Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 1 - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: A Servant’s Happiness

“Lily! Rose!”

“Master!”

I caught my two servants as they leaped toward me. Well, to be more precise, they pushed me down. My arm was still stuck to the floor with spider webs, so I couldn’t really move. I could only fall backward as they hugged me.

“Master! Masteeeer! Thank goodness you’re okay...!”

“We were worried, Master.”

The two of them buried their faces in my chest and rejoiced at our reunion. I was of course equally as happy. But that wasn’t really the problem here.

I screamed out in pain. “O-Ow! Ow! B-Both of you calm down a little!”

“...Oh, right. You’re not really okay, huh?” Lily immediately began casting healing magic while Rose used the carving knife she had at her hip to cut me free from the webs.

“Sorry, Master. I was just so happy.”

“No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

The fact that they were so happy was proof of how worried they were. That thought warmed my heart and made me forget about the pain. Having said that, I still needed a few minutes to be able to move again. Lily’s healing magic had its limitations, though I couldn’t complain. Besides, I wasn’t in a situation where I could whine about my own wounds.

Both Lily and Rose were in ghastly shape. After taking major damage, Lily was barely able to keep up her mimicry. Half her face and most of her body had returned to a slime state. I could see her transparent form beneath her torn blazer. The hand she placed on my right arm to cast healing magic was completely see-through, and there weren’t any gaps between her fingers. Liquid would drip down from her every once in a while and stream down my body. She was only just maintaining her contour as a human, but it was clear she was at her limits.

As for Rose, she had lost an arm. Judging from her limp when she came running over, it also looked like her knee joints were damaged from when she slammed through those pillars. Her biggest wound, though, appeared to be the crack running down her torso. That one came from the strike she took from the spider’s leg right at the end. She had just barely avoided a direct hit, but there was a large fissure running from her waist all the way to her shoulder.

They literally had wounds all over. One wrong step would’ve cost them their lives. Yet they went through all that just to come and save me.

“Thank you. Both of you. Really, thank you...” I had no other words for my gallant servants...

If everything had ended there, it would’ve been the ideal happy ending. The fact that it wasn’t over showed how harsh reality was.

“What are you celebrating about?”

A resentful voice hung over us as we rejoiced. I looked up and met raging red eyes. The white arachne was still perfectly healthy and glaring at us.

“Do you believe you defeated me with this small scratch?” she asked in a quiet, intimidating voice.

I couldn’t see any damage to her face from the magic Lily threw at her. Even more surprising was that the burns she had were already completely gone. The recovery speed of a high monster was certainly on another level.

As for our combat forces, Lily and Rose were no longer in any shape to fight. It took anything and everything they had just to reach my side without dying. They didn’t have a single fragment of strength left.

In other words, it was over for us now. Mysteriously, my heart was calm, and I simply accepted the hopeless reality before me. It wasn’t all that bad if I could die with Lily and Rose by my side like this. I found salvation with them in my arms.

It was far better to die with them here than live in isolation, captured in this spider’s web. So long as I was the white arachne’s goal, she wasn’t going to kill me, but I could just bite off my tongue.

As I made my determination, Lily’s viscous hand grabbed mine. “Wait, Master.”

“Lily?”

“It’s too soon to give up,” she whispered in my ear.

What did she mean? This situation was clearly a checkmate. It was impossible to turn the tables. And yet Lily’s half-human face had a look of conviction to it as she stared at the approaching arachne.

“I shall tear your bodies to shreds and have you return what’s mine.”

The white arachne’s legs clattered as she grew closer. She was planning to bring a definitive end to Lily and Rose’s lives. The only reason she wasn’t leaping full force like before was so I wouldn’t get caught in her attack.

“Your desperate struggling was meaningless. I shall still be victorious.”

“Your actions are what’s meaningless here.”

Katou stood on the other side of the arachne and called her to a stop. Much like Lily, she still hadn’t given up. I looked toward her in shock and saw the slightest smile on her lips. It was somewhat reserved, but it was still a natural smile. It was as if she was truly glad I was alright. But that was only for an instant. Katou’s smile immediately vanished and she pointed a sharp gaze at the white arachne.

“Going on a rampage. Throwing a tantrum. Did you get what you wanted like that?”

“I’m just about to take it back. Shut up and watch, little girl.”

“Take it back? How amusing. Are you really capable of that?”

“What?” The white arachne was unable to let that rash remark pass and turned to face Katou. “Are you unable to perceive reality? No matter how you look at it, these pests do not possess the strength to continue fighting any longer. All that’s left is to trample them down.”

“That may be the case,” Katou acknowledged, shaking her head, “but that’s got nothing to do with this. If you kill them, you’ll never be able to obtain what you want ever again... Actually, you’ve never gotten what you truly want.”

