had it been just me and the wildeboar, they probably would have accused me of stealing their prey, but the presence of an unknown girl complicated things. Neither of them were known for their intelligence, and this was more than they could process.
They looked from me to her, then back to me. Unable to make any sense of the situation, they then stared at each other. Finally, Garbert opened his mouth and said, "Hey, Veight..."
"Yeah?"
"Wanna help us carry the wildeboar back?"
Why do I have to help?
"I see, so your name is Veight. Mine happens to be Gomoviroa. Well met."
The girl in the pointed hat who was apparently called Gomoviroa smiled at me. I wasn't sure what I should do with this girl, but just telling her to go back was probably not the best of options. I watched the Garney brothers try to drag their prize back to the village out of the corner of my eye, then turned to Gomoviroa.
"Ms. Gomoviroa, why are you here?"
"Mmm... Just call me Movi."
"Does it really matter what I call you? Just tell me what you're doing here."
Gomoviroa frowned and replied, "I came here to meet you werewolves."
"Us?"
"Indeed. I am currently researching the ecologies of different demon species. I'm here to investigate what kind of environment the werewolves live in."
Investigate, huh? That certainly sounded suspicious. She could use magic, wanted to research the world, and was far older than she appeared. Just like me. Could she be another reincarnator? Seeing my suspicious gaze, Gomoviroa straightened her back and looked me in the eye.
"I am no mere human. The aging of my body stopped centuries ago...I think? At any rate, I have lived a long time."
"How old are you now?"
"I stopped counting long ago, boy. Besides, did no one teach you that it's rude to ask a single woman her age? Regardless, I'm much older than you."
Gomoviroa pulled her hat low, covering her expression. I couldn't hide my surprise. This was a real eternal loli, in the flesh. I'd seen a lot of new things since being reincarnated, but this was a first.
Seeing as Gomoviroa was no normal human, I agreed to guide her to our hidden village. There was no way I'd be able to overpower her or kill her in order to keep her silent, so the best thing to do was just agree to her request. I could have tried to run, but considering the Garney brothers were still loitering around, she would have just found them instead. While the two of them were strong in a fight, they were worthless at anything that required stealth or speed.
"You are a surprisingly accepting boy, you know that?"
"What do you mean?"
My tone was guarded, but Gomoviroa just smiled.
"In most cases, hidden villages are hidden because their inhabitants do not wish for outsiders to find them, correct?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Yet you agreed to guide me regardless."
"I wouldn't be able to hide its location from you anyway, so I thought it'd be better to bring you to the elder and let him decide what to do..."
"You're wise, for one so young."
More like I'm older than I look, just like you.
As I'd feared, there was a huge uproar when I brought Gomoviroa to the village. However, Gomoviroa just said a few words to the village elder, and the commotion died down almost immediately.
"She says she's a friend of the dragonkin clans..."
"The dragonkin outnumber us. Making them our enemy would cause problems, so let's do as she asks."
"At the very least, we should hear what she has to say first."
The adults were trying to talk in hushed tones, but I could hear everything they said. While I was interested in hearing more, at present I was still just a child.
"Veight, could you bring me a knife? I need to carve up this wildeboar!"
"C-Coming!"
I hastened to my mother's side.
Wildeboars were just a subspecies of boar, and so their meat didn't taste too different from pork. Since they spent most of their days running around searching for prey, their muscles were lean and stripped of excess fat—which made them delicious. Large wildeboars were smoked or pickled for future consumption, but since the one we'd brought today was small, we decided to eat it all in one go. Werewolves needed a lot more food than most races. Around the time I finished helping make dinner, Gomoviroa exited the elder's hut. It appeared she'd finished talking to him.
"Mmmm, I suppose in this situation it would be impossible..." she muttered to herself.
I shouldered a piece of freshly grilled meat and jogged over to her.
"Did you finish your investigation...Miss?"
I'd been more casual with her at first, but now that I knew she was older than me, it was only right that I be more polite. Besides, she seemed to be someone important. Gomoviroa nodded and smiled sadly at me.
"The more I hear about the werewolves' plight, the more I pity you. If only something could be done to improve your situation."
Plight, huh? It was true that the current state of werewolves in this world was a far cry from the depictions I'd seen in stories. We were every bit as strong as in the legends, but we were also living in secret, trying to hide from humans.
"When I was as old as I look, werewolves were the scourge of mankind. They would sneak into human villages and start hunting the inhabitants one by one. Even if the villagers knew there was a werewolf in their midst, they had no way of knowing who it was."
Come to think of it, there'd been a game with that exact premise in my old world.
"Does that mean werewolves lived together with humans back then?"
"Indeed. However, it seems werewolves eventually decided to separate themselves from human society and live in seclusion. While the primary reason was that humans had grown more crafty and developed stronger weapons with time, there was one other reason for the werewolves' exodus."
What else could there have been? I tilted my head in confusion, and Gomoviroa grinned at me.
"While humans and werewolves may be of different races, they both have feelings. Many werewolves found they could not bring themselves to eat the people they'd lived together with for so long. You truly are a kind people. Even you tried to save me though you didn't know who I was, did you not?"
"Uhh, well..."
I could hardly tell her that was because I used to be human too, so I just smiled awkwardly and shrugged. Gomoviroa tapped my shoulder with her staff in response and said, "Well, enough of that. Today has been a long day, and I am rather tuckered out."
"Oh, we just finished making dinner if you want to join us. It's wildeboar stew."
"Now that sounds like quite the meal."
That evening, everyone in the village showed up for an impromptu festival. It was ostensibly in honor of the guest who'd arrived. We didn't have much else to do for fun in the village, so people really went all out.
"Oi, Garbert! No snatching food before the start! Naughty boys like you deserve a spanking!"
"Oww, that's really hot, Fahn! Stop, Owwww!"
Fahn, who was holding a pot of stew, chased the Garney brothers away from the food. She was normally really kind, but when she got angry she was a terror. Personally, I was a fan of celebrations like this where everyone got to cut loose a little. Especially since werewolves were all really kind to their own. The best thing about parties like these, though, was the food.
While werewolves were constantly hunting for prey, we rarely caught enough to let everyone eat their fill. I needed to eat a full kilogram of meat before I was satiated. And thanks to how much stew we'd made, I'd be able to eat to my stomach's content.
The party was held at the village's central hall, which was really just a shack that was a bit larger than the others. Cauldrons of stew lined the main table, with platters of skewered meat interposed between them. Since reincarnating, my biggest issue with this world has been food. Back in Japan, I'd been able to get fried chicken and fresh-baked croquettes from a convenience store whenever I wanted, but here a decent meal was hard to come by.
Once the festivities were in full swing, the adults brought out their precious wine. Us kids were stuck with juice, of course. The elder, who was sitting next to Gomoviroa, held up his porcelain mug and said, "Let us thank our ancestors for blessing us with this fateful encounter. Eat well, my brethren, so that this day may remain forever etched in your memory. A toast to our guest!"
"Cheers!"
I raised my wooden mug towards my friends Monza and Jerrick, then got to work on devouring the tower of meat in front of me. In seconds, my mouth was packed to the brim with lightly salted grilled meat.
Wait. This tastes kind of weird. Since Gomoviroa had drained it of blood, the meat didn't reek or anything, but at the same time, there was no juiciness to it. It tasted like chicken breast that had been left in the oven too long. From the looks of it, Monza, Jerrick, and the Garney brothers were all thinking the same thing.
"Hey, doesn't this taste weird to you?" Monza muttered.
Jerrick nodded in response.
"It tastes really dry. Did the cook grill it for too long?"
"Fahn's the one who cooked it. There's no way she messed up."
I was rather fond of Fahn, so naturally I came to her defense right away. Gomoviroa poked at her food for a bit, then grinned and looked up at me.
"It appears I was a bit overzealous when draining the wildeboar's blood. You see, my spell doesn't differentiate between blood and any other liquids inside a creature."
Ahh, so that's why it's so dry. My mother smiled gently at me.
"Don't worry, Fahn and I realized that as well when we tasted it earlier. But if you put the meat in the stew, it'll taste perfectly fine. You just need to let it soak for a little while."
That explained why they'd spent so much extra time making stew. Thank god my mother was a genius chef. The mother I'd had in my past life had... No, better not to think about it. Regardless, I was glad I'd been reincarnated here.
After the party was over, Gomoviroa mentioned that she'd be staying the night. Since our house had extra room, we decided to let her sleep with us. Like every other building in the village, our house was made of logs. If you wanted to be fancy, you could call it a log cabin. While the cabin only had a single bedroom, there was a loft above the storage closet. Said loft was my 'room,' so I did have some semblance of privacy. My mom slept on the old bed downstairs.
Our house was pretty run-down, but then most villagers' houses were. Some of the larger families all slept together under one blanket in just one room, even. Our house at least had a few other makeshift spaces.
"Feel free to use my bed, Miss Gomoviroa."
Gomoviroa smiled and shook her head.
"Oh, I couldn't. Besides, I have my own bed right here."
She pulled out a handkerchief and waved her staff. The handkerchief floated into the air and expanded before my eyes. In seconds, it was as large as a bedsheet. It reminded me of the floating carpets I'd seen in cartoons. Though I guess in this case it's a floating bed, not a carpet.
"Oh my..." my mother whispered, awed.
Gomoviroa's grin grew wider, and she said, "Most nights I sleep floating like this. However my magic cannot stave off the elements, so I'm grateful you're providing me a roof to sleep under."
She hopped onto her floating bed and took off her pointed hat. With a snap of her fingers, the sheet rose higher, until it was level with the loft. She really was an impressive mage. I'd never seen anyone do the kinds of things she did.
As I settled into my bed, I realized the way I was positioned meant Gomoviroa was right in front of my face. She was lying on her stomach, idly kicking her legs through the air. It was honestly kind of cute. Transfixed, I continued to stare until she finally noticed and floated her sheet closer to me. She docked it against one of the rafters and asked, "Trouble sleeping?"
"It's just, I'd never seen magic before, and..."
Gomoviroa smiled a little self-consciously and said, "There aren't any mages among the werewolf clans, after all. In truth, my speciality is necromancy. I'm still in the process of refining flight magic like this."
"Does that mean I could do things like that too, if I practiced?"
"Fufu, perhaps." Gomoviroa chose her next words carefully. "Magic is much more difficult than people believe. In order to cast a spell that has any practical purpose, one must understand its fundamentals."
"What do you mean, fundamentals?"
"For example...take this flotation spell here. Its core comes from the spell used to walk on water."
I couldn't even begin to guess how floating and walking on water were related.
"And the spell to walk on water is comprised of a combination of other spells; the spell to manipulate weight, the spell to keep something level, and a few others. Only after mastering all of those spells can one cast a spell like this."
Her explanation was starting to make sense now. You saw similar systems in games pretty often. Like how if you learned the spells Fire Pillar and Tornado, you could combine them to create Fire Tornado. After spending a few minutes digesting that information, I asked, "By manipulating your weight to be lighter, and fixing yourself in place by using magic that keeps you level, you can walk on water even though its surface is uneven, right? So if you cast the same spell but made yourself even lighter than air, you could make yourself float, right?"
I thought it was just simple reasoning, but my deduction apparently shocked Gomoviroa. She jolted upright and exclaimed, "How did you—!? You have sharp wits, boy..."
"Huh? Uhh, thanks?"
"Wind and water are more similar than they appear. Thus, spells to manipulate water are also effective at manipulating the wind... However, few understand that instinctively like you do."
"I-I see..."
I was at a loss for how to respond. To be honest, I hadn't expected her to be this impressed. Gomoviroa's interest was piqued now though, and she asked me another question.
"Let's try this next. The spell to make an enemy's weapons and armor rust requires you to first learn the spell to set things alight. Why is that?"
We learned about that back in middle school. If I recalled correctly, it had something to do with oxidation. Though I had no idea how to explain that in a way that didn't seem suspicious. After a little consideration I said, "If you burn a needle or a nail, it becomes dull and brittle. When something rusts it also becomes dull and brittle, so I guess fire and rust must be related somehow?"
"Indeed. Well reasoned, boy."
Gomoviroa looked impressed, but honestly, this was getting a little awkward. It's not like I'd made that observation on my own or anything, I'd just happened to already know. Gomoviroa nodded to herself a few times, then sighed.
"It would be a waste for someone of your talents to languish here. However, werewolves are hunters by nature. I imagine a hunter such as yourself has no interest in the mysteries of magic..."
Now hold on just a second! I would like nothing more than to be taught magic, actually. My physical strength was average for a werewolf, but I felt like if I learned magic I'd be able to grow much stronger than I was now. And if I grew stronger, I'd be more respected too. At this rate, I was doomed to forever be the laughingstock of the Garney brothers.
Besides, if I learned how to use magic, I'd be able to hide our village better from humans, and we'd have an easier time hunting for game and farming vegetables. I straightened my posture and joined my hands together in a pleading gesture.
"I want to become a mage like you!"
Surprised, Gomoviroa cut short her musings and looked up at me.
"You wish to become a magician? Why would a werewolf turn to magic?"
"I'm...not really that strong. But I want to be!"
Upon hearing that, Gomoviroa's expression grew stern and she asked, "For what purpose?"
"I want to protect everyone in the village. Also... I kinda want the other kids to respect me more."
In truth, the latter was more of a driving force than the former, but I was too embarrassed to say that. Gomoviroa was a little taken aback, but then she chuckled and said, "You're one honest kid... Very well, I suppose we can at least find out whether or not you have the aptitude to use magic."
"Really!? Thank you so much!"
"But know that if you lack the talent, you will have no choice but to... Are you even listening to me?"
And so, I became the Great Sage Gomoviroa's disciple. From that day onward, Gomoviroa would visit our village regularly. Every visit, she would give me a lesson, then assign me with homework to complete by the next time she came.
"First, let us have you master the basic foundations of magic to see what class of spells you're proficient in."
"I'll do my best, Teacher!"
She put a finger on her chin and looked pensively at me.
"Teacher, huh... I know all my other disciples call me that, but could you not find a more grandiose name to call me?"
The heck's that supposed to mean? I guess there is one thing I've always wanted to call someone.
"Okay, Master Gomoviroa!"
"Mmm, I like the sound of that. You have good naming sense, boy," she said and patted my head.
Gomoviroa's training was much harsher than I'd expected. While I possessed naturally large mana reserves, Gomoviroa struggled to find styles of magic I had any affinity for. First, she tried to see if I could use necromancy like her.
"The fundamentals of necromancy stem from speaking with the spirits of the departed, and leading them to salvation. It is only those who understand and care for the dead who are granted permission to use their mortal shells. It is a magic that must never be misused."
"Yes, Master!"
As most mages were mortal, they tended to pick up on the concepts of necromancy with relative ease. Unfortunately, I had no aptitude for it whatsoever. I managed to learn enough to control undead creatures other people had summoned for me, but I couldn't raise them myself.
"It's rare to find someone so unsuited to necromancy... In a way, it's a talent unto itself."
Even Master was impressed by how little talent I had for necromancy. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was reincarnated.
Next, Gomoviroa tested my potential in phantasmal magic. As the spells in this category all required little mana to use, it was easy to see whether or not one had an affinity for it. Unfortunately, it appeared I wasn't suited for phantasms either.
"I see you have little artistic talent."
"I like looking at pictures, but I'm not very good at drawing them."
"'Not very good' is an understatement, my boy. Try absolutely terrible. Is...that meant to be an apple?"
Master pointed to the tiny illusion floating in front of me.
"It's supposed to be a wolf, Master."
"A wolf, you say..."
I know I'm not very good, but at least don't mistake it for an apple!
After that, we tried destruction magic.
"In order to create a fireball, one must combine the spell to ignite a spark, the spell to maintain something at a constantly high temperature, and the spell to throw mana."
"That sounds like a lot of effort."
"Because it is. Even masters of destruction magic need ten seconds to summon a fireball. Nor are these fireballs all that powerful... At your level, the best you'd be able to create is something strong enough to singe a log."
"Sounds like it would be faster to just transform and beat my enemy to a pulp."
"It would indeed. Let's just move on to the next category."
Next on the list was transportation magic.
"By the way, boy, are you good at arithmetic?"
"Nope."
"In order to teleport just yourself to a place you can see, you need to solve equations on this level in your head. Does this make any sense to you?"
The moment I saw the formula Gomoviroa was drawing, I abandoned all hope of ever learning transportation magic.
"Just so you know, in order to teleport somewhere further than what you can see, you need to manage twice as many formulas. The greater the distance, the more complicated they get."
"I give up..."
Transportation magic required solving for the destination coordinates all in your head, which was something so difficult even Master still struggled with it.
"Also, for long-distance travel, you need to also factor in a large elevation difference. If you're not careful, you'll find yourself meeting a grisly fate."
"What'll happen to you?"
Gomoviroa closed her eyes and sighed.
"The first time I used a teleportation spell, I went so far up that it looked like night even though it was noon. Worse, the air was too thin to breathe, and it was so cold I almost froze."
In other words, if you didn't account for the curvature of the planet when teleporting far away, you'd find yourself in space.
"I'm amazed you made it back alive, Master."
Gomoviroa trembled and whispered, "The world..."
"Hm?"
"The world was so blue."
"I see..."
Yeah, I'd have been terrified too.
Spirit magic came next.
"This is one we'll have to skip over, I'm afraid... I can't teach it to you."
"Why's that, Master?"
"The hearts of others are an eternal mystery to me..."
Things like telepathy, hypnosis, and brainwashing all sounded really interesting, but as Gomoviroa had no talent for them I'd have to find another teacher if I wanted to learn. After telling me all that, she took off her pointed hat and floated into the air. She looked oddly forlorn.
"Veight."
"Yes, Master?"
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a spell out there that gave you friends?"
"But I already have friends..."
We tried plenty of other categories after that, but for one reason or another, none of them really clicked with me. One month had passed since I'd become Gomoviroa's apprentice. She floated unsteadily in the air, lost deep in thought.
"Mmmm, I never thought finding magic that suits you would be so difficult."
Though she was a little shaky, she'd improved with flotation magic enough to the point where she could make herself float.
"Master, you've gotten a lot better at floating now."
"Well, though I may be your teacher, I am still learning myself. Incidentally, the spell to make oneself float is a subset of strengthening magic."
Since it was called strengthening magic, I thought it would be more suited to combat, but according to Master's explanation, it was something closer to the buff magic you saw in RPGs.
"By condensing mana inside your body, you can strengthen different parts of yourself. That's how strengthening magic works. However you can strengthen yourself simply by transforming into your wolf form, so it's likely not as useful for you."
While she might think strengthening magic was unnecessary for werewolves, I was still interested in learning it.
"But if I knew how to use it I could fly in the sky or walk on water like you. That sounds like a lot of fun to me. Plus, it'd probably come in handy."
"However, it will do nothing to shore up your weak points. If anything, it'll only improve the areas you're already proficient in."
As strengthening magic was focused on yourself, it wasn't very useful at long ranges, which was where werewolves struggled. When a werewolf transformed, their hands and claws became a lot larger, meaning they had a hard time using bows or javelins.
"Though humans are weak individually, they can utilize cavalry and castle walls to maintain their distance from a werewolf. Furthermore, if they shoot at you from a distance, you'll have no way to fight back."
As there were far more humans than there were werewolves, if we ever got stuck in a battle like that, we'd be obliterated. Humans weren't our only problem either. There were other demons out there who released poison spores or spread poison mist, meaning you couldn't get close. And against enemies who breathed fire, werewolves had no choice but to run. Regardless, that was why Gomoviroa was pushing me to try other magic instead, but honestly, I thought strengthening magic could be plenty useful too.
"Master, could I block arrows and protect myself from poison and fire with strengthening magic?"
"Of course you could, but... Do you plan on strengthening yourself to withstand those kinds of attacks and then charging headfirst at your enemy?"
"I mean if I could get close, my fangs and nails would do the job just fine."
Gomoviroa lapsed back into thought.
"Hmmm. It's true that a werewolf's transformation is similar to strengthening magic, and it does seem like something you would be suited for, but..."
Now I really wanted to try it.
"While the spells themselves may be simple to construct, do not forget that it is your own body that is the medium here. Failure might result in damage to your flesh."
"I understand, Master."
And so, I started learning strengthening magic. This was how Gomoviroa started my first lesson: "The simplest and most important thing when it comes to strengthening magic is knowing how to make yourself heavier."
"Why heavier?"
"I believe a practical demonstration would be the easiest way to show you. Here, lift me up."
While Gomoviroa may have been far older than me, she still looked like a pretty little girl.
"Come now, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. A child like you shouldn't be worrying about such things yet."
"But I mean... Umm, could I just give you a piggyback instead?"
Gomoviroa's expression grew stern, and she shook her head.
"Absolutely not. If something happens, I may end up breaking your back by accident. If you're holding me in your hands, no matter how heavy I get, you can just drop me. Now stop complaining and hold me up."
Even if it was for safety reasons, I still felt awkward holding up Gomoviroia. Also, she seemed strangely insistent.
"If you insist... Up we go."
Master was small enough that even in my human form I was strong enough to lift her. Unlike werewolves, who were all built rather sturdily, Gomoviroa was thinner than a twig. Also, she smelled really nice. And for some reason, she seemed rather happy when I lifted her up.
"Yes, splendid. I'll begin now, so once you feel I'm too heavy, feel free to drop me."
"O-Okay."
A second later, Master's weight increased rapidly.
"Whoa!?"
She weighed as much as an adult now. A child like me didn't have the strength to keep holding her up. However, dropping a girl because she was heavy was one of the rudest things a guy could do. Before I'd been reincarnated as a werewolf, I'd been a man. Not just any man, but a true gentleman. And now was the time to prove I still was.
"Nnnnnnnnngh!"
"This really isn't the time to be trying to show your strength off, boy."
As she said that, Master waved her staff. A second later, her weight returned to normal. Throughout the whole thing, her appearance hadn't changed at all. However, her weight had definitely increased to that of an adult's.
"That is how the spell to increase one's weight works. On its own, it's rather useless. But it incorporates the fundamentals of strengthening magic, so it's important for beginners to practice. Much like a martial arts form."
She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and scrawled something onto it with her pen before handing it to me.
"This outlines the basic procedures of how to use the spell, and how you're going to use it to train. Make sure you don't slack off on your practice."
"Yes, Master!"
After that, Gomoviroa vanished for quite some time. It appeared she was still in the middle of her investigation and still had other regions she needed to inspect. There was no telling when she would have time to come back. So for the time being, I continued practicing the routine she'd told me.
"First, relax your muscles and take a deep breath."
In order to sharpen one's focus, it was necessary to first relax the body.
"Spread your legs shoulder-width apart, and swing your arms back and forth."
I got into the proper position and started swinging my arms like I used to do before going swimming in school. Though it was the same routine every time, I made sure to double-check that I was doing everything just as Master had written down. All of these preliminary exercises were so that I didn't accidentally put in too much strength.
"Then finally...smile, and tense your muscles a little!"
Smiling naturally caused me to calm down some more. However, it was important not to relax too much, which was why the routine ended with tensing yourself again. Alright, preparations complete. It was finally time to start chanting the spell. It wasn't the kind of fancy-sounding incantations I'd made up back when I was in middle school. It was a real, proper incantation. Honestly, that made it even more awesome. Without further ado, I sang, "Iete! Kaahn! Viirii!"
For a chant, it was pretty short. Even the shortest chants I'd come up with had taken up a full three lines on my notebook. That being said, this spell was apparently so short because the incantation had been refined down to its most efficient form. Longer chants were both harder to remember, and harder to say in the heat of combat. And so, mages were constantly researching ways to abbreviate them to only the necessary sounds. Also, it seemed that once you got used to chanting a spell, you could shorten it even further. For example, the weight increasing spell sounded something more like "Itkanvir" when said by people who were practiced with it. Eventually, you'd get so used to a spell that you could chant it in your native language, and then eventually just cast it without a chant at all.
"So did you get heavier?"
Surprised by the sudden voice behind me, I leapt into the air.
"Whoa!?"
Turning around, I saw it was Monza who'd interrupted me. Her family had been hunters for generations, and they were the ones who procured most of the village's meat, which explained why she was so good at sneaking up on people. She'd grown up surrounded by experts at stealth and tracking. Not only that, she never let her own guard down.
"Looks like you didn't, or you wouldn't have been able to jump so high..."
I hung my head sadly in response to Monza's words. In truth, I'd yet to see my practice bear any significant results. If I'd had a scale, I'd be able to tell if my magic was having any effect at all, but as it was, all I knew for sure was that I wasn't getting heavy enough that I could feel it. More importantly, though, there was something I needed to make sure of.
"Hey, Monza."
"Yeah?"
"Did you hear me chanting?"
Monza grinned wickedly.
"I heard everything you said before that too."
"Gah."
"You looked like you were concentrating really hard, so I didn't want to bother you. Guess I should have figured you'd be embarrassed about it."
Her unique way of showing consideration did nothing but rip my pride to shreds. Though I supposed it was my fault for being so embarrassed about it. This wasn't like in my old life where I'd thought an esoteric chant would magically whisk me to the second dimension. This was a tried and tested training method all mages used.
At any rate, it was better to stop thinking about my past life before I reopened old wounds. I sighed to myself and said, "Apparently once you get good at it you can make yourself so heavy you can't even move."
As I said that, Monza lithely leapt onto a nearby tree branch. Even though she was in her human form, she moved as silently as a ninja.
"Hey, what's so good about being so heavy you can't move? What's it let you do?"
"Nothing, really..."
"Ehh, that sounds so boring."
Monza was never one to mince words.
"It's just a spell to help you get better at using magic, it's not my fault it doesn't do anything. Unless I master this spell, I can't learn any of the others."
"Hey, can you shoot lightning bolts or fly in the sky yet?"
"I wish."
Now that Monza was starting to lose interest in the topic, I was able to regain a semblance of composure, and with it, a sinking sense of defeat. I'd failed this time too. I leaned against the trunk of the tree Monza was in, and read over Gomoviroa's note again.
—Movi's Special Instructions!—
★ How to Master Magic With These Easy Steps! ★
First and foremost, concentrate on the flow of your mana! The key to using strengthening magic is understanding how to take mana from the outside world and concentrate it into your body! If you find yourself unable to visualize the flow of mana, that's fine. Just imagine it happening anyway! If you keep your noggin working on it, you'll be able to see it eventually!
She had probably written it in this strange, childish style to make it easier to understand, but it honestly just creeped me out. There was just too much of a difference between her writing style, and the way she talked. It reminded me of the people who were super quiet in real life, but got really talkative in online chats. Monza, who'd been peeking over my shoulder, murmured, "Mages are weird."
"I think she's the only one who's this weird."
I hope so, anyway.
"I know it says to imagine it, but I don't get how I'm supposed to do that..."
I had already tried to visualize myself growing heavier in various different ways. For example, pretending like my body had turned to steel, imagining that the mana was water, weighing me down, even trying to pretend that I was carrying a giant barrel on my back. None of them had worked.
Monza hung upside-down from her tree branch and yawned.
"Does it not work the way you're imagining it now?"
"Yeah, apparently each person imagines mana in different ways."
Apparently Master was able to make herself heavier by thinking depressing thoughts. She was definitely a genius alright, just not one to be envied. Maybe if I get depressed enough, I'll be able to finally make myself heavier. I sighed again, and Monza's ears twitched.
"There's a commotion going on over there. I think someone's hurt."
As always, her hearing was unbelievably sharp. Naturally, this world had no ambulances. Worse, our village didn't have any doctors. The nearest one was in a human settlement. Because of that, injuries that would have been minor in my old world had the potential to be fatal here. Werewolves were pretty sturdy so they didn't die easily, but common infectious diseases could still kill them pretty quickly.
"Let's go. They might need our help."
"Yeah."
I slid my notebook back into my pocket and chased after Monza. As I drew closer to the source of the sound, I was surprised to find that it was coming from the Garney brothers' house.
"Bro, it hurts..."
"Stay with me, Nibert! I'm right here! Don't you die on me, ya hear!"
Garbert, the older brother, was pressing a bloody T-shirt against a pale-faced Nibert. It wasn't doing much to stop the bleeding. All of the other adults were scurrying about in an attempt to help.
"Boil some hot water! We need to wash the wound!"
"Hang in there, Nib! I brought some herbs that'll stop the bleeding!"
Vodd, who normally worked at the pace of a snail, and Mary, who was always smiling kindly were both aghast. When I tried to get closer to see how bad it was, my mom shot out a hand to hold me back.
"Don't come over here! It's dangerous, so wait inside the house!"
"What do you mean, dangerous? What did this to him?"
Few animals were powerful enough to harm a werewolf, even if they were a child. Whatever did this must have been a creature that possessed mana. In other words, a monster. My mom turned to me and said in a low voice, "A Golden Brute wildeboar. Listen up you two, don't come out of the house no matter what happens."
"Oh no..."
Werewolves' greatest enemies were the Golden Brutes. Occasionally, animals with golden fur would appear inside the forest. While no one knew where they came from, everyone knew they were stronger than normal animals. However, strength alone wouldn't be enough to overpower a werewolf. These Golden Brutes had one other characteristic that made them dangerous. For whatever reason, werewolves couldn't maintain their wolf form near them. Those with weaker wills just passed out upon seeing one. Monza and I exchanged worried glances. Just then, Garbert walked over and slumped down on the stone steps beside us. He cradled his head and sobbed, "Nibert...if only I'd been more careful..."
He was normally so rowdy, but right now he just looked ragged. Werewolves valued family more than most races. To Garbert, his brother's life was more important than his own. The least I could do before going back home was comfort him a little.
"What happened?"
"Veight... I..."
According to Garbert, the two of them had gone wildeboar hunting like usual. When they spotted a large beast in a faraway thicket, they chased after it. But when they got closer, they discovered they'd been chasing down a Golden Brute. At that point, they were too close to run away. It targeted Nibert first, and since he'd been forced back into his human form, the Golden Brute's charge sent him flying. He'd been hurt so bad that he could barely move, and another few attacks would have seen him killed. The only reason Nibert had been able to escape was because Garbert had acted as a decoy and drawn the Golden Brute's attention.
"If it'd been just one of us there, we definitely would have died."
"Yeah... It's because you're always together that you're so strong."
On their own, each of the Garney brothers could only display half of their full potential. Even now, Garbert was completely deflated. I patted his back reassuringly.
"Just stay by Nibert's side. I'm sure the adults will figure out how to deal with the Golden Brute."
"Yeah, okay..."
Garbert nodded and returned to nursing his younger brother. He seemed like a completely different person. On the way back home, I thought back on what I'd seen. There were a lot of werewolves who had lost their lives to monsters. We were strong, but not immortal. Unless I found a way to do something about the monster attacks, we'd just keep on losing more and more people.
By the next morning, Nibert's condition had stabilized. Thanks to Garbert's speedy treatment of his wounds, his life had been saved. However, quite a few of Nibert's bones had been broken, and it would be a few months before he fully recovered. While it was great that Nibert was going to make it, it didn't change the fact that a dangerous Golden Brute was wandering around the forest near the village. The adults had left in a group to hunt it together, but since they would have to fight it in their human forms, they knew that a few of them probably wouldn't be coming back.
"I'll be going, then. Make sure you keep the door shut tight, and don't go out until I come back."
All I could do was watch as my mother left for a hunt she might not return from. My father had died when I was still a baby, so my mother was the only family I had left. If I lost her too, I'd be alone in this new world. But as I was now, I didn't even have the strength to protect her.
"Stay safe..." I said forlornly.
She gently patted my head and replied, "Don't worry, I'll have everyone else with me. More importantly, keep a lookout to make sure no one suspicious comes into the village."
She turned around and disappeared into the forest together with all the other adults.
After my mom left, I continued practicing magic for a while. I only stopped when I was interrupted by a knock at my door.
"It's me, Veight. Please open up."
"Jerrick?"
I opened the door, and saw the blacksmith's son looking nervously up at me.
"What's wrong?"
"Is it okay if I come in? It's dangerous outside."
Dangerous how? Before I could ask, Jerrick added, "It's coming toward the village."
He held up a large steel bear trap. It had been smashed into multiple pieces. What really caught my attention though was the golden hairs stuck to the trap's twisted teeth. By "it" Jerrick meant the Golden Brute. If the Golden Brute had circled back around to the village, we were in big trouble. The only people left here were kids.
"Where did you set that trap up?"
"West of the farm, near the huge fallen tree. When I went to look around the village, I found it like this."
Jerrick's bear traps were tough enough that even werewolves had trouble ripping them off. They were meant to ward off wild beasts, not trap prey, so it made sense that he built them sturdier than most.
However, the Golden Brute had ripped it off, most likely just using the strength of its snout and legs. That took more strength than any werewolf had. Moreover, there was practically no blood on the ruined trap. Despite the considerable force the trap must have closed with, it hadn't done much damage to the wildeboar.
"That's one insane monster..."
"You said it."
I'd helped Jerrick out with his blacksmithing chores a few times, and he trusted me.
"What do we do, Veight? Do we send someone to call the adults back?"
"No, it's too dangerous for any of us to go into the forest. That monster chose to avoid fighting with the hunting party because it knew it wouldn't stand a chance against so many of us."
The term Golden Brute made me think it would have been stupid, but it appeared it was much more cunning than a normal beast. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the trap had been cleverly shattered too. It had probably used leverage to its advantage to break off the trap without much effort. Meaning it at least had as much intelligence as a child.
"What should we do, then?"
I plucked a golden hair from the remnants of the trap and held it up. It glowed with a sinister golden light. Wait. Is it just me, or is the gold on it rubbing off?
I rubbed the hair, and a few motes of golden dust floated into the sky.
"What the heck?"
I feel like I remember this from somewhere. As I sifted through my memories, Jerrick asked impatiently, "Veight, do you think we'll be safe if we just hide inside our houses?"
"No way, you saw what it did to Nibert. It'd blow right through wooden houses like these."
None of the buildings in this village were all that sturdy. A few charges from even a normal wildeboar would be enough to break them down. I quickly weighed my options, then asked Jerrick, "How many people are left in the village?"
"About thirty? They're all kids like us, though."
Because of how dangerous Golden Brutes were, the adults had decided to take everyone with them to hunt this one down. Even Fahn, who was barely a few years older than us, had joined the expedition force. Among those left behind, me and Jerrick were probably the strongest. Which meant it was up to us to handle things.
"I know that expression, Veight. You're not really thinking of fighting it, are you?"
Jerrick looked me in the eyes, and I nodded.
"Can you get some more bear traps for me?"
"I figured you'd ask that." He pointed outside my window, and I saw he'd brought a wagon of them with him. "I've got a bunch of bear traps and a crossbow in there. I brought a spear and an axe too, but they probably won't be any help."
"I knew I could count on you."
To be honest, I had no idea how to use a weapon. Still, I'd be more useful armed than not. I decided to take Jerrick's spear with me.
"Alright, go around to the other kids and tell them to meet at the Garney house."
"Why there?"
Jerrick gave me a confused look.
"The reason the Golden Brute probably came here was because it was tracking the scent of Nibert's blood. It laid low last night because it knew it had no chance with all the adults around. But now that they're gone, it'll go for the Garney brothers again."
For a brute, it was a pretty crafty and persistent hunter. Then again, only a brute would be this cruel.
"Hurry, We don't have much time to prepare."
"G-Gotcha." Jerrick nodded and muttered quietly to himself, "Thank god you're on our side..."
The kids left in the village were all in their early teens or younger. Garbert was the oldest among us, but since he was still looking after his brother, he wouldn't be much help in combat. In fact, since he was likely also one of the Golden Brute's targets, it was up to us to protect him.
"To be honest, it kind of stings that we have to protect those two bullies."
Jerrick smiled, making it clear he was joking. A while back, the Garney brothers had made fun of the sword he'd smithed himself. I'd jumped in to put a stop to their teasing, and Jerrick and I had been good friends ever since.
"I put all the traps where you asked me to, Veight. And like you asked, I didn't put any markers nearby. Make sure you don't accidentally step on one."
"I won't, don't worry. I'll tell the others not to get close to that area either."
The Garney house was surrounded by a number of other houses. I'd had all the other kids hide in the closest ones.
"This way we're all within sight of each other. If anything happens, everyone else can come help. Stick close to me, and whatever you do, don't let yourself be isolated."
For some reason, Jerrick looked happy as he nodded.
"You got it."
Just then, Monza sauntered over.
"I saw something sparkly in the forest to the north. It's coming this way."
"Perfect, everything's going according to plan."
I'd left Nibert's blood-soaked shirt near the village's northern entrance. My guess was the Golden Brute would be lured in by the smell. With that, we'd at least have an idea of what direction it'd come from. Seeing my confident smile, Monza cocked her head and asked, "Aren't you scared, Veight? We're up against a monster."
"Hm? I guess I am a little scared. But it's just a monster."
"It's not just a monster..."
I had a good grasp on what I was up against now. While I still wasn't certain, if my prediction was correct, the Golden Brute wasn't anything to be afraid of. Everyone seemed to think that Golden Brutes were creatures beyond the realm of mortal understanding, like gods or spirits, but I doubted that was the case. This Golden Brute was just another living creature, like anything else. And anything that lived could be killed.
"Don't worry, Monza. Even if we lose, we won't die."
If my plan failed, I had an escape route into the forest prepared for everyone. Once we ran into the woods, we'd hopefully be able to meet up with the adults and make it back safely.
"If we mess up and don't kill it, I'll make sure to slow it down long enough to let everyone escape still. We'll use that time to run to where all the adults are."
I was a coward by nature, so I'd made sure to think up a backup plan first and foremost. However, that seemed to confuse Monza even more.
"In that case, why don't we just run away now?"
"Because unless we stop its movements, it'll just chase us down. Besides..."
"Besides what?"
"The Garney brothers might be idiots, but they're still technically my cousins. I won't be satisfied until I teach that monster a lesson about what happens when you mess with my family."
Monza burst out laughing, "Ahaha, you're a funny one, Veight! Alright, let's give this plan of yours a shot. I'll follow your orders, so just tell me what to do."
"Thanks. If you could keep a lookout for me, that'd be great. If it looks like it's too dangerous to stay, just run."
"You got it, boss."
She gave me a salute and went back to her lookout duties. Meanwhile, I went around to the side of the Garney house and climbed up the big fruit tree they had growing there. Directly underneath the branch I was sitting on was the house's roof. From here I'd be safe even if the Golden Brute broke down the house, and I had a good view of my surroundings. Plus, this way I could hit the brute from above. Jerrick was sitting in another branch with his crossbow at the ready. I'd told him to go hide with the others, but he'd refused to leave my side, so here he was.
"Hey Veight, are we really doing this?"
"Yeah, don't worry. With my magic, it'll be a piece of cake."
I was planning on bringing it down with my weight-increasing spell. As long as you kept on accumulating mana, you apparently could make yourself as heavy as you wanted. Of course if you made yourself too heavy you'd be crushed under your own weight, but if I timed things right, I'd be able to strike a huge blow against the Golden Brute.
"I need to learn how to use this spell properly or we're toast..."
Unless I found a way to truly imagine myself becoming heavier, I'd never be able to use this spell. How to imagine myself being heavier, huh? I thought back to my middle school science classes. We'd been taught that a person's weight changed depending on their location. For example, someone who weighs 60 kilograms on earth would only weigh a sixth of that on the moon. I didn't know exactly how weight here compared to weight on earth, but it probably wasn't too different. Man, thinking about all those middle school science experiments sure takes me back. I remember in one of them we tied arrows to things to show how gravity... As I reminisced, I suddenly felt something flash in the back of my mind.
"Wait, could this be..."
Just then, I heard Monza howl. "Enemy, near."
It appeared the Golden Brute was on its way. I looked up and saw a giant golden wildeboar warily shuffle through the village entrance. Even from this distance, I could tell it was massive. Probably twice the size of a minivan. Honestly, it looked less like a boar and more like an elephant.
It sniffed at the torn scraps of Nibert's shirt I'd scattered around, and slowly made its way over to where we were hiding. All of the kids should have heard Monza's howl. Once the Golden Brute made it to the Garney house, they were all supposed to run. The only ones staying behind would be me, Jerrick, and the Garney brothers.
If I was honest with myself, I'd prefer to be running away with everyone else. But unless I weakened the brute here, it'd just catch up to us and hunt us down. We'd be defenseless in the forest, and more than a few of us would definitely die. I absolutely could not allow that to happen.
I wrapped a strip of cloth around my face. It hung loosely, and the extra fabric fluttered in the breeze. Jerrick looked over and asked, "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yeah. Don't worry, I'll be fine."
There was nothing to be afraid of. I'd already died once before, after all. The shimmering wildeboar finally spotted the Garney house. Once it had pinpointed its prey, it broke into a trot. It continued gaining speed as it headed this way, until it was in a headlong rush.
"I knew it, it's different from regular wildeboars," Jerrick muttered.
I nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, it's a lot bolder."
Normal wildeboars charged anything they thought they could kill, but they were extremely cautious until they were certain they were stronger than their quarry. They spent a lot of time sniffing out their potential enemies. While this boar might have been a little different, it was still a boar. Meaning its greatest strength lay in its charge.
Here it comes. I gripped my spear tight to make sure I didn't drop it, and clung to my tree branch. Jerrick tied himself to the tree with a rope, and wound his crossbow. The Golden Brute smashed into the wall with the force of a truck. The whole building shook, as if a localized earthquake had just occurred. Even the tree we were perched on swayed back and forth. At the same time, there was a series of metallic snaps from Jerricks' bear traps. I looked down and saw that three of them had latched onto the Golden Brute's legs. While it might have been able to remove one easily, three would be harder to handle. Actually, make that four. The brute thrashed about wildly, but even for something with its might, it would be some time before it untangled itself.
Now was the perfect time to strike. However before I could do anything, particles of fine golden dust surrounded the wildeboar, making the area around it blurry. My guess was those golden specks were spores of some kind. The reason this boar was golden was because it was infested with thousands of these mold-like spores. Its hair was still brown, not golden. In other words, it was just a normal wildeboar. When it rubbed against something, the spores came off and flew through the air. The spores probably infected their host and altered its behavior patterns. If my conjecture was correct, the beast itself should be no different from a normal wildeboar. Meaning its weak point was the snout.
I tightened the cloth around my face to make sure I didn't breathe in any spores. Their mere presence meant I couldn't transform, but I wanted to avoid inhaling them and falling unconscious. I focused my mind and imagined an arrow pointing downward. I'd gotten the idea from one of the old physics experiments I'd done in middle school. I was different from everyone else in this world. I'd experienced different things, and lived a different life. Which meant if I wanted to use magic, I had to draw inspiration from a different place. For me, imagining a downward force tugging at my body was the best mental image to make myself heavier. I sucked in the invisible mana around me, and shaped it into an arrow extending down. Then I slowly chanted, "Iete! Kaahn! Viirii!"
Once I finished my incantation, I felt my body grow noticeably heavier. As if invisible sandbags were being piled on top of me one after another.
"Whoa."
I could feel the magic weighing me down, and I hurriedly braced myself. I needed to make sure I didn't fall in the wrong direction, or I'd land in a sea of bear traps and most likely die. I crawled along my branch, trying to position myself directly above the wildeboar's head. I didn't look very graceful, but then again, I lacked Monza's grace. Finally, I made it to my destination. The wildeboar was still busy trying to gnaw off Jerrick's bear traps. This was going to be my only shot. I stretched the imaginary arrow in my mind as far down as it would go. It went into the ground and still I kept stretching it. I'll stab right through you with this arrow! A second later, the branch snapped under my increased weight.
"Huh!?"
"Veight!?"
Jerrick's voice faded into the distance as I dropped like a rock. I felt a violent impact, and a cloud of golden spores rose up around me. Before I could process anything else, I fainted.
Thinking back on it now, my life had been a pretty boring one. It wasn't like I'd had it hard or anything. It had just been really normal. And ended really fast. I wasn't talking about this life, by the way. I was referring to my old one. Comparing the two, I'd say my life as a werewolf had been more fulfilling. I had friends, and everyone in the village looked out for each other. Since we were still demons, it was might that decided what was right, but even then, the people here didn't torment the weak. We were too busy surviving to fight amongst ourselves. So overall, I would say this life was much better than my old one. Yep, definitely much better. Which is why I'd prefer not to die just yet.
"Veight! Veight!"
My world was shaking.
"Veight, get a hold of yourself!"
"Get up, Veight! You're still alive, right!?"
Pretty sure I am. At least I don't think I've been reincarnated again. My name's still Veight. And those voices definitely sound like Jerrick and Monza's.
"Snap out of it already, Veight!"
That's definitely Garbert's voice.
I opened my eyes and saw Monza's lithe form in front of me. Apparently she always wore tight-fitting clothes in order to mask her scent from prey. At any rate, those clothes suited her. Yep, doesn't look like I was reincarnated. My consciousness was finally coming into focus. I waved to Monza and said, "Yeah, don't worry. I'm up. And I think I'm fine."
Monza, Jerrick, and Garbert all crowded in close to me.
"By the way, shouldn't you guys be running? The Golden Brute's not..."
I trailed off as I realized I was sitting on top of the aforementioned Golden Brute. Or rather, its corpse. My spear was stuck deep into its spine, with the haft broken off. Looks like I stabbed it on the way down. However, that wasn't what had killed the monster. From the looks of it, my fall had broken its neck. There were a lot less golden spores around its head, and its neck was twisted at an impossible angle. On top of that, my knees were covered in gold dust. Putting two and two together, I figured I'd kneed it so hard it died. But just how heavy had I made myself that just kneeing it was enough to break its neck? I'm surprised my body managed to withstand the force.
"I guess werewolves are pretty sturdy even in their human form," I muttered as I looked down at my knees.
Everyone stared at me in amazement.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/extra1.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
"Did you hear that?"
"Does anything faze this guy?"
Monza and Garbert exchanged dumbfounded looks. On the other hand, Jerrick smiled proudly.
"I knew you could do it, Veight. You're one crazy guy."
Motes of gold dust rained down around us, giving the scene a somewhat surreal feel. However, neither the spores nor the wildeboar's fur were especially mystical. Even as we watched, their glow began to fade. It appeared the spores couldn't survive without their host. Still, we should probably disinfect the area with alcohol and vinegar later, just in case. Spores were terrifying things. We sat there for a while longer, until we heard the adults returning.
"Veiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!"
A black-furred werewolf, my mom, was leading the pack back. From the looks of it, Fahn was right behind her.
"Veight, what the heck did you do!?"
Judging from their tones, I was about to get a big scolding later. Well, I'd had it pretty tough here myself, and, I was covered in golden spores.
