Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 14 - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Sharing Information

The spirit foxes had given me a lot of trouble, but that was because I’d had to fight on my own. In a joint struggle, the battle ended all too quickly.

“That’s the end of them.”

After cutting down the last one, Dora came back toward us. I sheathed my sword, then got my ragged breathing in order before calling out to her.

“Thanks for the hard work. You really saved us.”

“Hmph. You’re the only one who had a hard time,” Dora replied, her expression thorny and composed. “Trash of this level is nothing to one of my king’s pawns.”

This was my first time having a real conversation with her. It turned out she had a pretty twisted attitude. Her curtness reminded me of my first encounter with Berta, but it felt subtly different too. Dora acted a little younger than she appeared, giving a glimpse of her innocent pride in being Kudou’s subordinate.

“Be sure to give your undying gratitude for our king’s generosity in deciding to lend you a—”

“Senpai!”

Katou’s slightly trembling voice cut Dora off. I turned around to see Katou running at me.

“Senpai...!”

Her gait looked unsteady. Until Kudou had lent us a hand, I’d been carrying her on the run while jumping all over the place, so it wouldn’t have been strange for her sense of balance to be a mess. Her legs tangled up, and I gently caught her light body in my arms.

“Are you all right?” I asked, but she didn’t answer. Instead, her slender arms wrapped around my back.

“Thank goodness.”

“Katou?”

Letting out a sigh of relief, she entrusted her entire weight to me. Her concern for me was evident.

“Yeah... I’m glad we managed without getting hurt,” I said, giving her a light tap on the back.

After rejoicing over each other’s safety, I raised my head. Kudou was watching us, and I met Dora’s eyes as she returned to his side. Kudou seemed to be in a good mood, while Dora was glaring at me reproachfully. Feeling a little awkward, I raised my voice.

“You really saved us, Kudou. You have my thanks.”

“There’s no need for that. This really helps me too,” he said, putting away his four wings with a smile. “Thanks to you protecting the rear guard, we were able to move freely as well.”

I wondered about that. He acted so composed that it was hard to believe him.

“I’m not lying,” Kudou said, shrugging as he read what I was thinking. “I wasn’t as badly cornered as you were, but there was plenty for me to gain by joining forces with you. Just as I said before, I’m short on power right now.”

“Oh yeah, what happened to your monsters?”

I finally started questioning why the many monsters who usually served Kudou weren’t around. Things had been so desperate that I hadn’t had the composure to find that odd. Once I realized this, I saw that there were several strange things at play here.

“Actually, forget your monsters, couldn’t you have used your ability to subordinate those foxes? Why are you here to begin with? Do you know anything about this place?”

“Slow down. I can’t answer all your questions at once,” Kudou said, holding up a relaxed palm. “I won’t run away, so let’s go through them one by one. I have questions of my own too.”

Considering what was going on, sharing information did sound like a good idea.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” I said.

“You can’t.”

However, a firm voice cut into our conversation. I looked down, where Katou was staring up at me with slightly teary eyes. It was unusual for her to look at me like that. As I faltered over this, she spoke in a somewhat strong tone.

“Senpai, your shoulder is injured. You need to treat it first.”

“But...”

“You can’t.”

“But...”

“You can’t.”

She had no intention of backing down. Kudou’s shoulders shook in amusement as he watched.

“She has you at a loss, Senpai,” he said. “Let’s do as she says. I don’t want to leave your wound untended either.”

“Fine...”

I didn’t want to worry Katou or anything either. We went ahead with her proposal, moving over to the side of the corridor and talking while she treated my wound. Katou quickly got to work on my shoulder. She sidled up against me as I sat down, checking the state of my injury. I’d torn the fox away violently while it’d been biting me, so a broken fang remained in the gash. Stopping me from wrenching it out, Katou pulled some tweezers from her magic bag and carefully pulled out the fang before casting healing magic.

Despite her shy manner while I’d been carrying her, she was scarily serious when it came to treating me. She showed no signs of concern that Kudou was watching her press up against me, touching my skin directly. I swallowed my embarrassment and focused on my conversation with Kudou.