“What nonsense. How can you claim such a thing?”

“Have you still not noticed?” Lily asked, switching in for Katou. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

“Wrong...? What are you prattling—”

The arachne turned back toward us and came to an unnatural stop. But Lily hadn’t done anything. The white spider stopped on her own. Her red eyes were wide like saucers, reflecting the image of my two servants huddled up against me.

Lily was sitting down with her hand on mine, nestled up against me, her flaxen hair draping down my shoulder. Rose was tightly gripping my other hand with her wooden grip. The white arachne continued to stare at them with a frozen expression.

“Looks like you get it.” The human portion of Lily’s face had a hint of pity to it as she spoke. “You have a will. You gained an ego. It’s true those are wonderful things. Yeah. I get it. I can remember it too. That instant my world filled with color.”

The white arachne had said it herself. Monsters didn’t possess what you would call an ego at birth. That’s why the moment they became my servants and obtained a will was such a vivid experience, incomparable to anything else.

“Our master gave us our egos. In that sense, he’s like our mother... No, something even more special than that. I can get why you’d want to monopolize him, and what you felt when you abducted him.”

All three of my servants felt differently about me, but they all had something in common. Just as Lily alluded to by calling me a mother, they all felt a special yearning toward me. The arachne who snatched me away was no different. Rather, her radical actions were born of such emotions to begin with.

“But there’s no point in just taking our master, right? That’s what you’ve got wrong.” Lily tightly gripped my hand, having finished her healing treatment. “We think of our master as more precious than anything else. And our master treats us with the same feelings. This is an irreplaceable happiness that can’t be exchanged for anything else. That’s what I believe.”

Lily put her hand to her transparent, crumbling chest. But she looked perfectly content. Her silence spoke volumes; she took pride in the wounds she suffered.

Lily was happy. The same applied to Rose. And of course, to me as well. This was the situation these girls had staked their lives to create.

“Hey, you can feel our happiness too, right?”

My servants were connected to each other through me by our mental path. The white arachne was no exception. It couldn’t transmit complex information, but that didn’t make it meaningless. It was capable of passing information that couldn’t be conveyed through conversation, after all. We were directly conveying emotions that were difficult to scratch the surface of even using many, many words. In short, our emotions were all being fully conveyed to the white arachne.

Like the sense of accomplishment from doing one’s best for the sake of a loved one.

Like the joy of loving and being loved.

Like the ultimate form of true happiness which could never be obtained in solitude.

All of that formed a spear and pierced the white arachne.

That’s because she was also my servant. Originally, she was supposed to be a beloved companion. She was supposed to be with us like another member of our family. She was supposed to attain the true happiness I felt right now.

However, she could no longer grasp that happiness. That wouldn’t have been a problem for her before. She didn’t know of it back then. But now, she could directly feel the happiness, a happiness she’d never experienced in her long, long years of life.

She now knew of such happiness, but it had nothing to do with her. Seeing it so clearly before her, she was hit with the reality that she could never obtain it for herself. If that wasn’t enough to break her heart, then this white arachne truly was a horror.

“Uh, ah...”

But there was no way that would be the case. This girl who had just gained a heart was like a child. With no experience in heartbreak, she had no way of knowing how to deal with such despair. Above all else, the one who granted her that heart was none other than me, a perfectly ordinary boy with little such experience myself. As a result, this tremendous high monster carried an extremely commonplace weakness within her.

If only she didn’t have a heart. Then she could continue being an invincible horror. In that sense, this conclusion was far too ironic for this girl who had been so elated at gaining an ego.

“I... I’m...”

No matter how sturdy her exterior was, that weakness within her was easily pierced.

And so, the white spider, whose tyranny knew no equal, was brought down ever so frailly.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Thank goodness you’re safe, Senpai.”

After being healed by Lily’s magic, I more or less regained the ability to move and walked over to Katou. She greeted me with a reserved smile.

I started with what I was most curious about. “Did you think of that plan?”

I didn’t have any firm reason for believing so, but it didn’t feel like it was Lily or Rose’s idea. Perhaps it was odd to put it this way since they saved me... but the method was far too dirty. I didn’t think my honest, simple servants could think of such an idea. It must’ve come from a human. And just as I expected, Katou nodded.

“We couldn’t figure out why the spider abducted you, Majima-senpai. It was a mystery. But we did figure out something else just from the fact that she did.”

“...That she was obsessed with me?”

“Yes. She wasn’t looking at us at all. It was clear you were special to her. So, even though she did something so extreme, I realized she was nothing more than your servant. And if she was your servant, her thought process must’ve been similar to these two. As such, a strategy came to mind.”

“So you tried something that had nothing to do with her reason for abducting me.”

