Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 1 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Settling Matters in the Forest

I followed Kaga through the forest. Ever since meeting Lily and Rose, I always had one of them with me. It was strange going out on my own. I wasn’t a child who couldn’t be separated from their mother... but it somehow left me restless.

While I was lost in thought, Kaga suddenly started talking. “You know, it’s a great help that you got through this. Same with Mizushima, of course.” He kept his back turned to me, so I couldn’t see his expression.

“Right. Same to you, Kaga. Let’s work together to keep surviving.”

“Of course. With the situation we’re in and all, we’ve gotta combine our strength.”

“Yeah. By the way, Kaga. About what you were saying...”

“Hm? Oh, I guess this is far enough.”

We came out into a slight opening. Perhaps seeing that as a good opportunity, Kaga came to a stop and turned around. It was difficult to tell since the scenery around here never really changed, but we weren’t all that far from the cave. Even if one weren’t familiar with the area like I was from scouting for several days, they could possibly return on their own. It would be simple for even Kaga to make it back without me.

As such thoughts passed through my mind, I cut right to the chase. “You said you knew something about the expeditionary force.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“So, tell me. How do you know anything about the expeditionary force’s situation?”

“Well, you know, I’ve got a senpai in the expeditionary force’s top brass that I got along with is all.”

“Senpai... A senpai, huh?”

I let the word roll off my tongue. I knew pretty much nothing about the exploration team members, seeing that I was part of the home team. That applied doubly so for any upperclassmen.

“That’s right. A senpai. From my club.”

“You were in the tennis club, right?”

“Yup.” Kaga nodded with a smile. “That’s why I know details about the plans they made. This kinda information’s gotta be shared, yeah?”

I nodded in agreement. “You’ve got a point.”

If this was in fact true, Kaga’s claim here was entirely correct. He was evidently happy that I acknowledged this, but it seemed Kaga was in a good mood for an entirely different reason. I decided to take things one step further.

“So? What exactly do you have to tell me?”

“Let’s see...” He looked at me as I stood there ready to seriously listen and then suddenly grinned. “Before that, I got a question for you. Have you done it with Mizushima yet, Majima?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t play dumb. You’ve been all alone with her all this time, right? All alone with a beauty like that. No matter how much of a stick in the mud you are, you’re not gonna tell me you never even gave it a thought, are you?”

“...What does that have to do with anything?” I replied in a quiet voice.

“It’s got everything to do with it,” Kaga said as if it were perfectly obvious. “We’ll be working together from now on, yeah? Let’s not keep any secrets. I’m not gonna cooperate if you do. You’ve gotta tell me everything.”

“So what does that have to do with me, um... having a special relationship with Mizushima?”

“’Cause it’s important. Think it over. We’re two guys and one girl. If we don’t make it as clear as black and white who Mizushima belongs to, then it could light some sparks between us.”

“Mizushima doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“Aaah. You can cut that shit out already.” Kaga waved his hand around in an annoyed manner. “No more bullshit. Tell me what you really think. Hey, Majima, we don’t got a whole lot of room for error here, and now we’ve got a futile quarrel over a woman between us. That’s no good now, is it?”

“I’m pretty sure getting infatuated with sex in the middle of this situation is the futile part.”

“So, that means you haven’t laid a hand on Mizushima. You really are a dumbass. I mean, look at the situation we’re in. Even if a plain and serious guy like you pushed her down, she’d probably go with the flow and let you go as far as you could, you know?”

“Like I could do that.”

“Haah, what a wimp.”

“Shut up.” I wrinkled my brow and averted my gaze. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with me?” Kaga laughed. I could sense him ridiculing me. “It’s got... everything to do with me!”

His voice was suddenly filled with scorn. I could hear the sound of him kicking off the ground. I turned back to face him, but my reaction was a little too slow.

“Ugh!”

A shock ran through my cheek. The hardest part of his fist struck me in the jaw. I was unable to bear it and tumbled to the ground.

“Gak!”

Another impact. He kicked my chin. I ended up biting my tongue because I couldn’t clench my teeth in time. That’s just how merciless his attacks were. It was clear he was accustomed to fighting.

“You fucking dumbass!” Kaga exclaimed in a grating voice. “You’re too fucking naïve, showing an opening at a time like this!”

“Gah?!”

Another strike to my stomach. I felt a weight lifted from my hip. He had stolen my sword.

“What are you doing...?” I crawled up onto my butt in an unsightly manner and looked up at Kaga as he held my sword triumphantly. “Hey, Kaga. Do you have any idea what you’re doing right now?”

“Do you know your position here?”

Kaga’s eyes were bloodshot from his abnormal excitement. He was carefully observing my movement. He would absolutely bring that sword down on me without hesitation if I showed any signs of resistance. I couldn’t make a careless move.

“Don’t worry. I’ll give Mizushima your regards.”

“My regards... Do you really think you can? How do you plan on explaining this to her?”

“You sure are dumb as shit. We’re in another world, in this stupidly dangerous forest, yeah? I could just say you got done in by a monster or something.”