"Before you get mad at me, can I at least take a bath first?" I grumbled. Monza, Jerrick, and Garbert all laughed.
Master came over later to collect the Golden Brute I'd killed.
"I see, so you were able to deduce the true identity of this monster as well." She held up a bottle of golden spores. They'd lost their previous luster and were a dull brown. "These spores are saturated with mana. I'm certain there must be some effective way to use these for magic. It's always exciting, finding new things to research."
"Since they paralyze people and stop werewolves from transforming, you'd probably be able to turn them into some kind of medicine."
"An astute observation. All poisons can be turned into medicine." Gomoviroa nodded in approval and pocketed the bottle. "By the way, I hear you took down this Golden Brute with the magic I taught you."
Uh oh, am I about to get another lecture? I slouched a little and took a few steps back.
"Umm, that was an emergency situation, so I had no choice. Besides, it worked, so it's no big deal right? I've already gotten enough lectures from my mom and Fahn."
"You blithering idiot! How could you even think of challenging that beast with magic meant for training!?" Gomoviroa smacked my head over and over. Despite her nonexistent physical strength, it still hurt a little. "Recklessness and courage aren't the same thing! I may be a necromancer, but even I cannot revive the dead! If you do something this rash again, I won't be your teacher anymore, do you understand!?"
"I understand. I promise I won't do it again."
"Do you really understand? Truly?"
"I do! I promise not to use this spell for fighting ever again!"
And so, my first battle as a magician ended in my overwhelming victory.
* * * *
—Veight's Assessment—
I, Gomoviroa, took on a disciple by the name of Veight. Recorded below are the results of his aptitude testing.
He has shown varying levels of affinity for a variety of fields, but strengthening magic appears to be where his aptitude is the strongest. By his own report, the first time he succeeded in casting a strengthening spell, he did so with spectacular results. Moreover, he has shown that he possesses the natural intuition needed to apply the magic he acquires in practical combat situations. He is, at the very least, the first person I have ever heard of who used the basic weight increasing spell in a battle.
However, since he did no prior experimentation or had any grounding in the theory behind the spell, his usage of it was extremely dangerous. While Veight has exceptional potential, his reckless personality leads me to believe that I must be careful with his training. This may lead him to believe that he lacks talent, or that I do not value his abilities. I will take his training slowly, regardless. I would much rather keep my precious disciple safe than teach him more than he is ready to use. Besides, he is far too interesting a wizard for this world to lose. His potential is limitless, and it would be a waste for him to perish before he's old enough to realize it. I give my thanks to the great wheel of fate that brought the two of us together. I earnestly pray that his path in life leads him to knowledge and truth.
※Postscript
Considering his innate recklessness, I have decided to keep a closer eye on him. I have no doubt he will attempt something beyond his abilities again before long...
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/signup.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-01-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/toc.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Color Illustrations
Map
Chapter 1
Extra Story: Veight's Younger Days
Afterword
Bonus Short Story
About J-Novel Club
Copyright
Landmarks
Color Images
Table of Contents
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/afterword.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
Afterword
Hello readers. It's me, Hyougetsu. I'm honored we get to meet again in this volume. In fact, I'm relieved this volume got published at all. The Rolmund arc's going to continue for a while, so I hope you guys can bear with me.
Some of you might be wondering why I decided to move the stage to Rolmund. Really, it's just because I felt like it. But let me give you a bit of insight into why I made the decision. Everyone loves reading stories about hidden plots and political intrigue, and I love writing them too. The problem with these things, though, is you need at least a few horrible events to make things tense. Political struggles inevitably lead to losers getting executed, or people being banished in disgrace.
If there had been that kind of political drama in Meraldia, it would have left deep grudges after the dust settled. Veight and the others wouldn't be able to live in peace because they'd always be worried someone might be coming back to take revenge, so I'd decided to have them go to Rolmund, where they could engage in all this political intrigue without having to worry about the backlash spilling over to their homeland. Also, I just really wanted to write about a country located in a snowy region.
One of the greatest joys of writing an isekai is fleshing out the different societies and cultures that live in your new world. Since I was gonna make a bunch of different countries anyway, I figured it'd be cool to make one whose culture and history was the complete opposite of Meraldia's. For those of you following me on Narou, you'll notice I've introduced yet another nation in the web novel. I really love picking out geographic locations, and then thinking about how the climate and topography would shape a society's culture and history.
Anyway, before I forget, I'd like to thank Nishi(E)da-sensei for his wonderful illustrations. I introduced a lot of characters in this volume and designing all of them couldn't have been easy. But he managed to give them all their individual charm while keeping them true to my descriptions. I really can't thank him enough for his hard work.
I'd also like to thank my editors Lord Fusanon and Saitou-sama. Even though they were so busy with getting the website for Der Werwolf up and running, they still managed to find time to answer my questions about writing.
Also, thank you very much Komatsu Mikako-sama for voicing Airia in the promotional PV we put out on the website. She's also voiced some of the new side stories I wrote especially for the website. I happened to get the chance to see the recording session, and honestly, the staff and voice actors were all amazing. I truly am blessed as an author, so I'd like to take these few pages to once again express my gratitude. Really, thank you so much.
We've gotten quite a few volumes in, but Veight's struggles are far from over. For now, he still has to deal with the turmoil within the Rolmund Empire. Let us meet again in volume six.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/bonus.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
Bonus Short Story: The Rabbit and the Woman
Ryucco dismantled a Rolmundian Blast Cane, marking the weight and shape of every part as he took it out. The parts were all something an average craftsman could make, but there were quirks to each bit.
"It ain't gonna be easy to mass-produce these..."
Veight's request had pushed Ryucco's skills as a craftsman further than anything else he'd attempted. Why are all my fellow disciples such a handful?
"Well, I guess it's only an interesting challenge 'cause it's so hard."
Just as Ryucco was about to return to the task at hand, someone opened the door. Looking up, Ryucco saw Airia smiling happily as she walked into the room. She didn't even spare him a glance as she walked over to the desk by the window. This room received the most sunlight out of all the rooms in the manor, making it one of the perfect places to do engineering work. It was well-lit, dry, and not too open a space. It also happened to be the perfect place to write. Furthermore, most of the servants in the manor avoided it because, in their words, an "annoying rabbit demon" had occupied the room. This meant people working in it were unlikely to be disturbed.
"Oi, don't bother..." Ryucco trailed off, realizing he couldn't really chase the owner of this manor out of one of her rooms. He lapsed into thought for a few seconds, then hopped up on top of the desk. Airia put down an unsealed envelope and sat there, her pen floating a few inches in the air. She didn't seem to register Ryucco's presence at all.
"Hey, you."
"Huh!?"
Surprised, Airia turned to Ryucco. It seemed she'd finally returned to her senses.
"Y-You were here?"
"I've been here all morning."
Ryucco looked down at the letter on the desk. The precise and methodical penmanship was unmistakably that of Veight's. It appeared Airia had been in the middle of thinking up a response to his letter.
"Did you get that letter this morning?"
"Yes. Would you like to read it?"
"Yeah, lemme take a look."
Ryucco excitedly pored over the letter. He could feel Veight's personality come through in each sentence. Once he was done, he glanced over at Airia. Her smile was even bigger than before.
"You're a weird one. He's a werewolf, you know?"
"Yes, I am aware."
Airia carefully folded up the letter, then put it back in its envelope.
"But his heart is more human than a real human's."
"I don't know much about humans, but he doesn't act like no werewolf I know, that's for sure."
Ryucco sat down atop the desk and fished a few dried vegetable sticks out of his pouch.
"Want one?"
"Yes, thank you."
Airia reached for a carrot stick, hesitated, then decided to take a potato one instead.
"I'm having a difficult time calming myself down enough to formulate a reply."
"Yeah, you're a weird one alright..."
Ryucco took a bite out of a carrot stick, chewing thoughtfully. Curious, he asked, "What do you like about him anyway? His looks? I dunno much about you humans' aesthetic tastes."
"Well...I suppose he does look quite handsome, but I didn't think much of him until I found out what kind of person he was."
"Oho. You've got good taste, lady."
Ryucco handed Airia a second dried potato stick. Airia took it absentmindedly.
"When I first met him, he was our enemy. Yet despite that, he was concerned for the safety of me and my people. He didn't treat us unjustly, and he made sure his men didn't harm anyone."
"Yeah, that sounds like him alright. Mind telling me more?"
"Not at all. Back then, he..."
Smiling, Airia put down her pen and launched into her story.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter5.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
Chapter 5
Once I finished negotiating with Eleora, I returned to my office. She'd come here as a vanguard of the Holy Rolmund Empire, but her ambitions had died here in Ryunheit. She and her soldiers had become my prisoners. But Rolmund itself hadn't given up yet. The ancient empire that lay beyond the Northern Peaks was still in prime condition, and it desired Meraldia's lands for itself. Unfortunately, the empire was too powerful to defeat in a direct confrontation.
"Now then, what should we do?"
I sipped the tea Kite had brewed for me and mused on our next course of action. After interrogating the prisoners, I had a good grasp of Rolmund's internal political situation. Sixth in line for the throne, Eleora Kastoniev Originia Rolmund wasn't the emperor's daughter but his niece. She was the emperor's sister's daughter, meaning she wasn't even in the patriarchal line. Which was why, officially, she was an auxiliary princess. Princesses born to male members of the royal line were considered chief princesses.
Eleora's family was the Originia family. It was one of the few families in Rolmund that was officially in the line of succession. The current Originia family consisted of Eleora and her sister. Her sister's name was Sophie. Though Eleora hadn't stated it explicitly, it was easy to guess that her sister was being held hostage to make sure she was obedient. The Kastoniev part of her name was inherited from her father's side. It seemed her father had married into her mother's family. Apparently, he'd died some years past, but he'd undoubtedly had a hard life. As I relayed everything I'd learned to Kite, his expression turned thoughtful.
"It's interesting how everyone in Rolmund has family names. We don't have any custom like that in Meraldia."
"Demons don't bother with them either. I'm just Veight, and you're just Kite."
"It's simpler that way."
The only people that had anything resembling family names in Meraldia were the families of viceroys and nobles. The residents of the north were all descendants of slaves, so most of them didn't possess family names. On the other hand, the seafarers who'd arrived from the south used their parents' given names as their family names, so it was a different system than how Rolmund worked. I picked up a nearby stack of documents and said to Kite, "This is all the information I've gathered on the Rolmund imperial family. I know it's a lot, but please memorize it."
"You got it."
Rolmund's current emperor was Bahazoff the Fourth. Most considered him to be a capable, but mediocre, emperor. He hailed from the Schwerin family, and he had two heirs: a younger son who was first in line for the throne, and an older daughter who was fifth. Both took after their father, and the prevailing opinion was that they too would be capable, but mediocre. In general, the noble families preferred stable emperors like that. Alright, we'll call these guys the "generic family."
Next up was the emperor's younger brother, who was head of the Doneiks family. He was second in line to the throne and had two sons who were third and fourth in line. All the Doneiks family needed to do was remove the crown prince and one of their own would become the next emperor. Which was of course why they were the ones plotting the most. Let's call these guys the "ambitious family."
Eleora's sister was seventh in line, and beyond that were several distantly related noble families. Typically, the order of succession started with sons of male members of the imperial family, then went to daughters of male members of the imperial family, then sons of female members of the imperial family, then daughters of female members of the imperial family. There were, however, a number of exceptions, so mapping the order of succession often got messy. Emperors who hadn't left behind any sons had introduced some amendments to the system to try and get their daughters on the throne, which was the main source of the exceptions.
I finished checking through the documents, then looked up at Kite.
"You memorize them all yet, Kite?"
"Hell no."
Kite shook his head. He was in the middle of copying the information down.
"It's not easy to remember all the branches of another country's imperial family, you know. Were you able to memorize it all, Veight?"
"There's no way I'd be able to memorize all this."
All I'd really learned was that Eleora had a lot of rivals. This was starting to give me a headache, so I started pacing up and down the hall muttering, "The emperor's brother's family is dangerous," to myself over and over. Alright, got it memorized. Next I started muttering, "The emperor's kids are first and fifth in line for the throne," over and over. Perfect, memorized that too.
The question was, would I still remember these details tomorrow morning? I passed Lacy in the hallway as I was doing my mnemonic exercises, and she gave me a puzzled look. But I waved her off and continued pacing. During the battle the other day, Lacy had used her illusion magic to camouflage the entrance to the city's old district as a wall. Thanks to that, none of Eleora's mage corps had been able to make it inside, which had made it easier to systematically eliminate them. Okay, that's enough studying for one day.
I poked my face inside the prisoners' barracks.
"Excuse me. Mind if I come in?"
"Ah, Lord Veight."
Warrant Officer Natalia got to her feet and gave me a Rolmund-style salute. The other soldiers followed suit. I replied with a demon army-style salute and said, "Are you finding your accommodations satisfactory? You're all valuable hostages to make sure the princess doesn't try anything rash, so if there's anything bothering you, let me know."
I smiled ruefully, and the prisoners smiled ruefully back. They understood the princess well. Even though they'd lost close to half of their troops, the 209th Imperial Mage Corps was surprisingly obedient. When I asked Borsche why none of them were nursing grudges, he'd immediately replied, "Imperial soldiers are trained from day one not to hold any grudges once the fighting is over. We fight not for profit or personal reasons, but for our country; we pride ourselves on being able to put past grievances behind us."
The fact that he was able to say that with a straight face sent chills down my spine. You're allowed to hate me, you know? I thought the people of Rolmund were supposed to be tenacious. However, it seemed Rolmund soldiers considered holding grudges to be the mark of an amateur, and valued order and rationality above all. As a member of the demon army, that was an outlook I couldn't comprehend. But then, we were more of a rural guerrilla force than a real army. Which was why I decided to respect the Rolmund soldiers' professionalism.
One of the soldiers looked up and said, "Thank you again for giving our slain comrades a worthy funeral. You even asked a cardinal to oversee it."
"The Sonnenlicht religion might be a little different here than it is in Rolmund, but we have cardinals too."
Natalia turned to me and explained, "In Rolmund, cardinals only oversee funerals for military generals or soldiers who've been awarded prestigious medals. So, thank you very much."
I was glad I'd been able to show my respect to the Rolmund soldiers.
"If only I'd had an opportunity to talk to you soldiers before the fighting had begun...but I suppose that would have been impossible."
One of the officers, Lenkov, nodded apologetically.
"I'm afraid so. Rolmund's regulations are very strict. If we'd done such a thing, we would have been stripped of our position and demoted to serfs."
"That certainly does sound strict."
Lenkov nodded again, "Indeed. Which is why if we returned to our homeland after surrendering, we would either be executed, or sent to join the disciplinary squad. Our families would be punished similarly."
The disciplinary squad was a special squad that was sent on all the most dangerous operations. None of its members lived long.
"Yet you surrendered knowing what fate awaited you."
To soldiers of Rolmund, surrender was a fate worse than death. The mage corps' battle wasn't over yet. Only this time, it wasn't against us. While these soldiers were important hostages to keep Eleora pacified, they were also a valuable force that could be used against Rolmund.
Even if it was for the sake of peace in Meraldia, I couldn't afford to bring Meraldian citizens with me on this campaign. Expeditions into foreign nations were extremely perilous—both for the commander in charge and the troops he was leading. Ideally, I'd be able to make use of Eleora's family's troops and what remained of the mage corps to complete my mission. Of course, I needed to win them over if I wanted to do that. As I was thinking such wicked thoughts, Natalia turned to me, her eyes sparkling.
"Umm, Your Highness Black Werewolf King!"
Did you just call me "Your Highness"?
"What is it, Lady Natalia?"
Brimming with curiosity, she said, "I've seen all of the Black Werewolf King plays."
"Yes, you told me before."
In fact, we'd even gone to see one together. That had been quite an exhausting experience. Natalia blushed slightly and finally asked, "Well, I was wondering, which one will you choose?"
"What do you mean?"
For a moment, I didn't understand her question. But after a few seconds of stiff silence, I suddenly realized she was asking about my romantic interests. Man, how exactly does she see me? Those events were all embellished for the play, they had no bearing on reality.
"I'm too busy with work to be thinking about romance."
It was an unexpected question, but I answered honestly. Natalia nodded gravely to herself.
"I see... You're too busy. Thank you very much."
She obviously didn't trust my answer. Well, believe whatever you want.
After discussing things with Eleora's officers, I reaffirmed that I'd need to orchestrate a coup in Rolmund if I wanted to keep these soldiers safe. Since they'd die if they went home as-is, they all promised to cooperate with my plan. I guess having overly strict rules can backfire on you. I better make sure the demon army doesn't end up like Rolmund's.
Once I finished talking to the mage corps, I returned to my office and found Master loitering around. Our new Demon Lord doesn't do much work, huh? Master had finished her daily checkups on the wounded soldiers and was lazing about on my table. She was eating her way through a large plate of expensive sugared bread.
"Master, if you eat that much, you'll get fat."
"You should know best of all that I won't," Master replied with a pout. Her lips smeared with sugar, she stuffed her mouth full of another chunk of bread.
"I have depleted a lot of mana these past few days, tending to so many injured people. I need this food to replenish my energy reserves."
"Why not just stand in a fire for a few minutes?"
Master could absorb any form of energy, be it chemical or heat, so she didn't need to eat high-calorie foods. She ignored my question and said, "Imagine how surprised the people will be when they learn that the mysterious beauty who has been healing enemies and allies alike is actually the Demon Lord."
"Ah... sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
Master tapped her legs excitedly on the seat of my chair as she chewed on a mouthful of bread.
"I thought it'd be rude to our allies to keep them in the dark, so I told them you were the Demon Lord."
"Wha!?"
"I told you the other day that it was time we started revealing to everyone that you're actually the Demon Lord, remember?"
Master washed down the bread she was eating with a glass of milk and shouted, "I thought I was meant to be the one to reveal that! Don't steal away one of the few pleasures this old lady has left in life!"
"You never told me you were looking forward to doing it yourself..."
I wolfed down a loaf of bread myself, then asked, "By the way, Master, you've rendered the prisoners unable to use magic, right?"
"I have been absorbing the mana in the city, so they should be powerless, yes. Right now, no one should be capable of using magic in Ryunheit without my permission."
I knew it, Master's ability to absorb mana supersedes mine.
"The truth is, I think I'm capable of doing something similar, Master."
"Mmm. It appears you were able to safely inherit a fraction of my power."
"Yeah, but is that really alright?"
Master smiled gently at me.
"You were granted an instinctive understanding of the vortex during my ritual. Because you've been keeping up with your studies, you can tap into the principles that govern it, but you yourself remain unchanged."
"It would be nice if I could absorb the phenomena magic creates too."
Eleora's flames had been pretty hot. Master's smile grew wider and she said, "As I taught you when you first became my disciple, mana is a currency. It is because it has yet to be exchanged for power, that it is manipulable. Once that currency has been converted into heat or motion, it is difficult to revert to its original form."
Meaning my vortex powers would only work on extremely specific weapons like the Blast Canes. If I was to put it in video game terms, I could only negate energy weapons. Master picked up the last loaf of sugared bread, tore it in half, and offered one half to me.
"However as long as that currency has yet to be converted, you can absorb it. If your opponent intends on casting a spell, absorb the surrounding mana before they can do so."
"You mean like Energy Drain!?"
"What is that?"
"Uhh, nothing."
It appeared I had a new offensive option now. Master finished off the last of the bread, then smiled at me again.
"You have become a werewolf capable of devouring mana. Truly, the title of Weremage suits you. As your master, I am proud of you."
"Thank you very much. Hehehe."
I should try this power out next time I get a chance. I munched on my chunk of bread, laughing to myself.
Eleora was still recovering from her injuries, but she was stable enough that I figured she'd be happier with her subordinates around. From what I could tell, she was partial to Natalia and Borsche. Borsche was an accomplished warrior as well as a mage, so I was a little unsure about leaving him with Eleora, though. In the end, I decided to let Natalia stay with her instead. They were the same age too, so they'd probably enjoy each other's company.
Today, too, I was struggling to memorize the Rolmund imperial family's lineage. Just memorizing the names of the royal family and its three branch families wasn't too bad. It was remembering the respective levels of influence each had that made the task so difficult. I also needed to learn who the important figures in Rolmund's military and court supported. Plus, I needed to know who the feudal lords, Sonnenlicht clergy, and rich merchants were backing as well. This task was further complicated by the fact that all of these people switched allegiances frequently. My information wasn't even completely accurate, since a lot of these deals were made behind closed doors, and Eleora's men didn't know everything.
God, what a pain. I was ready to just give up on trying to memorize everything.
"I can't do it. Kite, you memorize it all."
"Oh, I already did. All of it."
"Seriously? Including all the various factions backing the princes and princesses?"
"Yep. I was originally an investigator, remember?"
I'd forgotten he used to be a bureaucrat. A true coastal elite.
"Kite, want me to make you some tea?"
"Huh? Where'd that come from?"
I was lucky I had such an excellent vice-commander. The least I could do was brew his tea. Just as I got to my feet, there was a knock on the door.
"Open up, you damned werewolf! I know you're in here!"
The loud knocking was coming from a much lower spot on the door than normal. Kite gave me a confused look. I smiled and nodded to him.
"Don't worry. He's one of Master's fellow disciples."
Kite hesitantly opened the door, and a fluffy something barreled into the room.
"Die, you fucker! Today's the day I settle the score with you, Veight!"
A rabbit the size of a canine launched itself at me, its ears flopping around. Its fur was brown, and its ears were on the short side for a rabbit. I wasn't too familiar with rabbit breeds, but it most resembled a Netherland Dwarf Rabbit to me.
"You look well, Ryucco."
"Of course I do! I've gotta be in top shape if I'm gonna squeeze the life outta you!"
Ryucco thumped the ground repeatedly with his leg. Like me, he was one of Gomoviroa's disciples. Though he wasn't part of the demon army, he'd go anywhere and do anything for Master. Kite stooped down and examined Ryucco's face.
"Veight, who's this rabbit-looking person?"
"He's a lagomorphus. They're a race of timid, peaceful demons that live in forests and plains."
"This guy doesn't look timid or peaceful."
Everyone who met Ryucco said that at first.
"Just watch."
Grinning, I transformed into my wolf form. Ryucco hopped several feet into the air and shouted, "PYAAAAAAA!"
He bolted to a corner of the room, and wrapped the window curtains around him, trembling.
"Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-You damned werewolf, I-I-I-I-I'm not scared of you at all!"
He was panicking so much he couldn't even get the right words out. Kite's jaw dropped open, and I transformed back into my human form. As I put on a fresh shirt I said, "Because they're cowardly by nature, a lot of lagomorphus try to intimidate people with belligerent attitudes. They're especially terrified of werewolves, by the way."
"Who isn't scared of werewolves?"
Kite's got a point. Just then, Monza came by with another sheaf of documents. Since she was already here, I asked her to get Ryucco out from behind the curtains.
"He's got a soft spot for women. Treat him gently, though."
"Ahaha, sure. Come here, little bunny."
Seeing Monza's face, Ryucco breathed a sigh of relief and hopped over.
"Ah, alright, I give up. I was planning to greet you with my ultimate fatal ambush, but it wouldn't do to brutalize someone in front of a woman."
You shouldn't have said that, Ryucco. Monza lifted Ryucco into her arms and grinned.
"I love brutalizing people though."
Monza transformed into her werewolf form and Ryucco screamed so loudly the windows shook.
"You werewolves are a barbaric race. You could stand to learn a thing or two from us delicate, intellectual lagomorphus."
Ryucco was sitting on Airia's lap with a towel wrapped around himself. Judging by the fact that he was still trembling, Monza's transformation had scared him good. Airia, who'd come running when she'd heard Ryucco scream, patted the tiny lagomorphus kindly and smiled.
"Is this the skilled artificer Her Highness the Demon Lord spoke of?"
"He's so timid that he's always running, but he's also a really cautious, detail-oriented craftsman. You can put your trust in any magic tool Ryucco makes."
Ryucco's tail wagged back and forth excitedly; he was clearly enjoying the praise.
"Indeed. You can count on me. I'll analyze those Blast Canes or whatever and upgrade them into the ultimate weapon."
No one asked you to upgrade them too. But now that I think about it, that might not be a bad idea. I placed one of the Blast Canes I'd confiscated on top of my desk. Every time I saw one I was struck by how eerily similar they looked to matchlock muskets. Ryucco hopped off of Airia's lap and appraised the Blast Cane with a practiced eye. He then sniffed it and said, "Oho. Ohohoho... Now this is interesting."
Ryucco slung off his oversized—well, oversized for him—backpack and rifled through it. He pulled out a few tools and puffed his chest out proudly.
"Watch. If I do this here and take this part off here, and fiddle with this bit here, then clamp this in place so it doesn't come off when I do this... You get this."
He disassembled the Blast Cane with the same finesse a sushi chef might fillet a tuna. Even though it was his first time seeing this weapon, he didn't hesitate at all.
"This is a pretty easy weapon to understand. Taking it apart was a piece of cake. Tinkering with this is gonna be so much fun."
"Really?"
"Yeah. This weapon's been simplified to the extreme. The magic circles it uses are all textbook. Plus..."
Ryucco pulled out a lustrous purple rod and hefted it in both hands. I recognized that rare metal.
"This magesteel has a lot of capacity. Which is why it's got a twofold emission magic crest engraved onto it. It's also got a redundant failsafe in case... Hey, do you even understand what I'm saying, Veight?"
I'd heard similar words in a less fantasy setting back on Earth, so I could more or less follow along.
"If you didn't have all those spare crests it'd be more likely to break down right? That'd be fatal in the middle of a battle."
"Tch," Ryucco spat, irritated. "Yeah, that's right. How the hell are you following along though? This ain't your specialty."
I smiled awkwardly and brushed him off. Ryucco continued giving me an explanation as he analyzed the various parts of the Blast Cane. Put simply, it was a water pistol that shot mana instead of water. It was charged with mana instead of pressure, so to wield it you needed to be able to manipulate mana. The more mana you charged it with, the stronger the shot and the more shots you could fire. Increasing the mana input also increased range.
"So only mages can use these?"
"Yep. Well, anyone can learn to manipulate mana with a bit of training, but you've gotta have as much mana as a mage to get any firepower outta this guy."
The fact that you needed specialized skills to use one meant Blast Canes were inferior to gunpowder muskets. They were closer to bows. It seemed I'd misunderstood how the Blast Canes functioned. Fortunately, Ryucco loved messing with magical tools.
"Do you think you could remodel them so that anyone can use one? I only need 60 or so, even that'll be enough to make things easier."
"Hmm... I'm not sure that's..." Ryucco trailed off, realizing what he'd been about to say. "Of course! Who the hell do you think I am!? I'm the greatest artificer to have ever studied under Gomoviroa, the great Ryucco! Upgrading weapons is even easier than killing a few shitty werewolves!"
Ryucco stretched his back, his nose twitching. No duh, it's easier than killing a few werewolves. Anyway, looks like you can do it at least.
I left remodeling the Blast Canes to Ryucco. Meanwhile, I decided to put the information he'd given me from analyzing one to use elsewhere. Both the Blast Canes and the Blast Grimoire had been developed by Eleora. From what members of the mage corps had told me, Eleora had done her best to stay out of the succession scuffle.
"From a young age, Princess Eleora was more focused on her studies than anything else."
I'd gathered all the important people in Southern Meraldia for a meeting. There were a mixture of councilors and demon army generals present. We all sipped on some tea as I explained what I'd learned. Since she was a toddler, Eleora had been studying at Rolmund's imperial university. She'd started out in the branch meant for children, but once she graduated, she moved to the adult branch. Part of the reason she'd been so devoted to research was that she'd wanted to show to others that she had no interest in the succession and just wanted to be left alone. Assassins still made attempts on her life, but not with nearly as much frequency as they did the other princes and princesses.
"Unfortunately, she was too smart for her own good."
"What do you mean?" Kurtz asked, picking up one of the communication devices I'd confiscated from the soldiers.
I flipped through my notes and explained, "She developed too many useful things."
Such as communication devices that utilized mana resonance theory or night vision goggles that used light-gathering magic. She'd even invented optical camouflage. Everything she'd made was to keep herself safe from assassination, but the military took a vested interest in her inventions. Anything developed by Rolmund's imperial university was considered property of the state.
"Things got a lot worse once she invented Blast Canes. It was that invention that got the Rolmund army to mobilize."
"Why did she make something like that?"
Kurtz's question was a valid one.
"Eleora's specialty, destruction magic, is extremely difficult to utilize in actual combat. That's why neither Rolmund nor Meraldia care that much about destruction mages."
Parker nodded in agreement.
"If you summon up flames or a lightning bolt, they'll hit you. In order to strike a specific target, you need a lot of complicated support spells that specify coordinates and the like. But because it's normally such a pain, our friend Veight here—"
Before he could finish, I shoved a rusk into Parker's mouth.
"Eat up, fellow disciple."
"Hoh heeh hoo he sho shy!"
I have no idea what you're saying. Having successfully concealed my dark past, I continued my explanation, "Eleora wanted to improve the standing of destruction mages, so she tried to create a weapon that effectively utilized destruction magic's firepower. And thus, the Blast Canes were born."
From what Ryucco had told me, the weapon itself was as simple in design as a water pistol. But it was clear that a lot of research had gone into making it as powerful and safe as possible while also keeping it simple enough that it could be mass produced.
"Rolmund's destruction mages quickly mastered this new weapon, and their standing in the military rose considerably. Destruction mages tend to have more mana than those who study other fields, they just have trouble utilizing it for anything other than destruction magic."
When I stopped for breath Parker once again interrupted, "However, the Blast Canes are able to channel a destruction mage's vast mana pool effectively, making them the ideal soldiers!"
Wondering what had happened to the rusk I'd shoved into Parker's mouth, I glanced around. I saw Kite making a troubled face and looked down to see it on his tea saucer. Sorry. After Parker finished his explanation, Kurtz nodded in understanding.
"So that's why the military couldn't afford to leave Eleora alone. As a result, she was forced back into the world of politics."
"Yeah. Once she'd been given military authority, she had no choice but to participate in politics."
This was something Eleora's soldiers likely didn't know, but she'd told me that the military had a lot of authority over the imperial university. Something had likely gone on behind the scenes that had forced Eleora to leave the university and become an officer. After quelling several rebellions, she was given permission to form the mage corps.
"Sadly for Eleora, she was skilled at both research and strategy. And because she valued her men's lives, she also grew popular."
Everyone present sighed sympathetically.
"I can see why the other members of the royal family would be wary of her," Baltze muttered, and the others nodded.
Munching despondently on the rusk Parker had left for him, Kite said, "Not only was she an exemplary tactician, but she was also a genius researcher and popular with the people? It's a wonder they didn't lynch her."
"Ah, but if I'd been one of those nobles, I would have respected her," Lacy said, trying to cover for Eleora.
Unfortunately, good people like you aren't the people who survive in the world of politics. Airia looked up and muttered, "Normally a skilled person with no ambition can seek protection from one faction or another, but when that person also has the right to ascend the throne..."
"They're nothing but a nuisance to most factions. If one side decided to take Eleora under their wing and something happened to her, they'd suffer the consequences too. Worse, if Eleora suddenly decided she did want power, they'd be in a precarious position. So naturally, no faction took her in."
As a result, she'd had no choice but to build her own faction. Students, military engineers, and mages ended up being the core of her base. They were all intellectual types with little connection to religion. Plus, antisocial as she was, Eleora had little standing with her older cousins and the people at court. Which was why she was saddled with the troublesome task of conquering Meraldia. Not only was the mission difficult, but there was little glory waiting for her if she succeeded. Unfortunately, she'd had no choice but to accept or she and her subordinates would all be executed. In the end, all her plans failed.
"The rest is as you know. She fought us and lost, and now she's our prisoner."
Everyone present smiled sadly. I was reminded of something I'd read in a manga back in my old life. "If I get serious, I could reach S-class. But I don't want to stand out, so I'm staying C-class." Those might have been words of wisdom. Had Eleora spent her life inventing useless junk, she might still have been enjoying a quiet life at the imperial university.
I then called a council meeting and told the viceroys what I'd told everyone else. They'd all suffered under the tyrannical rule of the Senate, so they could empathize with Eleora's plight.
"That lass doesn't have it in her to just sit back and do a half-assed job. No wonder she had such a hard time of it. Aram, ya should learn from her example."
Petore smiled wryly at Aram.
"Wh-Why me!?"
"Cause you take everything far too seriously too."
The other viceroys grinned. However, I came to Aram's defense.
"It's thanks to Aram's quick-witted thinking that we were able to drive away the enemies at the eastern gate without a fight. I'd say he knows what he's doing. Thanks for that, by the way."
"Oh, I'm just glad to have finally been of use."
Aram smiled in relief, and Petore sighed.
"Thanks to that clever trick of yers, our army didn't even get a chance to do anything. I'm leaving a hundred of my soldiers here in Ryunheit. I can't keep getting shown up by you youngsters."
Hearing that, Garsh shrugged dismissively.
"Only a hundred, geezer? You'll just get in the way of my landing force with that few."
"Pah, this is why you're still a brat. Just having Lotz's flag flying from Ryunheit's walls will mean no mercenaries will attack."
That certainly is true. That was the scary thing about Petore, he had influence all over the continent. However, Beluza's landing force had put their lives on the line to protect us demons. For the first time in history, humans had fought for us. I said as much to Garsh, thanking him and his men. Blushing, Garsh shrugged his shoulders and said, "What's the point in promising friendship if we don't back those words up with actions? Besides, you erected an entire monument for the louts that died. Thank you."
"I only did what was natural."
The discussion then moved on to how the Commonwealth would assimilate the north. None of us held any grudges against the northern viceroys, so we decided to let them join the council. It was clear Rolmund still intended to conquer Meraldia, and the citizens of Northern Meraldia seemed to already be sick of Rolmund rule. Exhausted from the constant strife that had plagued the region, Northern Meraldia's only option was to join hands with us.
The Meraldian Federation of 17 cities may have collapsed, but now we were about to become a Meraldian Commonwealth of 17 cities. Students who learned about this period generations later would probably hate our naming sense.
"In the end, we're basically the same thing as before, just without the Senate," Shatina said. Firnir poked her cheek indignantly and replied, "Aren't you forgetting something? Now that we're a demon-human alliance, we're way bigger than before."
Melaine nodded and muttered, "The Senate has existed since the time I was human. It's strange to think it's gone now. Well, no one will miss them at least."
I nodded as well, "Indeed. The true Senate served its purpose centuries ago. These guys were just a historical relic."
Since they were fleeing a feudal empire, it made sense that the escaped slaves turned to a republic. But before long, the Senate turned just as corrupt as the emperors they'd been fleeing. Their one saving grace had been that even in the end, they hadn't reinstated slavery. Though they'd treated the south almost as bad as slaves, so perhaps they couldn't really be praised for that.
Tired of the gloomy atmosphere, Forne clapped his hands loudly and said, "I think that's enough discussion for one day. Come, let us watch a play and unwind. I'd like to show you all the latest installment in the Black Werewolf King series, 'Ageless Girl.'"
"You're still making more?"
We don't need propaganda anymore. Wait a second, is this play about Master? Forne smiled and said, "Well you see, the plays did so well that people are raving for more. And a lot of demons have been clamoring for one starring the Demon Lord. By the way, the one after this is going to be one focused on Shatina. I've already figured out the title. 'Guardians of the Labyrinth.'"
You're gonna make those events into a play too? Feeling somewhat embarrassed, I looked away.
"Sir Forne, don't you think you're indulging in your hobbies a little too much?"
"Well, I'm only doing this because it's making me money... The plays themselves aren't that profitable but selling art and other merchandise brings in a lot of revenue. Business is booming for Veira's artists and craftsmen."
Ah, I totally get that. You just feel compelled to buy merch of series you like. As always, Forne was a shrewd viceroy.
* * * *
—Eleora's Walk—
I feel as though I have woken from a long dream, and yet am also still inside that dream. This is the first time in my life that I have tasted defeat. Yet despite having failed, I am still alive. Even though I'm a prisoner, the Black Werewolf King allowed Natalia to remain by my side to nurse me. He's more thoughtful than he appears.
"Princess, we have permission to go out into the old district as long as there's someone to chaperone us. How about we go out for a walk? It might be a nice change of pace."
That doesn't sound like a bad idea. We can inspect the city's layout. We may even obtain some valuable information. Just as I'm thinking that, Natalia says, "Oh yes. They're showing the Black Werewolf King plays in Ryunheit as well. Do you want to come see one with me?"
"What Black Werewolf King plays?"
Now that I think about it, I did promise Natalia I would go see a play with her. But what on earth are these Black Werewolf King plays? Natalia turns to me and replies, "They're a series of plays that showcase the Black Werewolf King's life. They cover a variety of events and all have a different focus, but they're all very well made."
"...Tell me more."
After hearing her explanation, I finally come to understand one of the reasons why I lost. By cleverly fusing fact and fiction, the Black Werewolf King managed to change the people's perception of him. Without putting in any effort at all, he increased his own popularity and that of other key members of the demon army. The Demon Ambassador Airia was portrayed as a wise, rational, yet passionate beauty who led with a capable hand. Viceroy Melaine was portrayed as a tragic vampire queen, forced to fight against her will for the survival of her species. Viceroy Firnir was portrayed as a valiant hero, always fighting at the front lines to protect her people's honor and way of life. And lastly the Vice-Commander of the Demon Lord, Black Werewolf King Veight was portrayed as a gentle yet powerful man who supported the demon army from the shadows but was heralded as the werewolves' Champion.
It's little wonder that the citizens formed a more favorable opinion of the demon army after seeing so many of these plays. The plays were also a great way of getting people to understand the demons' circumstances. There's no doubt that this is just one of the many strategies the Commonwealth is using to expand its influence.
I really was a fool if I didn't even realize the strategies the Commonwealth was using. However, my mage corps are unsuited to spying in the first place. They're used to moving in coordinated groups, so splitting them up into tiny units and having them infiltrate various cities wouldn't have been possible. No, that's not quite right. I was just scared of letting my troops leave my side.
Either way, the end result was that the Commonwealth was free to do as they pleased in any city I wasn't present. Furthermore, the Commonwealth had eight viceroys and various demon army generals they could deploy. Meanwhile, I was the only one capable of political maneuvering on the Rolmund side. I should have been more aware of my disadvantages. As frustrating and pathetic as it is to admit it, I've come to realize something. The Meraldian Commonwealth isn't an enemy I could have ever hoped to defeat on my own. I should have nurtured goodwill and forged alliances between the members of Meraldia's northern cities, but I didn't. That's why I failed. I smile sadly to myself.
"Princess, is something wrong?"
"No. I'm just thinking, what a farce this was."
"Umm, what exactly do you mean?"
Natalia is the daughter of a bishop. It's not in her nature to doubt others. If I tell her we might have won if we'd spent more time spying and manipulating people, she'd just blame herself. So I shake my head and say, "It's nothing. More importantly, you said we have permission to walk outside?"
"Ah, yes. They'll be assigning someone to watch over us, but we're free to go wherever we want. I was thinking since you have permission to explore the city too, we might be able to go see a play together."
Damn Black Werewolf King, you must think nothing we can do would hurt you. We're just pawns to you now, huh? Not even a threat.
I leave Natalia behind in my room and head out alone. I want some time by myself to think right now. The lizard-headed demons who've been assigned to guard my room crisply salute me as I leave. I salute back, impressed by how orderly they are. I suppose I should have expected as much from the Black Werewolf King, but the troops he's trained are nothing like the barbarians we've been led to believe demons are.
I step outside my prison, and Ryunheit stretches out before me. It truly lives up to its name as the demon capital. Nowhere else would I witness a sight as bizarre as a Sonnenlicht bishop chatting with a lizard-headed demon. As I'm watching, a demon with the face of a dog and a human child weave between the priest and lizard. Aren't that child's parents worried about letting him play with demons?
All I can say is, this is quite a peculiar city. But at the same time, it's quite a peaceful one. I just stand there for a while, gathering my bearings. Natalia said there'd be someone monitoring me if I went out, but I don't sense anyone nearby. I'm guessing my chaperone either has a werewolf's senses or is using magic to observe me from afar.
As a test, I start heading toward the city's outer gates. The moment I do, a familiar woman draws near. She's one of the Black Werewolf King's lieutenants. She passes by me, pretending as though she didn't even see me. But as our paths intersect, she whispers, "Aha, are you testing me? I wouldn't recommend that."
With that single warning, she vanishes into the crowd. I'm too annoyed by the ease with which she caught me to turn around, but I doubt I'd catch sight of her even if I did. Looks like I'm being observed after all. This town is peaceful, but it's also a birdcage trapping me in.
As I wander the streets of Ryunheit, I ponder why the Black Werewolf King is treating me like this. It doesn't take me long to come to a conclusion. He's giving me freedom of the city because he thinks I'll be more likely to yield to him once I've seen it. Unfortunately, he's right. The people I pass by, both human and demon, look happy. There are no beggars in the streets or corpses in the alleyways.
As I begin to grow tired, I find myself in an open plaza with a fountain. There are a few stalls set up around the fountain, as well some benches. I pick an empty one and sit down with a weary sigh. I should have accepted that I had no hope of winning this campaign long ago. But I was too afraid of changing my plans once I'd made them.
While I'm relaxing, an unfamiliar demon wanders over to me. He looks like a cross between a human and a rabbit. And he seems to be in an awful hurry.
"O-Oi! You over there! Can you hide me for a bit, missy!?"
Before I can even reply, the rabbit hides inside my cape. I think of refusing him, but I am still a captive here. If I cause problems, it'll be my subordinates who suffer. Holding my tongue, I watch as three dog-faced demons run into the plaza. Their faces resemble hunting hounds.
"Ryucco! Ryucco!"
"Come on, let's eat together!"
"You're hungry, aren't you?"
One of the dog-faced demons sniffs the air, then suddenly shouts, "I smell grilled meat!"
"With that special sauce!"
The three demons temporarily halt their search for the person known as Ryucco and run over to a nearby stall. They buy four skewers of chicken meat and walk away, satisfied.
"Phew, I finally shook 'em off."
The rabbit-faced demon crawls out of my cape. Context would suggest that he's Ryucco. After glancing about a few times, he sighs in relief.
"Those damned mutts, baring their canines at me. How dare they look at my tail like that." The rabbit then turns to face me and bows in an exaggerated fashion. "I am in your debt, young lady. Err... just making sure, but you're not secretly a werewolf, right?"
"Nope."
I may be a foreigner, but I'm still human. Looking visibly relieved, the rabbit-faced demon plops down next to me on the bench.
"Then I think I'll take a break here."
The rabbit takes a cigar case out of his pocket. With practiced movements, he taps one out of the box. But to my surprise, it's not a cigar that comes out, but rather a dried, cylindrical vegetable.
"Want one?"
I shake my head. I've been trained since a young age not to accept any food or drink offered to me by an unfamiliar face.
"Ahh, that hits the spot. Tastes like home. I only got here two days ago, but I'm already missing it."
The rabbit lowers its ears and closes its eyes. He's clearly relaxed. From the looks of it, he's not a demon army soldier. If he only arrived two days ago, then he probably wasn't involved in the battle to defend Ryunheit either. This might be a good opportunity to converse with a demon not part of the demon army.
"Your name is Sir Ryucco, correct?"
"Yeah, I'm Ryucco. Who're you?"
After a moment's hesitation, I decide to answer truthfully.
"Eleora."
Fortunately, it seems he's completely unaware of the battle that took place a few days ago. Nor does he seem to know who I am.
"Did you come here on business?"
"Yeah. I'm an artificer, and one of my master's fellow disciples called for me. He looks like a brute, but he's a good man. There's no way I can turn that guy down."
He doesn't seem to be lying. I guess he really has nothing to do with the demon army. Relieved, I decide to ask him about Ryunheit.
"What do you think of this city, by the way?"
The rabbit thinks for a moment, then says, "It's a damn fine city. Even a defenseless demon like me is safe here. No one's attacking me or tormenting me. Honestly, I'm kinda surprised."
"I see."
It seems harmony between humans and demons really has been achieved in Southern Meraldia. Hard as it is to believe, it's true. The scholar in me wishes to try and preserve this miraculous peace. And the strategist in me realizes just how difficult conquering the south would be knowing that humans and demons are truly unified.
For a long time now, Rolmund has been waiting for the political situation in Meraldia to destabilize. Unfortunately, the moment it did, the demons swooped in to strengthen their influence before we could. There's no doubt that Black Werewolf King is the mastermind behind the demon army's movements.
As I fall silent, the rabbit turns to me and asks, "You're a soldier, aren't you?"
"You could tell?"
"Sorta. Only soldiers get that tense. Plus, the way you talk is all stiff, and you've got the look of someone who risks her life on a daily basis."
Do I really look like that? He puts another stick of dried vegetable in his mouth and winks at me.
"Us lagomorphus ain't cut out to be soldiers, and we don't much like 'em anyway. Oh, but I don't hate you, since you smell a lot like me. You some kinda military engineer or something?"
He's not wrong, so I nod.
"Yes, I am."
"Hah, knew it."
I ask him another question.
"What do you think of the demon army?"
"Told you before. I hate soldiers. They're scary as all hell. But..."
"But?"
"The strongest guys in the demon army are really humble. They ain't anything like most demons, but that's why I can trust 'em. Cause they're willing to protect us weaker demons."
Though it's only the opinion of a single person, it seems even demons not in the demon army support it. The rabbit-faced demon points to a corner of the plaza.
"Look at that. The demon army built that."
I turn to see a brand-new stone monument with flowers and fruit lying around it. The flowers and fruit are probably some kind of offering, though in Rolmund we don't honor the dead like this. Curious, I walk over to the monument. Inscribed into the stone are these words: "We pray that the brave men and women who tragically lost their lives during the battle of Ryunheit find happiness in the afterlife."
On the other side of the stone are the names of 19 members of Beluza's landing force, 4 members of the Azure Knights, and 34 members of the 209th Mage Corps. The Black Werewolf King erected a monument not just for his allies, but his enemies too. I can't help but be shocked. Why's he honoring his enemies? What's in it for him? Is this another ploy to win me over? If it is, why didn't he say a word about it to me? I don't understand. As I gaze at it in confusion, the rabbit-faced demon calls out to me from behind.
"For most demons, it's just common sense that the dead died because they're weak. But this guy's honoring not only his dead comrades, but the enemies he killed too. Surprising, ain't it?"
"Yes, it is."