“Exactly. Regardless of what she was hoping for, if she saw there was something far greater but unattainable, it would crush her young heart. It wasn’t all that complicated to create this situation. For a servant, being trusted by you, having trust in you, being devoted to you... Receiving your love as their master is the greatest form of happiness, after all.”

“Is that how it works?”

“It is.” Katou nodded. Her expressionless features appeared somehow lonely. “Lily and Rose reaching your side alive—that was the condition for our victory, Majima-senpai. It was a pretty hard goal to achieve, but the two of them accomplished it splendidly.”

They risked their lives to challenge the arachne and reach my side without dying. That was the one and only way to win against an enemy who couldn’t be defeated.

“All that was left after that was telling the white arachne what the situation was. However, we needed to draw her into a conversation. That’s where I came in.”

“Why did you go so far when you can’t even fight...?”

“It’s the opposite. It’s because I can’t fight. She’s extremely strong, and I’m extremely weak. Someone like me brazenly stepping out is quite the curiosity, isn’t it? Besides, if I can be killed at any time, it doesn’t make any difference if it’s now or later. In that sense, my role held the most possibilities for my own future.”

“But it’s not like your life wasn’t in danger...” Rather, she could’ve been killed on a single whim, so she was actually crossing an extremely dangerous bridge.

“Plus, you came out in the middle of the fighting,” Lily said, cutting in.

Katou shrugged. “Going out to create an opening was... well, it was ad-lib. With how things were going, it looked useless.”

“You’re way too reckless. I thought my heart would stop.”

“You don’t even have a heart right now.”

I looked between them. “...Huh. You two have started getting along in my absence, I see.”

Katou smiled ever so slightly at my remark, but Lily frowned. Something really did happen between them. I was a little curious, but I could ask about the details later.

“Just hearing about that kind of plan sends a chill down my back...” I muttered.

“Is that so?” Katou asked as she cocked her head.

“Yeah. It’s fine that it worked and all, but it could have been a lot worse. The white arachne might’ve been a servant who operated on completely different principles, right?”

“Oh, that’s true,” Katou agreed, perhaps having considered such a possibility. “The plan was a gamble. Well, even if that was the case, we didn’t have any other options. But still, I didn’t think the odds were too bad to bet on.”

“Really? That’s hard to see... Why?”

“I mean, I know Lily and Rose.” Katou glanced over at Lily, who was literally stuck all over me. “For example, she can be quite distrustful.”

“U-Um, wait, Katou?!”

Katou casually ignored Lily’s protest. “And Rose is really serious.”

This little exchange gave me a glimpse of the power structure they’d built between them while I wasn’t there.

I wonder what actually happened. I had more and more reasons to ask Rose about the details later.

“So, what about their personalities?” I asked to move things along.

“This is just my opinion, but I think parts of your personality influence those of your servants, Senpai.”

I was caught completely off guard. “My personality?”

“Yes. From what I heard earlier, your servants didn’t possess hearts before meeting you. They gained egos, wills, and emotions upon becoming your servants. Meaning it wouldn’t be all that strange if your power did that, right?”

Katou’s theory reminded me of the true nature of my monster taming ability, the nature the white arachne had mentioned. By touching upon my heart, an ego sprouted within my servants. As such, the shape of their heart was largely influenced by my nature. It really wasn’t strange for it to manifest as a portion of my personality.

“So, if your servants are influenced by your heart, then the white arachne’s heart couldn’t be all that degenerate. I mean, she’s your servant, after all.”

I reflexively looked back at the arachne nest we had just left. She was sitting there in the center with all her legs folded in. Her eyes were cast to the ground. Her long white hair covered her face, so I couldn’t see her expression, but I could tell through our mental path that she no longer possessed the willpower to stand against us. She had unexpectedly lost everything she thought she’d gained and was now pitifully waiting for herself to rot away in isolation. She had been completely alone all this time. And she was likely going to be alone from now until the very end.

“...”

This space, without any walls, was supposed to be liberating, but for some reason, it felt cramped like a cave. I had seen this scene once before. Back then, I was the one in the middle of the cave.

“Master?” Lily noticed my strange behavior and called out to me.

“Lily,” I called back. That’s all I did. But that was all she needed to realize what I meant.

Her face, still half crumbled away, went slack, and her one eye shot open. “Master... Geez, seriously...” she said with a small sigh.

“Sorry.” I frowned and lowered my gaze. “She was the one who hurt you two...”

“You don’t need to apologize. I mean, I love that part of you, Master.”

Lily smiled back at me helplessly, but she somehow looked satisfied. Her face was half-melted like a monster, yet her smile was more beautiful to me than that of a goddess.

“Much like how you said you loved me despite that I’m not perfect, I also love that sweet side of you. So, it’s fine. Do whatever you like, Master.” With that, Lily let me go.