“Do you really think she’ll believe you after you so forcefully got me to come out here alone?”

“I don’t really care if she believes me or not. You two are the only ones using that cave, right? With you gone, Mizushima will be alone. It’ll work out either way.”

“I see.” I took a deep breath and spat at Kaga, who was looking down at me with a hideously twisted smile. “You scumbag.”

“Say whatever you want.” Kaga sneered as he raised the sword overhead. “It’s all just the whining of a sore loser.”

I looked up at Kaga expressionlessly. “You’re right.”

“...?”

Kaga remained there with his sword held high, looking puzzled. He was undoubtedly thinking I would bawl my eyes out pathetically, plead for my life, and beg him to let me off. He was both suspicious and dissatisfied that I wasn’t acting the way he imagined.

However, Kaga didn’t think of the reason why. He was just that kind of guy. I knew this. I knew it from the very beginning.

“Die!”

The sharp blade of the sword came down toward me. I was still sitting on my butt. At this rate, I would be killed without being able to do anything. However, I wasn’t worried in the least.

“Look out!”

Someone jumped out in between us.

“Wha—?!”

Kaga raised his voice in shock, but he wasn’t able to stop the blade’s momentum. The sword deeply embedded itself into the girl’s head.

“Ah, gah...”

After that fatal blow, a meaningless sound escaped from the girl’s throat.

“A-Aaaah!” Kaga screamed and pulled out the sword.

With nothing left to support her, the girl’s body crumpled. Her flaxen hair splayed out on the ground, and “Mizushima Miho” was left staring faceup at the sky.

“Aah fuck! Why’d this happen?!”

Kaga yelled in anguish as he grasped the situation. Was he feeling guilty about killing someone completely innocent...? Of course, he wasn’t.

“What a goddamn waste! I’m not a fucking necrophiliac!” Kaga cursed.

He didn’t regret killing someone at all.

“Kaga, you...”

“It’s not my fault! It’s not my fault dammit! All you had to do was die quietly!”

He directed his unreasonable anger toward me and raised his sword once more. His twisted face revealed nothing but the irritation of a man who couldn’t satisfy his beastly desires.

I continued gazing at what I considered the ugliest expression in the world. “That’s enough,” I quietly muttered.

“Huh?”

Kaga raised an eyebrow. However, I had no obligation to answer the doubts he harbored. I was more than patient enough. I even gave him a chance. He was the one who let it go to waste. That’s why I quietly gave my order.

“You can cut the act now, Lily.”

“You little shit. You lose your mind or—Eep?!” Kaga started ridiculing me again but shrieked and took a step back.

“Gaah... Gyaa, aargh.”

The girl with her face smashed in steadily got up. Kaga’s wide-open eyes were glued to Lily. I could only see the back of Lily’s head, but it seemed her face was quite the grotesque scene.

“Uaargh... ah, aaah. Urgh.”

Lily shook her head about. A transparent liquid fell from the tip of her chin to the ground, wriggled about, sidled up to the tips of her feet, and was reabsorbed into her body.

“Uurgh... Argh...”

Her blurred voice was getting clearer and clearer.

“Guh, aaah... Mmm. Is this alright?” By the time she turned to me, the wound on Lily’s head was completely gone. “...That was a little surprising.”

Lily was acting indifferently, as if nothing serious had happened.

“What?”

“You know what? I lost consciousness for a second there when my head got crushed. Seems like it’s a problematic part of this mimicry.”

As a mimic slime, Lily’s original form had no primary organ to process thoughts. However, she created a brain when she mimicked other creatures, so her thoughts came to a stop when she took damage there. As a result, it took her some time to recover from it.

“Also, Rose’s sword is way too amazing. What’s with that? It went through me like butter.”

“Sorry for making you go through that.”

“Oh. Mm. I don’t really mind. It was just a little scratch. You’re the one who got hit a bunch. It hurt, didn’t it, Master?”

“Pretty sure this is what you’d actually call a scratch.”

“You’re lying. Stop pretending... Oh, no way, you’re bleeding. Geez...”

Lily came up to me with a glowing white glyph in her palm and lovingly brushed my cheek. For the first time since we started this act, she looked at me with upturned eyes and then glared at me ever so slightly.

“I could’ve covered for you with magic if you just ordered me to.”

In the meeting before all this started, we made a plan for Lily to launch an attack with magic at my signal if I deemed Kaga to be a lost cause. Because I was late in making a judgment, she hesitated to attack Kaga and instead had to go through something painful.

“...Sorry.”

“That’s enough about me.”

“Lily...”

“Don’t be so reckless.”

Her finger ran down the contour of my chin and separated from it like a droplet of water. By that time, the pain I was enduring from my slight wounds had completely vanished.

“Wh-What’s going on...?” Kaga was completely left behind by the situation and gasping for air. “Th-That’s... not... Mizushima...?” He was looking at her like she was some indescribable beast.

Lily turned back around to face him. The moment he met her eyes, he trembled in fear and averted his gaze to me with pleading eyes.