It really is. Is this normal in Meraldia? No, I doubt it. At the very least, I haven't seen anywhere else in Meraldia where they put up memorials for their enemies. The rabbit takes another dried vegetable out of his case and leaves it at the foot of the monument. He then brings his hands together and closes his eyes.
"I wonder why we even do this. It's not like the dead can eat any of these things. But you know, it does feel nice to remember them like this."
I copy the rabbit. The only thing I have on me is a Rolmund silver coin, so I make that my offering. Inside my heart, I apologize to my subordinates. But I can't bring myself to wish for my enemies' happiness in the afterlife. Those feelings impress upon me just how generous the man who built this epitaph must be. The rabbit artificer looks up at me.
"As long as the demon army's erecting things like these, I think I can trust them. But what do you think, human?"
"I'm inclined to agree."
"Right?"
The rabbit nods in satisfaction, then stretches his legs.
"Alright, I better get outta here. I got work to do. See ya, Eleora."
"Take care. And thank you, Ryucco."
I watch the rabbit hop away. Looking up, I'm surprised to see the sun already setting in the west. I am still technically a prisoner, so I should get back soon. I need to have a good long think about what to do next. There's a lot I have to take into consideration. I may have lost, but my life's not over yet. So long as I'm alive, I can continue fighting.
* * * *
"Take aim!"
At my command, 56 werewolves took aim with their Blast Canes. Half were on their knees; the other half were standing.
"Back line, fire!"
The 28 standing in the back fired simultaneously. Of the 30 rotting wooden pillars I'd set up as targets, half were so riddled with holes that they snapped. The reason I'd decided to have the rear line fire first was to prevent them from accidentally shooting their allies. Since the front line would be closer to the enemy, it's possible some of them would panic and stand after shooting. If the rear line hadn't fired already, they might end up getting shot at point-blank range by their own allies.
"Front line, fire!"
This time the kneeling werewolves fired. Most of the remaining half of the pillars were destroyed. Only three pillars remained standing.
"Front line, charge!"
The kneeling werewolves transformed and loped forward. Meanwhile the rear line was reloading for another volley. Training ended once the transformed werewolves finished knocking over the last three pillars.
"That's enough! Good job guys, you're getting a lot better."
I smiled, and my werewolves smiled back. At my request, Ryucco had modified the Blast Canes to be usable by werewolves. The term "Cane" didn't really seem fitting for werewolves, so I'd renamed the weapons to Blast Rifles. Personally, I thought my name sounded a lot cooler too. Ryucco scratched his cheek and said proudly, "You werewolves can only circulate mana within your bodies, but you've got a lot of it, so I just modified the weapons to suck mana out of their wielder."
I turned to him and asked, "Just to make sure, but you can load up to two shots at once, right?"
"Yeah. They'll suck enough mana initially to fire two shots at that level of power. But for your werewolves, it'll take 'em...from breakfast till lunch before they've recovered enough mana to fire another shot."
A few hours, huh? Since they only got two shots to start with, it'd be difficult to fight consecutive battles with these.
"You can't increase their shot count at all?"
"I can, but then they'll be so exhausted they'll barely have the energy to transform."
For us werewolves, our human form was our energy saving mode. It also helped us blend in with human society, so we'd evolved to only transform when necessary. Contrary to popular belief, werewolves weren't a super strong race that also had the ability to transform, but rather a normally docile race that only fought when absolutely necessary. Our base energy reserves weren't that high, so if we put too much into the Blast Rifles, we'd have none left to transform.
But at least now my werewolves had a way to fight at long range. Plus being able to fight without transforming would come in handy for future planning.
I smiled in relief, and Ryucco tugged at my cape.
"Oi, aren't you forgetting something?"
"Oh yeah, the reward. Don't worry, the demon army'll pay you."
Ryucco sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
"This is why I can't stand werewolves. That's not what I'm talking about, you big lug. Here."
Stretching as high as he could, Ryucco held out an apple.
"Is this for me?"
"No, you blithering moron!"
Irked, Ryucco started thumping the ground. Oh yeah, now I remember.
"Could it be you want that?"
"Finally, you get it! Now hurry up!"
I took out a knife and sliced the apple into eight pieces. I then made a few incisions into the skins of the pieces, making them look like little bunnies. I'd first made them for Ryucco back when we were both studying at Master's place. He'd kept his distance from me, so I'd made them in the hopes he'd open up a little. The first time he'd seen them, he'd been so excited he'd hopped around the room for a full hour. It seemed cutting apples into bunny shapes wasn't a custom that existed in this world. Meaning I might go down in history as the inventor of the bunny apple. It makes me kinda happy knowing that.
"Is this good?"
"Yeah, that's what I wanted. Now hand them over."
Ryucco hopped into the air, pawing at the apple slices. I put them on a plate and handed them to him. He sat down on the spot and started staring at the apples with great intensity.
"Hoooh... They're beautiful...so, so beautiful..."
"Hey, Ryucco, why do you always ask me every time? You can make them yourself too, can't you?"
Biting into one of the slices, Ryucco shook his head in exasperation.
"You just don't get it, you ignorant werewolf! They're that much tastier when someone else makes 'em for you!"
"Really?"
Well as long as he's happy, I'm happy. Ryucco had a foul mouth, but he was always helping me out, so the least I could do was cut him some apples.
Of the Blast Canes I'd confiscated from Eleora's troops, I'd had 60 or so modified into Blast Rifles. Modifying one was already quite a feat, so I was amazed Ryucco managed to do all 60. The job was made a little easier by the fact that the design for the Blast Canes was relatively simple, but by the end of the project, I often found Ryucco dozing off in his chair, a carrot dangling from his mouth.
Grateful to my fellow disciple, I continued training my werewolves. Unfortunately, everything I knew about guns came from video games, movies, and airsoft, so I wasn't sure what the best way to train them was. I could have asked the mage corps to help out, but most of them were either cavalry or snipers, so they used their weapons in a different way than us. More importantly, the mere existence of these modified Blast Rifles was classified information. While I was planning on enlisting the 209th Imperial Mage Corps' help temporarily, I wasn't going to divulge military secrets to them.
So in the end, I was stuck devising a way to train the werewolves on my own. I guess even if my training methods aren't the best, the Blast Rifles are powerful enough that it doesn't matter.
"Ryucco, is that other thing I asked for usable yet?"
Ryucco stared sadly down at the last apple slice and nodded.
"It can fire just fine. But I'm worried about the axle's stability, so I've asked Jerrick to smith me a new one."
I was staring at something that resembled a cannon. It had been made by sticking six Blast Rifles together and was effectively a Gatling gun. Mages like me could freely control their mana, so we could reload a Blast Rifle faster and more often. I'd asked Ryucco to make me something more powerful so I could provide covering fire.
Charging up six Blast Rifles at once took a considerable amount of mana. The combined Gatling gun had pretty good range and could fire rapidly. But I wanted to keep its existence secret, so hopefully I wouldn't have to use it. Kite and Lacy were here as well, and they leaned against the Gatling gun.
"Kite and I can handle one rifle each, and Mister Parker can load up to two at once. But that's as much as we're capable of."
"So could you take care of the last two, Veight?"
"Yeah, I can do that."
Operating it took multiple mages, so I'd decided to bring Kite, Lacy, and Parker with me to Rolmund. All three of them were capable of using other magic that might come in handy as well. Mao was also in the room, standing off to the side.
"I fail to comprehend why I have to accompany you as well."
"I don't have enough diplomats, so I figured I'd take a certain crafty merchant along. You don't look very busy, anyway."
If my plan was to succeed, I'd need skilled negotiators. Since trade had started to slow down, I figured Mao would be free enough to come. Mao shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose I am free."
"Besides, you would have complained if I didn't invite you."
At that, Mao smiled and said, "But of course. Rolmund is bound to be rife with profitable trading opportunities. And I'm sure to make it home safely if I'm traveling with you."
"I'm not making any promises about anyone's safety."
Why do you trust me so much?
* * * *
—Ryucco's Grading Scale—
Ryucco stood at the corner of one of Ryunheit's streets, a loaf of fried flatbread in his hands. He took a carrot and a slice of pumpkin from his vegetable case and wrapped the bread around them. That moron, why does he always ask me if I want to put sauce on this? Ryucco preferred savoring the taste of the ingredients themselves, so he wasn't a fan of sauces. But a certain werewolf seemed to love them. The first time Ryucco had met Veight, he'd thought he was a human. He'd completely let his guard down, and just when he'd started becoming friends with Veight, the werewolf had shown his true colors. The first time Ryucco had seen Veight's werewolf form, he'd fainted.
Damn werewolf. According to Veight, werewolves specialized in hunting humans, but that didn't mean lagomorphus weren't scared of them. In fact, lagomorphus were instinctively terrified of anything with a wolf's face.
But despite being a werewolf, Veight had been a gentle person. Of course, all of Gomoviroa's disciples were kind people, but Ryucco felt Veight was especially kind. He wasn't like Melaine, who was always fussing over people, or Parker, who was always messing around while hiding his true feelings. Veight was also the first of Gomoviroa's disciples who wasn't a necromancer. His talent was just that great.
But I ain't losing to you! Ryucco saw Veight as his rival, since they were the only two non-necromancers among Gomoviroa's disciples. By nature, Ryucco had always been extremely wary of his surroundings, and that wariness had cultivated a talent for teleportation magic. Even now he was constantly sniffing the air and straining his ears to catch any hint of danger. He was ready to draw the miniature Blast Rifle he'd made for himself at a moment's notice. And if a threat proved too strong to defeat, he was also ready to run.
We have to always be on guard, or we won't survive. Smiling ruefully to himself, Ryucco started eating his vegetables wrapped in bread. The warm bread paired well with the dried vegetables. I bet if that guy was here, he'd say it'd taste better with some honey, or dipped into some leftover stew or something. His constant yapping's a pain in the ass, but I'm kinda glad he's like that.
Ryucco had been surprised when Veight of all people had accepted Gomoviroa's invitation to join the demon army. Does that guy even have it in him to kill another person? Ryucco had thought. Veight was the kind of person who'd shown pity even to evil spirits. He'd doubted Veight was capable of killing living humans.
But to Ryucco's surprise, Veight had proven a skilled general and quickly risen through the ranks. Ryucco began to worry that his kind friend had been irreparably changed by war. He'd wanted to see what had become of his beloved friend, but at the same time was terrified of what he might find. After agonizing over what to do for months, he finally came to Ryunheit when Gomoviroa sent him a summons.
Miraculously, Veight hadn't changed at all. As always, he was worried more about others than himself, and he kept trying to take on all the burdens alone. You really are an idiot, you damned werewolf. When he'd seen Veight in Ryunheit, all the worries he'd been carrying for the past few months had melted away, and Ryucco had been able to sleep soundly for the first time in ages. And now he was here.
Like Gomoviroa had said, Ryunheit had become a city where humans and demons live together in harmony. How the hell did that werewolf get humans to accept us? Normally humans fled from werewolves and hunted lagomorphus. That was what humans were to Ryucco. But it seemed that wasn't the case here. A transformed werewolf walked down the street, carrying a large wooden box on her shoulder.
"You just need me to take it to that corner, right?"
"Sorry for troubling you with this, vice-captain. But all of the carriages were booked."
"Don't worry about it, this is no trouble at all."
An old human woman smiled at the werewolf. It's kinda scary how nice everyone is. Shrugging, Ryucco sighed to himself. The hunter and the hunted had become friends in this city. He'd never even imagined such a thing would be possible. But I guess the demon army really managed it. Having finished his meal, Ryucco brought out his vegetable case for a small snack. Since he'd had carrot and pumpkin for lunch, he decided to make a bit of potato his snack. That guy really is different from the rest. Munching on his dried potato, Ryucco smiled to himself.
* * * *
I headed back to my office with everyone and picked up the silver coin I'd left on my desk. It was a Rolmund silver coin, which was a good deal bigger than a Meraldian one.
"Why show us this?"
I replied, "It was found left as an offering at the memorial I had built. Apparently, the canine soldier in charge of cleaning it has found one there each night."
"So what you're saying is there's someone going out and leaving an offering at the memorial each day. Rolmund silver coins are quite valuable."
There was only one person rich enough to afford leaving a silver coin as an offering each day. It had to be Eleora. The person I'd put in charge of tailing her had reported that she visited the memorial often too. I placed the silver coin inside the tiny box I was using to collect all of them and sighed.
"Since she's leaving these offerings for the dead, I was thinking of using the money to pay for the memorial's maintenance, and maybe hold another service for the dead next year. But even so, I can't help but feel bad about collecting it."
"I understand how you feel. The responsibility of using others' money is a heavy burden to bear," Mao replied, looking pensive. Parker butt in cheerfully, "A service for the dead? Allow me to assist. If you'd like, I can gladly summon the spirits of the dead to reenact the battle of Ryunheit."
"Mao."
"Yes?"
Mao cocked his head slightly, but nevertheless handed me the cushion by his elbow. I then stuffed the cushion into Parker's mouth.
"Karma'll come back to bite you if you're not careful, Parker."
"Swash jush a jesh!"
As someone who was reincarnated, I technically had experienced death, so I punished Parker on behalf of all spirits.
"Remember what Master said? Necromancers who treat the dead as toys will meet a grisly end."
"Like I shaid! Ish wash a joke!"
"Some things shouldn't be joked about. I'm afraid I have to punish you in Master's stead. It's my job as your fellow disciple."
Necromancers often dealt with subjects that were taboo for normal people, so they needed to be careful not to lose their humanity. People like Parker who'd long since lost their mortal bodies were especially at risk. Of course, he was well aware of that, but if he let himself slip even a little, he was prone to making jokes belittling the dead. Master had specifically ordered me to be strict with Parker. And since Parker's earlier joke had seemed a little too insensitive, I'd decided to scold him somewhat. As annoying as he was, I would be pretty depressed if he turned into an unfeeling monster.
Anyway, the biggest issue right now was Eleora. I'd given her permission to explore the city because I'd hoped it would raise her spirits, but considering where she spent most of her time, I had the feeling it wasn't working. Even the common folk were talking about how a foreign princess came to pray at the memorial every day. I'm starting to get worried about her. Maybe I should ask Natalia how she's doing.
* * * *
—Eleora's Prayer—
Since becoming a prisoner, I've gone to the memorial in Ryunheit's old district every day. I was unable to build graves for my dead comrades with my own two hands. The least I can do for them is pray for their happiness in the afterlife. In Rolmund, the dead are rarely honored so lavishly. After all, thousands die every winter. Everyone, even royalty, is more focused on keeping people alive than mourning the dead. They have to be, or they'd be unable to survive in the harsh land of Rolmund. No one has time to pray for their loved ones, let alone their enemies.
But it seems that isn't the case in Meraldia. Here I see more and more flowers at the memorial every day. Perhaps I should buy some flowers myself.
As I'm lost in thought, a burly man walks up to the memorial. He's clad in heavy armor, and has a nearly shaved head. The single section of hair he has left has been styled to stand on end. Going from appearances alone, he appears rather barbaric. Contrary to appearances however, he gives me a proper greeting as he walks over.
"Yo, Rolmund Princess. I'm Grizz, Commander of Beluza's landing forces."
That would make him the commander of the unit that engaged my subordinates. I never would have imagined the group that gave us such trouble was led by a man like this. But now that I think about it, his gait resembled that of a seasoned soldier. And though he appears to be slouching now, he's keeping his center of gravity low in case he needs to act quickly. Furthermore, he's keeping enough distance between us that I can't easily reach him with a surprise attack. Warily, I introduce myself.
"I'm Eleora Kastoniev Originia Rolmund, the sixth auxiliary princess of the Holy Rolmund Empire. Though here I'm just a captive."
"You got that right."
Grizz smiles affably, then kneels in front of the memorial. He puts a porcelain bottle of wine at the foot of the monument, makes an unfamiliar gesture of prayer, then turns to me.
"You here to pray for your dead men too?"
"That's right. Sorry..."
There's no need for me to apologize, but my men did kill around 20 of his. Is it really alright for me to pray for them? Grizz smiles again and says, "Don't sweat it. Besides, it's thanks to you that there are all these flowers here."
It's thanks to me? I shoot Grizz a confused look and he explains, "It's 'cause you come here every day that the other people living here started giving offerings."
I see, so that's why there are so many flowers here.
"Y'see, they've got no idea who you're praying for. Did you know? People are calling you the Silver Princess."
It seems my intentions have been misunderstood by the citizenry. I'm only praying for my men and no one else.
"Anyway, after we saw all these flowers, we figured we should leave some too. Never thought I'd ever end up offering flowers to my men. If those hooligans were here, they'd probably laugh and tell me to do something more useful with flowers than leave 'em on a grave."
I'm not sure how to reply, so I stay silent. While I know a lot about military strategy, I know very little of making conversation. Grizz watches me with a puzzled expression for a few seconds, then says, "Uh, anyway. I feel like it's probably fate or something that we met here. I'll pray for your subordinates, so how about you pray for mine?"
"What?"
Grizz smiles.
"These guys never even got to see a real princess in their whole lives, so I bet they'd be real happy if a princess prayed for their happiness in the afterlife."
For a moment I wonder if he's messing with me, but there's no deception in the fierce-looking brute's smile. People like him are hard to talk to. However, it's not as if I hold a grudge against the commander of Beluza's landing force. I'm sure my subordinates would forgive me if I prayed for them.
"Very well. Teach me what prayers I should say."
"There isn't anything special you need to do. Just pray however a princess would."
"I see..."
I offered a Rolmund-style Sonnenlicht prayer for my former enemies. May their souls be enveloped in everlasting sunlight and their journey through the afterlife bright. Grizz offered another prayer for my men, then got to his feet.
"The battle's over, so there's no need for grudges. Right?"
"Indeed. That is what we're taught in Rolmund as well."
"Man, you're one stiff princess! You can lighten up, you know!"
Grizz laughs, then turns his back to me. He takes a few steps forward, then comes to a halt.
"Hey, can you tell me just one thing? Were my men strong?"
My words catch in my throat. I never personally crossed blades with any of them. Furthermore, the deciding factor in that battle was the werewolves and the Black Werewolf King. The vast majority of my men were killed by werewolves. Beluza's landing force had a lot of troops, and they certainly were brave, but their weapons were outdated. They were clearly much less of a threat than the werewolves. However, I understand why Grizz is asking. He wants to hear from the enemy commander that they were valiant soldiers. So, I decide to oblige him.
"They had outstanding morale and leadership. It was your men that prevented my forces from invading the city. Not once during my campaign in Northern Meraldia did I face enemies so fierce. Your troops were, without a doubt, strong."
I chose my words carefully, but they're no lie. In truth, if such a veteran force had been on my side, I would have had many more strategies available to me. Grizz looks over his shoulder and nods to me.
"If even a foreign princess thinks so, then they really must have been all that. Thanks."
Unable to come up with a reply, I can only watch as the massive man walks away. Once he's out of sight, I turn back to the stone memorial.
"Was that the right choice?"
Who am I asking that question to? Even I'm not sure. However, there is one thing I'm certain of. Though I haven't spoken a word to any of the city's residents, they're emulating me. And I myself am emulating whoever first left a flower at this memorial. I remember as a child my tutors taught me to lead by example. I believe I've done a good job of that by personally leading my men and taking charge of negotiations. But I'm beginning to learn that there are other ways of leading by example. My conversation with Grizz has given me yet another thing to think about. At this rate, I'll have so many things on my mind I'll be buried by unsolved questions. It's time to stop thinking and start acting.
* * * *
Eleora came to me seeking an audience right before my daily morning grave visit.
"Sir Veight, I'd like to talk to you about something."
According to the people around her, she'd been looking despondent recently, but today she seemed in good spirits. I'm kind of scared now. The moment she stepped into my office, Eleora said, "Do you know what the social hierarchy in Rolmund looks like?"
I hadn't received any information regarding that topic from the mage corps, so I shook my head. Noting my reaction, Eleora continued, "About ten percent of Rolmund's population is comprised of the noble class. Of that ten percent, most are low ranking nobles who hold no land."
Wait, why are you explaining this to me? Eleora ignored my confused expression and continued her explanation, "There are several dozen noble families, most of which were formed when the republic fell and Rolmund was split into North, East, and West Rolmund. The kings of each respective section of Rolmund granted peerage to their most influential supporters in order to keep them loyal."
Hold on, I'm not following you here. What are you trying to get at, anyway? There was no way I'd be able to memorize all of this on the spot. I needed to call in my vice-commander, the demon army's walking memory bank.
"This seems to be important information, so let me call my vice-commander to record this."
"Feel free. This is indeed extremely important."
As I called for Kite, Eleora fidgeted impatiently. Why's she in such a hurry?
Once Kite, who had been in the middle of his breakfast, arrived, I signaled for Eleora to continue. She turned to me and asked, "Did anything strike you as strange about what I just told you?"
Uhh, let me think. I sifted through my memories, then pointed out the one thing that stood out to me.
"You have an awful lot of nobles."
"I expected you'd notice. That's correct."
The only place that had that many nobles back on Earth during the medieval era was Poland. Eleora's tone grew frustrated as she continued her explanation, as though she were venting.
"Because of how cold the climate in Rolmund is, the majority of our territory isn't suitable for agriculture. Despite that, eighty percent of the population is forced to support the privileged twenty percent."
Didn't you just say the nobles are 10% of the population? In that case, wouldn't 20% be a miscalculation?
"The other ten percent are the clergy."
I see now. That certainly did seem like an imbalanced system. However, now I understood why Rolmund wanted Meraldia so badly. They needed slaves to maintain their system. Serfs who would obediently grow food for the ruling classes.
"You can't reduce the number of nobles there are?"
"As I said before, most of these noble titles have a history longer than that of the empire itself. If we strip nobles who've done nothing wrong of their titles, the empire will crumble."
Yeah, that does make things difficult. Eleora looked at my expression and smiled sadly.
"An emperor must possess absolute wealth and absolute authority. They need to be capable of doling out punishments that strike terror in the hearts of dissidents while simultaneously showering their loyal supporters with lavish rewards. However, our empire is out of land to gift nobles with."
"So you decided to cross over the mountains and take Meraldia's land by force."
I understood Eleora's situation now, but that didn't mean I could just give Meraldia's land up. I looked at the city of Ryunheit through the window and replied, "Not only is Meraldia's land fertile, but we also have few nobles. Even members of a viceroy's family tend to have other occupations."
"Precisely."
Take for example the Aindorf family which Airia was from. All the members of her family were merchants. The same was true for the families of all the other cities' viceroys. They were all lawyers, bureaucrats, or the like. Only the Senate had been filled with what could be classified as nobles.
However, that wasn't the case in Rolmund. When Rolmund had been split in three, the different factions had handed out peerage like candy in an attempt to bring powerful families over to their side. Eleora sighed.
"Things were better at least when the empire was first founded. West Rolmund, which won the power struggle, wiped out families who refused to submit. As a result, it took possession of vast swathes of land it could then redistribute to its own followers."
Wait, did you just casually mention a literal genocide?
"Wiped out, you say?"
"In order to uproot any seeds of rebellion, any recalcitrant family was annihilated down to the last woman and child. Furthermore, all of their serfs were slaughtered. There's a saying in Rolmund that goes 'The reaper comes for all equally.'"
"Not even demons are that brutal."
"I'm inclined to believe that. Even the noble families who surrendered to West Rolmund were stripped of their nobility and reduced to serfs. On top of that, the cultures and religions of the other two factions were systematically eradicated. In some ways, submission was an even worse fate than death."
It was true that if you half-assed a purge it would come back to bite you in the ass later. So, in that respect, West Rolmund's decision had been rational. But if you ask me, methods like that are barbaric. Man, the sun's barely risen, and I'm already depressed. But thinking about it, this meant that Eleora's methods had been surprisingly peaceful.
"But you didn't harm the families of any of the Senate members."
"I chose not to because I feared the citizenry would hate me if I did. It was a political decision, nothing more."
Was that really all? That right there smells like a lie. You're a nicer person than you let on, huh?
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter51.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
I ruminated over Rolmund's current situation. At present, the empire was a closed nation whose options were limited. The reason for that was simple. The empire had taken the carrot and stick policy too far. Because past emperors had rewarded all of their allies with nobility, there were too many nobles. But it was too late to reduce the number of nobles. There was also no land left to give to current nobles.
The empire produced barely enough food because most of its citizens were serfs. But if you turned that around, it meant that they were only surviving because they'd implemented a system of pseudo-slavery. The only lasting solution to Rolmund's problem was to improve its agricultural technology, but even then, there wasn't much you could do that far north. Even if I succeeded in putting Eleora on the throne, Rolmund would collapse under its own weight before long.
After carefully considering all of my options, I quietly muttered, "From what you've just told me, it's clear the empire is at its limits. In which case, it might be better to destroy it before it destroys itself."
Eleora flashed me the same dangerous smile she had when I first met her.
"I concur. For a long time now, I've believed that to be the best solution."
This princess was way too dangerous. I needed to make sure she wasn't planning anything rash.
"However, if we are to do it, we'll leave mountains of corpses and foster countless grudges. Are you prepared to walk the path of carnage, Eleora?"
"Who the hell do you think I am?"
An awkward girl who's bad at socializing. Seeing my expression, Eleora smiled ruefully.
"Is it just me, or are you worried for me and the citizens of Rolmund, Sir Veight?"
"I told you before, I am a merciful leader."
"So you did." Eleora nodded, then asked, "Incidentally, do you remember the story of Cold Micha that I told you before?"
I don't think I could forget that one even if I wanted to. I had nightmares after you told it to me. But why was she bringing that up now? Trying to look as calm as possible, I nodded.
"You mean that horrid fairy tale?"
"You don't have to sound so displeased. That story teaches important lessons about the harshness of winter, the importance of preparing for emergencies, and the value of self-sacrifice, as well as the resolve needed to sacrifice others."
I figured as much, but couldn't you at least make the ending a happier one?
"Until now, I've believed the choices of the characters in Cold Micha were the correct ones. Because I was unaware that there were other choices and other values. But now that's changed. I've seen so much here that flies in the face of what I learned growing up. Sir Veight, if you were in Micha's place, what would you do?"
I agonized over that question for a few minutes, but then realized I'd had an answer all along.
"Werewolves live in packs, and we have an ironclad rule to never abandon one of our own. If there wasn't enough food, we'd share what we have and search for more. Surely if we all worked together, we'd be able to scrape by. That way all of us would be able to greet the spring together."
I was terrible at these trolley problem questions, so I'd rather pick one of the answers not provided by the script. Who the hell would want to go along with a crappy question like that?
Eleora nodded in understanding.
"I see... I suppose for werewolves, that might just be possible." Eleora looked me in the eyes and said resolutely, "O merciful Black Werewolf King, I would like to ask your assistance in putting an end to the sad tale of Cold Micha once and for all. I'm sure that will be beneficial to Meraldia as well, so please cooperate with me."
Eleora wasn't asking for something as simple as usurping the throne. No, she wanted me to help her transform the Rolmund Empire. But if we did that, it would take decades for Rolmund's political situation to stabilize. It might even take a century. However, it was also true that a stable Rolmund would be beneficial to Meraldia, so my answer was obvious.
"I can help you put an end to this tale, but once it's over you will be on your own. So long as you are prepared to carry this burden, I shall aid you."
My responsibilities lay with Meraldia; once the revolution succeeded, I would need to return. Which meant Eleora would be left to deal with the clean-up on her own. I needed to be sure she was okay with that. Eleora smiled faintly.
"I see. You really are as merciful as you claim."
"You think so?"
By all rights, I should have pledged to stay and help Rolmund, but I unfortunately had too many important duties waiting for me in Meraldia. There was only one of me, and I wasn't all that special. I couldn't lend my aid to the entire world at once.
Regardless, it seemed an agreement had been made. I picked up the bouquet of flowers on my desk and got to my feet. I'd made it a habit to leave flowers at the memorial every morning.
"We can discuss the details later. I'll gather my men and yours for a meeting this afternoon. Does that work for you?"
"Yes, in that case..." Eleora nodded, then trailed off. She glanced at the bouquet in my hand and asked, "What are those flowers for?"
They were just an offering, but I felt embarrassed to admit that.
"A personal affair. You have yet to eat breakfast correct? I'll send for some."
"Wait, could it be that..."
"I have business I need to attend to, so please excuse me."
I cut her off before she could inquire any further and shooed her from the room. Praying for the dead was something I preferred doing in private.
That afternoon, we hashed out the details. The plan was as follows: The Meraldian Liberation Army had already surrendered and dispersed. Meraldia's northern cities would join our coalition, creating a Meraldian Commonwealth that spanned all of Meraldia. Rolmund, which had supported the liberation army behind the scenes, would be granted a large measure of influence over matters in Meraldia. On the surface, Meraldia would appear to be independent, when in reality it would be Rolmund's vassal state. Or rather, that was the plan I was going to present to Rolmund's emperor when I went there as a diplomat.
"That should be fine, right, Master?"
"I am not well-versed in matters of politics and governance, so I suppose so."
Master took a sip of tea and sighed. The two of us were in my office.
"I must say, it's wonderful how industrious my disciples are. It makes my job that much easier."
"I can only negotiate so freely because you've unified the demons, Master. I'm sure your other disciples are thankful for what you've done too."
The previous Demon Lord had been both a master warrior and politician, so he'd steadily earned respect and loyalty from those around him. He was effectively the father of the demon army. Master, on the other hand, was a master mage and a gentle soul loved by everyone. So, she was more like the mother... or rather, the aunt of the demon army. Which made me one of the many sons of the demon army. I informed Master that I'd be taking Lacy and Parker with me. Since they were part of the Gomoviroa family too, I couldn't just borrow them without her permission. We would be gone for quite some time, so I needed to make sure their absence wouldn't hurt Master's ability to govern. I also needed to make sure I kept up with my training.
"Master, about that mana manipulation training you've been telling me to do..."
I still hadn't mastered the last thing she'd told me to practice, so hopefully she wouldn't mind if I kept doing the same training while I was gone. Master smiled and said, "Fear not, you have the basics down already. All that's left for you now is to put those skills into practice."
"Thanks for letting me keep working on this, Master."
I needed to make sure I was an expert at this when I returned, or I'd disappoint Master. Fortunately, I would likely be facing opponents armed with Blast Canes in Rolmund. Magical weapons were the perfect things to test my mana manipulation abilities against. Bring it on, I'll take all the bullets you've got.
"Master, who are you going to have act as your counselor while I'm gone?"
The term "counselor" sounded cool but really all that happened when you were in that position was that Master came to you when she was lonely and needed someone to talk to. She chuckled and said, "Fear not. Ryucco agreed to stay here a while longer."
"I'm surprised that misanthrope's willing to live in a city full of humans."
"Mmm, it seems that after conversing with humans, he's come to understand that they're not as horrible as he first believed."
"That was probably when he talked to Eleora."
The werewolf I'd tasked with tailing the princess had reported that she'd talked to Ryucco a few days back. They were both eccentric people, so they'd likely gotten along.
Together with our eccentric princess, I completed my final preparations for departure. In total, I would be taking with me 3 mages, 56 werewolves, and 61 members of the mage corps. We would be meeting up with the 12 members of the mage corps that had been left behind in Krauhen to defend the tunnel, giving me command of a grand total of 132 men. There were also a few volunteers from among the canines and the city garrison who would be accompanying us until Krauhen. Supposedly they'd be helping us with miscellaneous tasks along the way. Though, I had a sneaking suspicion the canines just wanted an excuse to travel. I let them come anyway since I felt this would be a good opportunity to showcase to the north how friendly demons could be.
"Sir Veight, how fares the werewolves' training?"
I didn't want to reveal all my cards to Borsche, so I gave him a roundabout answer.
"They're nowhere near the level of skill your mage corps are at. I finally managed to get them to fire in formation, but really it'd just be faster if they transformed and beat their enemies to a pulp."
"Surely you're just being humble."
No really, things would just go faster that way. I'd given the werewolves all of the mage corps' spare equipment, and they would serve as reserve members if the mage corps needed more gunmen. The reason I'd done that was to hide the fact that they were actually using modified Blast Rifles, which they'd gotten surprisingly proficient in.
"Hey, can I use this as a club after I've fired it?"
"That's a genius idea, bro!"
Why are the Garney brothers so stupid? The plan was to tell Rolmund that these were the Meraldian Commonwealth's elite troops. In doing so, I could hopefully make it look like Eleora had succeeded so well that Meraldia's army was willing to follow her orders. That would also imply that Eleora had a significant amount of authority within Meraldia as well as Rolmund, which would serve as a useful bargaining chip in negotiations.
Meanwhile, I'd be introducing myself as the commander of this elite force, as well as a Commonwealth councilor. Since Rolmund was unaware of the true situation, they would just assume I was a nobleman seeking to secure my position when Meraldia became a vassal state of the empire. I was also planning on hiding the fact that I was a werewolf. Parker and the other werewolves were going to be hiding their true identity as well, to avoid any trouble with the Sonnenlicht church there. For better or worse, Rolmund had long since eradicated demons from their lands, so they were no longer on the lookout for them.
"Maybe I should ask Melaine to come along and have her turn all of our political opponents into vampires."
"Our nobles aren't that foolish, Black Werewolf King." Eleora shook her head. She was riding atop her old horse. "In fact, the ruler of Northern Rolmund, Archduke Vafuk, attempted that very strategy after the fall of the old republic. He was the one who invented the technique for transforming others into vampires."
Your history sure has some amazing people in it.
"He sounds like an interesting person."
"Unfortunately for him, the people noticed even the slightest changes in their nobles' behavior. Before his plan had even gotten off the ground, someone spotted him sucking the blood of one of his maids."
For such an ambitious man, he sure lacked caution. Though I supposed I'd stopped being very cautious once I'd reincarnated as a werewolf too. Instead of laughing at this guy, I should probably learn from him. Eleora looked ahead and said with a smile, "After learning his true nature, his retainers abandoned him. East and West Rolmund banded together to form a joint army to eradicate his forces. The Sonnenlicht Order also sent its own crusaders, and even Vafuk's serfs rose up in rebellion. In the end, the vampires were eradicated."
Figures. Rolmund's branch of Sonnenlicht claimed all demons were evil, so the moment Vafuk's identity was compromised, he was doomed. I'd already heard from Eleora how brutal the political battles in Rolmund were. Apparently one noble had killed his older brother and tried to impersonate him. Another had assassinated his father and tried to pin the crime on his rival. Yet another had slept with his brother's wife and used his nephew, who was actually his son, as a political tool. I was amazed people could stoop this low, but I supposed that just meant they were that desperate. The scariest thing was that these were just the plots that had been discovered. There was no telling how many other shady things had gone on completely undetected. Thinking about it that way, it was clear the darkness inside Rolmund extended far beyond my imagination. Hopefully I wouldn't have to stay there long.
Once everyone was ready, we gathered in front of the viceroy's manor to inform Master and Airia of our departure. Melaine and Firnir had come to see us off as well. We got off our horses and Master said in a solemn voice, "Veight. You often toss and turn in your sleep, and you have a bad habit of not covering up properly when it gets cold. Make sure to keep yourself warm, or you'll fall ill."
Master, do you really have to say these kinds of things in front of everyone? You're the Demon Lord, not some old granny. While I was happy she was worried about me, this probably wasn't the best way to show it. Trying my best to look dignified, I respectfully bowed my head.
"I appreciate your concern. I swear to complete my mission and return safely to your side."
"Mmm, good. Oh, also..."
Please just stop. Melaine hurriedly slapped Master on the back, interrupting her. Before Master could resume her litany of warnings, Airia stepped forward. She seemed to be in pretty good sync with Melaine.
"Lord Veight, I shall be praying for your success."
"You have my thanks, Lady Airia. But fear not, this mission is no harder than any of the others I've undertaken. I'll return before you know it."
That sounded a bit like a death flag, but I'd raised plenty of death flags before, and smashed my way through all of them. Airia gave me a worried look.
"Be careful, Lord Veight. To my knowledge, no one from Meraldia has ever attempted to visit Rolmund."
Of course I was a little worried about visiting an unknown land, but when I'd first been reincarnated, everything had been unknown. Naturally, I couldn't tell Airia I'd been reincarnated, but I still smiled reassuringly.
"Don't worry, I'm a werewolf. The borders of humans mean nothing to me."
To my surprise though, Airia didn't back down, which was unusual for her.
"I suppose not. However... please make sure to return safely."
"Don't worry, I will. As fast as I can, too." As I said that, I realized something interesting. "How strange that both you and I seem to believe that Ryunheit is now the home I return to."
"Fufu, I don't think it's strange at all."
Airia smiled, and I smiled back. I'd left plenty of capable people to take care of Ryunheit in my absence. Baltze, commander of the Azure Knights, and Shure, commander of the Crimson Scales, would be in charge of the demon army. Wengen, the garrison captain, and Grizz were here to ensure that the streets of Ryunheit remained safe. And Airia and the other councilors were more than capable of handling all political affairs. They'd be able to negotiate with the north, no problem. Since all of Meraldia's viceroys already had connections to each other, it made more sense to leave the entirety of negotiations up to them while having the demon army remain quietly stationed in the south.
On the technological front, Ryucco and Kurtz would continue analyzing and improving upon Eleora's Blast Canes. Hopefully they'd be able to start mass-producing Blast Rifles soon, in case we needed them to fight a full-scale war against Rolmund. If I was lucky, they'd be standard army equipment by the time I returned. After making sure I had everything, I remounted my horse. Firnir and Airia had been giving me horsemanship lessons recently. If it was just leading a horse along at a walk, I could do it. Once I'd remounted, I turned to my party and said, "In accordance with the council's decision, we ride to assist Princess Eleora in taking the throne of Rolmund. Move out!"
After setting out from Ryunheit, we made our way to Krauhen, a city located in the most northeastern point of Meraldia.
"You're late."
Mao was waiting for us as we approached Krauhen's gates. He grumbled to himself for a few seconds, then said, "I've secured the assistance of the mage corps stationed here. Convincing them was a simple task. Though they did say they wouldn't wholeheartedly commit to the cause until they met with the princess."
I smiled knowingly.
"By the sound of it, convincing them wasn't easy at all. Did any of them try to commit suicide?"
"Personally, I don't see why we have to save those who wish to die. But yes, some did, and yes, I succeeded in keeping them all safe."
Mao shrugged his shoulders dismissively, but I knew it couldn't have been an easy task. However, this proved to me that Mao's negotiation skills were good enough to work on even Rolmund citizens.
"Sorry for making you go through all the trouble. More importantly though, did you get what I asked for?"
"But of course. I even procured a few spares. Though I am unsure whether or not they will be suited for Rolmund's climate, so please let me take care of them."
Mao could easily let someone else handle this, but his personality meant that he always had to do things himself.
"Thanks. If you're in charge I can be sure nothing will go wrong at least. But..."
"Yes?"
"You're really addicted to work, huh?"
"You're the last person I want to hear that from."
What's that supposed to mean? We passed underneath Krauhen's gates and found ourselves face to face with Belken, the city's viceroy.
"Well met, Lord Veight."
Belken had been the only viceroy to remain loyal to Rolmund. It had taken all the other viceroys to persuade him to surrender to the Commonwealth. I understood the situation he was in though, so I'd told the councilors to not punish him for his stubbornness. Naturally, no one had objected. It was for that reason that he treated me with such deference. I smiled at him and said, "Today I've come to visit not through your window, but rather your front door. Though I suppose I'll be leaving through your secret back door."
Belken, who was known for being strait-laced, smiled awkwardly at my bad attempt at a joke.
"Y-Yes, I suppose you will. I've made sure the tunnel is maintained and will post soldiers to defend it."
His serious nature was probably part of the reason why he'd gotten along so well with Rolmund's men. Meanwhile, the temperament of the southern residents must have rubbed off on me, since I was now making bad jokes. As Belken walked away, I heard my werewolves start whispering behind me.
"What would you rate the boss' joke at?"
"Hmm... I'm feeling a light to decent seven maybe?"
"I'd give it a strong six."
How rude. I'll have you know I'm much better at making jokes now than I was in my old life.
We made our way into the tunnel and began trekking toward Rolmund. The tunnel was quite long and had taken Rolmund's engineers many years to dig. And they'd had the help of a magic-powered excavator.
According to the reports I'd received, Rolmund's level of engineering technology was quite high, with a focus on safety. It was obvious Rolmund had a great deal of skilled researchers and workmen. This would be a tough empire to beat.
The tunnel exited right into the middle of a mountain range. Though it was still summer, the air outside was cold. Naturally, Rolmund was at a higher latitude and elevation than Meraldia, but the biggest factor contributing to the temperature difference was the mountains. There were many of them, and they served to trap cold air in the valleys. In fact, all of Rolmund seemed to be surrounded by mountains. Down below, I could see settlements and cities huddled in the valley. The landscape reminded me somewhat of Japan. Eleora pointed toward a far-off peak.
"Up there lies Rolmund's frontier fort, Novesk. That fort belongs to me."
I pulled out my telescope and peered through it. A formidable-looking castle sat atop the mountain peak. It reminded me of the castles they had in amusement parks and looked very similar to that one famous German castle. I wasn't really an expert on castles though, so if there was a better comparison, I wasn't aware of it. Unlike the fantasy castles in amusement parks though, Novesk had been built with functionality in mind.
"I'm surprised a princess only gets such a plain-looking castle."
"Upon reaching adulthood, I'd asked the emperor for a quiet place to conduct my research, and he granted me that castle."
Sounds like he just wanted to get you out of his hair.
Eleora smiled bitterly, "At the time I'd been happy because I thought being sent this far away would get me out of the court's political squabbles. I had no idea the emperor was planning an invasion of the south. Thinking back on it now, I should have been more cautious. At least now I've learned my lesson."
I see, so this is what caused her to have such a twisted personality. As a remote border fort, Novesk likely wasn't luxurious, but it at least possessed enough supplies to comfortably house 150 soldiers.
"Right now there are only thirty or so men guarding the fort. Including them, that's everyone in the 209th Imperial Mage Corps."
While that was a reasonable number of personal bodyguards for a low-ranking princess to have, it was too small a force for conducting military operations.
"Are there any other troops nearby that you could muster?"
"My father's uncle, Lord Kastoniev, is the lord of this area. He's been given three thousand troops from the emperor to defend our southern borders."
"Are they professional soldiers?"
"Yes, they're not militia. Though they do spend part of the year farming, they have all received proper military training. Most of the difficult farmwork is done by serfs and tenant farmers, so they have enough free time to train."
It appeared that unlike in Meraldia, anyone in Rolmund who possessed wealth used it to receive military training. The lower ranks of Rolmund's nobility were basically like old-style Japanese samurai. And it seemed even a lord had enough power to command 3,000 soldiers. Meanwhile Meraldia as a whole could maybe field 10,000 regular troops, max.
"He's your ally, right?"
Eleora shrugged in response.
"Who knows."
I hate this place already. Fortunately, Rolmund was in no position to send any significantly large force into Meraldia. Most of their troops were needed to combat bandits and rebellion. Even if their forces were free, sending a large force through the mountains was a challenging prospect, especially since any army they sent couldn't be reinforced or resupplied during the winter. That was the reason Rolmund had avoided invading Meraldia for so long. But now the situation had changed. Thanks to the newly built tunnel, it took only half a day to reach Eleora's castle from Krauhen. I doubted she would betray us, but it still felt like we were walking into enemy territory. Even if my werewolves were strong enough to escape any traps, Kite, Lacy, and Mao weren't. I turned to Parker.
"Parker."
"Yes?"
"If anything happens, can you protect the humans for me?"
He manipulated his illusion to make it smile and said casually, "Of course. As a fellow human, I shall put my life on the line for them."
"A fellow... human?"
"You seem to forget this frightfully often, but I was originally a human, remember? Just because I've died doesn't mean I reincarnated into a different race!"
Yeah, I'm the one who did that.
"Seeing as you're already dead, I wouldn't really call you human either. If anything, you're more like a zombie."
"Why are all you strengthening mages so focused on the body aspect of things!? A human's true essence lies with their mind and soul, not their body!"
Except the mind was just a cocktail of chemicals that could easily be altered. In fact, since I had a human's soul with the brain of a werewolf, I often ran into issues. No one apart from me understood the fear of letting a werewolf's instincts take over my human rationality. Whenever I thought about how much carnage I caused every time I went on a rampage, chills ran down my spine. However now that I thought about it, Parker was an even more mysterious existence. He somehow still had thoughts and a personality despite having no brain at all. I should probably be nicer to him considering how hard he has it. Unfortunately, the moment I thought that—
"Oh, are you one of the evil spirits who has taken residence in this castle? I am Parker, a necromancer! I see, you were executed for breaking the rules. Ah, if you would like, I can send you on to the afterlife."
"Oi, stop helping evil spirits."
Never mind, I've gotta be strict with him.
Once we reached Fort Novesk, I began training for what was to come.
"That's not how you say it, Mister Veight." Warrant Officer Natalia shook her head. "You don't pronounce it like 'Feh.' It's a 'Fuh' sound. 'Fuh.'"
"I see."
I looked back down at the Sonnenlicht scripture in front of me and resumed reading it aloud.
"Neit, Ivawfeh..."
I glanced back up at Natalia and saw her frowning.
"That's not quite it either. Ah, I know what the problem is. Your inflection is off."
Natalia read the scripture in a perfect Rolmund accent. Using her voice as a reference, I once again tried to read it aloud. Rolmund and Meraldia shared a language. It made sense, considering Meraldia's northern citizens had once been part of Rolmund. And it was the north who had won the Meraldian Unification War. But because Rolmund and Meraldia had been isolated from each other for so long, and because North Meraldia had borrowed words from the southern languages, there were slight differences in pronunciation and grammar. Furthermore, because the environments of Meraldia and Rolmund were so different, they had different phrases, and the few phrases they shared often meant different things.
For example, "like snow" had two separate meanings in Rolmund and Meraldia. In Meraldia, things were "white as snow," but in Rolmund, things were "harsh as snow." I needed to be careful of what I said. While I could make conversation with the people of Rolmund easily enough, I needed to understand the nuances of their dialect if I wanted to avoid making any blunders while negotiating. This was something Eleora had taught me. Before, she'd said, "I am well aware of my shortcomings. My biggest weakness is my inability to win enemies over. So I'll be relying on you for that."
When she was in Meraldia, Eleora had always made sure to use Meraldia's style of speech to avoid being misunderstood. Likewise, to someone of Rolmund, Meraldia's dialect sounded something like this: "Didja know? I 'ready figured out why ahm bad. Da ting I suck at most's persuadin' folk, ya hear. Y'all er better at that den me, so take care of it for me, luv."