“I’d rather you not suspect me, so let’s get this out of the way first,” he said. “I’m not the mastermind behind this incident. In this particular instance, I’m a fellow victim.”

“In this one instance?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

He had quite the smile. It bothered me a little, but we wouldn’t get anywhere if I pressed him for answers.

“So what’s going on? Why are you here?” I asked.

“Right. As a matter of fact, I was on my way to see you, then got caught up in that teleportation. So, I have no idea where we might be.”

“You were coming to see me?” Meaning he’d gotten dragged into this too. However, that sparked another question. “I thought you were in Aker?”

The imperial capital was very far from Aker. It’d be one thing if he’d used Fairy Ring as we had, but this was hardly somewhere he could’ve just dropped by for a visit.

“I don’t think you could’ve followed us all the way here,” I added.

“No, that’s a little wrong. I didn’t follow you. I left for the capital before you did.”

“You left ahead of us?”

“Yes. After seeing you in Aker, I immediately departed for the imperial capital. That’s why I had more time to get here than you think.”

“Right after we met... That makes it just over a month ago?”

I’d met Kudou while we’d been waiting for Shimazu and Iino to return from the capital after presenting the church with our conditions for participating in the peace talks. The church had needed one month to get everything ready. Shimazu had spent one week returning with us using Fairy Ring. It had in fact been a significant amount of time.

“In any case, the imperial capital is, without a doubt, the center of the world right now,” Kudou said. “Many other visitors are converging here. I made up my mind that day.”

“Well, I know you had the time, but it was still fast,” I said. “Setting aside your fast servants, what did you do about the slower ones?”

“I didn’t leave them behind or anything. I have a little trick up my sleeve.”

He was clearly keeping a secret behind his smile. There were things he was and wasn’t going to tell us. I had no intention of prying either. If pushed to say it, I was more astonished at his boldness.

“I’m surprised you managed to sneak into the grand cathedral,” I said.

“The cathedral itself is open to the public, and using Anton’s spawns, it’s possible to get a fair distance one way or another. Still, the security around you was far too tight, so I had no choice but to wait and see how things went.”

“And as you did, you noticed the teleportation?”

“Aah, no. To be precise, I noticed the attack that happened beforehand.”

“An attack?”

“Yes. So you really didn’t see it?” Kudou said. “An axe. An axe was thrown through a window. Noticing that irregularity, I ordered Dora to charge in.”

“An axe...?”

Katou, still casting healing magic on me, tugged on my sleeve.

“Senpai, isn’t that what that was?” she said. “Remember? Before being sent here, we heard a loud noise.”

“Aah, now that you mention it...”

I remembered too, of course. Right before teleporting, it’d sounded like something had broken. I’d wondered what’d happened. Kudou was apparently referring to that.

“Meaning we were attacked before being teleported?” Katou said. “I hope nobody was hurt.”

“I didn’t hear any screaming, and I didn’t sense any pain over the mental path. I think they’re fine,” I reassured her.

The thrown axe had probably flown into an empty room. That said, even if someone had been in there, anyone other than Katou wouldn’t have suffered a serious injury from a randomly thrown axe.

“But why an axe?” I said.

“Why indeed...?”

The first thing that came to mind when it came to axes was Rose, but she fundamentally used them as melee weapons. She only threw one when it was necessary. An axe wasn’t very convenient to use as an opening for a long-range attack. The two of us cocked our heads when Dora clicked her tongue.

“What? Do you doubt us? It was definitely an axe,” she said.

“My kinetic vision was too poor to spot it, but Dora insists, so I believe it was an axe for sure,” Kudou added. “This is a servant I named, after all.”

“It is just as my king says,” Dora said, looking as though her spirits had been lifted. “Well, I didn’t manage to see the offender, though.”

It was strange, but apparently it was the truth.

“Dora,” Katou said as I tried to process the facts, “were you able to notice anything else?”

“What else, specifically?” Dora asked.

“Anything will do. Even the smallest details.”