“Wh-What is this...? What’s going on?! Why?! Why is Mizushima...? You’re...? I’m...”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Did you think I was an easy mark?”

“Huh...?”

“If so, you’re far too naïve.” I threw his remark right back at him.

Kaga remained in a daze for a few seconds. He was just now properly thinking things through, reexamining every moment since we reunited here in the forest. I could see a countless number of thoughts racing through his mind as I looked into his wide-open eyes. And as his thoughts came to a stop, Kaga finally figured out what I was getting at.

“Y-You... So that’s what this is?!” He finally got a grasp of the situation and hatefully glared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Majimaaaa! You fucker! You set me up?!”

“Don’t be stupid. You did this to yourself.”

It was laughable that he was trying to shift the responsibility here. True, I was in fact keeping things from him. I accepted his slander on this point. However, the one who brought about this result was none other than Kaga himself. The very fact he thought the opening I dared to show him was an opportunity proved his human nature was rotten. Not only that, he invited me out to the forest here just to kill me. He had no right to complain.

“Lily. Do it.”

There was clearly no more information I could get from him as he stood there with anger and fear plastered on his face. I had considered the possibility that he was working together with a cheater, but I was apparently being overly cautious. He was simply an idiot with good luck. Or not... He was scum who didn’t even amount to that much. There was no more worth in listening to him.

“Goddamn it! Majimaaaa!”

Kaga screamed in desperation and came charging in with the sword. Lily met him with her bare hands, and the dull sound of a neck breaking resounded through the forest.

◆ ◆ ◆

“...Is it over?” Katou asked as she showed up together with Rose.

“Yeah.”

“Good job...”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing. I didn’t really do anything.”

In truth, I really didn’t do anything praiseworthy. From the very beginning to the very end, everything went pretty much as we expected.

Ever since I spotted Kaga at the hut...

The moment we split up into two groups, we decided on interacting with him. Actually, It would’ve been fine to observe him for a little while longer before making our move. However, if we left him loitering around the wreckage of the hut like that, he could’ve been killed by a monster before we got any information out of him. That’s why we had no choice but to make contact immediately.

After splitting up, Rose and Katou carefully observed us. That’s because the two of them would be an inconvenience in measuring Kaga’s human nature. Having said that, we couldn’t ignore the danger of getting attacked by a monster while I was alone with Lily. That’s why I had the two of them follow us while maintaining a reasonable distance.

Lily served as both my guard and “bait” to measure Kaga’s human nature. Even if he hadn’t lured me out on my own, I was planning on giving him an opening from the very beginning to test what he would do. Things turned out a little differently from what I hypothesized, but everything was within our range of expectations; we had planned well. Naturally, if Kaga seriously showed signs of wanting to cooperate with us, I did plan on sheltering him. But such was the result he beckoned.

“...Is he dead?” Katou asked.

“Yeah,” I replied with a nod. “I killed him.”

I wondered how this looked to her. I’m sure she felt “fear” toward what could’ve been her. Katou and Kaga. I lied to both of them about Lily’s identity. The situation in either case was fairly different, but it didn’t change the fact that Katou would’ve also ended up like this if she had acted poorly. Even if it didn’t actually happen, it was true I had considered a situation where I had to kill her. In any case, she must have found this unpleasant. It was entirely possible she would grow even more fearful of me.

And fear easily warped human behavior. Just like it warped the students who fell into a panic back at the Colony. Just like it warped me when I was being tormented. And perhaps, just like it warped Kaga. He had been wandering around the forest all on his own for a long time, so the balance of his mind crumbled and he lost his conscience. This may have been a result of that. Katou surely wasn’t an exception to this. There was no mistaking that witnessing Kaga’s death before her changed her internal stance toward me.

I took a glance at her profile.

“...”

She was looking at Kaga’s corpse with an emotionless gaze. And just then, her eyes suddenly turned to me. Mysteriously, I didn’t sense a single hint of animosity, malice, or distrust in her.

“I understand your feelings, Senpai.” On the contrary, she said something that completely betrayed my expectations. “Humans... can’t be trusted... The only ones who can be trusted...”

Katou stared at me. She was making those eyes again. I really had no idea what was going through her mind. Thinking back on it, there was one time when I first met her that I couldn’t get a read on her. What exactly was she thinking of?

“Katou, what... Uh? H-Huh?”

Just as I began speaking, a sudden bout of dizziness assaulted me.

“M-Master?!”

Lily grabbed my arm and supported me. Thanks to that, I at least avoided pathetically tumbling to the ground. However, my vision was still reeling. My head was shaken. I grabbed my sides and let out a groan.

“A-Are you okay?”

“...Y-Yeah. I’m just a little tired, I guess?”

It was strange. Everything from beginning to end went as I expected. I didn’t do anything to exhaust myself. Yet my shoulders felt unusually heavy.

“In any case, let’s go back to the cave.”

“M-Mm. Let’s. I’ll get things ready for you to rest right away.”

And pulled along by Lily in a panic, I returned to the cave.