I'd mixed a bunch of dialects in there together, but that was basically how Meraldian speech sounded to people of Rolmund. Naturally, there was no way I could negotiate sounding like that. Eleora's mage corps was made up of elites who'd all mastered Meraldian dialects for the upcoming invasion. So it was both fair and completely possible for me to learn Rolmund's dialect in exchange.
There did exist magic to translate languages, but since my mother tongue was Japanese, all the translations came out reading like garbled machine translations. The one time I'd tested it out, the sentence it produced caused Natalia to blush and run out of the room.
The people who were currently participating in Natalia's Rolmundese lecture were me, Kite, Mao, and Fahn. Lacy had given up on the first day, while Parker had mastered the language in just a few sessions. Though he looked like a moron, my fellow disciple was quite the genius. There was a reason he was the only one of Master's disciples to have crossed the final threshold. He definitely looked like a moron, though.
At the moment, Natalia was correcting Fahn's vocabulary.
"Fahn, you can't use words like slaughter. Nobles tend to be disgusted by words like that."
That seems more like a human reaction than a noble reaction. Slaughter wasn't a word that saw much everyday use in Meraldia either. It was about time to tame Fahn's wilder side.
Language wasn't the only difference between Meraldia and Rolmund. Rolmund had different customs as well. For example, Rolmund had different table manners. Eleora was personally teaching us how to integrate into Rolmund's culture.
"Rolmund's court etiquette is similar to Meraldia's but is needlessly more complicated."
Needlessly, huh? Eleora snorted derisively and deftly picked up a knife and fork.
"In order to reinforce social hierarchy, court etiquette has become subdivided by class. Furthermore, the more complex rites you know, the more dignity you're perceived to have."
Even simple things like where you placed your knife was different depending on whether you were a priest or a knight. And the direction it faced when you put it down depended on your rank and the rank of those around you. If you placed your knife in the same way as someone with higher status, you'd be mocked. Depending on the situation, you could even be executed.
God, this country sucks. Fortunately, I was claiming to be a Meraldian noble, so people couldn't complain too much about what I did. All of these customs and gestures were for reinforcing hierarchy within Rolmund, so foreign nobility was mostly exempt.
"Sure would be nice if you could at least relax when eating dinner."
Upon hearing my grumbling, Eleora put a hand to her chin.
"Well, you're not required to follow the proper rules during a banquet. I suppose that's why nobles hold so many banquets."
In that case, the only meals I'm showing up for are banquets. However, Eleora's next words dampened my enthusiasm.
"Alas, I wouldn't recommend eating at banquets. Though rare, people have been poisoned at them before."
God I hate this country.
"So are most dinners also meetings?"
"You could say they are just meetings. It's standard practice to hand your plate over to a server and get a new one. Likewise with your glass. But even then, most people don't risk eating at a formal event and take their meals beforehand."
So you guys are just wasting all the food your serfs slave away to grow. How utterly pointless. However, the Rolmund social event I was most dreading was the ball.
"Rolmund nobles do not dance at balls. They consider it improper and uncouth."
These guys are a real stick in the mud. However, it seemed commoners always danced at festivals, as they had no other form of entertainment available to them. The real reason nobles didn't dance was to differentiate them from commoners. Either way, I was relieved to learn I wouldn't actually have to dance at any Rolmund balls.
* * * *
—Veight's Letter to Airia: 1—
Dear Airia,
We have successfully arrived in the land of Rolmund. Currently, we are staying at Princess Eleora's castle, Fort Novesk. For the present, we are learning Rolmund's customs and language from the mage corps. As one would expect of a country with a history as long as Rolmund's, its culture is deep and complex. I must say, I find myself fascinated by it. I'll tell you all about it when I return home to Ryunheit.
How are things on your end? While East Rolmund's climate is milder than the empire's other regions, it's even colder than Krauhen here. In Ryunheit, temperatures only dip this low in late autumn. That being said, the days are growing colder in Ryunheit as well, so make sure to stay warm. I pray you do not fall ill.
Sincerely, Veight.
* * * *
Once I finished penning my letter, I resumed studying Rolmund's culture and language. I needed to work hard to cultivate my persona as a mysterious foreign noble. The unknown was capable of manipulating people's emotions in all sorts of ways. The reason why demons were so feared by humans was that humans didn't know anything about us.
While I was busy learning, Eleora was focusing on camouflaging our movements. In order to make it seem as though her campaign to conquer Meraldia had been a success, she needed to do a lot of preliminary things. Eleora was the mastermind in charge of the deception, while we Meraldians simply signed whatever documents she needed us to. As I'd expected, she was quite used to political maneuvering. Her being so skilled made my job easier. It took only ten days for Eleora to finish all of her preparations.
"His Majesty's condition has improved somewhat, so we have permission to report to him directly. It took a while to sort things out since the crown prince doesn't want us to meet him."
"Well done, Eleora. This is a good opportunity to build connections inside the royal palace."
I was a little apprehensive about appearing in public so soon, but we needed to hurry before the emperor died. We had to gather as many allies as possible while he was still alive. My palace debut would also be a good opportunity to learn more about Rolmund's internal situation.
* * * *
—Airia's Reply—
Dear Veight,
Thank you for taking the time to write to me despite how busy you must no doubt be. When I saw your straight, sharp penmanship, I felt as though you'd returned to my side for a moment. By your account, Rolmund is as cold as the rumors claim, so I'm grateful you remain healthy. Naturally, I'm worried about the rest of the expedition party as well, but seeing as you've not said anything about them, they must be well.
Back here, Sir Ryucco has made great progress in analyzing and upgrading our new weapons. As the details are classified information, I cannot tell you much more in this letter, but he has managed to implement many of your suggestions. There is much regarding domestic and international affairs that I wish to speak to you about, but as there is a chance this letter may be intercepted, I shall refrain from doing so here. Fortunately, everyone is in good health, including the councilors and the residents of the demon capital. I shall take care of things here in Ryunheit, so worry not about us. Focus on your mission, Veight. Everyone here is praying for your safe return.
* * * *
"She sure replied fast..."
I slipped Airia's letter into my breast pocket and remounted my horse. We were getting ready to depart Fort Novesk. It would be me, my werewolves, and Eleora going on this expedition, while her mage corps stayed behind to defend the fort. I wasn't planning on getting into any battles, so the fewer troops I took with me, the better. If I brought too many, people would start to suspect I was scheming something. For that reason, Eleora was only taking Borsche and Natalia with her.
Fort Novesk lay on the southern tip of what had once been Eastern Rolmund. On the other hand, the imperial capital Schwerin was at the center of Western Rolmund. The capital naturally was named after the royal family that ruled it. Regardless, it lay a good distance away.
Various lords ruled the territories between Novesk and Schwerin, and we'd have to pass through at least one of their lands on our way to the capital. Since Eleora was an imperial princess, courtesy demanded that we pay a visit to whoever's lands we passed through. Naturally, that would mean we'd need to dine with the local lords and possibly spend the night at their castle. If we refused, it would make them look bad. However, this was a land in which people were poisoned on a daily basis, so I wouldn't be able to relax in a stranger's castle.
We'd be spending our first night with Eleora's uncle, Lord Kastoniev. Lord Kastoniev's castle was built on a wide, empty plain and surrounded by a deep moat. Though it had been built for war, few soldiers guarded it and there was a laid-back atmosphere around the castle.
"Your Highness Eleora, congratulations on your successful campaign. Come in and rest. You must be tired."
The man who came to greet us at the castle gates was Lord Kastoniev himself. He seemed like a good-natured, middle-aged man. Apparently, there was a ten-year difference between him and Eleora's father, and he'd doted on Eleora's father quite a bit in their youth. I guess it should have been obvious, but it seems even among Rolmund's nobles there are people with proper human emotions. But despite the warm welcome, Eleora's tone was formal.
"It's only thanks to you keeping my lands safe in my absence that I was able to fight without worry, Lord Kastoniev. I'm deeply grateful for your help."
I didn't see why she had to be so formal with her own uncle, but it wasn't my place to butt into other people's family affairs. While Lord Kastoniev prepared a feast for us, I asked Kite, Lacy, and Parker to gather information. There was a lot I wanted to know about this empire, but the most important thing was to find out how the bulk of the empire's citizens, in other words its slaves, lived. Even if they were slaves, it was important to know how they were treated. And more importantly, what they thought of their lives.
After lunch, I sought out Kite and asked him what he'd found.
"Almost all of the slaves around here are serfs. There are few things differentiating them from free men, but there are some restrictions they need to abide by."
Serfs had to live in the villages their lords told them to, and they could take up no trade other than farming. They were unable to move and could not choose their career. Personally, I'd hate a life like that. However, in return for being forced to live a simple life, they were guaranteed food and shelter. During years where the harvest was bad, the serfs' lord would provide them food. A feudal lord's serfs were his main source of income, so naturally he wouldn't want them to die.
Kite added darkly, "They're basically being treated the same way I was when I was working for the Senate... though I guess farming's less dangerous than my job was."
"I suppose farming would be preferable to negotiating with a werewolf one on one."
One huge perk of being a serf was that serfs weren't conscripted into the army. Within Rolmund's culture, using serfs as soldiers was a huge taboo. Even the most powerful nobles would have their lands and titles stripped if they attempted it. When I heard that, I smiled ruefully.
"I see the empire's nobles are terrified that if they give their slaves military training they'll rise up in revolt."
"Huh? Ah... I see. I guess if trained veterans started a revolt, they'd be a lot harder to suppress than disorganized rabble."
Kite nodded in understanding. On paper, it seemed as though serfs had an easy life, but I doubted that was truly the case. I stared absentmindedly out the castle window. Past the plains surrounding the castle was a dark conifer forest. Behind the forest towered a series of massive mountains. From what I could tell, Rolmund was situated on a highland plateau.
"What's wrong, Lord Veight?"
I turned back to Eleora and said, "There's something I need to know. Is Lord Kastoniev loved by his people?"
"He is. He's been very prudent during his rule to ensure no one is inclined to revolt. He's even kind to his slaves so that they don't think of fleeing beyond the mountains."
Eleora spoke with pride; it was clear she thought highly of her uncle. Though she remained vigilant even around him, it seemed she still loved him. At any rate, this meant that Lord Kastoniev was one of Rolmund's better nobles. Perfect. I decided to explore the castle town while I waited for evening. Of course, in order to do so, I'd need Lord Kastoniev's permission. Fortunately, my position as a foreign noble meant he couldn't be rude to me.
"Lord Kastoniev, may I have your permission to explore your domain?"
"Of course, feel free. I shall assign you a guide, so you don't get lost."
I guess that's one way of keeping an eye on me while seeming polite.
Together with Kite, I visited a nearby village. Two of Lord Kastoniev's knights followed silently after us. They were armed and dressed in lightweight armor. Most of Rolmund's soldiers were expressionless and taciturn, and these two knights were no exception. However, I could tell by the smell of their sweat that they were nervous. Man, this is awkward...
The first thing I noticed was that the village had no fence or watchtower.
"Meraldia's citizens only feel safe behind sturdy walls, but it seems Rolmund's citizens aren't worried about demons or thieves."
"Plus, if villages have no defensive structures to speak of, they'll be easy to quell if they revolt."
"I see."
We kept our voices low, so the knights behind us wouldn't hear. It was oddly quiet when I entered the village. There were no villagers in sight. But when I strained my ears, I could hear the faint breathing of humans coming from within the houses. They were trying to make no noise, but they couldn't fool my senses.
"Looks like they're pretty wary of us."
"It makes sense."
It seemed foreign nobles were something to be afraid of. That made sense, since there was no telling what they might want. Most villages in Rolmund were made up almost entirely of serfs. There were also a few free men, but they mostly worked as tenant farmers, so they weren't much different. Not long after I entered the village, the village's overseers came to greet me. They were two middle-aged men. Overseers were granted the authority to bear weapons, but the sword belts at the men's hips were empty. However, there were tassels hanging from the belts to denote their status. One of the knights walked forward and whispered into the overseers' ears.
"That man over there is a Meraldian noble and a guest of Her Highness, Princess Eleora. Don't do anything to offend him. But don't reveal too much, either."
"Understood."
Of course, my hearing picked their words up easily. Granted, I'd expect the knight to say something like that. I'd been hoping to have a chat with some of the serfs, but they were all hiding in their houses. If this were a movie or novel, right now would be when I'd reveal some special skill to attract people's attention. Then kids would start slowly coming out to watch or something. Unfortunately, with how closely the knights and overseers were watching me, I wouldn't be able to pull off something like that. Not that I had any special skills that kids would find interesting to begin with. Guess I'm stuck talking to these guys.
"I am Veight, a visitor from Meraldia. Our country doesn't have a slavery system, but after speaking with your princess, we are considering instituting one. Is there anything important I should know about how to handle slaves?"
Of course, I wasn't going to do anything of the sort, but I needed to make these guys less suspicious of me. The other knight standing behind started signaling something to the overseers with his eyes. I cleared my throat in order to interrupt him.
"This seems like a good village to learn from. It's why I came all the way out here. For the sake of Her Highness' invasion, I need to understand more about slavery."
By bringing up Eleora's name, I hoped to cow them into acquiescence. My position as her guest seemed to give me a good deal of authority, as the overseers caved to my demands.
"O-Of course. Our serfs are all obedient. Not once has this village risen up in revolt."
One of the knights hurriedly added on to the overseer's words, "In fact, none of the villages within our lord's territory have revolted in the last fifty years."
The report I brought back to Eleora would have a huge impact on their lives, so they were naturally worried. I decided to assuage their fears a little.
"I see Lord Kastoniev is as wonderful a ruler as the rumors claim. But I'm sure such stable rule is only possible thanks to the efforts of you knights and overseers, correct?"
Relieved, the overseers' expressions softened a little.
"Indeed! They may be serfs, but they live together with us and eat the same bread we do. If you treat your serfs harshly, they'll grow rebellious and become less productive."
I see the people here understand the importance of treating your workers well. Depressing as it was, the serfs here probably had better lives than I had in Japan. I wish I could tell my old self that.
I gave the overseers a gentle smile and attempted to butter them up further.
"I have heard from Her Highness that Lord Kastoniev is a truly wise lord. I suppose he must be, if he has surrounded himself with such capable retainers. I am impressed by his insight."
Anyone would be happy if a foreign lord started praising them. The overseers gradually grew more talkative, and they started letting important nuggets of information slip. I heard the knights behind me sigh, but naturally I ignored them. Attempting to revolt or flee was a capital crime, so serfs tended to remain obedient unless they were pushed to the brink. They had no real rights, so it was up to their overseers to fight for the stability of their livelihood. From what these guys told me, when a village's overseers were cruel or incompetent things got really bad.
"But of course, we make sure to protect our serfs."
"These lands are safe, so we rarely even wear our swords. Of course, we can only walk around unarmed because the serfs trust us, hahaha."
I examined the two overseers' sword belts. There were no traces of the wear that would normally occur if you hung a sword from them. It was true that they'd only be able to walk around unarmed if their relationship with their serfs was good. If the village was at risk of revolt, they'd need their weapons to keep the serfs cowed.
I'd hoped to talk with some of the serfs directly, but I couldn't afford to stay for too long. I told the overseers I'd return tomorrow morning before we left, then headed back to Lord Kastoniev's castle.
"Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. I'll be sure to tell Lord Kastoniev and Her Highness how hardworking the two of you are."
With that, their positions were secure. As expected, the overseers smiled and bowed deeply.
"Thank you very much. By all means, please come again tomorrow."
A short distance away, I heard the knights whispering to each other.
"Did you see that? I've never seen someone so eloquent."
"That must have been how he persuaded Her Highness to let him join her inner circle."
You know I can hear you, right?
Lord Kastoniev's family had only recently risen to the ranks of nobility. After the fall of the republic, West Rolmund had conquered North and East Rolmund. Kastoniev the First had made a name for himself in the bloody battle that had seen East Rolmund defeated. As a reward for his services, he'd been granted the territory he helped defeat.
While all of the other newly minted nobles had been struggling with poor crops and serf revolts, Kastoniev had successfully won over his people. Soon after, he absorbed the lands of nearby nobles who'd failed at managing their territory and greatly expanded his power. Before long, he'd become the most powerful noble in East Rolmund. However, his actual rank within the nobility had remained low, so he'd been looked down upon by other nobles.
"It was only by cleverly navigating the political minefield that is the imperial court that the Kastoniev house is where it is today. Lord Kastoniev had his younger brother marry the emperor's sister. In doing so, his family became part of the royal line, and he was given a title befitting his influence."
Sounding bored, Mao finished his report. He dug a piece of dried fruit out of his pack and started chewing on it. Apparently, despite marrying for political reasons, Eleora's parents had gotten along well. However, Eleora's father, Lord Kastoniev's younger brother, had passed away from illness soon after the marriage. Whether it had truly been illness or just poison, no one knew. Either way, Lord Kastoniev now had two nieces with the right to inherit the throne.
That was significant. It meant that Eleora had the backing of the Kastoniev clan. So you've got supporters after all, huh? Not only that, there was little chance they would betray Eleora. There was no future for the Kastoniev family if they abandoned Eleora and backed another heir. Because in doing so, they'd go from being a key player in the inheritance dispute to just another vassal of some other prince or princess. And even if they switched sides, it was possible they'd be wiped out if Eleora's position was compromised. In which case it made more sense to throw their lot in with Eleora.
"Mao, keep investigating the Kastoniev family for me."
"You want even more information?"
Mao wasn't enjoying gathering intelligence in a foreign land. I'd need to persuade him.
"Because of how close they are to Eleora, they're a prime target for assassination. Or bribery. We need to choose our allies carefully, or we'll be in trouble later."
Mao lapsed into thought for a few seconds, then nodded.
"Alright. I'll keep that in mind when I'm digging for news."
"Sorry for pushing this onto you. I'll let you handle how you want to do it."
"I'll figure something out using the merchandise I brought with me. You won't mind if I line my pockets a little while I'm at it, do you?"
"Not at all. There needs to be something in it for you too, or you'll have no incentive to do it."
The two of us grinned at each other. We really were a pair of scoundrels.
I still hadn't made my formal debut into Rolmund high society. If I were comparing this to a game, I'd still be in the tutorial part of the Rolmund chapter. Meaning it would be to my benefit to lie low a while longer. The moment I started moving in earnest, nobles within the empire would begin learning of Meraldia's true intentions. I wanted to learn as much as I could about the enemy before that happened.
That being said, this wasn't by any means a safe tutorial. Failure here would still be catastrophic. Man, real life is such a crappy game. For now, my best move was probably bringing Lord Kastoniev around as an ally.
The next morning, we departed from Lord Kastoniev's castle. As we walked through the main gates, I heard Lord Kastoniev whisper to Eleora, "Your Highness. Please take a break this winter and come rest at my castle."
"I'm afraid I can't, Lord Kastoniev."
Though Eleora's expression gave nothing away, there was genuine sadness in her voice. It seemed this uncle and niece had a good relationship, at least. As we were leaving, I dropped by the village I'd visited yesterday. This time Eleora came as well, which overjoyed the overseers. I'd asked her to say a few words to them beforehand. She smiled solemnly and said, "My lord uncle's lands are only as prosperous as they are because of the hard work of you officials. As his niece and as a member of the royal family, I am proud of what you've achieved. Please continue to give my uncle your unwavering loyalty."
Eleora had seemed somewhat reluctant when I'd asked her to speak to the overseers last night, but in the end she did it. Her bearing and appearance were just as regal as the kings and queens I'd seen in movies.
"We... We're not worthy of such praise, Your Highness..."
Despite being fully grown men, the two overseers choked up and started sobbing. You're not half bad at this, Princess. While Eleora was keeping the overseers occupied, I slipped inside the village to talk to the serfs. They'd given me permission to come in yesterday, so no one challenged me. It was easy to tell the serfs from the tenant farmers, because the serfs had no ornamentation whatsoever on their clothing. Most of them looked pretty busy, so I went over to an old man who seemed free. An injury or something was likely preventing him from working, which was why he was sitting by a barn repairing farming tools.
"Hello, sir. Would it be alright if I took some of your time?"
"Hm? W-Well..."
The man was guarded at first, but eventually I managed to drag him into a conversation. It seemed his family had worked this land as serfs for generations. His children and grandchildren were serfs as well, and they all worked in this village. Once we'd built up a rapport, I asked the question I most wanted an answer to.
"What would you want to do if you became a free man?"
Surprised, the man glanced about suspiciously. Oh yeah, I guess that's a dangerous topic to discuss. Please answer, though. I really need to know. The man finally put a hand on his chin and started thinking.
After a few seconds, he said, "I'd wanna drink beer every day..."
That's it? Serfs had little entertainment in their lives, but it appeared their overseers occasionally handed out liquor as a treat. The amount depended on the overseer and the village. That was their carrot part of the carrot and stick. As Rolmund was a frigid land, their liquor was quite strong. Naturally, this meant most people could hold their liquor, and they loved drinking it. Most of them worked hard for the sake of getting more.
"Beer, huh? How much would you want?"
"Haha. If I could, I'd stick my head in a beer barrel and keep drinking 'til I'm puking my guts out."
Oh boy. He's an alcoholic. I asked some of the other serfs who'd wandered over out of curiosity and their answers were much the same. All they wanted was wine, women, and food. If they were suddenly granted freedom, they'd probably indulge themselves in excess.
"You've never thought about moving to the city, or trying a different trade?"
The old man gave me a wrinkly smile.
"I'm fine here, boss. It's a nice peaceful village, and I've got my whole family here. I do wish I had more booze, though."
I could tell from his scent that he wasn't lying. He then added, "The lord and the overseers take care of all the difficult stuff. As long as we till our fields, we don't go hungry. That's enough for us."
He didn't sound at all like he was just enduring. He truly was happy with his life. Since serfs had their food and shelter guaranteed to them by their feudal lord, they weren't responsible for themselves the way free men were. Since they'd been born into these circumstances, serfdom was natural to them. They didn't desire anything more.
I went around and asked a few more serfs as well, but everyone in this village seemed happy. They were a far cry from what I'd imagined slaves would be like. They knew no other life and so were content with theirs. And even if they did learn of a life other than this, they probably wouldn't be interested in it. Of course, they were mildly dissatisfied with some of the restrictions placed on them. But even then, their desires were simple ones. "I want to drink more booze," or "I want to be able to boss someone around sometime." Those kinds of things. It was possible they were just hiding their true desires from me. Even if they weren't, it was possible other villages weren't like this. But at least here, no one seemed dissatisfied with the fact that they were slaves. I left the village and headed to Eleora, who was on horseback.
"Uniting the serfs and orchestrating an organized revolt will probably be difficult."
Eleora gave me a shocked look. It seems she hadn't been expecting those words.
"You... think up some rather daring plots, Black Werewolf King."
Perhaps because of what I'd learned back in Japan, but when I heard the word "slavery," my thoughts naturally turned to liberation. Which was why I'd considered the possibility of using the slavery system against the empire and orchestrating a full-scale revolt. However, it seemed Eleora hadn't even considered that a possibility. After thinking for a few seconds, Eleora shook her head.
"Barring a few exceptions, all serfs have been serfs for generations. They grew up watching their parents live the life of a serf, and they expect their children will do the same. So long as they work, their lives are guaranteed. On the other hand, if they revolt and their revolt ends in failure, their whole family will die."
"So even those unhappy with their lives find it easier to obey, huh?"
Eleora nodded.
"Correct. After the fall of the republic, many slaves fled the empire. The exodus continued until the empire was unified once more, so those who truly hated their lives have all left."
"And those slaves' descendants sure made your mission difficult."
Eleora gave me a troubled look.
"Please don't say that. You're the one who gave me the most difficulty."
She's really hung up about that...
"Regardless, our empire isn't comprised of fools. Having learned from past mistakes, the empire has reformed the slavery system to be more lenient."
So that's why the empire provides basic necessities for all of their serfs as well as granting them some measure of leisure. Furthermore, when serfs were bought and sold, they were customarily sold in entire village units. So even if a village's feudal lord changed, their families weren't split up and they weren't uprooted from their homes. Obviously, if you went into the details of it, it was still inhumane. But for the serfs, it was a better arrangement than selling them individually. It was because they were treated with a bare minimum of decency that they weren't interested in fleeing or revolt.
As we rode away, I turned back to the village. The overseers, serfs, and tenant farmers were watching us go. The reason everyone had come out was because the overseers would be distributing beer for everyone. Thanks to Eleora's visit, they'd decided to turn this day into a local holiday. There was bound to be a huge party tonight.
The old man I'd talked to initially was smiling happily as he saw us off. Thanks to the education I'd been given in Japan, I could see how twisted this system was. But I also realized that trying to forcibly fix it would cause more problems than it would solve right now. The people weren't ready for change. For the present, it was better that the village remain the way it was.
"Is something wrong, Lord Veight?"
"No, nothing. Guess I'll think up a different plan."
I shook my head and tried to figure out how to work my horse's reins.
* * * *
—Veight's Letter to Airia: 2—
Dear Airia,
We're en route to the imperial capital Schwerin, so I'm afraid I'll have to keep this letter brief. I've seen a lot of things on my way to Schwerin. Some villages are ruled by cruel overseers who torment their serfs, while others are surprisingly peaceful—and the social divide doesn't seem to matter. The only common factor among all the villages is that they have a culture going back hundreds of years.
Personally speaking, I despise slavery and don't think any sane nation should have such a system. I'm sure most of Meraldia's residents would agree. However, this empire cannot even function without slavery. It's a truly twisted nation.
That being said, the living conditions of the people within the empire aren't much different from those living in Meraldia. Most have stable lives, while some unfortunate few suffer. It really is strange. Once I arrive at the capital, I'll send another letter, so there's no need to reply to this one. Oh yes, East Rolmund is famous for its sugar beets, so I've sent you a bottle of sugar as a souvenir. Feel free to put it in your tea, or bake with it if you'd prefer that.
Sincerely, Veight.
* * * *
"It's amazing how much history is in Rolmund, Mister Veight."
Lacy was treating this entire trip like a sightseeing tour, it seemed. Her enthusiasm was infectious, though, and I couldn't help but smile.
"Yeah. After the republic collapsed, the empire spent three hundred years split in three. And it's been two hundred years since it was unified again. Rolmund's got a much longer history than Meraldia."
Lacy nodded emphatically.
"I see, that explains it. It hasn't even been one hundred years since Meraldia's Unification War, and it was just a few months ago that we became a Commonwealth."
Considering the history of empires back on earth, you probably only needed two centuries for a nation to solidify their culture and customs. But at the same time, two centuries was also more than enough time to bring about the complete destruction of empires.
While I was thinking such deep thoughts, the rest of my werewolves gawked at the sights like a gaggle of tourists. All of them could easily run back to Meraldia in no time, so they didn't feel like they were stranded in enemy territory. Their lack of wariness was both a good thing and a bad thing. And of course, Fahn was the one who seemed the most relaxed.
"Veight, I wanted to try riding one of those fluffy bird things too."
Fahn gave me a disappointed look as she skillfully maneuvered her horse with her reins. I shook my head and said, "Terabirds are easy to maneuver, so they're good for fighting in mountains and city streets, but they lack the stamina horses do."
"I see... Dang."
As always, Fahn had a soft spot for soft things. Incidentally, Fahn had just recently been promoted to the rank of Vice-Commander. Even when she'd been just a foot soldier, she'd been one of the biggest contributors to the werewolf squad. Which was why I'd had Master formally upgrade her rank to that of an officer before we'd left on this mission. Although it had felt kind of like nepotism, all of the other werewolves had endorsed the appointment as well. Hopefully Master will have a cool title for her by the time we return too. I looked Fahn in the eyes.
"Just so you know, Fahn, I'm going to focus entirely on negotiations once we reach the capital."
"I know, that's what you're good at."
"I'll be taking all of the human mages with me, so you'll be left with just the werewolves."
Thanks to how bloodthirsty werewolves were, it was pretty dangerous to leave them to their own devices. The last thing I wanted was my men causing trouble. Fahn grinned and thumped her ample bosom.
"Leave it to me! I'll keep the Garney brothers out of trouble, stop Monza from randomly killing people, and make sure Jerrick doesn't... actually, Jerrick'll be fine. Anyway, don't worry. I'll take care of everyone."
Man, she's become really reliable.
"Thanks, Fahn. At this rate, I'll be indebted to you for the rest of my life."
"Fufu, it's the big sister's job to take care of everyone, after all."
I really did end up relying on her a lot.
After a few days, we finally arrived at the imperial capital of Schwerin. Schwerin was separated into two districts. There was the nobles' district, which was protected by high, sturdy walls, and the outlying commoners' district. The commoners' district was protected by a flimsy wall, but since there were no monsters or thieves near the capital it didn't really need much in the way of defenses. All potential enemies had been eliminated centuries ago.
Schwerin's population was estimated to be around 70,000. Thanks to its size, it also had a garrison of over 1,000. And that population count only took into consideration those who were nobles or freemen, not slaves. On the other hand, Ryunheit's population didn't even reach 10,000, and that was including the demon army troops stationed there. Even Meraldia's largest city, Ioro Lange, only had a population of 20,000. There were plenty of rural cities that big in Rolmund.
"This place is huge..." Kite muttered in awe. I nodded and said, "If it ever comes to all-out war, we won't stand a chance."
Rolmund's size and population were on a completely different level. However, Eleora's adjutant Borsche smiled ruefully and shook his head.
"It cost us a great deal of resources to send an expedition army to Meraldia. Knights mounted on terabirds can cross the mountains separating Rolmund and Meraldia easily enough, but it takes a lot of time and supplies to send light infantry over."
Borsche paused for a moment as he collected his memories.
"For one thing, you have to pay for both their mountaineering equipment and their combat gear. That alone costs a fortune. It was for this reason that invading Meraldia was considered such a difficult mission."
Overhearing our conversation, Eleora joined in with a sad smile.
"We had to start our march before the tunnel was completed, and I lost six men on the mountain crossing alone. A less well-trained unit would lose many times that number if they attempted to cross."
So even the princess' elite unit which had received mountain training lost 5% of their forces on the crossing. That's a pretty heavy casualty rate. We continued conversing as we passed through the capital's magnificent inner gates and into the nobles' district. If Meraldia's technological level was somewhere in the early Middle Ages, then Rolmund's would be somewhere in the late Middle Ages. Excluding the discovery of gunpowder, their technological progress had brought them to the cusp of industrialization.
Once we entered the palace, I had my werewolves stay in the courtyard while Eleora and I picked out a few close attendants to take with us to the royal palace proper. As we left the courtyard, Parker whispered to me, "I was expecting something magnificent, but this exceeds even my expectations. It's a far cry from the cities in Meraldia."
While he wasn't wrong, the truth irked me. I replied, "The original inhabitants of Meraldia, Master's people, were wiped out, so the people living there now have only had a few centuries of time to build up a history. On the other hand, Rolmund has the benefit of having access to the knowledge it accumulated all the way from back when it was a republic. It's only natural there'd be a difference."
Rolmund's history hadn't been interrupted by a complete annihilation of its roots and culture. Naturally, that led to a distinct difference between it and Meraldia. As we walked into the audience hall, we laid eyes on the symbolic crystallization of all that history and progress, the current emperor. Or rather, we planned to, but no one was sitting on the throne.
However, there was a handsome young man standing beside the throne. He was a bit on the thin side, but he could have been a model back in Japan. For some reason, he pissed me off. His picture-perfect smile just made me want to punch his teeth out.
"Welcome home, Eleora."
If he was being so casual with a princess, he was likely the first imperial prince. Meaning he was next in line for the throne. What was his name again?
"He's Prince Ashley," Kite whispered into my ear. Thanks for the save, vice-commander. Eleora gave Ashley a curt bow and said, "Is His Majesty in poor health?"
"Unfortunately so. My deepest apologies, but I will have to receive your report in his stead. Is that permissible?"
It's not like we had a choice. He was the crown prince. Eleora nodded and, after getting the formalities out of the way, gave her report. The report we'd fabricated for Rolmund was that Eleora had managed to bring the entirety of Meraldia under her control. We'd forged all of the necessary documents, but now we would find out if our lie would hold up. Prince Ashley turned toward me.
"So you're the leader of Meraldia. From what I've been told, your cooperation was an essential factor in Eleora's success."
Of course that was all a lie. Regardless, I stepped forward and bowed reverently.
"I am one of the councilors who serve on the Meraldian Commonwealth Council, Veight Gerun Friedensrichter. Feel free to simply address me as Veight."
Technically, I didn't have a last name, but I'd needed to make one for myself to sell my noble status to Rolmund, so I'd decided to borrow Master's middle name and the previous Demon Lord's first name for myself. Of course, I'd gotten permission from Master before doing so. Prince Ashley nodded and replied, "As you wish, Lord Veight. Is it true that Meraldia is willing to swear fealty to our great Rolmund Empire?"
I smiled broadly and bowed my head.
"I have come here to prove my loyalty to my new liege, Your Highness."
I probably could have worded that less ambiguously, but I really didn't want to lie any more than necessary. So I purposely didn't mention who my new liege was. Unaware of my true intentions, Prince Ashley nodded in satisfaction.
"I have received permission from the emperor to speak on his behalf. I, Ashley Voltof Schwerin Rolmund, will grant you the title of Honorary Count."
In Western Rolmund, there had been a tradition of granting foreign nobles a special nobility rank that placed them within their own nation's hierarchy as well. But since it was a title in name more than anything, the title was prefaced with "honorary." Regardless, this meant I now had the right to participate in Rolmund high society as a noble. At the same time, this was my first true trial.
"But before I can do so, Lord Veight, there is one thing I must confirm."
"And what is that?"
"I hear you are known as the Black Werewolf King in Meraldia. Your title would imply that you, yourself, are a werewolf." Ashley then added, "The Sonnenlicht Order denounces demons as heretics. If you are indeed a werewolf, I am afraid I would be unable to grant you a title."
A mage walked into the audience hall, flanked by a phalanx of guards. The prince gestured to him and said, "I would like to have an imperial magician investigate your true identity. Would that be permissible?"
I smiled and held out a hand to the mage.
"As you wish, Your Highness."
The court magician grabbed my hand and chanted a spell. My guess was he was casting a detection spell. A rather thorough one at that. The wavelength of a person's mana was generally determined by their race. Humans and werewolves had different mana signatures, which was likely what the mage was searching for.
However, I had two very reliable, very skilled specialists on my side. A mage well-versed in arts of deception, and a mage well-versed in arts of detection. The illusionist Lacy and the epoch mage Kite. Lacy was currently copying her own mana signature and using it to mask mine. She'd perfected it by practicing with Kite. Right now, her deception was good enough that not even he could see through it.
Of course, I also had the option of using my own vortex powers to absorb the spell. The mage's detection spell acted as a sort of sonar though, so absorbing those waves of mana would result in me appearing as an unknown to him. What I wanted was to show airtight proof that I was human, not to raise suspicion.
When Eleora had been fighting against me, she'd sent detailed reports back to her homeland. So Rolmund's higher-ups knew that the Southern Commonwealth had nine councilors, as well as their names and appearances. I would have liked to have impersonated a different councilor, but the only one around my age was Aram, and his physique was nothing like mine. It would have been difficult to continually alter my appearance with illusion magic, so I'd decided to go to Rolmund as myself and no one else.
The court mage cast a number of other investigative spells, thoroughly checking my mana's composition. Had I not put countermeasures in place, my identity would have been long exposed. After a while, the court mage called for assistance, and another few mages came and cast the same spells. But no matter how many second or third opinions he called for, the results wouldn't change. Finally, the mages were satisfied, and they bowed wordlessly to Prince Ashley. He nodded and said, "Well done. You are dismissed."
Once the mages left, Ashley smiled at me.
"I apologize for the intrusion, but I beg your understanding. As a prince, I must be cautious."
I smiled back and bowed my head.
"I can understand. You would not want demons loitering around the royal palace. If you wish, you're welcome to investigate my aides as well."
Parker was using the same camouflage as me, and Kite and Lacy were humans to begin with. Ashley smiled wryly in response.
"If I appear too suspicious, it will reflect poorly on the imperial family. I simply had to verify your identity as a matter of protocol, you may rest easy now."
With that, the empire was convinced that I was a human who ruled over werewolves. They likely wouldn't investigate me any further. We were already giving Ashley a false report on the political situation within Meraldia, so I figured I might as well throw some lies in about my identity too.
"My homeland is close to the demon army's sphere of influence. As I have often negotiated both with and for them, I have become something like the werewolves' official diplomat."
Nothing I said was a lie. Originally, the werewolves weren't part of the demon army. It was only after I'd convinced them that they formed a squad to join the army. Persuading them had been one hell of a challenge. Prince Ashley nodded.
"I see... so you have cut open a path not with martial might, but with the power of the pen."
"Correct. However, it takes a man of a certain caliber to negotiate with humans on behalf of demons, Your Highness."
I smiled suggestively at the prince. I'd been practicing my evil smile recently. Prince Ashley took the bait and leaned forward, curious.
"In Rolmund we have a certain saying. 'A sheep in wolf's clothing.' It comes from one of our old folk tales, where a sheep wore the skin of a wolf to protect itself from other wolves."
"As you can see, Your Highness, underneath all of my bluster I am but a sheep."
My smile grew wider, and Prince Ashley shook his head.
"You seem to be less of a sheep and more of a horned ram."
I hadn't heard of that animal before, but it was probably some kind of beast-like monster. The prince called in several other nobles to introduce me to, then concluded the audience. While Eleora was able to escape unscathed, the prince seemed to be treating her rather curtly for someone who'd just successfully conquered another nation. I'd heard the court had cut back on lavish feasts to curtail expenses these past few decades, but even so, it was clear that the prince didn't want to let Eleora have any glory. What a shame. I was hoping to try some tasty food.
"Our business is concluded. It would be impolite to loiter in the audience hall. Let us depart, Black Werewolf King."
"One moment."
Was Eleora planning on holing up in her fortress again? This was the time to be recruiting followers and winning people over, but it seemed Eleora was only interested in doing her duty. Of course, I could understand why. This palace wasn't welcoming to a princess who was only sixth in line for the throne. Borsche leaned close and whispered, "Most of the nobles living in the capital are mere esquires who possess no land. Their only hope of becoming landed is to have someone from the emperor's direct family grant them with territory, so most of them are Prince Ashley's allies."
"Are there any exceptions?"
Eleora gave me a sardonic smile.
"There are a few who have decided to back the emperor's younger brother instead. The Doneiks family holds vast swathes of territory, and many of North Rolmund's lords support him. Quite a few are hoping he will grant them his scraps."
Middle-class nobles who possessed land were referred to as "landed nobles." They earned their living by taxing the serfs that worked their land. Since they were self-sufficient, they didn't need to rely on the imperial family. In an empire, land meant power. Regardless of how Eleora seized the throne, she would need to obtain the support of the landed nobles, or she'd be facing rebellion after rebellion. Of course, she was capable enough to put them all down, but it wouldn't be pretty. As I was pondering what the best way to win over all the other nobles was, I wandered into the courtyard. Standing in front of me was a group of nobles who'd been present at the earlier audience. Borsche leaned close and whispered, "Those are all esquires affiliated with the emperor's brother. Be careful around them."
"Understood."
I wasn't very interested in landless nobles, but it wouldn't hurt to win them over if I could. However, their first words dashed any hopes I had of convincing these guys. In a voice loud enough for us to hear, they said, "Princess Eleora is quite capable. I never imagined she would win over those barbarians as allies."
"Her Highness has inherited her mother's alluring figure. It is not hard to imagine how she managed such a feat."
"From what I heard she lost over half of her precious mage corps."
"So she's replenished her numbers with those barbarians? It must really have been a harsh campaign for her to stoop so low."
I see, so that's how it is. By purposely acting cold toward Eleora, they were publicly affirming their loyalty to the Doneiks family. Regardless of what their status or abilities were, I had no intention of teaming up with such scum. That being said, they weren't completely worthless. Since I was already here, I figured I might as well make some use out of them.
Smiling, I swaggered up to the nobles. For a moment, they looked shocked. Before they could react, I said in perfect, unaccented Rolmundian, "Your statements are an affront to Her Highness Princess Eleora. Retract them at once and apologize."
The nobles whispered furiously to each other. Then one of them smiled awkwardly and said, "Now this is a surprise... I never imagined a rural Meraldian noble would dare raise his voice against a great Knight of Rolmund."
Who the hell's this guy? Among the esquire ranks, knight was the lowest of the low. In fact, a knight barely ranked as nobility. I knew guys like this. If I backed down here, he'd just get even cockier. I'd learned that the hard way back in Japan. Just remembering those days pissed me off. There was no need to treat someone like this as human. I'd deal with him the demon way, not the human way. I sneered at the man and said, "I'm even more surprised a powerless Rolmund noble like you isn't bowing down to me, the man who holds all of Meraldia in his grasp. I see Rolmund's nobles are too uneducated to understand the intricacies of government."
Though Meraldia's population was small, it did hold a vast expanse of territory. And I was one of the councilors on the Commonwealth's ruling body. Disparaging me was the same as disparaging Airia, or Firnir. Not only had this fool insulted Eleora, but he'd insulted all of Meraldia. I was itching to beat his face in, but I decided to hold it in for a little while longer.
The noble was so stunned by my belligerent attitude and the unexpected turn of events that came with it. Because these nobles knew so little about me, they'd assumed I was just some lowly noble coming from their empire's vassal state. Rolmund was a powerful nation, and because of that, these nobles had grown arrogant and looked down on foreigners. Meaning it was up to me to teach them that they were just a big fish in a small pond.
Still smiling, I added, "Though I can understand why you might think as you do."
Confused, the nobles gave me an odd look.
"While Her Highness and I were fighting ferociously at the front lines, you petty nobles sat on your asses and lived off the bounty of your people. It would be too much to expect anything from you."
"Wha!?"
"Which is why as I said earlier, I will forgive you so long as you are willing to retract your remarks and apologize. I would recommend apologizing while I'm still smiling instead of yelling."
The nobles seethed, and the largest among them, a bulky young man, put a hand to the rapier at his waist. Thanks to my heightened kinetic vision, I could hold my own pretty well in a fight even without transforming. I cast the strengthening magic I'd prepared beforehand on my palms and grabbed the man's right hand.
"If you draw your weapons without even a formal declaration for a duel, you will be no better than common thugs. And I will dispose of you as such. Surely you don't wish for such an ignoble end."
"What the—"
The man was taller than me, but his face gradually turned pale as he realized how much pressure I was putting on his hand. I was also holding it in place, so he couldn't escape.
"Y-You whelp... Uraaaaagh!"
His anger turned to hesitation, then fear. With my current grip strength, I could easily crush his fingers into dust. Just as he realized that, I let his hand go. He was so terrified that all the blood had drained from his face. I hardened my smile and gave the nobles one last warning. Let's see if third time's the charm.
"This is your last warning. Retract your statements and apologize."
The nobles exchanged worried glances, and their leader stepped forward. He was a confident, well-dressed middle-aged man. Judging by his attitude, he likely held a higher status than the others. He was also quite well-built.
"We refuse. We will not bow our heads to some foreign mongrel."
He's got guts. Guess there's no need to hold back.
"Considering how empty they are, I would hope you at least have the sense to bow them when the time comes."
Following proper Rolmund custom, I took off the decorative chain on my sword belt. By removing the decorations on my belt, I was signaling my intent to fight. Such an action also served as a challenge for a duel. While the other nobles were cowering, their leader also removed the chain on his belt. He'd accepted the duel. The moment one party dropped their chain on the ground, the duel would begin.
However, the noble made no move to drop his chain. Meaning, he would accept my challenge if I issued it in earnest but would not issue one of his own. In truth, there was no real merit to dueling. Nobles who were overfond of dueling tended to be short-tempered, meaning they rarely rose high in the ranks. Mostly because they died before they could. I was a Meraldian diplomat, so dueling here would also negatively affect future negotiations. So of course, this man was likely thinking that I wouldn't go through with it.
Unfortunately for him, I had no interest in making friends within Rolmund. I grinned wolfishly and dashed my chain against the ground. The other nobles gasped. My smile grew even more devious as I watched their faces pale.
"Y-You fool... are you insane!?"
"Who knows? But now you can't run. Enjoy your last moments alive."
I was mostly doing this to make my intentions clear, but I had to admit I also wanted an excuse to go wild.
The duel was set for tomorrow evening. It would be held in the parade grounds the imperial guards used for drills. Within the private quarters Eleora had been assigned, Lacy restlessly paced back and forth.
"Mister Veight, are you sure this is a good idea? If you transform, everyone will know you're a werewolf. Ah, I suppose I could cast an illusion on your appearance to... No, that won't work."
I ignored Lacy and turned to Kite.
"You're required to have a second in a duel, so you'll be my second."
Eleora raised an eyebrow.
"I should be your second. You started this duel to protect my honor. If I remain an onlooker, I will appear weak."
I shook my head in response.
"I know how you've avoided rising to provocations until now in order to prevent things from blowing out of proportion. Which is why you can't get involved now either."
If Eleora personally got involved in a fight with nobles on Doneiks' side, it would worsen relations between his family and hers, the Originia family. Since the Originia family was an offshoot of the matriarchal line, it was in a much weaker position than the Doneiks' family. They couldn't afford a confrontation right now. Furthermore, if Eleora got involved it would bring trouble to her father's family as well, the Kastonievs.
"As long as I'm the only one involved, it will just look like the whims of an odd foreign noble. At worst it will sour diplomatic relations between Meraldia and Rolmund, but it's not like I ever cared about those in the first place."
After all, my plan was to put Eleora on the throne and have her take care of this nation. However, Eleora sighed softly, unwilling to give in. In order to prevent her from feeling guilty, I grinned wickedly and said, "Don't misunderstand, Princess Eleora. I'm not dueling for your honor. This is simply something I deemed necessary as a member of the Meraldian Commonwealth Council, and as a Vice-Commander of the demon army. Nothing more, nothing less."
That seemed to convince Eleora. However, she wasn't done talking yet.
"Very well. But, Black Werewolf King, do you know who your opponent is?"
"I think he called himself Viscount something-sky, but honestly I don't remember."
Upon hearing that, Eleora's expression grew grim.
"Viscount Schmenivsky. He used to be a landed count, but after seven serf revolts he was stripped of his land and demoted. He's infamous."
What the hell did he do to make his serfs revolt seven times?
"That man is savage and cruel. He's cut down slaves simply to test the sharpness of his new swords. He's completely irredeemable scum."