“That’s not much to go on...” Dora grimaced a little. A spark of memory glimmered in her eye. “Now that I think of it, it looked like there was something wrapped around the haft.”

“What was it?”

“Something like a small bag. I don’t know if there was anything inside... What?”

Dora made a quizzical look. Katou had narrowed her eyes a little.

“Is that what it was...?” Katou said.

“Did you think of something?” I asked.

“This is just a conjecture,” she started, turning my way, “but I wonder if there was a magic tool inside. I mean, we were questioning how Okazaki used Fairy Ring to teleport us, right? If the bag tied to the axe contained one of two teleportation runestones, wouldn’t that work?”

Teleportation runestones worked in pairs. By pouring mana into one, it was possible to teleport to the other, just like Zoltan and Edgar had done before. Her theory was sound in my estimation.

“Okazaki finished preparing to use Fairy Ring, then used a teleportation runestone to leap into someone’s room! If that’s how he did it, then it’d be possible to use Fairy Ring instantly!”

Maybe he’d used another magic tool, but either way, it meant it’d been possible for Okazaki to use Fairy Ring in an instant.

“If someone is helping him, I suppose it’d have to be Ottmar’s group,” Katou said.

“You think so too?” I agreed. “They do have teleportation runestones in their possession after all.”

Something that had only been conjecture was now closer to a certainty. That was what I felt now. At the same time, this conflict remained highly unpredictable.

“I hope nobody bumps into any enemies before we all meet up,” I said.

“Right. Hopefully, at least a few groups can link up first,” Katou agreed.

“By Ottmar, you mean the former knight of the Holy Order you fought a few times?” Kudou joined in.

“Yeah. I don’t know if he’s cooperating with Okazaki or if he instigated him, but Ottmar is definitely involved. I don’t think Okazaki is capable of doing something so bold on his own, and he wouldn’t have the magic tools to begin with. Besides, the same goes for this place. I doubt he found it on his own.”

“This place, huh?” Kudou took a look around, then turned back to me. “Speaking of, there’s something strange about it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You wondered why I couldn’t dominate those foxes. In truth, my ability doesn’t work on the monsters here.”

“What...?”

“It’s true. At that level, there’s no way it shouldn’t...” Kudou said, a hint of displeasure in his voice. “I’ve gone all over the world, but this is a first for me. Something is strange about these halls. Have you noticed anything about them, Senpai?”

“Now that you mention it... I’m not sure if it’s for the same reason, but I can’t deploy the Misty Lodge here either.”

“Even the Misty Lodge...?”

“I wonder what exactly this site is?”

By the looks of it, it was created by human hands, but the intention behind its design was a mystery. What had such an enormous structure been created for? It was far beyond the scale of something potentially built in secret. Maybe it would be best for us to go around the vicinity of the capital asking for anyone who knew about it. To investigate this mystery, we’d have to get out of here first.

“Well, I doubt we’ll figure anything out about this place by thinking about it,” I said. “Now it’s my turn. I’ll tell you what I know.”

Judging that we weren’t going to find an answer, I started telling Kudou everything I knew. As we talked, Katou remained sidled against me, giving her healing magic her undivided attention. Even if it couldn’t compare to Lily’s grade 3 abilities, continuous application had a decent effect. By the time we finished talking, the wound had largely sealed.

“That’s everything,” I finished.

“I understand the situation,” Kudou said. “So you and your companions are currently trying to reconvene.”

“That’s the idea. What’ll you do, Kudou?”

“If I’m not an impediment, I was thinking of accompanying you.”

I was relieved to get the exact answer I was hoping for.

“Is that so? It’ll really help,” I said, grateful from the bottom of my heart.

Unconsciously, I lowered my gaze. Having finished casting healing magic on me, Katou was still sitting on the ground, leaning against my side. I met her eyes. My greatest fear was being unable to protect her because of my lack of strength. The reason for my relief was that I felt it would be possible to protect her now.

“What is it, Senpai?” Katou asked curiously.

“It’s nothing,” I answered, shaking my head.

I hugged her. She let out a quiet yelp. I was all healed up and we’d finished sharing information. It was time to get moving.