After gaining her permission, I started walking toward the crestfallen spider.

“What’s the matter, Senpai?”

“Master? What exactly are you...?”

Katou and Rose still didn’t get what I was up to. Well, that was the normal reaction. It would have been strange if they’d anticipated such a stupid decision.

I drew closer and called out to the spider. “Hey.”

Her human portion twitched ever so slightly. Her silky hair parted as she looked up at me with her red eyes. Judging from appearances, she was a bit older than me. At this moment, though, she looked like a small child.

“Want to come with us?”

The arachne’s eyes shot wide open, and the ones behind me started panicking.

“Master?! What on earth are you saying?!”

“Y-Yeah! Senpai!”

Rose and Katou were bewildered. However, the one who was the most surprised was the arachne right before me.

“Are... you... serious... My Lord?”

“You’re connected to me too with the mental path, so you can tell that much for yourself, right?”

“So... you’re serious... I never thought... you’d say that...” She looked at me like she couldn’t believe her eyes. “I attacked you, though.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“And... I hurt you... a lot.”

“That’s also true.” My own injuries aside, I was frankly furious that Lily and Rose suffered such major wounds. “But thinking back on it, you gained an ego by touching upon my heart, yeah?”

The egos of my servants sprouted by touching upon my heart through our mental path. The white arachne had said that this was the mechanism behind my taming ability. And when they did so, they accepted my wishes.

Lily saved me as my heart sank into despair.

Rose protected me when I made my determination to survive in this world.

This spider wouldn’t be an exception to that. She also must’ve accepted one of my wishes. And thinking back on it now, I did have some ideas.

“I possess power. Power which won’t lose to anyone. And with it, I shall achieve whatever my heart desires! Just as the ego I attained wills it!”

Recalling her endlessly arrogant speech, I gnashed my teeth with bitter memories. I’d experienced events which distorted my will many times over since coming to this world. On the day the Colony was destroyed, I was tormented by pain and all my values were smashed to pieces. I wandered through the dangerous forest for three days in complete isolation, on the verge of death. And recently, after meeting Kaga, I had a hand in a murder I never wanted to proactively pursue.

All of that could have been avoided if I possessed overwhelming power, power that could frivolously break the deadlocks of such extreme situations.

If only I had power.

I was only human. I’d be lying if I said such a thought never crossed my mind. However, such thoughts were extremely dangerous. They gave birth to arrogance. They gave birth to the thought that it didn’t matter what I did so long as I had power. Just like they did with the arachne. I was sure the desire for power had remained buried within my heart. And on this evening, it took the form of this white spider’s tyranny and bore its fangs. Such were the circumstances behind what happened.

“I’m the one who gave you a heart. So, I’m ultimately responsible for your rampage. My anger would be misdirected if I blamed you for it.”

“My rampage was my own will. Such was my own desire and nature as a spider.”

“Even if that’s the case, it was backed by my desire. It doesn’t annul my responsibility.”

The white arachne was completely taken aback. “...You’re quite the outrageous softie, My Lord. Do you understand? That’s a terribly dangerous way of thinking. Even I am capable of easily imagining it. Trying to carry anything and everything on your back like that... will one day lead you to ruin.”

“I won’t allow such a thing to happen,” Lily replied. “We support our master. That’s what we’re here for.” Her gelatinous lower body slithered across the ground as she came up next to me. “Hey, how about you? Will you come support our master together with us?”

“That’s... But... I surely do not possess the qualifications to do so.” The arachne shook her head. “I ended up hurting all of you with my selfish behavior.”

Looking at the way she hung her head, it was clear she wanted to come along with us. Her young heart was wrapped in feelings of guilt as if entwined by spider webs. Because of that, I believed I could stretch my hand out toward her.

She did in fact make a mistake. However, no irrecoverable harm had been done. Nobody died; I didn’t lose anyone dear to me. On the contrary, if I abandoned her here, then this turmoil would only end as a simple tragedy.

I couldn’t allow such a thing.

“You’ve only just obtained a heart. This was something like a child throwing a temper tantrum. And no matter how you put it, condemning a child’s behavior as absolutely unforgivable and abandoning them is overdoing it. Forgiving you is only the obvious thing to do as your senior, right?”

The girl’s pretty features slanted ever so slightly. “How long do you think I’ve lived, My Lord? I’m well over ten times your age, you know?”

“In which case, you at least know how to apologize, don’t you?”

Clear tears poured out from the white arachne’s eyes. “...I don’t. There’s no way I could. You cannot understand how empty my life has been.” She let out a long sigh. “But... It seems I need to learn of such things from now on.”

Thus, on this evening, I added a third servant to my group of companions.