I hadn't encountered anyone quite that awful in Meraldia yet. Eleora frowned, as if the mere mention of his name appalled her, and added, "It's said that he once got into an argument with his guest about a certain poem. They were debating the line 'A blood-red sunset,' and to prove that such a descriptor was accurate, he slit a slave's throat and compared the slave's blood to the sunset. Within the court he's known as the Count of Slaughter."
Is he a psycho or something? I turned around and saw Lacy was trembling, so I decided to reassure her a little.
"Don't worry. Meraldia doesn't have disgusting nobles like that. And if it turns out we do, I'll personally strip them of all authority. Like the Senate that came before us, it's the Council's duty to ensure people do not abuse their authority."
"Th-That's not what I'm worried about! What if he cuts your head off, Mister Veight!?"
It would be pretty hard to actually decapitate someone with a dueling rapier. I turned to Eleora and gave her my frank opinion.
"If nobles like that can just do whatever they want, then this country has no future."
"I would love nothing more than to slaughter the Count of Slaughter. But considering my position, I can't easily do that."
"Which is why I'm offering to do it for you. Besides, I've been needing a good warmup."
I said that as a joke, but for some reason that only caused Eleora to look even more troubled. Please just smile.
* * * *
—The Count of Slaughter's Banquet—
"Hahahahaha!"
Though Viscount Schmenivsky was laughing, the young nobles around him looked incensed.
"This is an outrage! An absolute farce!"
"How dare that country bumpkin make light of us proud nobles!"
All the nobles gathered around the viscount were supporters of Doneiks. Their position would become quite tenuous if Prince Ashley took the throne, and as they possessed no land, they had little influence in court. At best they were useful in minor political maneuvering, but they were easily replaceable. Thus, they were extremely motivated to bring the Doneiks faction up to par with the crown prince's faction. One of the nobles turned to Schmenivsky, who seemed to be in a good mood still, and yelled, "Lord Viscount, please teach that upstart Veight fellow a lesson!"
Schmenivsky perused his collection of prized swords and said with a smile, "There's no need to be so gentle. I'll just kill him."
"Ooooh..."
The young nobles looked momentarily taken aback, then started showering the viscount with praise.
"You really are North Rolmund's hero!"
"The strongest noble who slaughtered thousands of serfs in the seven rebellions you put down!"
"'Those who oppose my rule shall feed the soil with their blood and become the crops they grow.' It seems that quote of mine is still causing quite a stir within the royal palace."
Schmenivsky had managed his territory so poorly that his serfs had risen up in rebellion seven times now. Every time they'd rebelled, he'd punished them so harshly that they'd been driven to rebellion again. But as Schmenivsky believed that it was the serfs who were in the wrong, he felt no remorse about his harsh reprisals.
"Thoroughly rooting out any voices of discontent is the sacred duty of Rolmund nobility. That soft Meraldian barbarian has no chance against the viscount's steel."
"Now, now. No need to flatter me... Though I have no intention of losing to some Meraldian upstart."
Schmenivsky drew one of his sabers and cut cleanly through a candlestick. The cut was so clean that the stick remained standing even after his blade had passed.
"Wow, that was splendid..."
"Even though he slashed from a sitting position, he was able to cut with such precision."
Schmenivsky slowly got to his feet while his onlookers gazed at him in awe.
"Now then, the hour is upon us. Let's put this trifling matter to rest."
Schmenivsky snatched his cape from the outstretched hands of one of his followers and grinned.
"Prepare a celebratory banquet for me, gentlemen."
* * * *
The next evening, I headed to the imperial parade grounds. At my side was Kite. His job was to inspect the weapons and equipment my opponent would be bringing into the duel. A few interested werewolves had also come to watch the duel. Specifically, Fahn and her handpicked subordinates.
"Veight, if you need help, just holler. We'll come running."
"You can count on us, boss."
"Veight, we can kill that bastard before the duel even starts if you want!"
Please honor the rules of dueling, guys. Viscount Whatever-sky had also brought his second and supporters with him. On top of that, he'd also brought around 20 guards. He was probably hoping to overwhelm me with numbers if things turned south, but Fahn could take out a squad of 20 by herself.
The man officiating the duel belonged to a neutral faction, the crown prince's. It was his job to record the duel and report what happened to the emperor.
Viscount Whatever-sky's second brought out a massive suitcase.
"These are the weapons which will be used in today's duel. Please inspect them."
Since I was the one who'd issued the challenge, Viscount Whatever-sky possessed the right to decide the location of the duel, as well as what weapons would be used. Inside the suitcase was a pile of swords. Thank God it's not a crossbow duel or something. My aim is horrible. I turned back to Kite.
"I'll leave checking them to you."
"Sure."
Kite picked up each sword one by one and examined it closely. He was making sure nothing strange had been done to the weapons. Though few others could tell, I sensed the faint trace of mana that denoted he was using epoch magic. He was being quite thorough.
Once he'd finished his inspection, Kite bowed to the viscount's second and returned to his designated spot. I then stepped up to the suitcase myself. Through the magic broach at my neck, I could hear Kite giving me advice.
"The saber with the red agate in its pommel has been enchanted with agony magic. The rest are all normal."
Enchanted with agony magic, huh? Even a slight brush against something enchanted with agony magic was enough to cause someone to suffer severe pain for a few seconds. I'd tinkered around with agony magic when I'd been training with Master, and the pain was comparable to a dentist drilling into your tooth without any anesthesia. However, the way the pain was imparted onto people changed based on the person, so agony magic wasn't the most reliable in battle. Often, it wouldn't activate at all. Werewolves were quite resilient to pain, so it was possible the saber wouldn't affect me at all. I hoped, anyway.
Regardless, I had first pick when it came to weapons. Should I take the saber, or not?I wasn't the most skilled with a sword, so a tricky weapon like a saber might be too much for me. Especially since the blade was quite thin. Viscount Whatever-sky had gone through all the trouble of setting up this little trick, so I might as well let him have his sword. I flashed the viscount a knowing smile and said, "I care not which weapon I use. You may choose first."
The Count of Slaughter smiled confidently, certain of his victory.
"Such a magnanimous man. As you wish, then."
As I'd predicted, Viscount Whatever-sky went straight for the saber with the red agate. I actually rather liked villains who were this simple-minded. Once he was done, I picked the shortest sword available. It was more of a parrying dagger than a sword. The blade was short and stout, and its center of gravity was close to the hilt. Most importantly, though, it had a very good crossguard. It was, however, wholly unsuited to offense. Thrusts were about the only effective attack it was capable of, but its blade was a good twenty centimeters shorter than the viscount's saber. The Count of Slaughter's smile grew wider.
"Oh my. Do you perhaps lack confidence in your sword arm? I never imagined you would pick such a beginner weapon."
What happened to all that fake courtesy? It was honestly refreshing fighting such an evil guy. I was really starting to get attached to him. A shame I'll have to kill him in one hit.I smiled back at the viscount and walked to my designated starting point.
"This is all I need for the likes of you."
"You arrogant brat..."
Guess the fake courtesy's gone for good. His face was beet red, and his lips were trembling in rage. Come on man, if you're going to act like a cocky villain, you've gotta keep the act going until the end. Looks like I'll have to show you what a real villain's like.
The time to strike down Viscount Whatever-sky was almost here, but I was still a little worried about the enchantment on his saber. Maybe I should use pain neutralizing magic, just in case? Pretending to give a Sonnenlicht prayer, I surreptitiously cast magic on myself. Upon seeing what I was doing, the Count of Slaughter sneered.
"Isn't it a bit late to be praying? Fear not, I shall send you to your beloved god soon enough. You can pray to him in person."
This is just getting clichéd now. I couldn't help but give him a pitiful smile. The nobles overseeing the duel watched us complete our final preparations, then said, "Following the traditional laws of Rolmund, the duel between Honorary Count Veight Gerun Friedensrichter and Viscount Schmenivsky will now begin."
"Both sides, fight fairly so as to not dishonor your family name."
As per tradition, the Count of Slaughter and I bowed to each other, then took our stances.
His stance was solid and spoke of years spent on the battlefield. It seemed he really did love shedding blood. With the way he'd put his center of gravity, he could move in any direction at any time. I also fell into the stance Airia had taught me. It was a very basic stance, meant for defense. The viscount obviously believed he had a full measure of my strength, as he closed the gap between us without bothering to feel me out.
"Hiyaah!"
His thrust was sharp. For a human, that was. I was easily able to follow his movements with my enhanced kinetic vision. It seemed like he was aiming for my heart, but he was actually planning to raise the tip of his saber at the last moment and go for my throat or face. It wasn't a standard dueling maneuver.
As a human, I probably wouldn't have been able to handle swordsmanship like this, but right now it looked like he was moving in slow motion. Alright, this'll be a cinch. Focusing, I stepped diagonally forward with my left foot. With this, I had avoided the saber's trajectory. The viscount wouldn't hit me. Meanwhile, I used magic on my right foot to make it momentarily heavier, so that it served as an anchor holding me to the ground. Finally, I activated strengthening magic on myself, and—power filled my right leg, waist, back, and shoulders.
In front of me, the Count of Slaughter was still grinning like an overconfident idiot. I couldn't tell if I'd moved too fast for him to notice, or if he had his head so far up his ass that he wasn't even looking at me. Either way, I wasn't going to hold back.
I adjusted my grip on my parrying dagger and let loose a wild swing. The dagger's blade caught the saber and pushed it back while its crossguard slammed into the viscount's face. The back of the viscount's saber crushed his nose as it was pushed back and dug deep into his face. The force of the impact caused the blade to snap. Naturally, the agony magic contained within the blade activated. A fraction of a second later— "BWAAAAAARGH!"
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter52.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
That's an interesting scream. I watched as Viscount Whatever-sky flew through the sky in slow-motion. He did a single somersault as he tumbled backward. After flying a good three meters, he crashed into the ground face-first. A second later, his saber's broken blade landed on the dirt next to him.
"UGRUAAAAAAAAH!"
He was still screaming in agony, but not because I'd decked him. It was his own saber that was causing him all this pain. That's what you get for using a sword like that, dumbass. Viscount Whatever-sky thrashed around for a bit, started foaming at the mouth, then arched his back and fell unconscious. I'd been hoping to hit him with a few cool one-liners after beating him to a pulp, but I couldn't do that if he was out cold.
After a few seconds of standing around awkwardly, I turned back to the overseers. They were completely stunned. For a solid minute, all they could do was glance back and forth between me and Viscount Whatever-sky. To me, the fight felt like it had lasted almost a minute, but to the onlookers it, had flashed past in an instant. Wait, maybe according to Rolmund's dueling rules, I haven't actually won yet.
"Do I need to kill him?"
Upon hearing that, the overseers quickly returned to their senses.
"The winner is Lord Veight Gerun Friedensrichter!"
"Lord Schmenivsky, get ahold of yourself!"
"Th-That looks awful..."
"His front teeth have been knocked out!"
"Someone call a doctor— no, a healer! Hurry!"
It might have been kinder just to kill him, huh? I watched Viscount Whatever-sky get carried out by a stretcher, then looked down at the dagger in my hand. The impact of my swing had caused the crossguard to warp.
"Holding back really is hard."
I tossed the dagger to the viscount's second, then went home to get dinner. I had to say, the scarlet sunset looked a lot more vibrant than the viscount's blood.
"Thank you for defending my honor, Lord Veight."
"We're sworn allies. I only did was what natural. Besides, that wasn't the reason I fought him anyway."
Really, they'd just pissed me off. They were like jocks who bullied weak kids back in high school. I was sitting in Eleora's private manor, eating Rolmund's famous meat stew. It was pretty similar to beef stroganoff.
"So why did you leave the viscount alive?"
Animal husbandry hadn't advanced very far in this world, so meat was quite expensive. Which was exactly why I needed to eat as much as I could while the princess was paying. I savored the meat for a few more seconds before turning my attention to what Eleora had just said. Oh yeah, I did leave Viscount Whatever-sky alive, didn't I? Eleora waited until a servant finished pouring her a glass of wine, then added, "Rolmundians are a spiteful people. Our nobles especially. We even have a saying that goes 'The grudges of last winter shall haunt the next.' He'll be back for revenge."
I was more or less expecting that. But that didn't bother me in the slightest. I grinned wolfishly.
"Don't worry. There's a reason I left that bastard alive."
"There is?"
Confused, Eleora exchanged glances with Borsche, who was sitting next to her.
"Only necromancers have any use for the dead, but..."
"You called?"
The moment Parker butt in, I signaled to Kite. He grabbed Parker by the collar and started dragging him to a different room.
"Sorry, Parker, but we're busy right now."
"Wait! I simply must test out the new spell I've been developing with Master! With it, I'll be able to plunge the entire capital into chaos."
I don't like the sound of that. I turned back to Eleora and said, "Alive, he'll be useful to us. No matter how incompetent a person, no matter whether they're friend or foe, everyone can be used."
"You're scheming something again, aren't you?"
"Nothing major. Now then, I need to step out for a bit."
I finished off the last of the meat, wiped my face with a napkin, and got to my feet.
"You just finished a duel and you're going back out already!? Do you realize what time it is!?"
I gave Eleora a reassuring smile.
"Werewolves hardly even break a sweat in fights against humans. The real work begins now. You can just rest here; I'll take care of everything. Oh, but... Ah, I got it. Can I have one of those potted plants?"
"You mean these? I don't mind, but..."
I changed into the long, flowing clothes of a Meraldian southerner and said, "I'm going to pay our good viscount a visit. Lacy, come with me."
That evening, I visited Viscount Whatever-sky's mansion. The official reason for my visit was that I was going to pay my respects to my dueling opponent. The polite and respectful Honorary Count Veight would never be so rude as to forget about his opponent. And I had a persona to keep up.
Upon my arrival, I found the viscount groaning in bed, wrapped in bandages. While the healers had managed to staunch his wounds, his jawbone was still warped, and he was missing several teeth. The way his jawbone was warped was putting pressure on his nerves, so he'd be in pain for a while. It seemed the healer who'd overseen treating the viscount had not been very skilled. In fact, even I could have done a better job with wounds this simple.
From the looks of it, all of Rolmund's best mages focused solely on the research and invention of new magical tools. With the way the viscount's jaw had been set, it would never fully recover unless someone punched him that hard again. As I was trying to remember what the viscount's name actually was, I turned to Lacy—who was pretending to be my servant—and said, "Bring out the gift."
"Ah, okay."
Lacy took out the potted plant I'd brought as a get-well present and handed it to one of the Count of Slaughter's servants. It was the same potted plant I'd taken from Eleora's room.
"I've brought you a potted icebloom. The pot is made from Mashrov porcelain. I hope it suits your tastes."
Both the plant and the pot were extremely valuable, but it would be rude to mention that. I smiled as gently as I could at the viscount's servant and added, "I wish to congratulate my worthy opponent on surviving our duel. A potted plant symbolizes longevity, so I thought it would be a better gift than flowers."
"Oh... Thank you for your generosity."
There was no cultural taboo in this world about giving people potted plants as gifts, so this was a perfectly normal exchange. Of course, in Japan, sending a potted plant would be implying I wanted him to sleep forever, which I did. In the language of flowers here, though, a potted icebloom meant "may you be at peace." Once the exchange was over, Lacy and the viscount's servant backed out of the room, and I turned to the viscount. He glared at me through his bandages. Though the look in his eyes was venomous, his lips curled up into a smile.
"Y-Your kindness humbles me, Lord Veight... Though I regret we had to duel, my position left me no choice."
His lack of front teeth made his words come out funny, but I was able to understand him well enough. From his scent, I could tell that half of what he'd said was true.
According to Eleora, the majority of the emperor's younger brother's faction came from Northern Rolmund. The northern esquires who came to the capital had no land or soldiers, so their only real value was as pawns in political maneuvering. However, since they possessed no assets, they didn't hold much leverage in the political sphere either. Though they were under the emperor's brother's wing, their position was quite precarious.
The reason they'd been so belligerent was because they were underlings who had no idea what the overall situation was. For them, the royal palace was their entire world. Of course, that was the same reason they were doomed to never become landed, but even so, it took a decent amount of effort to rope these idiotic nobles into your faction.
Viscount Whatever-sky grimaced and said with an exaggerated sigh, "In order to unite the nobles under the emperor's brother's command, I had no choice but to stand my ground."
Now he was lying. If you want to fool me, you'd better be at least as composed as Yuhit. From all his excuses, it was obvious he was just trying to deceive me into letting my guard down. It seemed there was no hope for us seeing eye to eye. After confirming that there was no one else nearby, I leaned in close to the Count of Slaughter and whispered, "I understand your position quite well, so allow me to impart on you a single nugget of wisdom."
"Wh-What?"
Still smiling, I transformed into a werewolf and bared my fangs at him. Naturally, the viscount screamed. However, there was no one who heard him. I'd cast sound dampening magic around the room the moment I'd transformed. At the same time, bloody letters appeared on the wall behind me. Blood also started pooling out from under the bed.
So long as my sound dampening magic was in effect, I couldn't talk either, so I'd asked Lacy to cast illusion magic for me. Turning a room into the scene of a horror movie was a simple task for someone at her level. The prototype she'd shown me before we'd left had been really impressive too. It had been full of nice little touches like claw marks and gore splatters.
The letters in this illusion spelled out the following message: "Werewolves devour all in their path." Ideally, I'd wanted a longer message, but I'd noticed Lacy was likely to typo if there were too many letters involved, so I'd kept it simple. As long as it was threatening, anything worked.
The Count of Slaughter tried to jump out of bed, but I used my superhuman strength to pin him down. I opened my maw wide and pretended to take a bite out of him. He opened his eyes wide and another soundless scream escaped his lips. Then, he fainted. That would make it the second time today.
I canceled my transformation and returned to human form. Since I'd worn the loose, flowing garb of Southern Meraldia, my clothes hadn't been ripped during transformation. The letters on the wall and the blood under the bed started to vanish. Lacy's illusions truly were perfect.
Once all traces of the illusion were gone, I called the viscount's maid back in.
"The good viscount has gone to bed. It would appear the duel exhausted him a great deal. I will come again some other time."
"Th-Thank you for coming to visit. I'll see you to the entrance."
"Thank you."
I gave the maid a mysterious smile. Hopefully I looked like an exotic foreign noble to her. As I reached the bottom landing, I heard a commotion from upstairs. Thanks to my enhanced hearing, I could easily make out the conversation.
"He's a monster! A barbarian! Call the soldiers! His Highness—Inform His Highness of this!"
"L-Lord Viscount!? Please, snap out of it!"
"Unhand me, you fool! The wall! Look at the wall! Don't you see the blood!? We're under attack by werewolves!"
"The wall? There's nothing there, Lord Viscount!"
"Oh no, someone call a doctor! Call the male servants as well! We need to tie down the viscount until help comes!"
The servants were all flabbergasted. With this, Viscount Whatever-sky would start spreading rumors that the foreign noble assisting Eleora was actually a werewolf in disguise.
Unfortunately for him, he had no proof. And publicly, all I'd done was pay my respects to an injured dueling opponent. Furthermore, the crown prince's court mages had already vetted my identity and publicly announced that I was human. To top it all off, the Count of Slaughter had just lost to me in a humiliating duel. Aside from Eleora and her loyal troops, only the viscount knew the truth. And after our little encounter, he was likely desperate to convince everyone of the truth. Good luck getting anyone to believe you, Whatever-sky.
I knew I was the one that made him like this, but it was kind of sad that all he could think about was trying to get revenge for losing the duel. Together with Lacy, I left the viscount's manor. A pleasant, cool breeze wafted through the air. It signaled that Rolmund's short summer would soon be over.
Outside, Fahn and Jerrick—who'd been left there to keep watch—were snickering to each other. They'd heard everything that had gone on in the manor. I looked at everyone in turn, then stretched my back.
"Good work, Lacy. So, do you guys wanna get something to eat on our way back?"
"Now that's what I wanted to hear, boss. Let's get some meat. Grilled meat dripping with fat's the best food there is."
"I want a fish pie! And fried potatoes!"
Lacy looked from one werewolf to the next, stunned.
"What? But you just ate dinner!"
"That's not nearly enough for us. Right, boss?"
Jerrick gave me a wink and I nodded.
"Exactly. We're gonna have a busy day tomorrow, so we need to be ready for it."
"Yeaaaaaaah!"
Only Lacy looked unhappy about the prospect of eating more.
"Ugh. I feel like I've gotten fatter since joining the demon army."
"Nothing wrong with that. Better to be overfed than underfed."
"Noooooo!"
* * * *
—Veight's Letter to Airia: 3—
Dear Airia,
We've finally arrived at Rolmund's capital. Everything is proceeding as planned. As for the capital itself, it's every bit as massively historic as the rumors would have you believe. The capital has been Rolmund's cultural center since the days of the republic, so it's older than all of Meraldia. In fact, all of West Rolmund is quite old. You can feel the weight of the centuries weighing down on the buildings. I wish I could show you these streets. I'm sure you would appreciate them. It saddens me that I can only describe them to you in words.
Due to how cold it is here, much of the food and drink in Rolmund is designed to warm you up. Most of their dishes are soups and stews. And every dish uses plenty of alcohol and fat. The more liquid there is in a dish, the longer it stays warm, it seems. While the food is quite good, I fear I'll grow fat if I keep eating nothing but greasy meals. I have, however, obtained the recipes of a few choice dishes from Eleora's chef, as I would very much like you to taste them upon my return.
Oh, and I ended up fighting a duel.
Sincerely, Veight.
* * * *
The day after our duel, Viscount Whatever-sky forced his way into the palace and tried to tell everyone that I was a werewolf. Prince Ashley called me into the palace after his hearing was over and he was escorted out. When I reached the audience chamber, he gave me a sad smile and shook his head.
"My, what a mess. I understand that the viscount supports my uncle over me, but even so, it's quite improper to doubt the judgment of imperial investigators."
Naturally, no one had believed the Count of Slaughter's claims, but that wasn't the issue. He'd insulted the emperor's court mages.
Rolmund's mages weren't especially skilled. Because they'd focused their efforts into developing magical technology, their individual abilities left much to be desired. I guess that's the price of modernization. The only exception to this trend was the emperor's court mages. They alone were masters of their respective magical persuasions. On top of that, they had a lot of pride.
"Lord Veight is a werewolf!"
"That's impossible. We investigated him thoroughly and determined that he is indeed human."
"You're wrong, I saw it with my own eyes! He is a werewolf!"
"If you truly believe your powers of observation are superior to our magic, then feel free to join our ranks as a court magician."
According to Prince Ashley, that was more or less how the exchange had gone. Sorry, but no one's gonna listen to you, Viscount Whatever-sky. Everyone would just assume he was being a poor loser. Prince Ashley bowed to me in apology.
"I am terribly sorry for the viscount's remarks. You came all this way to show your support for the Rolmund Empire, and he treated you not with gratitude, but contempt. His actions have smeared mud on the reputation of Rolmund's nobles."
I smiled gently back at the prince.
"Well, I am an outsider. It's only natural some people would be suspicious of me. The viscount seemed unhappy to see me when I went to visit him after our duel as well."
"You went to visit the viscount? And despite that he still disparaged you? Unforgivable."
For a second, Prince Ashley's face contorted into one of disgust.
"It seems there truly is a need to apologize. On behalf of the emperor, I apologize for my countryman's rudeness."
"You mustn't apologize, Your Highness. I am but a humble servant who has sworn fealty to the empire in return for your protection. It would not do for someone in your position to apologize to me."
I kept a straight face during the entire exchange, but inside I was celebrating. After a few seconds of deliberation, Prince Ashley said, "In that case, allow me to at least grant you a boon as a show of good faith. Henceforth, if any man insults your person, I will use my authority to have them punished."
Perfect. Now if anyone tried to call me a demon, I could have Prince Ashley deal with them.
I talked with Prince Ashley for a while longer after that, and it seemed he was just as the rumors described. Wise and gentle.
"Eleora's plight pains me as well. Though I have had few opportunities to speak with her, she is still my dear cousin."
Oho, he's not lying.
"Furthermore, it was thanks to Eleora's efforts that our empire's greatest wish was granted. We will finally be able to expand our territories into Meraldia."
"You can count on me to bring you Meraldia, Your Highness. All I ask is that you show our people mercy once we become part of the empire."
Since I was technically part of the Eleora faction, I couldn't officially ask Prince Ashley for any concrete conditions. Not that I needed to, since if my plan worked, he wouldn't be the one sitting on the throne to begin with. However, if I didn't ask for anything at all, it would seem suspicious. I was meant to be a Meraldian diplomat, after all. So I'd kept my requests vague. Furthermore, vague requests like these were hard to refuse outright, so they were good openers in negotiations. As I'd expected, Prince Ashley nodded without hesitation.
"Of course. The sunlight that illuminates Rolmund's lands shall cast its benevolent rays onto Meraldia as well. Perhaps not in the same form, but that's nothing to worry about."
Is it just me, or is he implying he'll only treat us well if we offer to become a vassal state?
"Speaking of sunlight, this palace has a wonderful greenhouse. It might be a little hot this early in fall, but would you like to see it?"
According to the reports I'd read, Prince Ashley was a big lover of flowers. That, combined with his handsome figure, had earned him the nickname the Prince of Flowers. It was a pretty fancy nickname, but it also pissed me off. Isn't there any magic out there that'll make all handsome guys spontaneously combust? As I was thinking that, we reached the greenhouse.
"Impressive..."
The imperial palace's greenhouse was larger and more colorful than I'd thought possible. The glass was nearly transparent as well; it must have cost a fortune to build. Even if I used Ryunheit's entire budget, I couldn't afford to build something like this.
That being said, the botanical gardens I'd seen back on Earth had been about this large. What really struck me was the variety of plants in here. Moreover, each plant had a little placard next to it stating its name and native region. It reminded me of a museum.
In this world, there were probably only a handful of places that had such a detailed classification of this many plants.
"This feels more like an imperial museum than a palace garden."
The prince nodded in agreement.
"Indeed. I'm impressed you noticed. The purpose of this greenhouse is to collect all manner of plants and discover which are useful to us humans. As it is a greenhouse, we even have flowers from the warmer Meraldian regions. They were collected centuries ago and have been cultivated here ever since."
So Rolmund's been interested in Meraldia for centuries, huh? As we walked through the greenhouse and discussed the various plants we passed, I noticed something interesting. Though the plants of this world looked very different from the ones back on Earth, many of them had identical uses.
For example, the beautiful flowers of the greenbottle plant secreted a poisonous nectar. But once extracted, the poison didn't keep for long. Next to the greenbottle was a purple willow, whose bark was difficult to process, but created a long-lasting deadly poison once it was. That was the same poison the assassins in Zaria had used. Further in was the wolf lily, whose bulbs were addictive. And coiled around the purple willow tree was a crest vine, which caused severe vomiting when ingested.
Every plant seemed to be poisonous in one way or another. There wasn't a single plant that was just pretty to look at. All of them were either used in poisons or medicines. That was probably why I'd felt uneasy when I'd first stepped foot in here. This wasn't a place to appreciate the beauty of nature, or a simple botanical garden. It was a chemical weapons plant.
Prince Ashley stopped in front of a flower bed and plucked two fruits from one of the plants. They vaguely resemble strawberries, but I shrunk back the moment I saw them. They were witchberries, a plant that grew all over Meraldia. While they looked like delicious tiny strawberries, they were actually deadly. Eating one would cause dyspnea, and if you weren't treated right away, you'd die. Smiling, the prince handed me a witchberry.
"Here you go, Lord Veight."
"Prince Ashley?"
I had no idea what he was trying to do here. Considering his love for plants, he was likely this greenhouse's manager. Meaning there was no way he didn't know what the witchberry's properties were.
I sniffed, trying to gauge his intentions from his scent. But all I picked up was a faint sense of expectation. There wasn't any smell of deceit on him. However, it was entirely possible he was a psychopath who felt nothing when he deceived people, so I couldn't let my guard down.
Regardless though, I couldn't afford to refuse a fruit offered to me by the crown prince. Fortunately, I'd been keeping detoxification magic prepared at all times since coming here. I was especially good at handling alkaloids, so there was little worry of me being poisoned to death. Deciding not to think too deeply about the prince's intentions, I took the witchberry from him and plopped it into my mouth.
Mmm, this is pretty sweet. It had just a little tartness to it too, so it didn't leave a bad aftertaste. Fruits exist to be eaten and their seeds spread by the animals that eat them, so how come this plant evolved to bear poisonous fruit? I really don't get nature sometimes. As I was absently thinking that, I realized Prince Ashley was staring at me. He looked completely stunned.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter53.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
"What seems to be the matter, Your Highness?"
"Well... I didn't think you would actually eat it."
Going by the smell of his sweat, he was telling the truth. Still unsure of what the prince had been trying to do, I turned back to the witchberry plant. Oh, the leaves aren't serrated. And they're drooping at the ends. Meaning this is actually a different species. Ah, I finally got it. It all makes sense now.
Pretending as though I'd known all along, I said, "This plant looks quite like Meraldia's witchberry, but the leaves are a different shape. I imagine you have no reason to poison me, Your Highness, so I assumed you were offering me a harmless berry."
Understanding dawned on Prince Ashley.
"How very perceptive of you. You are correct, this is not a witchberry plant. This is a Rolmund snowberry. While it can be used as food, it also works as a natural remedy once dried and preserved. The fruit looks identical to that of the witchberry's, so you need to be careful."
Prince Ashley tossed the remaining snowberry into his own mouth.
"I must say, though, I am impressed you were able to notice such a slight difference right away. I had hoped to surprise you by eating my own after you refused, but my plan failed. It seems I'm not suited to be a tactician."
"Oh no, you definitely managed to surprise me. You should have heard how fast my heart was beating."
He really did manage to surprise me, and I wish he'd stop with those kinds of pranks.
Afterward, the two of us continued joking and eating snowberries like a pair of giddy schoolboys. Sometime during our conversation, the prince said, "Did you know, while Eleora was on her campaign in the south, she sent a report mentioning that one of her men got food poisoning from eating the berries in Meraldia. Since witchberries and snowberries look nearly identical, he mistakenly thought they were edible."
I guess if you're coming from Rolmund, that would make sense. Even on Earth there were a lot of different species of strawberry.
"Did the soldier who accidentally ate witchberries survive?"
Prince Ashley smiled.
"He did. Luckily, the mage corps' healers were able to neutralize the poison. Unfortunately, he died in the fighting afterward."
That was my fault, wasn't it...? But to think Prince Ashley would try to test me like this. I didn't know he had this mischievous side to him.
"Your Highness, do you enjoy watching me get flustered?"
"It's the opposite, Lord Veight. You're so unflappable that it scares me sometimes. Even if you were able to reason that the berry was safe, wouldn't you normally hesitate somewhat still?"
I smiled ruefully.
"There are plenty of people back in Meraldia capable of taking my place. Even if I were to die here, the Commonwealth would be no worse for the wear."
"Surely you jest."
"Not at all."
I'm just a lowly vice-commander. Prince Ashley's expression softened a little and he said, "You truly are an interesting man."
"I hear that a lot. My peers think me a strange man who acts independently far too often for his own good."
"That was not what I meant. At first glance, you appear to be a simple scholar, but at the same time you have the wits of a master strategist and the martial might of a swordmaster."
I knew it was just flattery, but it felt good to be praised by a prince.
"Incidentally, you noticed this was no mere greenhouse the moment we entered, did you not Lord Veight?"
"I did indeed. You clearly are more interested in gathering a wide variety of plants than making this greenhouse pleasing to the eyes. Furthermore, every plant you're growing here has some medicinal purpose."
Prince Ashley smiled mischievously.
"Don't you mean... they're all poisonous?"
Even I didn't have the balls to call the prince's greenhouse a poison farm to his face. Time to diplomatically avoid the question.
"Depending on the dosage, a poison can become medicine. And if you over-administer a medicine, it becomes poison. Poison and medicine are one and the same."
That wasn't my quote, but it was the truth. After that, Prince Ashley opened up quite a bit to me. His prank had been in pretty poor taste, but he'd only done it because he'd believed I wouldn't get mad over such petty things. As a result, he trusted me now, so I wasn't really that hung up over the snowberry thing. Besides, it'd been a tasty berry.
The first thing Prince Ashley did was bombard me with questions.
"According to the reports I've read, Meraldia's flour is whiter than ours. I find that tidbit quite fascinating. Would you happen to know why, Lord Veight?"
I thought back to what I'd learned back in Japan.
"People tend to prefer whiter grains. Because Meraldia is blessed with large swathes of arable land, there's a lot of food and people can afford to be pickier about which crops they buy. This in turn incentivizes farmers to plant more white-grain crops. Though in truth, it's the darker wheat which has more nutritional value and is more resistant to insects and disease."
I'd read that there were some parts of East Africa where people only ate white corn, and as a result, they were deficient in vitamin A. The yellow corn was considered inferior and only used as feed for livestock. Rice was the same way in Asia.
"Originally, we grew black and red rice in southern Meraldia. Occasionally there would be a mutated white rice crop though, and because people preferred that to the colored rice, farmers started actively cultivating it and now there's only white rice in Meraldia. In general, people tend to prefer the taste of white grains."
Fascinated, Ashley pulled a scrap of paper and a pen out of his pocket.
"I see... so there's no need to go out of my way to obtain a sample of Meraldian wheat. After all, what Rolmund needs right now is a stable crop, not a delicious one."
"Are you worried about Rolmund's agricultural situation?"
"Yes, it's quite a serious problem."
Sighing, Prince Ashley looked up at the sun through a glass window.
"This empire sustains itself on the labor of serfs. If we make any errors in our governance and incite serfs to revolt, crop yield drops that year and the empire starves."
"So you're searching for crops that provide higher yields."
"Precisely. Ensuring his subjects do not starve is the emperor's duty."
This guy's pure, through and through, huh. I kind of want to punch his too-handsome face, though. As I was mentally cursing the handsome prince, I suddenly remembered something.
"I have heard from Princess Eleora that you have a profound knowledge of plants, Your Highness. Though few, I have brought seeds native to my homeland with me to Rolmund."
"Truly!?"
Whoa, is it really that big a deal? Prince Ashley's eyes were sparkling. If this was an act, I'd want to recommend him to Veira's theatre troupe. He started shooting furtive glances at my pocket every few seconds.
"So, where are these seeds?"
"I've left them with one of my attendants. He's wonderful at managing things. I can have them delivered to you later, but for now, let me tell you which ones I've brought."
I handed Prince Ashley a small catalog, and he started poring over it immediately. He was clearly more interested in domestic affairs than international ones. Before we'd left, I'd asked Mao to pick out a few crops that could grow even in cold temperatures for me. I'd also double-checked with Eleora that these crops didn't already exist in Rolmund. It was possible the crops wouldn't take, or that some other incident would destroy the first harvest, but that wasn't my responsibility. Ashley carefully folded and pocketed the catalog, then shook my hand.
"On behalf of Rolmund's citizens, I thank you, Lord Veight."
You don't need to lean in that close, man. If he got too close, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hold back from punching his perfect face. Regardless, Ashley was a surprisingly open prince. We continued walking through the greenhouse, discussing various plants and animals.
In my old life, I'd dreamed of becoming a biologist. But that dream had died a dream. Still, while I didn't have a college degree in biology, I was still pretty familiar with living things. I told the prince stories I thought he might find interesting, like my battle with the giant octopus, or how I'd solved the assassination case in Veira by tracing the poison the assassins had used. However, I avoided telling any stories that might disclose military information. For example, I didn't mention that I knew the terabirds Rolmund's cavalry used couldn't stand heat, or that the wyverns dragonkin rode were carnivorous and thus couldn't be fielded in large numbers.
In return, Prince Ashley told me a few stories of his own.
"In truth, the emperor could die any minute now. His condition is quite critical."
So that's why I'm not allowed to meet him. As we walked, Prince Ashley would occasionally stop to pluck a leaf or fruit from a nearby plant.
"His disease causes healing magic to worsen his condition, so the only thing that can treat him is medicinal herbs. However, the only herbs that have any effect are poisonous ones that would normally kill a healthy person."
"I see, so this is why you've created this garden of herbs."
It was too early to be sure, but it seemed Prince Ashley genuinely cared about his father. Alright, it's about time I got going. I'd learned something about what kind of person Prince Ashley was, and had also earned his trust. While we were destined to stand on opposite sides eventually, I didn't have to fight with him just yet. I needed to negotiate with the other major players in this game of thrones and make myself known as the leader of the moderates within Eleora's faction. Though of course, I'd be crushing all other contenders when the time came.
* * * *
—A Swordsman's Resolve—
As he had every day since his duel, Viscount Schmenivsky had gone to the imperial palace to seek an audience with the emperor.
"You have to understand, that man is a werewolf! A demon who's come to destroy our noble empire!"
I sighed and pretended not to hear him. My master had assigned me to both protect and keep an eye on the viscount. I had spent a long time serving my current master, because I owed a great debt to house Doneiks. Which was why I was currently standing here listening to the Count of Slaughter prattle.
Occasionally though, I did wonder. Were the viscount's claims truly nonsense? During the duel, I had served as the viscount's second. Lord Veight's movements had been extremely polished, and unbelievably quick. They'd been the movements of a fighting master.
But what had truly terrified me was what I'd seen when I went to inspect the grounds after the duel. I'd found traces of footprints being carved into the hard-packed ground. Whether in sword-fighting or in boxing, one needed to kick off the ground to put any force into their lunge.
Just how much force had Lord Veight kicked off the ground with to leave such deep footprints? My fist could fit neatly into one of them. Lord Veight's strength was immeasurably immense. Had he struck the viscount directly with all his might, the viscount would have died. The fact that he hadn't meant that this visitor from Meraldia had found the duel so easy he'd even been able to hold back.
This foreign gentleman warranted utmost caution. Naturally, I'd reported as much to my master as well. I was expecting a return message from the Doneiks manor soon.
Just as I thought that, I heard a faint knock at my door. I ignored the viscount, who was still going on about Lord Veight being a werewolf, and walked into the hallway. Waiting outside was the Doneiks family's personal doctor, and two assistants/guards.
"Lord Doneiks is worried about Master Schmenivsky's health and has ordered us to provide him with medicine."
So the same as usual then. Though I wanted no part of this, I still accompanied the two men. I felt as though I had to at least fulfill my obligations to the viscount. The doctor bowed politely to the viscount.
"Master Schmenivsky, my lord has requested that these 'painkillers' be delivered to you."
The viscount paled.
"Wh-What do you mean?"
The doctor took a small vial out of his bag and poured a few clear drops of some liquid into it.
"Go on, drink this. It will put you to sleep for a while, but when you awaken, your pain will be gone."
However, the viscount shook his head.
"W-Wait... Why are you doing this to me... It's not supposed to..."
The doctor's two assistants grabbed the viscount and pinned him in place. Both were skilled warriors who I'd trained myself. Meanwhile, the doctor grabbed the viscount's jaw and, with practiced movements, wrenched his mouth open.
"Baagh! Aaagh!"
Even as the viscount was screaming, the doctor poured the vial's contents down his throat. The viscount struggled desperately to free himself, but it was too late. I kept my hand on my sword, just in case, and waited for the inevitable.
Finally, the assistants let go of the viscount. The doctor inspected his eyes, then put a hand to his throat.
"Good night."
All of us put our hands to our breasts and prayed for the viscount's soul. Then, the two assistants lifted the viscount's corpse and carried it out of the room and toward a waiting carriage.
"Will it be 'recuperating' again this time?"
"Yes. We will escort him to one of Lord Doneiks' mountain villas, where he will spend some time 'recuperating.'"
In this country, nobles continued to live on even after their deaths. In order to avoid sowing confusion among the populace, their death would only be made public after enough time had passed and the proper preparations had been made. Now that the assassination was over, I could discuss my future plans with the doctor.
"The imperial court magicians have determined that the honorary count is human. Lord Doneiks, too, is part of the imperial family. It would not do to have one of his followers questioning the emperor's judgment."
I sighed in response to the doctor's words.
"So that was why you decided to put him to rest."
"Correct. Lord Doneiks is tired of cleaning up after the viscount's blunders. Enough is enough."
"I suppose so."
Had the viscount just been a little humbler and wiser, he might still have been a landed count. In the end, he was simply reaping what he'd sown. The doctor pulled a letter out of his pocket.
"These are your new orders. Please read through them immediately."
"As you wish."
Chances were, I would be stuck doing someone's dirty work again. My master was a prudent man. He assigned dangerous jobs only to those who had his absolute trust. Which was precisely why I made sure to always live up to his expectations.
"Hmm."
"Is something the matter?"
The doctor had known me for quite some time, and he was able to sense something was wrong from my tone alone. I smiled ruefully.
"The young lord has joined a group within the palace. My job is to guard him."
For security reasons which young lord wasn't specified in the letter. However, I had known my master long enough to know who he was referring to. Whenever Lord Doneiks used the words "my beloved son" he was referring to none other than his second child, Lord Woroy. His eldest son, Evan, was referred to instead as "my child."
While I was up to the task requested of me, I was still a little anxious. I needed to ensure I did a perfect job of protecting Lord Woroy. The doctor repacked his bag and smiled at me.
"Fear not. There is not a man alive who doesn't cower when he hears the name of the Sword Saint, Barnack."
"Please drop that ludicrous title. I'm just an old man from a fallen family of knights."
It was only thanks to Lord Doneiks that I could maintain my current lifestyle despite having lost my land. And it was in order to repay that debt that I would complete any mission assigned to me. Even if it meant crossing swords with a legendary werewolf.
* * * *
I had hoped to return to East Rolmund as soon as possible and start winning over Eleora's uncle, Lord Kastoniev, but for the moment I was still stuck in the capital. The reason for that was simple.
"Lord Veight, please tell me more about your duel."
"Is it true your name has spread across all of Meraldia?"
Ever since my duel with Viscount Whatever-sky, I'd become famous. Honestly, it felt like I was being treated like an animal in a zoo. Then again, there probably weren't too many visitors who challenged a viscount to a duel on their first day here. Plus, I beat him in a single blow, which added to the novelty. On top of that, I was the first visitor in a long time who'd come from a foreign country. And lastly, rumors were starting to spread that Prince Ashley trusted me even though I was part of Eleora's faction. Though of course, that wasn't quite true.
The emperor was in poor health, and it was thought that Prince Ashley would ascend the throne in the next few weeks. As it was, the prince was already performing most of the emperor's duties in his stead. Naturally, there were plenty of people who wanted to get on his good side now. Not that befriending me would help anyone in befriending Prince Ashley. After all, I'd come here to make Eleora empress.
* * * *
—Airia's Reply: 2—
Dear Veight,
Did you say you dueled someone? Are you unhurt? Well, I suppose that's a foolish question. Knowing you, you would never be defeated or even injured in a fight. Though I understand that in my head, I cannot help but worry. Please don't do anything reckless. You may think you're being cautious, but try to understand that what you consider normal, everyone else sees as reckless.
I'm certain you had your reasons for this duel of course. Nothing you do is without reason. Incidentally, you said before you left that "I may just be a simple vice-commander, but occasionally I feel like doing something flashy." I hope this doesn't mean you're planning something even more reckless than... No, never mind. I believe you'll return home safely, Veight.
Ryunheit is busy preparing for its annual harvest festival. Our farmers are looking forward to the end of the harvest season. We had quite a good crop this year. It was even better than previous years thanks to the assistance of the demon army's agricultural specialists. I can't wait to see how much better next year's crop will be. Regardless of how it turns out, I'll be happy so long as I can spend it together with you.
Incidentally, I know that diplomacy is a costly affair. This might be presumptuous of me, but I convinced the council to send you some supplementary funds. Feel free to use them to buy your attendants new winter clothes, or for any other expenses you might have. Do send another letter if you get the opportunity.
Sincerely, Airia.
PS: While I'm sure you won't stop at just one duel, please try not to fight too much.
* * * *
Every morning before breakfast, I met with a messenger from a different noble house. Most of them were inviting me to their respective master's manor for lunch. Deciding which invitations to accept and which to reject took up far too much time each day. The worst part was that after lunch, I had invitations to tea and then dinner, all from different nobles. While the food was all delicious, the constant meetings were starting to exhaust me. But they weren't the biggest nuisance.
"Lord Veight. It is a stain on Rolmund's honor for one of our own to have been defeated so one-sidedly in a duel. Please, accept my challenge so that I can restore Rolmund's honor."
There was a subset of nobles who would challenge me to duels day in and day out. Viscount Whatever-sky had been a crazy enough dude that he'd earned the nickname the Count of Slaughter. But at the same time, he'd been the head of a prestigious family, so the fact that I'd beaten him in a single blow had hurt the pride of some of the more patriotic and ambitious nobles. According to the rumors I'd heard, the viscount himself was currently recuperating in Lord Doneiks' mountain villa.
"Hmph."
I grabbed my dueling opponent's arm as he stepped forward. He was some lord, but I'd already forgotten his name. A swordsman was at their weakest when they took a step, as they were forced to balance on just one leg. As long as I took advantage of that moment, even a novice like me could win. Of course, it took a werewolf's kinetic vision to be able to accurately follow someone's movements with that level of precision. And it took magically enhanced reflexes to react in time. Thankfully, I possessed both. I yanked my opponent's arm forward while sweeping his legs out from under him with a low kick. This was a technique old man Vodd had taught me.
"Uwaaaah!?"
Without any way to brace himself, the noble was sent flying as my pull propelled him forward. We were dueling in Eleora's courtyard, and there was a fountain directly behind me. My opponent splashed right into it, sending up a spray of water. After a few seconds, he rose to his feet, sputtering. I calmly drew my sword and leveled it at his nose. Soaking wet, the noble dropped to one knee and hung his head.
"I admit defeat..."
The noble ladies and their attendants in the audience cheered. I gave them a polite bow, then proffered a hand to my opponent.
"Are you hurt?"
"Miraculously, I appear to have sustained no injuries... except for my pride, that is."
"I have prepared a fresh change of clothes for you. After you have dried off, would you like to join me for tea?"
I smiled at the noble as I pulled him to his feet. Though the capital was filled with schemes and plots, and assassinations were an everyday occurrence, it was only the highest-ranked nobles who actually participated in these machinations. Most of the middle and lower-ranked nobles had nothing to do with national policy or diplomacy. They were primarily concerned with increasing their own rank. When they weren't chasing their ambitions, they were either indulging themselves, or spending time managing their lands and people. Since they had a lot of free time on their hands, many made duel watching a hobby. Even more people came to watch my duels than normal, too, because I was a foreigner.
"Lord Veight, please duel me next!"
"Sorry, but he's already promised to duel me."
"Lord Clodief, wasn't your last defeat just two days ago? I should take priority."
Oh, I give up... At least let me eat food first, though. I was an amateur when it came to swordsmanship, so I mostly fought bare-handed. But thanks to my magic and my werewolf-enhanced perception, I could take anyone on in a one-on-one duel without needing to transform. Honestly, though, it felt like cheating. As if I was just bullying those weaker than me. It made me a little guilty.
That was the reason why I'd been holding back against everyone I fought, but for some reason that had only attracted more challengers. I guess they all got bolder knowing they won't die if they lose.
"Uhyaaaaaah!"
"Next challenger."
"Let's have a good fight, Lord Veight!"
There were a few challengers who genuinely tried to kill me, and I dealt with those the same way I had the Count of Slaughter. Most nobles, however, just wanted to test their strength, or duel me just so they could claim they'd fought a foreign noble. Their constant requests were filling up my schedule though, so I wish they'd stop. I was probably the first person in Rolmund's history to hold multiple duels in one day, and I'd been doing that every day for a while now. Rolmund's dueling style was stiff and awkward, so it was easy for me to predict my opponent's moves. Really, I was so used to battlefield fighting that these duels were like basic practice drills to me.
As I had dozens of times before, I drew my dueling saber and parried my opponent's slash. I then pushed his blade upward, leaving his torso wide open. With my free hand, I hit him with a palm thrust, sending him sprawling. I leveled the point of my sword at him and he shouted, "Y-Yield!"
Another one down. I helped my opponent up and looked around. The spectators were drinking tea and chatting idly as they watched. This was turning into quite the spectacle. In another corner of the garden, Vodd was teaching the defeated duelists how to fight better.
"So in your last duel, you started off well. You had a good approach, but you let him get inside your guard too easily."
"What does that mean, O wise one?"
"The fact that he grabbed your wrist meant you were sloppy with the follow-through and let momentum carry your thrust. If you're not always prepared to pull back, then anyone can just do... this!"
"Uwaaaaaaaah!"
Looks like he got thrown again.
Kite extricated himself from a group of noble ladies surrounding him and made his way toward me.
"Those young ladies there all invited you over for tea, Veight... I turned them all down for you."
"Thanks a lot. You made sure to turn them down politely, right?"
"Yeah. Don't worry, I said no in a way that won't bring shame to the name of Honorary Count Veight."
"Thanks, you're a real help."
Dealing with nobles was a lot easier because I could get Kite to turn down the more persistent invitations.
"So how many duels do I have left today?"
"Ser Lekomya is the last opponent you have left for... Hm?"
Kite suddenly looked up. Come to think of it, something did feel strange. The atmosphere had been relaxed a second ago, but now it felt strained. A lone man walked over to me.
Rolmund had a strict social hierarchy, so I could tell what his rank was just from the way he was dressed. He was just a mere knight, but I recognized him. He'd been Viscount Whatever-sky's second during my duel with him.
I guess he's holding a grudge over that duel. Meaning he probably wants a fight. I got to my feet and waited for him to cross the courtyard. The man who'd been the Count of Slaughter's second stopped in front of me and bowed.
"I am Ser Barnack, the knight who served as Viscount Schmenivsky's second in his duel the other day."
Though he acted casual, he showed no openings at all. He was obviously a skilled fighter.
"I'm glad to see you again, Ser Barnack. Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Honorary Count Veight."
I offered him a chair, and he sat down.
"Have you heard of what happened to the Viscount?"
I nodded.
"He went to Lord Doniek's mountain villa to recuperate, correct? I would like to visit him, but that would likely be difficult."
Barnack smiled slightly.
"Indeed. Incidentally, I came here today to request a duel with you. Officially I am here for personal reasons, but the truth is I was ordered to duel you by Lord Doneiks."
"He wishes for a duel between representatives of our respective factions?"
In Rolmund high society, you could appoint a representative for your duel. However, there was little meaning in a duel won by using a representative, so few nobles elected to avail themselves of that option. Barnack must have noticed the confusion in my expression, as he then said, "Lord Doneiks is in the line of succession. His position prohibits him from dueling directly. This is the only method available to him."
Makes sense.
"In that case, what is the pretext for this duel, Ser Barnack?"
"To restore Viscount Schmenivsky's honor, naturally. It would not be so strange for there to be someone willing to fight on his behalf."
I could tell from his tone and the smell of his sweat that he really was just fulfilling his duty. No personal feelings were involved. I got to my feet.
"Very well. When would you like to hold this duel?"
"That is for you to decide, as I am the one who issued the challenge."
"Then let us hold it now."
He didn't look too keen on dueling himself, so I figured I might as well get it over with.
Barnack and I chose our swords. As usual, I chose a simple military dagger. It was the closest I could get to fighting bare-handed. That being said, the dagger was a pretty potent weapon. It was used to deliver finishing blows in battle. On the other hand, Barnack chose not a dueling saber, but a soldier's blade. It was very different from the fancy weapons nobles preferred. The tip was sturdy enough to pierce chainmail, and the blade hefty enough to cleave bone. Barnack smiled in appreciation as he studied the blade.
"You possess some fine weapons, Lord Veight."
"They are all weapons chosen personally by Her Highness Eleora."
Eleora was the kind of person who fussed a lot over what tools she used, and she took good care of the ones she picked. One of her favorite sayings was "An ill-maintained weapon is more dangerous than any enemy." I was inclined to agree with her outlook.
Barnack and I took our stances. I held my dagger in my left hand, with an underhand grip. My right arm and right leg were slightly forward. Seeing my stance, Barnack muttered, "Are you planning on pulling me in with your right hand and dealing the finishing blow with that dagger in your left?"
He saw right through me. In a real fight, I'd use tackles and kicks as well, but those were bad manners in a sword duel. Since I could only use my hands, my tactics were limited. I kept my stance as it was, and grinned.
"Who knows?"
Barnack stared at me for a few seconds, then silently adjusted his stance. Instead of a thrusting stance, he'd taken a slashing one. The moment the arbiter announced the start of the duel, Barnack shot forward. There wasn't even the slightest bit of delay. My enhanced vision was still able to follow him, but had I still been human, he would have disappeared completely from sight. I quickly moved to dodge his diagonal slash, but then he suddenly changed the angle of his stroke.
"Ngh!?"
I barely managed to avoid the slash aimed at my neck, but my shirt collar got cut in the process. My turn now. Or so I thought, but before I could counterattack, Barnack flipped his wrist and swung again. His speed was inhuman. His next attack aimed low, at my flank.
"Haaah!"
Barnack's expression reminded me of the war god statues back in Japan. Avoiding the first blow to my neck had caused me to lose my balance, so my footing was uneven. Shit, I can't dodge this. I used one of the spells I'd prepared this morning and made my right hand harder than steel.
"Not today!"
There was a loud metallic clang as I struck down the blade. It broke in half, and the tip sunk into the lawn below. I expected that to be the end of the duel, but Barnack continued his charge. The remaining half of the blade was short enough to slip under my guard. Not good.
"Mister Veight!?"
"Veight!"
Lacy and Fahn both shouted my name.
Barnack and I glared at each other over our shoulders. After a brief second, Barnack chuckled.
"It seems it's my loss, Lord Veight."
The tip of my dagger was resting millimeters from the nape of his neck. When he'd come at me with his broken sword, I'd done a quick revolution and brought my left hand up to his neck. It was basically like doing a turning backhand chop, except I was holding a dagger. Realizing the match had been decided, Barnack had held back his attack.
Had he not stopped, I would have been forced to drive the dagger into his neck. I'd actually feared turning my back to him for the split second it had taken to do that revolution. Barnack was as skilled with the sword as Baltze, and Baltze was the strongest swordsman I knew. The only reason I'd been able to defeat Barnack without transforming was that I'd used magic. And if we fought again, there was no guarantee even that would save.
Barnack smiled and handed me the broken remains of his sword.
"You've bested me, Lord Veight. You clearly have far more battlefield experience than I do."
If by bested, you mean used hardening magic to cheat. While I doubted anyone else had noticed, I was certain Barnack had realized I'd used magic there. But instead of calling me out, he just bowed his head.
"I am truly blessed to have had the opportunity to cross swords with someone as skilled as you. That was a wonderful match."
"The pleasure was all mine. Never have I fought someone so dexterous with a blade. Just who are you?"
While we were talking, the audience burst into cheers.
"Did you see that? The Astral Fencer outdueled the Sword Saint!"
"Indeed, that was an epic match."
"I never realized a duel between two masters looked so sublime." Wait, hold on, I don't recognize those terms. "Sword Saint" was probably referring to Barnack over here. That fact alone was quite a surprise. The sword saint was quite a famous title. But that explained the series of feints that culminated in a multi-stage attack. Even when I broke his sword, he'd kept going. I could certainly see why he was called the sword saint. But that aside, what the heck was this astral fencer nonsense?
"Hey, Kite..."
"Are you truly so surprised that you've been given a nickname, after all the duels you've participated in?"
Kite sighed as cleaned up the dueling field. I mean I guess that makes sense, but... A deep voice interrupted my musings.
"Ser Barnack is the Doneiks family's swordsmanship instructor and a master of the Sashimael style. And yet, you defeated him easily. Who in Sonnenlicht's name are you?"
Who are you?A well-built young noble walked into the courtyard. He was heading straight for me, and he was trailed by a large group of hangers-on.
"Veight, I'm pretty sure that's Lord Doneiks' second son, Prince Woroy. He's fourth in line for the throne."
So that's the second son of Rolmund's most ambitious family. What does he want with me? The other nobles who'd been watching the duel started backing away. It appeared the Doneiks faction was more estranged from the others than the remaining two. Or at the very least, everyone was scared of this Prince Woroy.
Honestly, he was so buff it was hard to believe he was a prince. His muscles rivaled those of the Garney brothers'. Though his gait was unrefined, it was undoubtedly the gait of a warrior. I got to my feet and bowed.
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Veight Gerun Friedensrichter. Would you happen to be Prince Woroy?"
"That's right. Oh whoops, that's not very polite of me. Let me introduce myself properly." The prince chuckled softly. "I am the second son of the Doneiks family, Woroy Bolshevik Doneiks Rolmund. Well met, Lord Veight."
He gave me a charming smile. Prince Woroy sat down in an open seat and shouted to one of the nearby servants, "I wish to talk with Lord Veight awhile! Bring me some food, I don't care what it is!"
Eleora's servants, who'd been watching the duels, hurriedly bowed and brought out sandwiches and tea. While the other nobles and servants were cowering, Prince Woroy smiled at me and said, "What do you say to a game of Shougo?"
"Shougo" was Rolmund's version of chess. Its pieces were split into "warriors" who had long ranges of movement like rooks and bishops, and "strategists" who had more limited movement ranges like kings but could move in more directions. If a strategist-type piece captured an opponent's piece, the player could then put it back into play on their side, like in shogi.
While I knew the rules of shougo, I hadn't ever played it before. Hiding my trepidation, I shook my head.
"I sincerely doubt you came here to play a game with me. Let us move straight into the main topic if you please, Your Highness."
"Oh, not a fan of pleasantries? Perfect."
Prince Woroy nodded happily and said, "My dad... oops, I mean Lord Doneiks employs many fighters, but Ser Barnack is far superior to them all. Just who are you?"
"A mere vice-commander."
"Vice... commander?"
"Correct. I am Her Highness Eleora's Vice-Commander."
I accidentally gave my standard reply and had to quickly smooth it over. Did he buy it? Prince Woroy's smile widened, and he leaned back leisurely in his chair.
"You have guts, saying that to the son of Lord Doneiks."
Oh good, he thinks I'm just stating my loyalty. Despite me plainly stating that I was part of Eleora's camp, Prince Woroy's smile didn't fade.
"You really are an interesting fellow! Tell me a story, Veight!"
A story? What story? While his sudden request caught me off-balance, I was used to dealing with guys like these thanks to my experiences with the Garney brothers.
"In place of a story, allow me to apologize to you for causing such a disturbance the other day. I did not mean to duel one of your father's retainers, but in order to protect Lady Eleora's honor, he left me no choice."
Prince Woroy looked confused for a second, then waved his hand dismissively.
"Oh, him. Never mind him. In fact, I should be the one apologizing to you. Someone in his position shouldn't have done what he did. Anyway, surely you have a few interesting stories to tell. Anything will do, so tell me one."
What is with this guy? What kind of story would a jock like him enjoy anyway?
I took a closer look at the prince. Everything from his sword to his boots were designed for practicality over fashion. His clothes were built to last, not to look good. Had he lived in modern-day Earth he probably would have worn exclusively camo gear. I smiled and said, "Would you like to know the secret to dueling then?"
"Now that sounds interesting."
I glanced over to where Vodd was still tutoring nobles.
"It's simple. The sword style they teach for dueling is extremely rigid. There are so few patterns that reading your opponent is a trivial matter. Compared to the ferocity of a real battle, duels are nothing."
"A real battle, you say? You speak as though you've experienced many of those."
Prince Woroy sounded almost jealous. He was probably the kind of guy who enjoyed warfare. He sighed, then looked around to make sure no one else was within earshot.
"A prince from the male line like me isn't allowed onto the battlefield. If only I'd been born to a female branch of the line, like Eleora."
"What are you saying, Your Highness? That would put you further from the throne."
I grinned at the prince. He gave me a bitter smile and scratched his head.
"I guess. It would be a lie to say I'm completely uninterested in the throne. But I have no complaints with how my uncle has ruled, nor how Ashley is handling things. Naturally, I'd like to serve my country."
I was surprised he was divulging his ambitions so casually to me, a person—or rather werewolf—that he'd just met. I guess if he's willing to talk, I should probably ask.
"Do you have any interest in fighting for the throne, Your Highness?"
"Nah, not really. Besides, even if Ashley doesn't become the next emperor, my dad will. And if not him, my older brother."
"It's not impossible for something to happen to them, though."
I probed him lightly, and Prince Woroy instantly frowned.
"Don't even go there. I don't want to think about anything happening to dad, or my brother. If that's all you want to talk about, then I'm leaving."
That's fine by me. It's not like I invited you here in the first place. However, I could tell from his sweat that Prince Woroy genuinely didn't want to have this conversation. At the very least, he wasn't so much of a monster that he'd kill his own family for the throne. I instantly apologized.
"My apologies, Your Highness. It seems I misunderstood you."
Prince Woroy folded his arms and sighed, "Misunderstood me, huh? Well, I guess I did just spill my ambitions to you five seconds after we met. I'm sorry too."
He was a bit overbearing, but still very much a strait-laced guy. Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, he started talking about his dreams. He truly was an overbearing guy.
"Ashley would make a good emperor. He has the right personality for it, and the smarts to improve our food production. Eleora's not a bad choice either. She has the technical know-how to advance our country's technology by a lot."
Prince Ashley certainly did know a lot about plants. On the other hand, Eleora was good with magic and engineering. Both were scholars of their respective fields. Prince Woroy seemed like a short-tempered, simple-minded man at first glance, but he had a good head on his shoulders too. So this is what royalty's like. However, he didn't forget to add his own two cents.
"But you know, if it was me, I'd want to make Rolmund into a much bigger empire. First, I'd strengthen the military. Sure, a lot of higher-ranked nobles have large private armies, but the empire itself is lacking in troops. We need a unified, national force under the direct control of the emperor. If we have that, we won't have to fear monster attacks, invasions, or rebellions. Which means we'll have a more stable situation at home to focus on domestic affairs. Naturally, I'd protect our allies in Meraldia as well. It's a pretty good plan, don't you think?"
What do you mean, what do I think? You're clearly a military guy, but I knew that already. What I didn't understand was why he was telling me all of this. Fortunately, it didn't take me long until the reason became clear.
Prince Woroy was extremely interested in the land and people of Meraldia. And I'd come here as Meraldia's representative. He was thinking that if he won me over, he'd win Meraldia over, along with its fertile fields. After thinking for a few seconds, I said, "At present, I am Lady Eleora's vassal. While I can discuss trivial matters like duels at my own discretion, I will need her permission to discuss this matter any further."
"So you're saying a life-threatening duel is trivial, huh? I guess hardened warriors really are different! I like you, Veight!"
Prince Woroy looked quite determined to make me his. I'm kind of scared of this guy now.
He got to his feet and looked up at Eleora's manor.
"Come to think of it, it is proper manners to greet the master of the house first. Alright, I'll go say hello and ask her to give you to me."
I don't think that's going to work. While I was still thinking of a reply, Prince Woroy walked off. What a weird prince...
* * * *
—Prince Woroy's tactics—
It has been a long time since I last saw my cousin Eleora. Granted, our respective positions mean we can't casually bandy words whenever we feel like it. Fortunately, I have the famous Sword Saint Barnack to guard me for this meeting.
Eleora walks into the waiting room, flanked by guards of her own. She has a few members from the 209th mage corps, as well as some... Meraldian women? They look young and fit, with unreadable expressions. Judging by the way they're standing, they're probably close-range fighters. Oh, her favorite assistant, Warrant Officer Natalia's here too. And as usual, she's glaring at me. The girls' piercing glares are a bit off-putting, but at least they're all beauties. Beautiful women are a country's most important treasure.
I peel my gaze away from the shougo board in front of me and look out the window. The noble who came from Meraldia's mingling with the noble ladies down in the garden. Even hardened war veterans find it hard to fend off a group of women. Still, why does he look so unhappy even though he's surrounded by beauties? Don't tell me he prefers men? I turn back to the game board and start thinking of how to counter Eleora's latest move.
"Looks like things are going well for you, Eleora."
"They are indeed, dear cousin."
She's as unsociable as always. It's a shame, since she was so cute when she was a kid... but I guess it's mostly my old man's fault she turned out the way she did. I capture Eleora's spearman with my archer. With this, my knight has a path forward. At a glance, it seems like I have the advantage.
"But you hold the tactical advantage, Prince Woroy."
"Yeah, for now. But you're probably scheming something, aren't you?"
However, a closer look at Eleora's board reveals that she's kept all her strategists safe. And they're all in a position to pressure me. Smiling faintly, Eleora moves her spy forward. Among the strategist pieces, it's the one with the most mobility.
"What gives you that idea? I'm simply doing my job."
"Tch, I won't let you get me that easily."
Now that my knight's been captured, Eleora can use it against me. But I'd been prepared for that possibility, and I take it out with the spearmen I left there for that specific outcome. Still, this means I lost a piece and had to waste a move to maintain my board state. There's nothing more terrifying than being betrayed by a close comrade. Thanks for the life lesson, Eleora.
Our game goes back and forth for a while, and we chat to fill the silence.
"Meraldia sounds like a nice place."
"I'm sure you'd like it. But the Meraldians' values and way of life are different from ours."
"There's plenty of ways to take care of that. You can easily control people through force, or through religion."
I send my own spy forward, but Eleora easily deflects my offensive. She then sends out her bishop, which is the strategist with the most close-range threat. That limits my options severely.
"I was opposed to the southern subjugation campaign from the very start. But if I recall correctly, you approved."
Funnily enough, only me and my older brother had supported the emperor's plan to conquer the south. My dad, Eleora, and even Ashley had been against it.
"Eventually our barren lands won't be able to grow enough to feed our people. Also, for someone who opposed the plan, you sure did a good job. But I guess you always do."
"No one can escape the role they're assigned at birth. A spy will never become an emperor... At least, that's what I used to think."
"But not anymore?"
"Who knows? I certainly don't."
Evading the question, Eleora captures my glacier lynx with her spy, making it hers. The glacier lynx is an odd piece. Its movements and intended strategy are supposed to symbolize the harshness of winter. And it's modeled after a mythical monster.
"I always thought it was weird thematically that you can turn the 'symbol of winter' against your opponents somehow."
"My guess is the creator of the game was trying to say that clever scouting and intelligence gathering can let you turn your enemy's tactics against them regardless of how abstract they are. Now then, Prince Woroy, it's your move. If you don't do something fast, you'll be checkmated."
"Oh, I know."
Shit... I'm totally on the back foot here... Hold on a second, I'll be mated in seven moves no matter what I do, won't I? Eleora looks out the window and smiles. Her expression gets a lot more relaxed when she's not looking at me. Outside, Lord Veight's sitting on a bench and conferring with his advisors.
"You seem quite interested in the glacier lynx, Eleora. Even though it's just a piece on the board."
"It's not just a piece."
"Oh, it is. Even the emperor is nothing more than a piece with a set role."
I pull my emperor back a square and smile. Eleora's right. People can't escape the roles they're assigned at birth.
"I can see why it's caught your eye though. It's quite a fascinating piece."
"You can, can you?"
"'Course. He's the first person who's managed to keep his cool even after learning who I am. He doesn't fear the imperial family at all. In fact, it feels like he's above such mundane concepts as royalty. He's an interesting guy."
Eleora skillfully maneuvers her officer pieces to corner my emperor. Most of the strategist pieces are slow, but they're good at maneuvering. They're a slippery lot. Meanwhile, all my warriors are stuck at the far corners of the board, unable to defend my emperor. In fact, they were actively getting in the way of my emperor's retreat. After considering all my options, I decide to surrender.
"It's my loss. You've gotten better, Eleora. You're one hell of a strategist now."
"I'm glad you think so, but the game board is a poor substitute for reality. Nothing unexpected occurs on a game board. What you see is all there is. But reality has far too many unknown factors."
"True that."
Eleora's changed a lot since her trip to the south. It looks like she had a pretty hard time in Meraldia.
"You should come visit the Doneiks manor sometimes. No one would try to assassinate you if you came at a prince's invitation."
"I know, but I'm not comfortable there. I lack your boldness, Prince Woroy."
"Is that a compliment?"
"I really do respect that side of your personality."
Does that mean she doesn't respect the other sides of me? That's rich considering she used to follow me around all the time as a little girl.
"My dad's ordered me to stay in the capital for a bit. What're you going to do?"
"I return to East Rolmund tomorrow. Preparations need to be made for the coming winter. Besides..."
"Besides, what?"
Eleora's cheeks flush slightly, and she hesitates for a second.
"My uncle on my father's side, Lord Kastoniev, is asking for me."
"Bahahahahaha!"
"Don't laugh!"
I say my goodbyes and walk into the hallway. I check to make sure no one else is nearby, then turn to Barnack.
"What do you think of that man who came from Meraldia?"
"I am but a humble swordsman. I don't possess the acumen needed to judge people."
"Who cares. I want to know how you feel about him."
Barnack picked his words carefully.
"He has very good eyes."
"What do you mean?"
"In a real battle, there are no rules. Meaning it is of the utmost importance to predict your opponent's actions based on their preliminary movements. But reading those movements takes incredible eyesight. People with eyes like Lord Veight are one in a million."
"It's that rare?"
I can't help but smile.
"But aren't you also someone blessed with divine eyesight?"
"I wonder how long that eyesight will last... Though it's the legs that are the first to go as you age. After that comes eyesight. Finally, even your hands atrophy. At that point, you can no longer fight with a sword," Barnack sighs. "I've noticed my speed has dropped ever so slightly recently. My decline as a swordsman has begun."
"You sure say some heavy stuff. Personally, I'd like it if you stay the empire's strongest swordsman for a while longer. Since you are my teacher and all."
"I am unworthy of such praise, young lord. But thank you all the same."
There aren't many people who are both extremely skilled and trustworthy. Barnack's about the only person who I can always trust to have my back while also assassinating people for me. He looks at me and says, "There is one other thing. Lord Veight has an inhuman level of fortitude. Even in a duel to the death, he appears as calm as if he were lounging by the hearth. No normal human has that kind of nerve."
"Oh yeah, that guy's got guts. It's like he doesn't care about his life at all. What kind of path did he walk to become like that?"
"That I do not know. His life until now must have been tumultuous, to say the least."
"Even more tumultuous than yours, huh? And you were willing to kill the crown prince's favorite and risk getting exiled just because of loyalty."
I can't even imagine what kind of life it took to get to that level. He's definitely an interesting guy, but if Eleora isn't willing to give him up, then he's a threat. A threat to the whole Doneiks family. Still, assassinating a Meraldian diplomat would not be good for Rolmund on the whole.
There's a saying my old man's really fond of. "A shallow schemer will fall into his own traps." If I want to deal with Lord Veight, I'm gonna need a proper strategy. Plus, if we can win him over instead of eliminating him, we'll have a powerful trump card on our side. We'll be able to parcel out Meraldia's land to other people. All the landless nobles and even some of the landed nobles who're tired of managing the northernmost reaches of the empire will jump at the chance to serve under us, since we'll have land to spare. On top of that, Veight himself is a pretty capable guy. He seems quiet, but he's strong and he's got courage. Eventually, I'm gonna make him mine.
* * * *
I was currently facing my biggest crisis since coming to Rolmund.
"Honorary Count Veight Gerun Friedensrichter, may I sit next to you?"
"My name is Inunso. I am Baron Mikhaila's second daughter. May I simply call you Master Veight?"
"I've heard that you're a master not only of the sword, but of all things involving warfare, Master Veight. Would you mind sharing some stories with me?"
I was surrounded by a dozen noble ladies. Honestly, I couldn't fathom why they were all so interested in a country bumpkin like me.
"Master Veight, how did you end up meeting Princess Eleora?"
"Come now, Lady Kviche. That's far too personal a question."
"I suppose so, fufufu."
The ladies brought their heads together and giggled to each other. Even though they were nobles, they were acting like teenage schoolgirls. Sure, there was a little more refinement to their speech, but otherwise, they were no different. After reincarnating, most of my time was spent with someone who'd lived for over a hundred years, so these ladies' youthfulness threw me off. It made dealing with them kind of awkward too. I wanted to chase them away, but my trustworthy bouncer Kite was currently being held up by another crowd of noble girls.
Looks like he's got six on his end. Good luck stopping them, my reliable vice-commander. I've got my hands full here, so I can't help you.
"My apologies, but all these duels have tired me out."
"My, we simply cannot have that. Allow me to call over my family's physician."
I don't need one. If I really was tired, I could just use magic to erase my exhaustion. Man, what a pain. As I was lamenting my fate, a single young noble made their way over to me. One of the ladies went up to greet him, and he grabbed her by the arm and whispered something into her ear. Because of how loud the people around me were, I couldn't make out what he said. Her face flushed, and she signaled to the other ladies hovering around me.
"My apologies, Master Veight, but I must take my leave. Hopefully I can see you another day."
"We're sorry for disturbing you while you're tired. We'll leave you to enjoy yourself."
Enjoy myself? With what? Half the ladies practically ran away while the other half reluctantly walked off. The only person left in the garden was the grinning nobleman. What kind of magic had he used to get rid of everyone?
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Ser Lekomya Hinokentus Wikran, a knight."
That name rang a bell. Oh yeah. He's the other guy I was supposed to duel today. I'd completely forgotten thanks to Prince Woroy's visit.
"My apologies for making you wait, Ser Lekomya. I'll prepare the dueling grounds immediately."
"No, that won't be necessary. I've completed my objective for today."
What objective?
"All I wanted was an opportunity to speak alone with you."
I gave him a skeptical look and offered him a chair. He sat down and I instantly asked him the question foremost in my mind.
"How did you manage to chase away all those noble ladies?"
"It was simple. I told them you were a raging homosexual."
Oi, hold on. I'm not letting this stand. As I was thinking of how best to socially eviscerate Lekomya, he casually waved his hand and said with a smile, "Fear not, homosexuality is a common practice among nobles. I happen to be one myself."
Looks like I can't annihilate him socially. So, murder it is.
"Ah, but my interest in you is purely platonic, Lord Veight. If anything, your vice-commander over there is much more to my tastes."
Kite, watch out. There's a sexual predator after you. Lekomya's smile grew wider.
"Please, I was joking."
Wait, how much of that was a joke? You better tell me, or I won't listen to a thing you've got to say. However, Lekomya kept talking without waiting for a reply.
"Her Highness Eleora wishes to strengthen her faction, correct?"
Her faction, huh? Within Rolmund, the only people who supported Eleora were the university's researchers, the military's engineers, and her family in East Rolmund. I felt bad saying this, but none of them would be very helpful in a political battle. Even the nobles of East Rolmund were all new nobles who'd only obtained their positions after the civil war ended.
East Rolmund had been the last place to fall to the imperial army, and so the nobles who ruled there had the shortest family trees. They were considered upstarts by those in the palace and disparaged by dukes from more prestigious areas. On the other hand, landless nobles envied them, so they were hated everywhere.
Lekomya folded his arms and sighed. "So long as I can get my hands on some land, I don't care where it comes from. West, North, or even East Rolmund is fine with me."
I decided to ask him a probing question.
"Or perhaps, South Rolmund?"
Lekomya's easy smile returned.
"Yep, even that'd do. Would you be willing to grant me land, Lord Veight?"
"That isn't something I can decide on my authority alone."
I casually deflected Lekomya's request. He was quite an interesting fellow. Sensing he'd hit a dead end with this line of inquiry, he changed tactics.
"Most people think I, like most landless nobles, belong to His Highness Prince Ashley's faction."
"But in truth?"
"We do support His Highness, but there are many nobles hoping to receive land from him. Simply serving him won't distinguish me enough to be granted land once he's emperor."
Rolmund held vast swathes of territory, but most of the land was unfit for agriculture. Even if you tried to develop it by sending serfs there, whatever villages you set up there would just starve in a few years. And all the arable land had already been doled out to existing nobles. Meaning, the only way landless nobles could get anything was if an existing landed noble was stripped of their position, or their entire family wiped out. That doesn't mean you can start looking toward Meraldia, though...
Lekomya added, "His Highness hopes to improve this nation's agricultural technology and open up more land for farming. But his methods mostly consist of trial and error. There's no telling how many years it will take before he succeeds." He sighed. "I could try Lord Doneiks, but most of his supporters are from North Rolmund. An outsider like me won't be welcome there."
"So you've decided to see how appealing your third potential choice is?"
"Haha, exactly. The Doneiks faction has people like Viscount Schmenivsky throwing their weight around, so it's not a very comfortable place to be anyway."
Oh yeah, the Count of Slaughter. Lekomya's smile returned again.
"There are many within the Doneiks faction who believe haughty, cruel men like him are the ideal noble, and men among men. I could never get along with such a crowd."
Human life wasn't worth much in this world, but that was especially true here in Rolmund. Fortunately, it seemed Lekomya possessed some basic human decency. The biggest danger of drawing him into our camp was that he could potentially be a spy for Ashley's faction. Prince Ashley didn't strike me as a particularly dangerous person though, so there was likely no need to be that cautious. After weighing my options, I decided to recruit him. Lekomya'd probably prefer it if I was the one who invited him rather than him begging for inclusion.
"Would you like to swear fealty to Her Highness Princess Eleora instead, Ser Lekomya? If you serve her well, you may end up a Meraldian lord."
"Are you sure you can trust someone you've just met?"
"Her Highness will be the one deciding your trustworthiness."
In truth, I'd be the one to do that, but there was no need to tell him. Lekomya beamed and bowed his head.
"I would love to. As proof of my loyalty, allow me to share some information with you."
"That would be much appreciated. Her Highness is known for amply rewarding those who aid her. You've come to the right place."
Eleora wasn't too good at winning people over, but those she did trusted her completely. She never abandoned a comrade, and she made sure to reward them for their efforts. Good qualities for someone who was going to be empress.
* * * *
—Lekomya's Plan—
I have a dream. It's not a very ambitious dream. I just want my own plot of land. That's all.
Right now I get a stipend from the palace, but it's not enough to support my aging parents or my younger brothers. I need to pay the maintenance fees on my manor and the wages of my servants too. In case of war, I need to maintain a constant supply of horses and armor as well. Plus, I need to hire a stable boy and spear bearer. I'd like a refined, beautiful wife as well, but you need status and wealth to attract suitors. If I'm being greedy, I'd like a few works of art too, so I can look like a proper, well-to-do noble. And of course, I need to give regular donations to the church, or the sun will smite me. I need more money.
If I could just get even a small village, I'd be able to put a couple dozen serfs and tenant farmers to work. Then all their earnings would belong to me. Of course, I couldn't use their tax revenue solely for my own purposes. I'd need to spend some of it on improving the village's industry.
But neither Prince Ashley nor His Majesty Emperor Bahazoff take any notice of me. There are dozens of other nobles who have priority over me when it comes to land grants. Even though I'd be able to get twice as much value out of the land as those incompetent fools. All I have to do is cultivate sugar beets like Lord Kastoniev, and I'll be able to make a killing. There's no point in growing just wheat. The emperor's been going on about how we need more wheat in case there's a famine, but wheat just doesn't sell.
I'll grow expensive crops, make a killing, and then use that money to buy better farming tools and livestock. That way, even the serfs on my land will be happy. I could even get them to make pottery and stuff in their free time to sell for extra cash. And I could use that extra cash to get them more booze. Or make them new houses.
Good land management is all about making your serfs more efficient by giving them a better living environment. I have a ton of plans to manage land efficiently. So someone, anyone, please just give me a plot of land. I'll even make a deal with the devil if that's what it takes. I'll till the fields of hell if I have to.
There are rumors that Meraldia's sworn fealty to Rolmund. On paper, they're still independent, but it sounds like the reality is that all their lords are Princess Eleora's lackeys. I have no idea if that's true or not, but at least that strange foreign noble, Veight, seems to be following her. That man possesses a lot of foresight and is quite wise. On top of that, he looks rich. No way am I letting him go. Right now, all I can offer him is my loyalty and the meager information I've gathered. Oh, and my life, I guess. I'm giving you everything I have, so please just bless me with some land and maybe a little glory. Actually, no. I don't even need that. Just give me a chance. One chance. I'll make something out of that one chance, just you watch.
* * * *
I stared out the window as I penned another letter to Airia. The afternoon sun cast a soft, warm, light into the room. Far south of the scenery below me, way past what I could see, lay Meraldia. I was starting to get a little homesick. I hope everyone's doing okay.
"What's wrong, Veight? Missing our old village in the forest? Or are you missing Ryunheit?"
Fahn chuckled to herself, and I smiled wanly.
"Both, I think. I want to get this over with fast. Hopefully we can go back by spring."
Rolmund's short summer had ended, and fall was approaching.
"Eleora's been getting a lot of new allies recently. But now there are so many people around her that it's hard to guard her."
"Yeah, but I'm the one who's had to make a fool of myself to get that moody princess all these allies..."
My style of diplomacy through dueling had endeared me to a lot of nobles in the capital, and that had translated to people coming to Eleora to join her faction. Of course, most of them were only coming to her out of self-interest.
Nobles had a duty to support their family and retainers. In turn, those retainers worked hard to make their chosen noble emperor. The glue that held the relationship between nobles and their servants together was rewards. Before, Eleora hadn't been in a position to reward anyone, and so had possessed few followers. But now she had the silver bullet known as me. Everyone wanted Meraldia's land, so a few vague promises from me were enough to have people salivating at the mouth. Anyway, I better get back to this letter.
* * * *
—Veight's Letter to Airia: 4—
Dear Airia,
As you so keenly predicted, I have engaged in a number of other duels. But not too many, and nothing that would endanger my life, so please don't worry. It's thanks to those duels that my name's spread through Rolmund's imperial court.
The other day, I met with the emperor's nephew, Prince Woroy. He's quite the interesting individual. Even though he's wildly ambitious, he's fun to talk to. I guess people born to high stations see the world a different way. I've learned a lot by talking to the people here. Both Prince Ashley and Prince Woroy were different than I was expecting.
I'm beginning to think that Eleora might just have been overly wary of the two of them. Of course, she's got good reason to be wary, but I can't go into details here. Also, I have yet to meet Lord Doneiks, so I shouldn't jump to conclusions about everyone vying for the throne.
Right now, all Rolmund's nobles have their eyes on Meraldia. They want our warmer, more fertile land. However, their overwhelming desire has made recruiting allies easier. Our progress has been slow, but steady. So I hope you'll forgive me for continuing to duel. Please? Of course, from now on I plan to cut back on my dueling. It's time I started negotiating directly with higher-ranked nobles. There's a lot that needs to be done in order to expand Eleora's influence.
Oh yes, thank you so much for the money you sent me. In Rolmund, I've been granted the title of Honorary Count, and it's been costing a lot to keep up appearances. Honorary Counts don't get a stipend from the court, and honestly, I think the title just exists to extort money from foreign dignitaries. I'll do my best to get back all the money I've spent here. I'm looking forward to being there with you for Ryunheit's next harvest festival. Right now, I'm working hard to make sure we can have a peaceful one next year. Look forward to my next report.
Sincerely, Veight.
* * * *
Just as I finished writing my letter, there was a knock on my door and Eleora entered.
"So this is where you were, Lord Veight?"
"Oh, is it time for dinner?"
"I wouldn't come all the way to your room just to call you for dinner. In case you've forgotten, this is my manor. Anyway, I've come to tell you that I'm postponing my return to Fort Novesk."
Now that was unexpected. Eleora had been the one who wanted to return the most. Fahn and I exchanged glances.
"What happened, Eleora?" Fahn asked.
Eleora turned to her with a sigh.
"My uncle... Lord Kastoniev is coming here. He was getting worried since I wasn't coming back, so he elected to come see me instead."
Your uncle sure is a worrywart. This was a good opportunity to ask something that had been on my mind for a while, though.
"Personally, I think Lord Kastoniev is a trustworthy ally, but do you have reason to believe otherwise?"
Eleora sat down and looked off into the distance.
"I want to believe him, but I can't bring myself to. Do you remember how I told you before that my wet nurse tried to assassinate me?"
Yeah, didn't you say you saw her again after ten years and she instantly went after your life? Eleora covered her face with her hands and said in a pained voice, "I was never able to find out just who ordered the assassination, but my wet nurse had been in Lord Kastoniev's employ."
Yeah, that's definitely a good reason to be suspicious.
"Lord Kastoniev had been the one who'd assigned her as my wet nurse, and when I was old enough, he'd recalled her back to his castle."
If you'd had such a good reason to suspect him, you should have told us earlier. I opened my mouth to say as much, but then stopped when I saw Eleora's anguished expression.
Rolmund nobles often relied on wet nurses to raise their children, so to the kids, their wet nurses were more like mothers than their actual mothers. In fact, the bond between child and wet nurse often ran so deep that nobles would often take care of their wet nurses in their old age.
Meanwhile, Eleora had had her life targeted by her wet nurse. No wonder she was so distrusting. However, it wouldn't make sense for an assassination attempt to be easily traceable. If someone close to Lord Kastoniev tried to assassinate Eleora, it made sense that he'd be the first one suspected.
"Personally, I doubt Lord Kastoniev would use one of his own servants if he wanted to assassinate you."
Eleora lowered her hands from her face and looked up at me.
"Then who do you think gave the order? At the time, Lord Doneiks would have been the only person with good reason to want me dead, but I hadn't even met him then."
"You weren't able to trace the trail back?"
"I was fourteen at the time, what did you expect? Now, I could mobilize the military police, but then I was just a student."
But even as a student, she'd been able to foil the assassination attempt. Eleora really was amazing. She gently patted the Blast Grimoire she kept on her at all times and added, "If you put your faith in people, it just causes more hurt when you're inevitably betrayed. I have men and vassals under my care. I can't afford to be lax if I want to keep them safe."
I see, now I understand your position. But that doesn't mean I agree.
"I get that, but if you don't trust anyone, you won't be able to increase your number of allies. There are times where you have to go with your gut and trust someone."
Eleora scowled at me.
"You can only do that because you're a werewolf. You can tell when people are lying or when they want to hurt you. Plus, no one can take you in a one on one fight. I don't have any of those advantages."
It was true that I was blessed to be both a werewolf and a mage, but... Fine, guess it's up to me to fix your twisted nature. It was time for the reliable vice-commander Veight to shine, time for Eleora to start on her quest to take the throne. But first, I needed her to clear the tutorial. As a clear bonus, I'll gift her with a trustworthy ally.
"Even so, Eleora, you need at least allies you can trust. You need as many loyal allies around you as possible if you want to succeed."
I started formulating a plan in my head.
"If Lord Kastoniev's coming here, that's even better. I'll talk to him and sniff out his true intentions."
Eleora's eyebrows twitched, and I smelled the sharp tang of nervous sweat coming off her. I smiled gently in an attempt to ease her worries.
"Don't worry, Eleora. Remember how I handled Lekomya? You can trust in my skills."
Ever since Lekomya had switched sides, he'd brought new information from the palace to Eleora every day. Eleora relaxed visibly.
"I had no connections with the landless nobles before, so I'm truly grateful for Ser Lekomya's help. From what I hear, he's managed to increase the number of supporters I have inside the palace."
Lekomya's head was probably filled with nothing but thoughts about how he'd soon be a lord in the warm, fertile land of Meraldia. He was only helping Eleora because if she became emperor, she'd be able to grant him land anywhere.
"We may be the weakest faction in the empire right now, but we hold the trump card known as Meraldia. Winning this power struggle will be easy. Trust me."
Eleora still looked a bit hesitant, but in the end she nodded.
"I'm sorry, Lord Veight. I want to know what my uncle thinks of me. Not just as a princess, but as a niece. Please, lend me your strength."
"You got it."
As always, I'd offered to help without considering the consequences. Oh well, everything'll turn out fine. Probably.
The next morning, Lord Kastoniev's carriage arrived. He was getting on in years, and a long journey like this had clearly tired him out. But even so, his face lit up the moment he saw Eleora.
"Princess Eleora, thank the heavens you're well!"
"You worry too much, Lord Kastoniev. We met just the other day."
They really did look just like a doting uncle and his tomboyish niece.
"Princess, how long do you plan on remaining in the capital?"
"Ask that duel-crazed maniac over there. He seems to be treating the capital as his personal playground."
In front of Lord Kastoniev, she was the one of higher rank, so she could ridicule me all she wanted. Behind me, I could hear Natalia and my werewolves snickering. Lord Kastoniev had his own manor in the capital, but he'd elected to stay with Eleora.
"Are you sure you should be here, Lord Kastoniev? Isn't your city's harvest festival happening soon?"
Even though Rolmund kept a strict hierarchy most times, that hierarchy was loosened during the harvest festival. It was an important time for commoners and nobles alike to mingle together and celebrate the year's bounty. However, Lord Kastoniev frowned and shook his head.
"Since last year, I've left matters of governance in my sons' hands. I'm planning on appointing one of them the official head of the house next year."
"I see... This time last year was when I was busy planning the southern campaign."
Reminiscing, Eleora guided Lord Kastoniev through her manor.
"Dinner's ready, so why don't you come in and relax?"
After dinner, I went over to the parlor, where Lord Kastoniev was relaxing.
"My apologies for disturbing your rest, but I was hoping for an opportunity to speak with you, Lord Kastoniev."
Lord Kastoniev was lounging in his pajamas, but he looked like he'd been waiting for me.
"I suspected you would be coming around now. Take a seat."
Lord Kastoniev had his servants retire to another room, leaving the two of us alone.
"You wish to talk about Princess Eleora, correct?"
He's a sharp man.
"Yes. Though it's a bit complicated."
Now then, where do I start? I examined the deep wrinkles in Lord Kastoniev's face as I gathered my resolve. Before I could say anything though, Lord Kastoniev spoke.
"Lord Veight, who are you, really?"
What's that supposed to mean? Doing my best to hide my surprise, I plastered on a poker face.
"I'm not sure how I should answer that question."
Lord Kastoniev scrutinized my expression for a few seconds, then sighed.
"I'm asking not as the head of the Kastoniev family, but as Eleora's uncle. I know my niece. She'd never be able to conquer Meraldia."
Yeah, you guessed right. Lord Kastoniev put a hand to his forehead. His mannerisms reminded me of Eleora.
"She's like her father. A rational, argumentative girl. She can't even win over the hearts of her own people. I highly doubt she was able to convince the Meraldians, who have a completely different culture, to take her side."
You can say that again. Lord Kastoniev examined my reaction, then said in a pleading tone, "It would be one thing if she'd just failed, but ever since she's returned, Eleora's been friendlier and less tense than before. She's so different, it's almost as if she's been possessed."
Wait, that blunt attitude is her actingfriendly? Now I'm curious what she was like before. Lord Kastoniev added, "Lord Veight, I believe you are the key to her transformation. I have already finished raising my children and am mostly retired. The only thing weighing on my mind now is what will become of my brother's orphaned daughter. Would you be so kind as to put this old man's worries to rest?"
That's not as easy to do as you think... I couldn't sense anything off about Lord Kastoniev though. He wasn't lying, that was for sure. I'd asked Mao to gather information on Lord Kastoniev for me, but all he'd been able to discover was that he was on bad terms with Lord Doneiks. Alright, let's take a gamble. I straightened my back and looked Lord Kastoniev in the eyes.
"Know that once you hear the truth, there will be no turning back. Are you sure you want to know?"
"Absolutely. Men of the Kastoniev family fear nothing."
His stern gaze held the weight of years behind it, and it was enough to overwhelm me. Steeling my resolve, I divulged our secret to him.
"It's as you suspected, Eleora failed to conquer Meraldia."
"I knew it..."
Kastoniev looked mildly disappointed, as if Eleora had brought home a bad report card or something. You'd think he would have a bigger reaction, considering I'd just revealed a huge state secret.
"She managed to destroy the Senate that governed northern Meraldia, but had trouble conquering the south. And while she was struggling, the viceroys in the north rebelled against her."
We were the ones who set that chain of events into motion, but that wasn't important, so I didn't mention it.
"In the end, she was forced to surrender to the Southern Commonwealth. And now she's Meraldia's puppet. Our goal is to put her on the throne and have her make Rolmund abandon their expansionist dreams. It's for that reason that we're currently cooperating with Eleora."
"I see."
Lord Kastoniev easily accepted both the fact that his niece had become a puppet and that we were planning on usurping the throne. His reactions were so contrary to what I was expecting that I found myself taking an interest in him.
"None of this bothers you?"
"Not at all. Your actions were rational, and your explanation makes sense. To be honest, I'm more relieved than I am surprised."
It seemed Eleora's uncle didn't think too highly of her leadership abilities. Even though I was aiming for the destruction of Rolmund as he knew it, Lord Kastoniev just sighed tiredly and leaned back in his sofa.
"It all makes sense now. I suppose this means you're the one pulling Meraldia's strings, Lord Veight?"
"No, I'm just a simple vice-commander. I'm in charge of carrying out Meraldia's plan, but that's all."
"Hahaha, if you say so."
I'm being serious though. Looking relieved, Lord Kastoniev poured himself a glass of wine. Rolmundians loved alcohol, and wine was so light it was more like juice to them.
"Now that I know the truth, I suppose there's only one thing to be done. For the sake of my beloved niece, I'll support your plot."
"Are you sure you should be making that decision so lightly?"
If you get caught, you'll be executed along with your whole family, you know? Lord Kastoniev smiled wanly.
"I'm an ambitious enough man that I had my own brother marry the imperial princess to improve my own status. Usurping the throne was beyond my capabilities, but now that there's a real chance of succeeding, I have no reason to hesitate. This is a fitting final gambit to end my life on."
"You realize that if we fail, it won't be just you, but your entire family who'll be executed, right?"
"I am aware." Lord Kastoniev calmly downed his glass of wine. "But consider this. Now that you've divulged your plot to me, what other choice do I have? If I tried to report this to the emperor, I would be executed simply by association. More importantly, I wouldn't even be able to leave this manor alive."
You're not wrong. I had no intention of letting him go had he decided not to join our camp.
"Most importantly though, I refuse to become the kind of despicable scum who'd sell out his own niece. The Kastoniev family earned its prestige through valor in battle. Since then, we've built up a reputation as honest and trustworthy nobles. If I sell out my own niece out of cowardice, then I would be setting a poor example for my sons."
He really was Eleora's uncle; he was just like her. I didn't smell any lies coming from him, so I decided to trust him. There was still one thing I needed to ask though.
"It's reassuring to hear that. Thank you so much for your cooperation. By the way, Lord Kastoniev, now that you've decided to help, would you be willing to solve one of Eleora's worries?"
"And that would be?"
I told Lord Kastoniev about how Eleora's wet nurse betrayed her. From what I could tell, that was the event that had scarred Eleora and was preventing her from opening her heart to potential allies. It made sense, of course. Someone Eleora had trusted more than her own mother had tried to kill her for her own self-interest. Kastoniev's brow knitted in anguish.
"As I thought, that incident is still weighing on her mind... I've wanted to solve this misunderstanding for years, but I've always avoided broaching the topic."
He prefaced his explanation with, "I doubt you'll believe me, but..." then told me the entire story. After the failed attempt on Eleora's life, Lord Kastoniev had launched his own investigation into who the mastermind was. Apparently, Eleora's wet nurse had actually been a Doneiks family spy who'd been sent to Lord Kastoniev's manor to monitor his family.
"At the time, I'd been at the head of East Rolmund's newly minted nobles, so Lord Doneiks was likely wary of me. While not as reckless as you, I was quite reckless in my youth."
As Eleora's wet nurse had been a capable servant, Lord Kastoniev had valued her highly. It was for that reason he'd sent her to the Originia household, unaware of her true loyalties.
"I have no idea what Lord Doneiks was thinking, but his status means he's not someone I can formally launch an investigation on with circumstantial evidence. However, none of this changes the fact that my foolishness deeply hurt Eleora."
Since then, interactions between uncle and niece had grown awkward and strained.
"I would apologize, but she would never believe me now. Having discovered that the wet nurse sent by her uncle was actually an assassin, she likely doesn't know who to trust."
What an unfortunate tale. Thank God I was born a werewolf. Werewolves protected their pack with their lives, regardless of blood ties. But for some reason, Lord Kastoniev suddenly smiled.
"This is quite a surprise though. Ever since her campaign in the south, Eleora has mellowed out considerably. In a way, perhaps it was a good thing that she suffered such a bitter defeat at your hands."
Yeah, I really want to see how she was like before if this is "mellow." Either way, it seemed Lord Kastoniev was willing to become our ally. His story made me curious about Lord Doneiks though. Looks like I should investigate him next. But first, let's get this uncle-niece relationship patched up.
* * * *
—Eleora and Her Uncle—
It's been a long time since I was last nervous to open a door. But I need to discuss that horrific incident with my uncle. I don't particularly dislike my uncle. In fact, my uncle and my late father were supposedly close. And when my father died, my uncle raised me like his own daughter. Or so I'd thought. If my uncle truly loved me, why did his servant, my wet nurse, try to kill me? I have no idea why my uncle might want me dead. There's no reason for him to target my life. Though even if there was a reason, I still can't understand why he'd do it.
Either way, that incident shook me to the core. I became afraid of trusting others. I even began to fear that my mother or my younger sister might want me dead. Every stranger I met was a potential enemy who might be conspiring with others. How could I trust anyone?
But in the end, my mistrusting nature led to me making a critical blunder in my invasion of the south. I lost nearly half my men, and I was captured. The reason for that was simple. During my invasion of Meraldia, I'd failed to make any allies. My methods had clearly been wrong. But what would the right method have been? I know the answer to that now. Like the Black Werewolf King, I should have been focused on building alliances.
However, I'm not capable of doing the things he is. I can't sniff out lies with my nose, and a single sword stab is all it takes to kill me. Besides, I'm too logical. I can't adapt the way I interact with people based on their actions the way he can. And yet, my position demands I do the same things he does. This will be my first step in doing just that. From here on out, I'll be plunging myself into the world of people, trying to discern who I can make an ally, and who will always be my enemy.
I've already heard from the Black Werewolf King that my uncle is likely not an enemy. He's rarely ever wrong. I heard my uncle's explanation from him as well. It makes sense, too. All that remains is somehow processing these complex feelings swirling inside me. Actually, no. As I just said, I'm a logical person. There's no "somehow," I'll wrest these emotions under control using logic. This is the path of life that I've chosen, and I'm going to live this way until the end.
Don't be afraid. "Those who carry Kastoniev blood in them are bold and courageous." That had been Father's favorite saying. I've steeled my resolve, all that's left is to carry it through.
After a few deep breaths, I knock on the door.
"Uncle, do you have a moment?"
"Of course, come in."
My uncle's gentle voice beckons me inside. I go through the door and find him sitting by the fireplace. Next to him is an empty chair. The moment I sit in it, there'll be no turning back. Neither of us will leave until we've talked everything through. Right now, those few steps to the chair feel longer than the distance from here to Meraldia. I want to run away. But the only way I'll have a future is if I clear this hurdle. I take one more deep breath, then step forward.
* * * *
"They're taking a long time..."
A lot of time had passed since Eleora went to Lord Kastoniev's room to talk. I'd left since I figured she'd be fine even without me, but now I wondered if that had been a mistake. I was starting to get a little worried. If Eleora couldn't even overcome this trial, then she'd never make it as empress. Even if she did, her natural mistrust would lead her to execute all potential traitors and start a reign of fear.
However, I didn't think Eleora was that foolish, or that much of a coward. She could handle this. So long as Eleora and Lord Kastoniev's conversation went well, he'd fully commit himself to our cause. I could count on him to gather up all East Rolmund's nobles under our banner.
I'd been surprised to learn that even he had an ambitious heart underneath his gentle exterior. Rolmundians were terrifying. Looking at it from a different perspective though, Lord Kastoniev was determined enough to betray even the emperor for the sake of his family. I could see why Eleora had been wary of him before. If he betrayed us partway through, we'd be finished. Just in case, I was planning on having a few werewolves who were good at stealth keep an eye on him. Though it'd probably end up being an unnecessary precaution.
Now then, all that remained was Lord Doneiks. He was the younger brother of the current emperor and the ruler of North Rolmund. He possessed vast tracts of land, and all of the nobles in close proximity to his territories followed him. According to what I'd heard, he was a broad-minded, sociable man who possessed strong leadership qualities. At the same time, though, he was a clever schemer who'd dirtied his hands with assassination and worse. I called a meeting of my Meraldian crew to discuss Lord Doneiks with them.
"What do you think, boss? Should we just off that Doneiks guy?"
Jerrick, who'd been happily repairing Eleora's fireplace for fun, turned to me. I shook my head.
"We could probably pull off an assassination easily enough, but if we kill him, it'll destabilize northern Rolmund. I want to keep political turmoil to a minimum until we can crown Eleora empress."
"If you say so. Kite, does this look level to you?"
"Drop it another three... No, two and a half mioros to the right."
Kite cast his epoch magic over the fireplace's mantle to make sure he was getting the correct measurements. The two of them got along pretty well. Once he was done analyzing the fireplace, he stepped back and Lacy offered him a rag to wipe the soot off his hands. As he wiped down his hands he said thoughtfully, "At the moment, we can assume that Prince Ashley is choosing to remain neutral in the power struggle. Meaning our biggest obstacle is Lord Doneiks. We should investigate him at the very least."
"Yeah, that I agree with... But how do we go about it?"
I took the cloth Lacy held out to me and started wiping down the nearby windows.
"Wait, hold on. How come I'm helping clean too?"
Parker, who was cleaning the window next to mine, turned to me with a nostalgic smile.
"It looks like your time as a disciple trained you well. Hahaha."
"Like you're one to talk. You're helping out too!"
Crap, the moment one person starts doing chores, everyone ends up working. This was a habit that had been ingrained into all of Gomoviroa's disciples. Since we were already at it, we decided to polish the floor as well, only taking a break when some of Eleora's maids brought us tea. They'd been surprised to see us doing the work of servants, but hopefully that had left an impression of how diligent Meraldians were, and not that we were just eccentric.
"There's a lot of publicly available information on Lord Doneiks."
He'd served as the emperor's aide for many years, so he had a long service record, and had made quite a name for himself. Lacy read through the latest letter Lekomya had sent us and muttered, "On the surface, he appears to be an outstanding gentleman. And helped solve long-standing irrigation and flooding issues with the rivers inside his territory."
The rivers in Rolmund flowed northward, down from the mountain ranges. And when the snow melted every spring, the rivers flooded their banks, causing major damage. However, Lord Doneiks had devised a clever system of flood barriers that now contained the flooding.
But while he had done many great things, there were also a plethora of negative rumors about him. Monza threw out the dirty water in the cleaning bucket and shrugged her shoulders.
"That Viscount whoever that you dueled was killed by that old man too, right?"
"Yeah. The official statement is that Viscount Schmenivsky's resting in Lord Doneiks' mountain villa, but rumors say he was actually assassinated. I guess he was tarnishing his faction's reputation by claiming I'm a werewolf so Lord Doneiks had him removed."
Parker gave me a surprised look.
"You actually remembered that viscount's name?"
"I figured I should try to get it right since he's dead and all."
"What point is there in remembering the names of the dead? Especially since you aren't much of a necromancer. Have you been influenced by Master?"
To be honest, Viscount Schmenivsky had been scum of the lowest order. Death was a just reward for the Count of Slaughter. He'd been arrogant, violent, and cruel. Still, it wasn't right to disparage the dead. At the very least, I felt like I should get his name right. That was all there was to it. Explaining my mindset would be difficult though, so I just gave Parker some vague explanation. He stared at me curiously for a few seconds, then smiled wanly.
"You truly are an unfathomable man. Personally, I would like to get to know my cute younger brother better, so I'd prefer it if you'd be more open with me."
"I'm not your brother, just a fellow disciple."
Some time later, Eleora walked into the room.
"Did you finish talking with Lord Kastoniev?"
"Yes."
Though her response was curt, her eyes welled up with emotion. I had no idea what they'd talked about in there, but it looked like they'd made up. She turned to the fireplace and said, "Don't you think that design stands out a little too much?"
It was only after she pointed it out that I realized the problem.
"Whoops. We ended up remaking the mantelpiece in the Meraldian style."
I hadn't really been paying attention to the design, but Jerrick had naturally chosen a southern Meraldian style for it. And it clashed pretty badly with the surrounding Rolmund architecture. It was hard to explain, but it was kind of like topping a cake with cheese instead of frosting. It sounded disgusting at first glance, but actually tasted pretty good once you tried it. Jerrick seemed to have realized his mistake too, and he smiled apologetically.
"Ah, my bad. Don't worry, I'll fix it back to its original design."
However, Eleora smiled and shook her head.
"You went out of your way to repair it, so it's fine like this. Besides, it will make for a good reminder of the time I fought in Meraldia. Thank you."
Whoa. Is it just me, or does she look really happy? Everyone else was just as surprised by Eleora's sudden transformation, and they all exchanged confused looks. After a few seconds the shock passed, and Fahn turned to Eleora, a mischievous smirk playing about her lips.
"I never knew you could smile like that."
Puzzled, Eleora touched her cheeks.
"Is it really that strange?"
"Nah, it's not weird. In fact, I think you look better when you're smiling."
Fahn was absolutely right. It seemed that at long last, Eleora's frozen heart had begun to thaw. But that meant I needed to be extra careful. If she was betrayed by someone she trusted again, she'd probably never be able to recover. Likely, she'd never trust anyone ever again. And if someone incapable of trust took the throne, it would just lead to a paranoia-fueled purge. While it was true that something like that wouldn't affect Meraldia, it would still leave a bad taste in my mouth knowing I'd helped bring an empire to ruin. Besides, if the political turmoil in Rolmund got too severe, it might start affecting its neighboring countries as well, including us.
Eleora handed me a letter, interrupting my thoughts.
"A few minutes ago, a messenger from the Doneiks estate came to deliver invitations to a party. There's one for me, and one for you."
"They want me too?"
What could the emperor's ambitious brother want with me? Eleora smiled faintly.
"The formal reason for why we've been invited is that Lord Doneiks wishes to celebrate my accomplishments in the south and meet with the Meraldian diplomatic delegation. He sent an invitation to Ser Lekomya as well, so I imagine he's planning to invite all the nobles within my faction. I imagine this is no mere party."
"I see, so he wants to crush us in one fell swoop?"
"Not necessarily. Regardless of his intentions, it's clear he's plotting something."
Interesting. Eleora gauged my reaction.
"Nothing ever fazes you, does it?"
"That's not true. In fact, I'm worried enough that I think we should assign guards to Ser Lekomya and the others. But while it's easy to protect one or two people, it's going to be hard to guard your whole faction."
Her expression grew pensive, and she replied, "I highly doubt Lord Doneiks will resort to assassination here, but it doesn't hurt to be safe. Unlike my father's brother, my mother's brother is quite belligerent."
Even better. I had a much easier time dealing with people who tried to posture with threats.
The appointed day arrived, and I brought my entire werewolf platoon with me to the banquet.
"Hamaam, your squad's in charge of guarding Ser Lekomya. Jerrick, you guys take Sir Shawch. Monza, you're on Sir Mottemo. Fahn, Vodd, you guys protect me and Eleora's group. That includes her attendants like Borsche and Natalia."
Thanks to Lekomya's ceaseless efforts, we had a few more allies in the palace. However, that also meant we needed to protect more people. Right now, there were a total of 14 people in Eleora's camp. They were all low-ranking nobles without any land, but they were vital in providing Eleora with up-to-date information from the palace. Furthermore, if we failed to protect them, people would think Eleora wasn't someone worth following. It was possible Lord Doneiks' goal was to just undermine trust in Eleora, so we couldn't afford to be lax.
I had no idea how Lord Doneiks was planning to strike, but worst case, he'd rush us with everything at his disposal. Werewolves couldn't exhibit their full strength without transforming, but their enhanced senses worked even in human mode. And we were especially sensitive to human reactions.
"Hey, boss. That lady over there doesn't look like she's doing too good. Her breathing's all messed up. We should call a doctor, or a healer."
"Thanks for the heads up, Jerrick. Kite, call someone over."
Case in point. Werewolves evolved to hunt humans, so our senses were specialized in reading their emotions and desires. Fortunately, any ability that helped you set up ambushes against a target inevitably also helped you avoid ambushes from that same target. You better guard everyone with your lives, guys.
Today's party was being held at a rural mansion located within one of the forests in Lord Doneiks' domain. The mansion itself was close to the size of the imperial palace, and its vast grounds were perhaps even larger. And every inch of that space was being utilized in some way for the party. After double and triple-checking to make sure the food wasn't poisoned, I started wolfing down on as much as I could get my hands on.
"Veight, don't you think you're eating a bit too much? None of the other nobles have even touched the food."
"It's customary in Rolmund not to eat at a buffet-style party. But that's because they're worried about being poisoned, and I've already made sure the food's safe, so it's fine."
"Did you really want to eat that badly?"
Kite watched on in disbelief. But for werewolves, food was a matter of life and death. We needed to eat an enormous amount to keep up with our metabolisms. Fortunately, the food at a party hosted by the emperor's younger brother was as good as you'd expect. By which I meant, amazing. There was something horribly wrong in this country if all this delicious food went to waste every party.
Chewing on a piece of meat, I went up to the second floor of the mansion's atrium. From here, I could see the entirety of the banquet. I went through the rest of the food on my plate as I enjoyed the view. In this world, I wouldn't get too many chances to eat as much roast beef as I wanted. Since all the food was going to be thrown away anyway, I was doing Lord Doneiks a favor, really.
Today's guests were mostly just the main members of the Eleora and Doneiks factions. A few members of Ashley's faction were here as well, though. The nobles in Eleora's faction, in other words our allies, were all clumped together in one corner of the room. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they'd all been herded into one corner. Members of Doneiks' faction had surrounded them. There were a few members of Doneiks' faction for each one of ours, and they seemed to be giving some kind of speech to our nobles. It was difficult to pick out individual conversations from here, but I could tell they were scheming something big.
They were purposely doing this out in the open to show that they weren't afraid of me. Guess I should go stop them. But before I could take a single step, Prince Woroy came up next to me.
"I see you came, Meraldia's war hero."
"You have my deepest thanks for the invitation, Your Highness."
Shit, I can't leave a prince behind without it looking rude. Prince Woroy examined the surroundings with a grin.
"Looks like the party's getting heated up."
"As you say."
But as loathe as I was to stay here, I was stuck. Prince Woroy looked down at the nobles belonging to Eleora's faction and muttered, "The Doneiks family has blackmail material on most nobles. We know which nobles are cheating on their spouses, and which ones indulge in inhumane hobbies. We know who amassed their wealth through illicit means and who has mountains of debt. You get the idea."
The nobles in our faction were valuable allies, but they weren't necessarily good people. For the most part, they were just normal nobles, so it was expected that they had an unsavory secret or two. Even if they didn't, the Doneiks family had more than enough power and influence to make them defect. They could offer land or treasure as an incentive to switch sides, or simply threaten them into submission. This was quite a predicament. Were this Meraldia, I could simply use my authority to fight back. But in Rolmund, I was an outsider.
Cold sweat started pouring down my back. Prince Woroy turned to me and said with a serious expression, "If your camp's folding this easily, then Eleora's a worthless strategist. You should join me instead. It'll be best for everyone."
Prince Woroy wasn't being haughty, he truly believed that was the case. While I appreciated the thought, I wasn't going to join him. Crap, everyone in our faction is starting to look afraid. What kind of dirt did the Doneiks family dig up? While I knew it'd be rude, I had no choice but to go down there myself now. However, Eleora appeared just in time to save me. Since she was the guest of honor, she'd arrived late as per Rolmundian custom. The moment she stepped into the main hall she immediately realized what was going on. Smiling faintly, she surveyed the Doneiks faction nobles.
"This seems to be quite a lively discussion you have going on. Mind if I join in?"
Though her tone was mild, Eleora was clearly implying that if the Doneiks nobles didn't back off she'd eviscerate them. Though she was sixth in line for the throne, she was still an imperial princess. Furthermore, she was also thought to be a master tactician who'd conquered all of Meraldia with just her personal bodyguards. Sure, these nobles had the backing of Lord Doneiks, but even then, they wouldn't risk offending an imperial princess.
The nobles who'd surrounded the members of Eleora's faction slowly backed off. However, not all of them were willing to respect her authority. Like Viscount Schmenivsky, quite a few of them looked down on her. Several of them shot Eleora defiant looks. She examined them coolly and said, "If exchanging words isn't enough to satisfy you, how about something more hands-on? Our esteemed Astral Fencer, Lord Veight, seems quite bored."
Everyone looked up at me. Wait, what? Are you kidding me, Eleora? It seemed Eleora wanted to use me as a threat to keep the Doneiks faction nobles in line. After considering all my options, I ignored Rolmundian manners and leaned against the banister railing. Railings were considered objects to be polished by servants, not supporting structures that were meant to actually be touched by nobles. But I was done being proper. I downed my glass of wine in one gulp and plastered on a feral grin. I was already ignoring courtesy by eating and drinking as much as I wanted, so I might as well lean into it all the way.
"A duel would certainly spice up this banquet. I've been looking for an excuse to go wild without holding back. One gets tired of dueling without spilling blood after a while."
I glared down at the nobles who'd tried to challenge Eleora. I'd gotten quite used to putting on the villain act. Bring it. I'll take you on in anything, from dueling to wrestling to sumo to dodgeball.
But the nobles who'd been so belligerent moments before meekly turned away upon receiving my glare. The Doneiks faction nobles had been completely cowed. On the other hand, Eleora's allies all breathed audible sighs of relief.
Including Viscount Schmenivsky, I'd broken the ribs and knocked out the teeth of any noble who'd dueled me with the intention to kill. Which was why the nobles who actually hated me were quite afraid of me as well. That helped in driving threats like these home. But you know, this makes it sound like I'm some crazed, duel-loving fanatic. Was that really the reputation I wanted to cultivate? Oh, whatever.
Prince Woroy interrupted the silence by clapping his hands together. He smiled ruefully and said, "While some stimulating swordplay would certainly liven up the party, it won't do to be rude to Meraldia's greatest general. Our two nations are friends after all. Musicians, play us 'The Grapevines of Romka.'"
The song Prince Woroy had requested was a jaunty tune that was a favorite among commoners. It was often played during the harvest season when wine was being fermented. The frigid atmosphere I'd created relaxed somewhat, and Prince Woroy turned to me with a rueful smile.
"Please don't scare them too much. They may be powerless cowards, but our family needs them."
Smiling, I bowed to the prince.
"My apologies, Your Highness. I have an easily misunderstood temperament."
"Misunderstood, huh?" Prince Woroy's smile grew lighter. "In that case, I'd like to see your true colors someday. I'm sure it'd surprise me."
For someone who looks like a musclehead, he sure is insightful.
"Oh yeah, my older brother is here at the party as well. Let me introduce you to him while I've still got the chance. Normally he's away managing his territories. Wait here."
Prince Woroy walked off.
I spent the time he was gone glaring at the Doneiks nobles to make doubly sure they didn't try anything. Finally, Prince Woroy returned with a bespectacled man. While the newcomer had a similar build and features to the prince, he seemed much more serious. Prince Woroy whispered a few words to him, then walked over to me.
"Lord Veight, this is my brother, Ivan."
"It is an honor to finally meet you, Prince Ivan. I am Veight Gerun Friedensrichter."
Ivan nodded solemnly.
"And it is a pleasure to meet you as well, Lord Friedensrichter. This party is being held in your honor. Humble though it may be, please enjoy it to your heart's content."
His tone was polite, but also formal and stiff. From his scent, I could tell that he was wary of me. Guess I didn't leave a very good impression on him. I engaged Prince Ivan in small talk, and after a few minutes of harmless conversation, he excused himself. But before he left, he turned around and said, "My father, Lord Doneiks, was meant to be today's host, but he suddenly fell ill. He's resting in his room, but if you'd like I could take you to greet him."
I wasn't too sure what Rolmund's customs said about a situation like this, but I was pretty sure it was important to greet the host. Chances were Lord Doneiks was plotting something, but I couldn't refuse a direct request from the prince.
"Of course. I was hoping for a chance to pay Lord Doneiks my respects."
I kept my tone pleasant as I answered. As Lord Doneiks was second in line for the throne, he'd be emperor if anything happened to Prince Ashley. Naturally, this meant all Rolmund assumed he was plotting something. I was inclined to think the same.
I followed a servant deep into the mansion. The sounds of music and laughter grew distant, replaced by wind rustling through the autumn leaves. This was a quiet part of the mansion. The servant led me to a door, and I knocked.
"Come in."
The calm voice of an old man called out to me. Upon entering, the first thing I noticed was the number of hidden guards in the room. The room's interior was quiet enough that I could pick up on their breathing. It seemed the ostentatious cupboard set against the wall had more space in it than its North Rolmundian construction suggested.
Most of the remaining wall space was decorated with portraits of what I assumed were past emperors. However, there was a draft coming from behind each painting, suggesting that there was quite a bit of space behind it. The ceiling was slightly lower than it was in the hallway, meaning there was likely a concealed space up there as well. There were a total of eight hidden guards. It appeared Lord Doneiks was quite cautious. I need to be careful not to say anything dumb.
I analyzed the room in the span of three seconds, then bowed to the lord.
"My apologies for disturbing your rest. I am a councilor of the Meraldian Federation, Veight Gerun Friedensrichter."
A sharp-eyed old man sat behind the one desk in the room. Like his sons, he had a tall frame and impressive muscles. From the looks of it, he was keeping up with his training even now. He had the look of a hardened warrior. The lord eyed me for a few seconds, then got to his feet and bowed his head.
"Welcome, young Meraldian hero. I am the current head of the Doneiks household, Zweinei Karitov Doneiks Rolmund." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Come closer. The warmth of the fire can't reach you there."
Compared to other Rolmundians I knew, he didn't seem especially amiable. Nor did he seem particularly persuasive or handsome. But for some inexplicable reason, I felt compelled to listen to him. His words possessed a mysterious power. If it wasn't for the fact that the flow of mana was still, I would have thought he was using mind control magic. Maybe it was just his force of character, but I hated providing such vague explanations for real phenomena.
Wary of the guards around me, I slowly made my way over to the fireplace. Here, I picked up the faint scent of blood. The scent was old, but it was definitely human blood. Furthermore, the ground was around two millimeters lower here than it was in the rest of the room. There was clearly some kind of trap laid in this spot. So this is where he assassinates people. Ah well.
I'd already cast detoxification and arrow warding magic on myself, and I had healing magic prepared in case I needed it. So long as I could avoid my enemies' initial attacks, I'd be able to transform and knock everyone out with Soul Shaker. If I sucked in a breath while transforming, I could get the spell out in under two seconds. I stood at the center of Lord Doneiks' kill zone and smiled casually.
"This is quite a cozy spot. The fire really warms you up."
"I have heard that southern Meraldia is quite warm, but autumns in Rolmund tend to be chilly. I hope you are finding this mansion to be warm and inviting, though."
There's the indirect invitation again. "This mansion," huh? They really want me, don't they? Guess I'll do the usual vague deflection.
"Thank you very much. Speaking of fireplaces, my men had quite an enjoyable time repairing Princess Eleora's. In fact, they've grown quite attached to her manor."
I refused Lord Doneiks' invitation in as roundabout a manner as I could. He smiled to himself and nodded.
"I see the men of Meraldia are loyal. Eleora must be happy to have you." But then his smile suddenly vanished, and he added, "However, know that Rolmund can be a cold and unforgiving place. Be sure to stay warm at all times."
Is that supposed to be a threat? Even though our conversation was anything but pleasant, I found myself enjoying talking to Lord Doneiks. Now that I'd spent some more time with him, I realized this was neither magic, nor some vague "force of character." He was simply a very skilled conversationalist. And he wasn't anything like me, who just used a few amateur tricks to get by. Every word and mannerism was carefully chosen to draw the listener in and make them sympathize with the speaker. So this is the caliber of a true imperial politician.
There were two things I wanted to ask Lord Doneiks. The first was what his stance was in regard to Meraldia. The second was whether he'd been behind the assassination attempt on Eleora or not. Guess I should start with the less serious one first.
"By the way, Your Highness, what do you think of Meraldia?"
Lord Doneiks smiled.
"Would it be acceptable if I answered in my current capacity?"
Uh, what's that supposed to mean? Oh wait. You mean your current capacity as lord of North Rolmund. You're trying to say you had nothing to do with the imperial palace's decision to invade? Your ambition's showing through, old man.
"Of course, Your Highness."
"Then all I can say is I will follow any orders given to me by His Majesty. The right to decide Meraldian policy lies solely with him."
Figures. Lord Doneiks had no intention of informing me of his policy. Perhaps I should have asked in a more roundabout way. Still, even if he wasn't willing to spell out his plans, he might be willing to answer specific questions.
"Yet, Your Highness, I heard that you opposed the Meraldian campaign. May I ask why?"
Lord Doneiks shook his head.
"What good would it do you to know? The emperor is still alive, as is his successor, Prince Ashley. Is there any point in knowing what I think?"
"Forgive me for my impudence, Your Highness, but this is my duty as a diplomat."
Sighing in resignation, Lord Doneiks finally started talking.
"I opposed the invasion because I believed the rewards were not worth the risk, or the time investment. However, Eleora managed to succeed with just the troops she had on hand."
Yep, yep, she's a really accomplished princess. Lord Doneiks picked up one of the shougo pieces sitting on his desk. It was made of crystal and was clearly expensive.
"An army is at its strongest when it's not in use. Once deployed, casualties start to mount, and your opponents learn what tricks you have up your sleeve. Furthermore, while in use for one campaign, an army cannot be used to do anything else. Which is why a leader must be extremely cautious when choosing whether or not to commit his forces to anything."
True, if you send all your forces to invade, you won't have anything left to stop potential revolts. Eleora had only had her personal guard at her disposal for this mission, so everyone in Rolmund was impressed that she'd pulled it off. Especially since she'd done it on a shoestring budget with only a few dozen casualties. Lord Doneiks put the shougo piece back on the desk.
"My hot-blooded sons wanted to see some action, so they supported His Majesty's plan. And if we look at only the results, it would seem my sons were in the right. I suppose it's true that age clouds your judgment."
Nah, you're the one who was actually right. If you guys hadn't tried to invade, I wouldn't be here right now. However, it seemed there were some differences of opinion within the Doneiks household. I wanted to probe a little further, but time was limited so I decided to move on to the most important topic. Whether or not he was behind Eleora's assassination attempt.
I sucked in a deep breath and steeled my resolve. I then looked Lord Doneiks in the eyes and asked flatly, "By the way, Your Highness. Would you happen to know anything about Her Highness Eleora's wet nurse?"
Of course I knew he'd try to play dumb, but I had few ways to corner him. The simplest thing to do would be to lie and say that Eleora captured her wet nurse and tortured the truth out of her. It'd be obvious to me whether his denial was a lie, so all that remained would be finding evidence to fit the crime. Like an algebra equation where the solution is known, but the variable isn't. I'd come fully prepared for this fight. Now let the hunt begin. However, contrary to my expectations, Lord Doneiks didn't even try to deny the truth.
"Thinking back on it now, I regret choosing such a method, Lord Veight."
You're seriously just gonna admit that? Before I could recover from my surprise, Lord Doneiks came at me with a counterattack.
"But I must admit, it baffles me why you find such a trivial event to be of such importance. Assassination attempts are hardly uncommon in Rolmund."
I mean... I guess that's true. Chances were, it was this gentle-looking old man who'd done away with Viscount Schmenivsky too. If I wasn't careful going forward, he might try to have me killed too. I smiled faintly. I'd upped my repertoire of evil smiles by using some of Eleora's expressions as reference. If the conversation dragged on too long, Lord Doneiks would probably change the subject, so I needed to keep this brief.
"It's precisely because they're such a common occurrence that I need to know more. So, tell me, why do you regret your decision?"
It doesn't matter how; I just need to keep him talking. Lord Doneiks leaned back in his chair and sighed.
"It was never my intention to harm my cute niece. I simply wanted to destroy her trust in people, so that she wouldn't try to build relationships and increase her influence."
Ah, I see now. So that's what you were after. He'd intentionally picked Eleora's wet nurse in order to make her mistrustful. He hadn't actually expected the attempt to succeed.
It didn't seem like he was lying, but Lord Doneiks struck me as the kind of person who wouldn't feel anything even when he was lying. And if he didn't feel anything, his sweat wouldn't smell any different. While rare, there were some people out there who could deceive a werewolf's nose like this. That made him a tough person to negotiate with, but if I backed down here, I wouldn't be able to get any info, so I kept pushing.
"But things turned out exactly the way you hoped, so what is there to be dissatisfied about?"
"Indeed, they did. The throne has historically been passed down through the male line, so I had hoped the princess would get married off to some duke to deepen alliances and find her own happiness there."
I wanted to object, but that was really how Rolmund nobles saw marriage. Now wasn't the time to interrupt. Lord Doneiks picked the shougo piece back up again and added, "And yet, with her limited popularity and forces, Eleora managed to conquer Meraldia. Had I known she was so capable, I would have..."
"Made sure to finish the job you started?"
Lord Doneiks shook his head.
"The opposite. Instead of alienating her with petty schemes, I would have brought her into my fold. I let a valuable asset escape my grasp."
This guy doesn't feel the least bit guilty about what he's done, huh? Despite his mild-mannered appearance, Lord Doneiks was quite heartless. I kind of want to get back at him for Eleora now. Let's see how you like this.
"It's not too late to make your peace with Princess Eleora. In fact, I could mediate for you if you so desire."
Of course, I didn't think reconciliation was actually possible. And as expected, Lord Doneiks shook his head sadly.
"Don't tease a foolish old man so. It's far too late. However, I did what I thought was best at the time. Despite my regrets, I doubt I would have acted differently." Lord Doneiks got to his feet. "More importantly, Lord Veight, what is your reason for supporting Eleora?"
"Naturally it's for the sake of Meraldia."
He regarded me silently. I wasn't lying. Back on Earth, there was a famous quote that went something like "diplomats are just patriotic swindlers." That was certainly what I was, so I had no qualms about playing the villain. I smiled faintly and met Lord Doneiks' gaze. After a few moments of heavy silence, he nodded.
"I, too, pray for Meraldia's prosperity."
Liar. Despite knowing the truth, I bowed respectfully anyway.
"As Meraldia's representative, I thank you for your kind words."
"Remember, our gates are always open to you, Lord Veight. I pray our goals align someday."
I appreciated the offer, but I knew Lord Doneiks would never become my puppet. We were almost out of time for our meeting. Officially, I'd just come here to give him my greetings. Besides, I was worried about what was going on back at the party. It was high time I left.
"Thank you very much for inviting me today. If you'll excuse me, I'd like to return to the party."
"It makes me glad to see you're enjoying it."
"Good day, Your Highness."
As I walked to the door, I decided to take one last potshot at Lord Doneiks.
"By the way, Your Highness."
"Yes?"
"As you are the emperor's younger brother, would it not be wise to keep guards of higher caliber around your person?"
"What do you mean?"
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter54.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
I walked over to the cupboard and rapped it with my knuckles.
"The only one who managed to hide himself at all was this one. The other seven may as well have been standing in plain sight."
Lord Doneiks fell silent. He knitted his brows together, but then after a few seconds smiled.
"In their defense, every one of my guards is a fierce warrior. However, it seems I would have nothing to fear if I had you to protect me."
Nice joke. Compared to the old Demon Lord or Master, I was just a weakling.
"Hahaha, I doubt I would be of much use. Meraldia... no, this world is filled with people whose strength would beggar belief."
I glanced over at the fireplace. Since I'm already at it, I guess I'll point that out too. Can't get any ruder than I already have.
"Also while your fireplace is indeed quite cozy, I recommend you make the floor around it a less cold and unforgiving place."
"I'll keep that in mind."
For the briefest of moments, I saw unease flit across Lord Doneiks' otherwise unreadable face. This was the first time I'd seen him visibly shaken. I'd noticed the floor was hollow the moment I'd stepped on it, so chances were there was a hidden pit underneath. While there was nothing that could be done to hide that fact, Lord Doneiks could have at least made sure it was level with the rest of the ground. Well, I guess it doesn't really matter. In fact, it might be better if Lord Doneiks was this slipshod with everything he did.
Anyway, I'd vented my frustration at how he'd treated Eleora, and it wouldn't do to keep insulting him to his face like this. I bowed to Lord Doneiks and walked out of the room.
"I'll be returning to the party then."
"My apologies for calling you all the way out here. Be sure to enjoy yourself."
I hadn't gotten much out of my meeting, but unfortunately, this was the extent of my negotiation ability. If I wanted to get any meaningful information, I'd need the help of Lord Kastoniev and Lekomya. Now then, time to go back and stuff my face full of meat.
* * * *
—Lord Doneiks' Tactics—
After that young foreigner leaves, I say, "At ease."
The cupboard opens, and Barnack steps out. The man known as the Sword Saint smiles ruefully and says, "It seems I've lost my edge, Lord."
"Not at all. That man is simply superhuman."
I know better than anyone how skilled Barnack is. He's no mere sword master. He's also an accomplished assassin skilled enough to slip past even a bloodhound. My other guards pile out of their hiding places, their lips contorted in fear. Their morale has taken a huge blow. This is quite the parting gift you've left me, Lord Veight. Beckoning my guards closer, I say, "That man is Meraldia's fiercest general, the butcher of four hundred. I have no doubt the only reason Eleora was able to conquer Meraldia was because she had his assistance."
There's no doubt that a man of his renown has enormous popularity in his homeland.
"Proud disciples of Barnack, know that without you I would not be able to sleep soundly at night. I imagine the only people in Rolmund capable of fighting on even footing with Lord Veight are you seven and your master."
Sensing my intent, Barnack also addresses his men.
"Each of you are skilled warriors that I handpicked. Furthermore, you've all completed your harsh training. Not only that, you have racked up numerous achievements. Be proud of your skills."
Being praised by both their lord and their instructor seems to have some effect, as they regain a measure of calm. Now's the time to heap on more praise.
"I am truly glad you didn't shirk your duties even when faced with such a terrifying foe. Your work for the day is done, go enjoy the party, my valiant guards."
"Yes, sir!"
They give me a salute and walk out of the room with confident smiles.
After they leave it's just me and Barnack in the room. I sit back down and relax.
"Even my fiercest warriors cowered like children before Lord Veight. I'm beginning to think the rumors that he single-handedly slaughtered four hundred men aren't exaggerations."
"I know what you mean."
"Barnack, do you remember that one deer hunt we held in the dead of winter? Where we were discovered by assassins with hounds and chased around the forest?"
My loyal retainer's grim expression loosens into a smile.
"Now that's nostalgic, sir. The two of us had to slay twelve assassins all by ourselves."
"I killed two, and you cut down the rest. You fought your way through ten men all on your own."
"Now I'd likely struggle to kill eight. I'd need your help with the last four."
"Don't ask so much of this old man."
Barnack and I share a chuckle. We've both gotten old. After a few seconds, I return to being serious and ask, "Do you think Lord Veight really is a werewolf, like Schmenivsky believed?"
"That's the only explanation that makes sense. No amount of training can give people that kind of speed and power."
Barnack answers immediately, but I'm not convinced. Shaking my head, I argue, "If we just considered his strength, I might agree. But if he truly is a werewolf, there's something that doesn't make sense."
"What do you mean, Lord?"
"His political savvy, Sword Saint."
I pull a thick stack of documents out of my drawer. This is all the information my spies have gathered on Lord Veight.
"While werewolves can disguise themselves as humans, at their core they're still demons. They lack human negotiation skills. If he truly is a werewolf, then why is he so adept at diplomacy?"
"Then what do you believe he is, Lord?"
I hesitate for a moment, but in the end, I decide to trust my closest confidant with this information.
"I believe he might be a Hero."
Barnack looks taken aback, understandably so. Heroes were legendary beings who held power on par with that of the great Sonnenlicht himself. Even within the long history of Rolmund, the last time one had appeared was long before the founding of the empire. Though I have doubts about the theory myself, Lord Veight being a Hero would go a long way to explaining his abilities. I give Barnack a smile.
"Of course, it's only a possibility. But remember what happened in Draulight."
"Are you referring to the legendary slave swordsman who rallied the slaves to escape?"
The sword style taught in Draulight is the Sashimael style, the same one that Barnack has mastered.
"History has confirmed that he cut down the army of ten thousand the Rolmund senate sent after the escaped slaves. It wouldn't be so far-fetched to believe a similar Hero has appeared in Meraldia."
"I suppose not."
One of the reports I received had mentioned that Lord Veight had defeated another Hero as well. Though I personally doubt it, it seems everyone in Meraldia believes the story.
"Regardless of his true identity, it's clear he's attracted the attention of everyone in Rolmund. The castle is awash with stories about the young dueling master from Meraldia."
"Indeed. He has a charismatic pull which most find hard to resist."
"Not only did Eleora successfully complete her mission to conquer the south, but she also managed to bring such an exceptional man into her fold. Her fame has skyrocketed, and if it continues to do so, my position will grow tenuous."
"You mean to say..."
I shake my head before Barnack can finish.
"So long as Lord Veight is around, any assassination attempts will lead only to our ruin. We cannot lay a hand on her directly. I intend to make that clear to everyone in my camp."
"I think that's wise. If I must meet him on the battlefield a second time, I have little confidence I will survive the encounter."
It's rare to see Barnack of all people balk at anything. Never before has he shied away from danger, in spite of the countless hopeless situations he's been put into.
"But, Lord. While this may be a somewhat disrespectful question, how in the world did Princess Eleora manage to tame such a ferocious warrior?"
"There are in fact many ways she could have." I stow the reports on Lord Veight back into my drawer as I answer Barnack's question, "No matter how strong he might be, Lord Veight alone cannot stop a full-scale invasion from Rolmund. Likewise, he's incapable of destroying Rolmund by himself."
There's a limit to how much a single man can achieve, regardless of his abilities, all the more so when he has so much to protect. If Eleora showed him a glimpse of how much economic and military might Rolmund possessed, I could see him coming to the negotiating table. But I find it hard to believe Eleora is such a skilled negotiator.
"Our biggest problem is whether or not Eleora has managed to put him on a tight leash. So long as he's working as Eleora's underling there's plenty of ways to deal with him, but if he proves too much for her to handle, then..."
"Then what, Lord?"
"Then our empire will be destroyed."
"Surely not..."
It does sound impossible. However, no nation is invincible. Both the Rolmund Senate and the three kingdoms were eroded with time.
During the lull in our conversation there's a knock at the door and my eldest son, Ivan, enters. He looks distinctly unwell.
"Father."
"What's wrong, Ivan? Did you have another fit?"
"No, I'm thankfully in good health today. However, Eleora and Lord Veight are..."
My eldest son is a worrywart by nature. I took great care to raise him into a cautious man, but I may have perhaps taken my methods too far. In an attempt to calm him down I ask in my gentlest voice, "What's happened?"
"Eleora seems to be a completely different person. Unlike before, she's actively trying to spread her influence and solicit allies. And Lord Veight is tempting people by dangling Meraldian lands as a reward for joining her cause."
"How foolish."
Now that Meraldia has become a vassal state, only the emperor has the authority to grant its lands to others. If my older brother dies, the next emperor will be Ashley. But my nephew has always been far too soft. I have no doubt that if Eleora or Lord Veight recommended someone, he would grant them sections of Meraldian land without reserve. More importantly though, people believe what they want to believe.
"It's possible that the glimmer of hope offered by the possibility of being a landowner has clouded their good sense. And it's precisely this short-sightedness that condemns these lesser nobles to never be landed."
I absently stroke my chin as I think.
"Still, the fact remains that their solicitations are having an effect. I will need to prepare countermeasures soon."
Ivan hurriedly says, "In that case, Father, let me take care of this."
"Wait, Ivan. Whatever you do, don't lay a hand on Eleora or Lord Veight."
"Why not, Father? I don't mean to assassinate them or anything. Just make them pay for..."
My foolish son. Any attempt to subdue them with might will only backfire. You'll do nothing more than increase the number of accomplishments Lord Veight has. In fact, if you're not careful, you might ruin the reputation of the Doneiks faction.
"The dog that barks at the glacier lynx finds itself devoured. We need to be cautious. There will still be time to take care of Eleora's faction even after Ashley has taken the throne."
"But then Rolmund's citizens will..."
"How many times have I told you? Haste leads to ruin. Be patient."
After a few seconds of silence, my son bows his head.
"As you wish, Father."
"We'll talk at length about this incident later. This needs to be handled delicately, both for our family's sake, and for North Rolmund's sake."
It would seem I still have quite a ways to go before I can retire comfortably and play with my grandchildren. I get up and look out the window. Though the autumn evening is quiet, I can feel the chill seeping through the glass. Winter is coming. My next words are as much a warning to myself as they are to my son, "A wave of bitter cold will soon be upon us, Ivan. A cold the likes of which we have never seen before."
* * * *
I went back to the party and made small talk with Lekomya while I stuffed myself full of food. He wanted to know how I'd met Eleora, so I'd started telling him the abridged version of the story with any incriminating elements cut out.
"So after that, I panicked and ran out of the villa. In fact, I was panicking so much that I jumped out of the window instead of using the door like a normal person."
Everyone listening burst out in laughter. Lord Peiti, another one of Eleora's new followers, wiped tears from the corners of his eyes and asked, "But weren't you on the second floor? Wouldn't you injure yourself jumping from that height?"
In truth, I'd clambered onto the roof after that, but a normal panicking human wouldn't think to attempt such a feat, so I left that detail out.
"I got lucky and landed on some leaves to break my fall. And I had my mother to thank for blessing me with a thick arse, so I didn't get hurt."
Another round of laughter. I was sure most of them were just laughing because it was expected of them, but I didn't really care if they were faking it so long as it gave them an excuse to bond.
A short distance away, Eleora was conversing with members of the Doneiks faction. Unlike before, where she'd silently just taken the verbal abuse they hurled at her, now she was smiling coolly and retorting with cutting remarks of her own.
"So? What were you doing when you were my age? Hmm?"
"Well..."
Eleora was currently arguing with a well-built older gentleman.
"I can understand being proud of your achievements, but you should pay attention to who you're talking to before you start bragging."
Eleora's cold smile was pretty intimidating. Good job, Eleora. Don't let those guys get to you. I wasn't a fan of that kind of verbal sparring, so I was spending my time raising our allies' morale.
"Anyway, I was pretty relieved after finally managing to return the Werewolf Killer to Sir Belken."
And that was the story of how I first met Eleora. As I wrapped up my tale, Lord Peitei mentioned, "Werewolf Killers haven't been crafted for over three hundred years now. I'm surprised the one that made it from Rolmund to Meraldia is still in good shape."
Does that mean there's a bunch of them in Rolmund? A cut from one of those could do serious damage, so I needed to be careful. Another one of the nobles said cheerfully, "But to think you managed to break its enchantment by accident."
"Those enchantments were woven to be quite sturdy."
"I suppose even legendary blades are nothing to our esteemed Astral Fencer."
At least they liked the story. The nobles were laughing for real now, so I decided to laugh with them. I still couldn't tell what they found funny and what they didn't.
Lured in by the laughter, a young boy came over to us. He looked to be in his early teens. But seeing as he was wearing formal clothing, he was an adult in the eyes of Rolmund high society. He'd likely just had his coming of age ceremony.
"Umm, excuse me. Would you happen to be Lord Veight?"
"I am indeed. And you are?"
Blushing slightly, the boy named himself.
"My name is Ryuunie. I'm, ummm... I haven't been granted a title yet."
He seemed to be floundering, so I bowed and offered him a lifeboat.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Master Ryuunie. What business might you have with me?"
Boy or not, so long as he was wearing the formal attire of a Rolmund noble at a public event, he deserved to be treated as an adult. Ryuunie's face instantly lit up and he took a few steps closer.
"I want to hear more of that story you were telling before! About how you won that Werewolf Killer in a duel!"
Well... that duel ended in one attack, so it's not really all that impressive. There wasn't really any way to embellish that story further. Feeling the weight of his expectant gaze, I told him the plain truth.
"I defeated the knight in a single blow, so there isn't much more to tell, Master Ryuunie."
"In one blow!?"
Ryuunie's face lit up in excitement. He got even closer.
"My uncle's always talking about how he wants to go on the battlefield, and I do too! How do I become as strong as you, Lord Veight!?"
Reincarnate as a werewolf. Tell your uncle that too.
"Oi, Ryuunie, what're you doing?"
"Ah, uncle!"
I recognized that voice. I turned around and saw Prince Woroy looking over here with a frown on his face. Hold on, is that his uncle? Doesn't that mean he's...
"Master Ryuunie, are you perhaps Lord Doneiks..."
"Ah, yes! Lord Doneiks is my grandfather! I'm sorry, I forgot to give my full name. I'm Ryuunie Bolshevik Doneiks Rolmund!"
Seriously? Prince Woroy casually interposed himself between me and Ryuunie and shied him away from me.
"Sorry. This kid's my brother's only son. He's the future heir of the Doneiks family so I need to keep an eye on him."
I see, so he's Prince Ivan's son. Meaning in the future, he'd be pretty high up there in the line of succession for the throne. Since Kite wasn't here to tell me everything, I hadn't been able to recognize who he was by name. I screwed up. Should I have tried to flatter him more?
Prince Woroy affectionately ruffled Ryuunie's hair, then said loud enough for me to hear, "This is Meraldia's strongest warrior. And he's staying with Eleora. Do you understand what that means?"
"Yes. He's a political enemy."
You don't have to put it so bluntly. Also, if I'm a political enemy, why're you acting like you idolize me? Ryuunie tried to get closer to me, but was blocked by Prince Woroy. Undaunted, he tried to go around his uncle. He was like a little puppy.
"Lord Veight, please tell me more about your battles! What other armies have you commanded?"
"Ah, now that's something I'm interested in too. Lord Veight, do you mind telling us about a few? Of course, you don't have to reveal any sensitive information."
Now even Prince Woroy was asking to hear my stories. Aren't you supposed to be stopping him? Oh well.
I ended up telling Ryuunie and Woroy a few of my war stories. First, I told them about how I conquered Ryunheit by sneaking in as a whistle seller, then occupying the viceroy's manor with 56 of my elites. I then talked about my battle with Thuvan's mounted archers. And the battle for Thuvan that happened after.
I couldn't go into details without divulging military secrets, or talking about demons, so I kept details vague. As a result, most of the stories ended up sounding boring, but I had no other choice. For some reason, even those basic stories seemed to capture the hearts of Woroy and Ryuunie.
"I can't believe you're able to be so calm about all these amazing achievements, Lord Veight! You're so cool!"
"Can't you go into any more detail, Lord Veight?"
I really can't.
As we were talking, Prince Ivan showed up.
"Ryuunie, Woroy. What are you two doing?"
"Ah, Brother."
The moment Woroy saw his brother's face, he grimaced. Prince Ivan smiled wryly at his younger brother.
"Father's summoned us. Also, he's asked for a meal to be brought up to him and Barnack."
"Alright, I'll get something from the kitchens. The servants probably have their hands full so I'll do it myself."
Prince Ivan furrowed his brows.
"Are you still doing things beneath your station? How long will it take for you to realize you can't act like this? Besides, what if Father punishes the servants for making you do such menial tasks?"
"I'll talk to him, so that won't be a problem. Sorry, but I need to go, Lord Veight. I'll see you later."
Prince Woroy took advantage of the moment to escape from his older brother. Prince Ivan then turned to me and bowed.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/chapter55.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
"Thank you for entertaining my son. He's still young and foolish, so please forgive any rudeness on his part."
"Not at all. I had a lot of fun talking to him."
I had an opportunity to speak to Prince Ivan again, so I decided to politely chase Ryuunie away.
"Master Ryuunie, I would love to tell you more about my battles next time."
Sensing that story time was over, Ryuunie hung his head.
"Ah... okay. I'm sorry for bothering you for so long. The stories were really fun!"
Sorry, kid. But I've got business with your dad. Prince Ivan and I both watched Ryuunie bow, then run off. Prince Ivan then turned to me.
"Knowing you, you're likely already aware that I haven't remarried since my late wife passed away, correct?"
Wait, really? I guess Ryuunie's like a memento of your dead wife then. Don't worry, I'm not planning on using him or anything.
"Ryuunie has only just had his coming of age ceremony. Even for Rolmund, holding the ceremony at age twelve is unusually early. But Lord Doneiks wished for him to have it soon. For all his talk about haste leading to ruin, he sure seems to be rushing his grandson."
For a moment, Prince Ivan looked like nothing more than a father worried about his son. Honestly, I much preferred him like this.
"Incidentally, Lord Veight, I hear you have yet to marry."
I hadn't even married in my past life. Marriage was a completely alien concept to me. On Earth, my parents hadn't had a very good relationship, and here, my dad had died while I was still a baby, so I didn't even know what a happy couple looked like. That was probably part of why I hadn't bothered looking for a wife. However, in Rolmund high society, being a bachelor was looked down upon. In fact, it led to people thinking you were gay. I wanted to avoid that, so I decided to tell a little white lie.
"The truth is, I have a fiancée back in Ryunheit."
"I see. Is she a Meraldian noble?"
"She is."
For a second, Airia's face popped into my mind. Sorry, but this is for the sake of diplomacy. It wasn't like she'd ever find out, so I figured I may as well borrow her name.
"She's Ryunheit's viceroy, and a member of the Aindorf family."
"I have heard that name before. They're one of the families that came to Meraldia from the south, correct?"
"You're well-informed."
The last thing I wanted to do was continue this line of conversation, so I hurriedly changed the topic.
"By the way, Your Highness, do you have no intention of remarrying at all?"
He was Lord Doneiks' eldest son. It was practically his duty to sire more children. Especially since Woroy was still single. Prince Ivan smiled sadly and said, "I actually would love to, but my tastes in women are... eclectic. I'm having a hard time finding someone as suitable for me as my late wife was."
I looked down and saw Prince Ivan was still wearing his wedding ring. It seemed to me like he'd just loved his old wife so much he couldn't let go of her. I feel bad for asking now.
"Lord Veight. As unfortunate as it is, we stand on opposite sides. Thus, I cannot let my debt to you go unpaid."
What do you mean, debt?
"I wish to thank you for looking after my son."
"Oh, that's fine. I didn't do anything much."
Besides, the only "thanks" I could see coming from a member of the Doneiks faction was an assassin. Prince Ivan walked to the balcony and beckoned me over.
"There's nothing to fear. I just want to show you something."
He pulled a book from a nearby bookshelf. The paper looked new, but the binding was old and worn. It reminded me of Eleora's Blast Grimoire. Wait, that isn't a Blast Grimoire, is it? Though even if it was, Prince Ivan wouldn't be able to kill me with it. I pushed down on my burgeoning fear and walked as casually as I could toward the balcony.
The night breeze was pretty cold, and I wished I had a coat as I stepped onto the balcony. I downed a strong alcoholic cocktail designed to warm you up, then turned to face Prince Ivan.
"Take a look at this, Lord Veight."
The book he held out to me was titled "Northern Agriculture."
"This contains every scrap of information the Doneiks family has been able to collect on farming in cold climates. It's not something we're meant to share with others, but I imagine you will find this more valuable than gold or silver."
He wasn't wrong, but I hadn't expected him to offer something like this. This was a perfect opportunity to get a better idea of Rolmund's agricultural situation. I decided to take Prince Ivan up on his offer. Let's see just how good Prince Ivan is at managing his lands.
I skimmed through the book and almost instantly I could tell that Prince Ivan was a master of data gathering. His practices were unbelievably modern for this world. Furthermore, all the information he'd gathered had been meticulously vetted and quantified. For example, yearly yields weren't recorded using vague terms like good harvest, but rather had specific numbers. Last year, Darmarl village's 540 shuka of white wheat fields had yielded 1200 torka of grain. And that was 2.2 times the usual. The year before that, it had produced twice as much as usual.
All the information had been organized neatly into charts as well. In a world without computers, all of this had to have been written down by hand. It must have taken an enormous amount of effort. I wanted to show this to Kite, but he was currently busy making sure I wasn't swarmed by noble ladies. With his magic, he would have been able to memorize the contents of this book with a single glance.
Reeling at the sheer amount of numbers I had to go through, I nevertheless attempted to draw some meaningful conclusions from this data.
"Yields have been steadily dropping over the years, I see."
"Precisely. As expected, you noticed right away, Lord Veight."
I was just lucky enough to have had a job in my past life that dealt with spreadsheets like this. Had this been my first time seeing such a detailed chart, my brain would have shut down. Over the past hundred years, North Rolmund's yields for their staple grains had fallen 20%. That was a significant drop. Prince Ivan scrutinized my expression for a few seconds. Gauging my reaction, he carefully chose each of his next words.
"North Rolmund's agricultural capacity is declining. Though the decline is slow, it has long-term implications."
"Indeed, this isn't something you would notice over just a ten-year period. I'm impressed you managed to discover the decline at all."
"It slipped past me at first, but on a whim, I decided to check old tax reports from my great-grandfather's time. That made the situation painfully obvious." Prince Ivan's expression grew darker as he spoke. "However, the real problem is that no one is taking my claims seriously."
"Why not? Even an idiot could figure it out after looking at these records."
I knew nothing about farming and even I knew this was a bad sign. But Prince Ivan shook his head.
"Aside from my father, my brother, and Ashley, you're the only one to realize the gravity of this revelation. None of the other North Rolmund lords understand the danger we're in."
Most nobles managed their lands for around 30 or so years, then passed the torch onto their children. After that they spent maybe 10 years advising their successors, making for a total of 40 years spent working in land management. Incidentally, the rate of decline was a tiny 0.2%, so during years with a good harvest, lords were able to reap tax revenues much greater than the previous years still. After all, during the entirety of their reign, they'd only see an 8% drop in total yields. However, no one was able to keep 40 years of harvests in their memory, so most lords would probably not even notice the drop. Even if they did, they'd probably just chalk it up to the old days being better or something. But here was irrevocable proof that the numbers were indeed dropping. It was obvious that at the rate North Rolmund was going, it would be uninhabitable in another few centuries.
"I've warned the nearby lords of this. But they all think it's not a problem because their generation will be fine," Prince Ivan spat dismissively.
"It's true that you might be able to keep going for a century or two."
This wasn't something that would immediately affect the nation, and I had nothing to do with this country anyway. But Prince Ivan shook his head.
"It certainly is true that our generation may be fine. And perhaps even our children's generation. But what about our grandchildren?"
Prince Ivan's entreaty piqued my interest, and I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket.
"Excuse me."
I placed the handkerchief on the railing in front of Prince Ivan and took out a pen.
"Lord Veight, what are you doing?"
"Let's chart this on a graph. The vertical axis is yields, and the horizontal axis is time. Now if we plot the yields over the past few decades..."
I made a rough line graph using the data points from the book.
"This can't be..."
The situation was even worse than the book estimated. Holy crap. The drop in yields was increasing at an exponential rate. Prince Ivan was able to easily analyze what the graph predicted too.
"I see. If we extend this graph, it's easy to see what yields will look like in another hundred years. As I thought, the situation is dire."
Naturally, not all of a plot's yields went to the lord that owned it. Some needed to be saved for next season's planting, and naturally enough needed to be given to the serfs to keep them alive. It was the rest which became the lord's tax revenue. But the graph predicted that in a few decades, yields wouldn't even be high enough to support the serf population of the area. There was already barely any extra for the lords to collect as taxes. Prince Ivan stared at the handkerchief for a long time before muttering, "If we wait any longer, we won't be able to set up countermeasures in time. We can't leave this problem to my son's or my grandson's generation. My father and I have to do something now. Yet I can't think of any solution that would work in the long term."
I gave the problem some thought. The Doneiks family might be Eleora's political rivals, but the people of North Rolmund hadn't done anything wrong. Furthermore, the more Rolmund's own lands declined, the more the empire would covet Meraldia's fertile soil. That was the last thing I wanted. In the end, I could think of only one reason why this was happening.
"Maybe the land is losing its fertility because you keep planting the same crops over and over?"
But Prince Ivan shook his head sadly.
"If that was the case, it wouldn't be happening to all of our crops evenly. Besides, we have already instituted a system of crop rotation. We even tried a completely different rotation system for a few years to see if that would change things, but the decline continued."
Crop rotation required the right variety of crops to work. You couldn't just slap together any old combination and expect it to replenish the soil. If they'd already had a crop rotation system in place for a long time, it was likely there wasn't any better combination.
"Your crops haven't been affected by disease or pests?"
"I don't believe so. At the very least the crops I've examined have all been healthy."
"Is it a problem with the fertilizer you use?"
"I'm not sure. We've tried different manure options, but in the end, the ones farmers have been using for centuries worked the best."
I'm out of ideas. No wonder Prince Ivan is having such a hard time with this problem. I thought this would be a good opportunity to put the Doneiks family in my debt, but I couldn't think of any possible solution. This was something that needed an expert opinion.
"I'm truly sorry I couldn't be of any help."
Prince Ivan's expression softened a little.
"Don't be. You're different from the others. Even though this has nothing to do with your own lands, you still tried to help. Thank you. Besides, you gave me some valuable insight on the scale of the long-term consequences."
I did?
"Incidentally, Lord Veight, are you a follower of the Sonnenlicht Order?"
"Yes, of course."
That was a lie. But since the Meraldian Sonnenlicht Order had ordained me as a saint, I doubted anyone would question my story. Prince Ivan sighed.
"In the past, the empire aggressively spread the Sonnenlicht religion, using it as a means of controlling the citizens. But as a result, our people have stopped thinking for themselves."
In Rolmund, religion had been weaponized as a way of cementing the empire's rule. But that method had drawbacks.
"They think everything is the will of God, so they've stopped trying to find solutions to problems?"
"Exactly. Even if there's a string of bad harvests, the people think so long as they remain pious that Sonnenlicht will save them. The serfs especially are..."
"They don't do anything except for what they're told?"
"That's right. Though I suppose I have no right to complain, since it's my ancestors who conditioned them to be like this."
Prince Ivan sighed again. To be honest, it was inevitable that the serfs would grow apathetic. After all, it wasn't their land or their wheat. While I was sympathetic to Prince Ivan's plight, there wasn't really anything I could do. Just then, Kite came over to me, still surrounded by a group of noble ladies.
"I'm terribly sorry, but Lord Veight's personal information needs to be kept confidential for diplomatic reasons so... No really, I can't tell you. Excuse me."
My trusted vice-commander shook off the ladies and turned to me. Thank God you're back. I have no idea who anyone is without you. His arrival gave me a convenient excuse to leave, so I bowed to Prince Ivan and said, "I'll be taking my leave then, Your Highness. Hopefully we have the opportunity to speak again."
"Yes, I would very much like to speak with you at length."
We went through the usual pleasantries, then parted ways. I wanted to talk to him again, but bringing an expert along to get their opinion on the agricultural situation.
As I was walking away, Ryuunie spotted me and ran over. It appeared he'd been watching and waiting for a chance to come back.
"Lord Veight, are you done talking with my dad?"
"I am indeed. Your father is a wonderful man."
I meant that. After talking with him, I'd come to realize that Prince Ivan wasn't someone who was motivated by personal greed. I bowed to Ryuunie with a smile.
"Would you like to hear more stories of the battlefield?"
His eyes lit up instantly.
"You don't mind!? Oh, thank you so much! Uncle, Lord Veight says he'll tell us more about his battles!"
Thanks to Ryuunie's shouting, many of the other guests also came over to see what was going on.
"Oooh, I've always wanted to hear about the Astral Fencer's battlefield days."
"Let's listen, dear. You won't get many opportunities to hear about his exploits."
"You're right. I'm sure they'll make for great stories to tell our children too."
With a crowd this big, I was starting to get a little nervous. Honestly, public speaking scared me more than fighting. In the end, I was forced to entertain a large crowd of nobles until the party finished. Personally, I would have preferred to spend the rest of the party eating as much meat as I could. But when I saw Ryuunie's excitement, I couldn't bring myself to disappoint him. I guess if my stories made people happy, it was worth missing out on the food...
Winter finally came to Schwerin, the imperial capital. Because of how heavy the snowfall in winter was, nobles had to decide where they would spend each winter. If they stayed in their own land, they'd miss out on all the meetings and events in the capital. But if they stayed in the capital, they wouldn't be able to manage their lands. The snowfall made travel impossible, so they had to choose before winter set in.
"I've left managing my lands to my mother and younger sister, so I don't have to worry. The emperor charged me with guarding the border anyway, so I've spent most of my winters in Fort Novesk."
We were all sitting in the room with Jerrick's remodeled fireplace. We werewolves sat by the warm fire while we listened to Eleora. Like before, Eleora had used chestnut logs for the fire to make sure it crackled nicely. She seemed quite taken with the sound.
We'd just finished lunch, and we were discussing our future plans. Or rather, Jerrick and the other werewolves were lounging on sofas while Lacy and the other mages were poring over Rolmund magic texts. They all seemed to be thinking if they handed all the work off to me, I'd figure something out. To be fair, I would, but that didn't mean I had to like it. I turned back to Eleora, and she gave me a troubled smile.
"Lord Kastoniev is planning on spending the winter here in the capital too. He really is an overprotective uncle."
I'm pretty sure anyone would become overprotective if they had such a reckless niece. I smiled, but then returned to looking serious as I remembered something.
"By the way Eleora, how much do you know about agriculture? I used to grow potatoes and stuff in my village, but I'm not an expert by any means."
Eleora shook her head.
"I've never dabbled in farming. Since I've left my younger sister in charge of my lands, I have basically no experience at all."
Eleora was a scholar of magical engineering, not agriculture. Just then, Lacy looked up from her book and butt in.
"Is farming really that difficult? I thought all you had to do was put down fertilizer and water plants?"
That just proves you're an amateur. I mean, I am too.
"It takes time for bacteria to break down the compost and... Err, I mean it takes time for the fertilizer to settle. Especially in cold areas, you have to wait a while before the fertilizer is truly part of the soil. And if you over-fertilize the soil, you'll end up killing your crops instead."
"Huh..."
From what I'd heard back on Earth, farmers in Hokkaido needed to use three times as much fertilizer as those in Okinawa, because fertilizer took that much longer to settle in cold areas. I had no doubt Rolmund's serfs had a hard time cultivating this land. Lacy bashfully hid her face behind her book.
"I apologize for being so ignorant."
"There's no need to feel sorry. I'm not really much of a farmer myself."
Lacy might have been one of the demon army's best mages, but farming was outside her area of expertise.
Guess my only choice is to study up myself. I took out the handkerchief I'd written on during the party. The graph I'd drawn was still there. I hadn't been thinking about it at the time, but this was a pretty good record of North Rolmund's agricultural situation. I guess we'd been so engrossed in our discussion that Prince Ivan had forgotten to mention it. Or perhaps he hadn't forgotten, but rather had wanted me to take it back. Eleora glanced at the handkerchief and frowned.
"What is that, Lord Veight?"
"A graph of North Rolmund's agricultural yields over the years. This axis is time, and this axis is yields."
Her interest piqued, Eleora examined the handkerchief more carefully.
"I see, you plotted the change in yields over time to make it easier to visualize. Meraldian mathematics is quite advanced."
I shook my head.
"No, it's only the demon army who uses stuff like this. It's not a military secret or anything, but most people in Meraldia wouldn't understand the graph if you showed it to them."
The previous Demon Lord had taught his dragonkin clan members about graphing, and now every technical engineer in the army used it. I wasn't very good at math, so personally I needed a visual like this to really understand things. Thanks so much for everything, Demon Lord. That being said, you needed at least some understanding of math to be able to read a graph at all, so the practice hadn't spread to the common folk in Meraldia. Now that I thought about it, the basic education I had back in Japan was probably pretty advanced for a world like this. If only I'd paid more attention to it at the time. While I was reminiscing about my time on Earth, Eleora copied the graph into her own notebook. Once she'd finished, she nodded in satisfaction to herself.
"I see, this is a useful tactic. I should use it in my own thesis. It'll also make for a simple way to map the Blast Canes' effectiveness."
Come to think of it, Prince Ivan had recognized what I was doing too. Rolmundian nobility had a pretty high standard of education it seemed. Or perhaps they were just really fast learners. Basic math was needed for a lot of fields, so it was important to learn.
People like Eleora were probably exceptional, but it seemed a significant number of Rolmundian nobles were given a comprehensive education. If the empire managed to modernize, they'd be a real threat. I needed to make sure Meraldia didn't fall behind. Eleora cocked her head quizzically as she analyzed the graph.
"According to this diagram, the decline in yields is accelerating."
"Yeah, it is."
The downward slope of the graph spiked significantly at around the 30 years ago mark. I'd been too focused on other things at the time to notice, but now that Eleora had pointed it out, it was hard to ignore. Eleora stroked her chin for a few seconds, then suddenly said, "That was when Lord Doneiks' irrigation project began. His flood control measures have helped a lot of people living on his land."
"But it's possible the flood barriers he created did something to the river basin."
Water supply had a huge impact on farming. Messing with the flow of rivers also had a huge impact on the surrounding ecology. Considering the level of technology in this world, it was entirely possible Lord Doneiks' flood management solution had harmed the nearby ecosystem. The people of this world had no way of knowing that tampering with water systems could affect other things. That being said, I wasn't exactly a master of this world's ecology, so I wasn't informed enough to say anything. Eleora shook her head sadly.
"If we had a specialist who understood rivers, we could consult them, but unfortunately there's no such person in my faction. Do you know anyone?"
"Unfortunately not. The dragonkin engineers might know, but I can hardly go back and get them."
I hadn't thought to bring an earth science specialist with me. Kite knew a little bit, but it wasn't his area of study either. Almost all the rivers in Rolmund flowed northward, since their sources generally came from the Northern Peaks which served as the Rolmund-Meraldia border.
Lord Doneiks had done a few major things to alter the river's flow, so we had no way of knowing which specific project was the cause. Crops were part of the local ecosystem, so they were quite sensitive to changes in the flow and quality of water. Back on Earth, I remembered reading a news article about how two beavers had managed to completely transform a downstream ecosystem by building a dam. The dam had acted as a filter, purifying the water as it passed downstream.
If we included water quality as one of the possible causes, then there were too many potential factors for us to investigate. After thinking about the problem for a few seconds I said, "We need to investigate this more thoroughly. This is a national crisis."
"But North Rolmund is under Lord Doneiks' jurisdiction. Not even the emperor can order an investigation into his territory just like that."
God, what a pain.
"Fine. I'll go talk to Lord Doneiks... Actually, I'll talk to Prince Ivan."
"Are you sure?"
Eleora gave me a surprised look. I smiled and said, "We might as well ease Prince Ivan's worries, right?"
Fixing this problem wouldn't help Eleora become empress, but it would remove one of the reasons why Rolmund might invade Meraldia. If Rolmund's own agricultural production rose, they'd have less reason to go all the way beyond the mountains to steal someone else's farmland. For a while, at least.
Eleora's adjutant, Borsche, arrived in the middle of our discussion with a report. Normally he gave his report right away, but this time he hesitated and checked to see who was present. It seemed whatever he had to say was quite serious. Eleora gave him a small nod.
"It's fine. State your report."
"Yes, ma'am."
Borsche saluted and said simply, "The emperor has passed away."
So it's finally time.
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/copyright.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
Copyright
Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
by Hyougetsu
Translated by Ningen
Edited by Meiru
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Hyougetsu / Nishi(E)da
Illustrations by Nishi(E)da
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2016 by Earth Star Entertainment
This English edition is published by arrangement with Earth Star Entertainment, Tokyo
English translation © 2019 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property.
J-Novel Club LLC
j-novel.club
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: August 2019
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Officially Translated Light Novels
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Der Werwolf - The Annals of Veight/Der-Werwolf-The-Annals-of-Veight-Volume-05-[J-Novel-Club][Premium]/extra.txt
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Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 5
Flower and Wolf
My name is Ashley. Ashley Voltof Schwerin Rolmund. First in line to be emperor of the Holy Rolmund Empire. In other words, I'm the crown prince.
"His Majesty is resting, Your Highness. My apologies, but..."
The old court physician gave me an apologetic look, and I shook my head.
"It's fine, I understand. I just wish to see my father's face, that's all."
I was standing in front of a luxurious canopied bed. Hidden underneath the pile of covers was my father, the emperor Bahazoff the Fourth. In his youth, he'd been considered a wise prince, but after ascending the throne he'd come to be called "the stagnant emperor." These days, no one held him in high regard. As far as the citizens were concerned, he was already dead.
But for all his shortcomings, he was still my father. He did his best to fulfill his duties, respected his ancestors, and valued tradition. When my mother had died, he'd hugged me and my sister as we cried. I still remember how happy he'd looked when I'd first offered to help him with his duties. My memories of him were all fond ones. I didn't want him to die. That was my single, fervent wish.
"Doctor, how is my father doing?"
"No treatment I've tried has worked, and his symptoms are worsening."
The court physician knew to be completely frank with me. The group of doctors that worked under his wing were the best in the empire. They knew of every medicinal herb in the world, and their knowledge of diseases and the human body was unparalleled. If even they couldn't cure my father, then no one could.
"He's not in pain, is he?"
The imperial mages who were standing behind the doctors stepped forward.
"Allow me to answer that. We have given His Majesty a magical anesthesia to dull his pain. We are taking turns to refresh the spell so that it's always active."
"Thank you. I suppose that is one small mercy."
As I said that, I noticed the disgusted look that the court physician gave the mages. Some things never change. The people who worked in the palace had different social standings, occupations, and beliefs. It was the imperial family's job to make sure they all worked together. However, I lacked the ability to do so.
Just a few days ago, my father's condition had taken a turn for the worse. Until then, his symptoms had come and gone in cycles. But suddenly, his body had weakened drastically, and he'd started being in constant pain. He could barely even speak, and last night the imperial mages had been forced to make him sleep through magic. He had one foot in the grave.
I returned to my office with a heavy heart and found my aides waiting for me.
"Your Highness, Princess Eleora has returned to the capital. She's brought a Meraldian general with her."
"That must be Meraldia's representative."
I wasn't sure what to do.
"Both rewarding Eleora for her services and meeting with a foreign diplomat are something the emperor should do, not the crown prince. We should wait until His Majesty recovers before..."
I trailed off. I knew as well as anyone that he wouldn't recover. The doctors weren't sure what exactly his disease was, but all chronic diseases took time to cure. And with my father's condition the way it was, it was clear he was out of time. There was almost no chance he would recover. Meaning his duties fell to me, the crown prince.
"Very well. I will hear their report."
Even though Father's long-held dream of conquering Meraldia has finally been granted, he's not even awake to celebrate it. I heaved a weary sigh as I changed into formal attire.
Meraldia's representative seemed to me like a common foot soldier who'd worked his way up the ranks. He was a young man named Veight Gerun Friedensrichter. And apparently, he was on the Commonwealth Council.
He really looks young. Of course I knew I was young myself, but this foreigner fascinated me. According to Eleora, he was a famous general who'd helped her conquer Meraldia. I knew nothing of warfare, so his accomplishments amazed me. As was tradition for nobles of conquered states, I granted Lord Veight the title of Honorary Count in place of my father. The title was both an honor and a statement. It was Rolmund that had the authority to grant Meraldians power and prestige, not the other way around.
"With this, Meraldia has officially become a vassal of our empire."
"Now we simply need to use Lord Veight to spread our influence across the region."
The ministers were discussing their plans for Meraldia's future. It seemed inevitable that Meraldia would be swallowed up. Yet I couldn't help but worry. Had we really succeeded in putting a leash around that fearsome-looking young man?
After the audience, I returned to my ailing father's side. As I looked down at his sleeping face, I told him about how it had gone.
"Father, Eleora managed to conquer all of Meraldia. Your wish has been granted." Naturally, he didn't reply, but I kept going, "Honestly, I still think Uncle was right. We shouldn't have invaded. That's why I helped him prevent any reinforcements from reaching Eleora. But she managed to win over the local population instead."
My cousin was a genius when it came to magical engineering, and she was a skilled strategist as well. But her diplomacy skills were sorely lacking. She was too logical for her own good, and she didn't understand the art of negotiation.
"I never would have imagined Eleora of all people would manage to win over such a fearsome general."
From the looks of it, he'd also helped her build up a strong base of support in Meraldia. When I first saw him, I'd wondered if perhaps Veight was Eleora's paramour, but after watching their interactions I was certain that wasn't the case. He was loyal only to his duty, and nothing seemed to scare him.
"That foreign general, Veight, is no mere diplomat. He's skilled at diplomacy, sure, but he's also a master warrior."
Even if you managed to tame a tiger, cousin, was it really wise to bring it to our doorstep? There must have been a reason she brought him. I needed to be wary.
"I remember, 'the bottom of the lake holds the answers' was always one of your favorite sayings. If there's a fish leaping to the surface, that means something's happening under the water."
If fish were coming to the surface, that meant there was either a fierce beast lying at the bottom of the lake, or the water had gone fetid. Of course, there were also times when it meant nothing. It was important to know how to tell the difference. I gently held my father's hand and smiled at him.
"But either way, your long-held dream has finally been granted. Congratulations, Father."
Bahazoff the Fourth was still alive, and he was still emperor. This feat would go down in history as his achievement. While I still didn't agree with conquering the south, for now I was just happy that my father had gotten what he wanted. Still smiling, I looked out the window. The late autumn sunlight illuminating the grounds was tinged with the chill of winter.
The foreign Meraldian noble, Veight, got into trouble the day after coming to the capital. Unbelievable as it was, he'd gotten himself in a duel with a viscount from the Doneiks faction. At first everyone considered him a rude barbarian, but as more and more details came out, their opinion of him improved. It seemed Veight was serving as Eleora's strategic advisor, so when he'd run into a group of Doneiks nobles disparaging her, he'd been forced to duel them for her honor. And it seemed he'd won his duel spectacularly. He'd knocked out Viscount Schmenivsky in a single blow. A few nobles from my faction had been present to mediate the duel, and they were all telling me about how strong he was.
"He moved like lightning, Your Highness. One second he was just standing there, the next Lord Schmenivsky was flying through the air. He smashed all the viscount's front teeth. His honor's been completely shattered."
"Lord Veight allowed Viscount Schmenivsky the right to choose weapons first, and even then, he managed to win without a scratch. He made it look so easy too, as if he wasn't even breaking a sweat."
Viscount Schmenivsky was by no means a weak duelist. He had an excellent military record, and a lot of the landless nobles in the Doneiks faction looked up to him. Just how strong is Veight, if he managed to beat the viscount in one attack? I wish I'd been there to see it.
Veight's superhuman strength already left a huge impression on the palace nobles, but Viscount Schmenivsky's crazed claims about him added to the rumors. Apparently, the viscount's defeat had been so humiliating that he'd lost his mind. In fact, he'd asked for an audience with the emperor, which I'd naturally declined. He seemed to think that Veight was a werewolf. Having watched the imperial mages confirm his identity personally, I couldn't let Viscount Schmevinksy's claims go uncontested. Calling the imperial mages' credibility into question was tantamount to insulting the emperor they served.
I had Viscount Schmenivsky censured immediately. Just in case, I also sent a private message to my uncle, Lord Doneiks. Since the viscount was a decently high-ranking member of his faction, I needed my uncle's permission before disposing of him. The whole ordeal had left me exhausted, but it seemed my trials weren't over. There were new rumors spreading within the palace.
"Did you hear about Lord Veight's duel?"
"Yes, he's quite the loyal retainer."
"I never imagined a foreign noble would risk his life for our princess."
"The regal Princess Eleora and the charming and gentle Lord Veight. The two are a perfect match, don't you think?"
"You can tell just by how he acts that Lord Veight isn't a man who relies on force to solve all problems. He only resorts to it when necessary. The princess has a truly strong ally by her side."
"We underestimated the princess' abilities. We need to be more careful, or..."
"You're right, we need to know just how strong her faction is."
The ministers inside the palace loved to gossip, so the rumors spread like wildfire. When my aides informed me that Eleora had become the talk of the palace, I decided to go for a walk and sort out my thoughts. In the empire, Eleora has no popularity, and she lacks a strong core of supporters. But it seems in Meraldia she has both. That's going to cause a power shift inside the empire...
The other members of the imperial family who had the right to succeed the throne were potential threats as well. I neither wanted a power struggle within the imperial family, nor did I have any desire to kill any potential rivals. However, I still needed to take care of my own safety. Thinking about the various ways in which I needed to protect myself, I walked down one of the palace's nigh-endless corridors. The more I walked, the colder it seemed to get.
The next day, I summoned Veight to the palace. I wanted to hear about the duel directly from him. All nobles had the right to duel, and an honorary count was no exception, so there had been nothing improper about the duel itself. However, I hadn't expected him to use his newfound authority the moment I granted it to him. Truly, he was a man with no openings. From what I'd heard, he'd gone to pay Viscount Schmenivsky a courtesy visit after the duel too. He really had thought of everything.
It feels like every single one of his moves is calculated... If he'd just been a simple, good-natured person, then he wouldn't have challenged the viscount to a duel. And the duel itself had been a skillful political maneuver. He'd just arrived in Rolmund, so the fastest way to make a name for himself had been to give the lower-ranking nobles a show. The impact it had left ensured they'd be talking about him, and since they were mostly uninvolved in national politics, they weren't worried about what his popularity might do to our negotiating position as an empire.
He might prove to be a dangerous individual. As we walked across the palace grounds, I eyed him warily. His muscles looked as hard as steel, and he walked with the bearing of a warrior. But his expression was gentle, and his demeanor kind. It felt as though a warm southern breeze accompanied him wherever he went. No wonder there are so many rumors about him. What surprised me most of all was his insight though.
"This feels more like an imperial museum than a palace garden."
That one sentence spoke volumes. With a single glance, he'd realized the imperial family's greenhouse wasn't growing pretty flowers for people to admire. It was a research facility meant for growing medicinal plants and testing crops that might help Rolmund's agricultural situation. I'd known he was skilled at both swordplay and diplomacy, but I hadn't expected him to be a scholar too. What an interesting man. While I realized he was a dangerous person, I couldn't help but want to test him. Remembering that we grew out-of-season fruit here, I led him to a plant that looked deceptively like a poisonous one and plucked one of its berries.
"Here you go, Lord Veight."
"Prince Ashley?"
I'm sure someone as knowledgeable about plants as you must know what this is. There was a poisonous plant common to Meraldia known as the witchberry. And in Rolmund, there grew a native plant that looked just like it, the snowberry. However, our snowberries weren't poisonous. The fruit I'd offered had come from the harmless snowberry. Snowberries were both delicious and had medicinal properties. However, someone from Meraldia should have no way of knowing about the snowberry's existence. Now then, what will you do, Lord Veight? Do you have the courage to refuse a fruit offered to you by the crown prince? To my surprise, Veight simply smiled and took the berry from my palm. Then, without any hesitation, he plopped it into his mouth.
What!? It took everything I had not to let my surprise show. From what I'd read, witchberry was common enough in Meraldia that everyone living there knew it was poisonous. Even children knew not to eat them. Naturally, Veight must have known that too. And yet, he just smiled calmly at me and said, "What seems to be the matter, Your Highness?"
"Well... I didn't think you would actually eat it."
Veight casually replied, "This plant looks quite similar to Meraldia's witchberry, but the leaves are a different shape. I imagine you have no reason to poison me, Your Highness, so I assumed you were offering me a harmless berry."
Not only were his powers of observation superhuman, but he was also fearless. He was someone far beyond my ability to test. This is my loss.
That wasn't the only thing surprising about the man known as Veight, either. As we walked through the greenhouse, he'd often stop to look at the soil inside some of the pots. He'd also sniff it, as if trying to identify the soil's components by scent.
"It must have been quite difficult for you to procure this soil."
"You can tell?"
Veight caressed the plant's leaves and said, "The smell of the soil is different. It smells like the fields we have back home in southern Meraldia. But you've enriched it with boiled vermiculite, haven't you?"
Amazing. That's absolutely correct. I didn't think boiled vermiculite gave off a scent, but Veight must have managed to identify it by smell alone, since it was hidden underneath the top layer of soil.
"Yes... that is indeed soil brought over from Meraldia. This particular plant doesn't grow well in Rolmundian soil. I am impressed you were able to tell though."
Veight smiled bashfully.
"I may be a member on the Meraldian Commonwealth council now, but originally I was just a common foot soldier. As a child, I helped my mom till the fields."
"I see..."
So Veight was a skilled warrior, diplomat, noble, scholar, and even farmer. He had an astute eye as well and seemed capable of seeing through lies. I see, so this is why you brought him here, Eleora. She'd wanted to show Veight the current state of the empire, so he could advise her how best to proceed. No normal diplomat would be capable of that.
Veight really was a dangerous man. It would be best for the empire if we sent him home as soon as possible. If my father were here, he'd advise me to banish him right away. But I desired something different. I wanted to make him mine. If I could recruit Veight as an ally, he'd be of tremendous help in strengthening the empire. I wanted him as my retainer no matter the cost. But Veight paid me no mind and continued to examine the plants inside the greenhouse.
"Despite the dark color, this soil's scent is mild... it's been diluted. You have very skilled gardeners, Your Highness."
"Thank you. This greenhouse's gardeners have all served the imperial family for generations, and some of them also serve as imperial doctors. I've gathered all the experts I could find in growing foreign medicinal herbs."
"I see. I'm jealous of the talent you've gathered."
It had been a mistake to invite someone who understood this greenhouse's value here. I'd expected Veight not to know that these were medicinal plants, or that they weren't native to the area. While I wanted to make Veight mine, if I really did poach him away from Eleora, she'd resent me. As much as it pained me, it was probably for the best if I gave up on recruiting him. The foreign noble continued talking, seemingly unaware of the turmoil within my heart.
My father's condition has only continued to worsen.
"Please have the mages cancel their magic!"
The head physician barges into my father's room and yells at the imperial mage overseeing him.
"His Majesty's condition is so severe that he can't be awoken. The maids have to turn him over in his sleep just so he doesn't get bed sores! If we wake him and he gets weaker, he won't be able to fight his illness at all!"
"We can't give him an infusion unless you wake him!"
The two argued back and forth for some time. However, the imperial mage refused to undo my father's magical sleep.
"Unbelievable! His Majesty is in severe pain, and you want us to wake him up!? Have you no heart!?"
"But he suffers just as much every time you have to recast the sleep spell! This infusion will at least let him rest easily in the transition periods before your spells take effect."
Both the doctor and the mage had a point, and I wasn't sure what to do. I knew that my father was beyond any hope of recovery. But at least right now, he was still alive. I could still hold his hand or watch his sleeping face. As I was debating what to do, the Sonnenlicht bishop present followed up with the one thing I didn't want to hear.
"Your Highness, you should make preparations for your coronation ceremony."
The bishops attached to the castle had all been asking me to hold the ceremony.
"My father is still ill. Preparing to take the throne while he's in this state is the height of disrespect."
The bishop shook his head.
"If we hold it after his death, it will be too late. If you don't prepare now, you'll have to wait until after His Majesty's funeral."
"I understand, but..."
"In that case, we will have to hide his death and hold his funeral in secret. You will not even be allowed to mourn him in public, leaving his spirit to suffer."
The bishop's words added another worry to my list of never-ending worries. I was a devout follower of Sonnenlicht, and I certainly wanted my father's soul to rest in peace. His soul needed to pass behind the sun and reach the heavenly gates of transmigration so that he could reincarnate. But while I understood what the bishop was saying, my father was still alive.
I'd written a letter to my uncle asking for advice, but his response has been what I was expecting. "As a new emperor, you need to do everything in your power not to alienate the Sonnenlicht Order. I say this as your loyal vassal, your loving uncle, and as your father's younger brother. Make the preparations for your coronation ceremony."
Lord Doneiks had also advised that after I'd prepared for the coronation ceremony, I should stop my father's treatment. He claimed that it was too cruel to prolong my father's suffering when it was obvious he wouldn't recover. Honestly, my uncle was probably right. My father was the emperor, and I was the crown prince. Regardless of whether he was on his deathbed, he had a duty to govern the empire. I had taken over his duties for the present, but eventually I would need to formally establish myself as the emperor. Time was running out. I understood that logically. But my heart refused to accept it. After agonizing over my decision for ages, I decided to confide in Veight of all people.
"It certainly is relaxing drinking tea in a greenhouse, Your Highness."
I'd invited Veight to the greenhouse, and he was relaxing on one of the many benches. There was a glass table between us, and on it sat the most expensive tea set in the empire. The last time these utensils had been brought out was 30 years ago. Of course, Veight didn't know that, but this was my way of showing him hospitality. But to my surprise, he smiled wryly and said, "This teacup is so impressive I'm not even sure how to hold it. I'm just a rural foot soldier, so please forgive me if I do anything rude."
"Are you familiar with tea?"
"Ryunheit's viceroy, Airia, is a master of the Mikhaila tea ceremony. And she brews tea for me every day, so I do have some knowledge of formal tea leaves and tea sets."
Veight examined the most expensive teacup in the set.
"This teacup is made of white porcelain, isn't it? I've heard there are no longer craftsmen capable of making teacups this translucent or giving them this azure sheen. Though apparently there are a few fakes made of cheaper materials."
"Your knowledge runs deeper than you claim."
"Lady Airia mentioned that the genuine article might still exist in Rolmund is all."
Veight's smile grew somewhat melancholic. He only seemed to get like this when speaking of the woman known as Airia. Whoever she was, he seemed to care about her. Still, despite the tinge of loneliness to it, it was a good smile. I smiled back at him, but his expression suddenly turned serious.
"By the way, I noticed this tea set is protected by magic. A quite powerful enchantment, too. Which means it must be real and not a fake."
"An astute observation."
Veight had even realized that the tea set had wards on it to prevent it from eroding with time. He really did seem to know everything. More importantly though, I'd managed to get a glimpse into Veight's personal life. It seemed his private life was as rich and varied as his public life seemed to be. Unable to bottle up my feelings any longer, I decided to open up to him about my worries.
"Lord Veight."
"Yes?"
His smile returned. I almost blurted out "I want to ask you something about my father..." right then and there, but I managed to stop myself. I was the crown prince; it would be wrong of me on multiple levels to divulge that my father was deathly ill. After all, the truth was still a secret. Instead, I chose a more roundabout approach.
"Lord Veight, are your parents in good health?"
"My mom is living peacefully in the countryside. I've been trying to invite her to Ryunheit, but she insists that she wants to remain in her village... She's quite attached to her fields."
"And your father?"
"He died when I was but a year old. I don't remember anything about him."
Did I touch on a sensitive topic? Now I felt guilty for asking that. To my surprise though, Veight smiled gently at me.
"However, there was someone I thought of as a father. He was my superior, and I respected him more than anyone, but last year he passed away."
"Oh... I'm terribly sorry to hear that."
Since Veight was on the council, I assumed he was referring to one of the other viceroys. I asked him, "Did you feel sad when he died?"
"Of course I did. It was one of the most painful moments of my life. His passing was so sudden that I didn't even have time to say anything. Even now, I wish it had just been a dream."
Veight's eyes turned misty. This was the first time I'd seen him express sorrow. He looked down at the steam rising from his teacup and said, "But so long as people are mortal, they will one day die. I, too, will die eventually. It's inevitable."
"Indeed, that is the fate of man."
"I'm not sure if those who care about me will still be alive when the reaper finally comes for me, but just imagining their sorrow makes me terrified to die." Veight's free hand curls into a fist. "If possible, I'd like those I leave behind to not mourn my death and to continue moving forward."
"Indeed. I wish for that as well, when it comes to me."
"In that case, you should do the same for those who are leaving you behind, Your Highness."
Those words granted me a moment of clarity. He's right. Father was always looking forward to the day that I would succeed the throne.
"If possible, I'd like to pass the throne onto you while I'm still alive, so I can see you in imperial robes."
I'd lost count of how many times he'd said that to me. Veight sighed and gave me a bashful smile.
"That's also why I'm trying to move forward. For the sake of those who passed on before me."
"I see..."
Now that Father had successfully conquered Meraldia, the only worries he had left were whether or not the empire was stable. The current situation, where I was performing the duties of emperor without actually being emperor, would probably just make him needlessly fret. My doubts and fears melted away, leaving in their place a newfound resolve.
"Lord Veight, thank you so much for meeting with me. Time spent with you is always productive."
"You honor me, Your Highness."
The foreign noble smiled faintly and downed his tea in one gulp.
After he left, I went to visit my father again. Though the servants had left incense burning to mask the scent, he gave off the unique odor of those who were deathly ill. People often called it the smell of death, and for good reason.
The shadow of death darkened my father's face as well. There was no doubt he only had days left. I gripped my father's bony, emaciated hand, and told him my decision.
"Father, I've finally made up my mind. I don't know if I can support this empire or not, but I'm going to try and move forward."
Father should have been unconscious. But for just a moment, it felt like he grabbed my hand back.
"Father!?"
But then his fingers slackened, and he was still. He was still breathing, but barely. The court physician laid a hand on my shoulder.
"Your Highness, you should let him rest. His condition has deteriorated to the point where it's taking enormous amounts of mana and medicinal infusions to keep him alive."
If he wasn't attended 24/7, he wouldn't survive even a few more minutes.
"I understand. I leave him in your care."
I left my father's room and addressed the bishops and officials waiting outside.
"Begin preparations for the coronation ceremony. Keep them secret from everyone but the most influential lords."
"As you wish, Your Highness."
As one, they bowed to me. Watching them, I muttered quietly, "Move forward for the sake of those who passed before you... was it?"
"Did you say something, Your Highness?"
"No, just talking to myself."
I smiled, and in my heart bade farewell to my father. From here on out, I'd be moving forward. For his sake as well. This is how I'll honor your memory, Father.
At the time, I had no idea. No idea that my decision would end up shaking the empire to its core. Nor that it would set both the empire, and my future, on a completely different track.
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