Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 15 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Those Lying in Wait

The fabricated world formed by the Dimensional Cornerstone could be manipulated by the magic tool’s wielder. That said, they didn’t have complete control of this space. Were that possible, Harrison Addington would’ve isolated Majima Takahiro from his allies immediately after the teleportation.

Currently, the marshal of the Holy Order was operating the Dimensional Cornerstone, but couldn’t give it more than broad directions, which took time to be reflected in reality. It was practically impossible to use in response to his enemies’ movements. However, knowing where his enemies were coming from, he could transform the corridors ahead of time so that they were more convenient for his own forces.

At present, the spot Majima Takahiro found himself in only had paths leading to the space Harrison and his men were occupying. Kaneki Mikihiko had been dispatched with Edgar to a large room along the path that’d been prepared beforehand.

The room gave off the impression of an arena. It was about as vast as a school sports ground. Corridors sat high above the room, encircling its circumference. There were only two exits. Unless the two men were defeated, there was no getting through. It was technically possible to run past them, but that would leave Majima Takahiro pincered between the two giving chase from behind and the knights lying in wait farther down the corridor.

There were no other knights around. It was strange. For the last few months, Kaneki Mikihiko had basically always had several knights nearby monitoring him. At the very least, one had always remained attached to him. Due to his obedience, the surveillance had slackened recently, but he hadn’t been permitted to do as he liked.

Edgar was at most being used as a remnant of the Fourth Company, so he wasn’t here to keep an eye on him. By all rights, it would’ve been normal to have other knights here to keep watch. Nevertheless, it’d been decided that the two would be fine alone. This was definitely a conclusion that had taken into consideration the nature of the man known as Edgar Guivarch.

Edgar only had an interest in battle, and had deep resentment toward Majima Takahiro. If Kaneki Mikihiko tried anything imprudent, Edgar would cut him down on the spot. That was their belief. Although, in reality, sound judgment wasn’t always correct. Perhaps this was more so the case with the Battle Ogre, who was an avatar of recklessness.

This had happened just moments ago. Saying he had nothing to lose, Kaneki Mikihiko had told Edgar that he wanted to check on Katou Mana’s condition. Edgar hadn’t refused. Even if it was just for a short time, Kaneki Mikihiko had slipped past all watchful eyes. As a result, it’d been possible for him to come in contact with Katou Mana without Harrison’s orders.

“I’m going. I don’t have a choice.”

“Katou, you just sit tight right here and believe in him.”

The reason he’d been able to leave her those words was because of Edgar’s whimsy. As for the knight responsible for letting this unanticipated event occur, he didn’t really seem to pay it any mind as he sat on the ground with his sword in his arms.

“I’m sick of waiting. What’s that asshole doing?” he said.

“Not all that much time has passed yet,” Mikihiko said. “Besides, we don’t even know if he’ll come.”

“Hah! What a load of bull. He’s obviously coming.” Edgar snorted in ridicule. “We’ve got his woman. There’s no way he’ll sit back.”

“Katou isn’t Takahiro’s lover... Well, I wonder about that? It’s complicated.”

“It don’t matter. He’s still gonna come here.”

There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in his voice.

“Hey, Edgar?” Mikihiko said, throwing him a sidelong glance.

“Ah?”

“What’re you thinking?”

There was nobody watching him now. The Holy Order probably hadn’t anticipated that he’d talk to Edgar like this either. Kaneki Mikihiko withdrew his subservient attitude and spoke frankly.

“You realized, yeah?” Mikihiko asked.

“Realized what?”

“I’m talking about you prodding me about Katou like that to gauge my intent.”

He was referring to when Edgar had tried to go see the unconscious Katou Mana. Kaneki Mikihiko had stopped him, resolved to fight if necessary. However, Edgar had backed down easily.

“You’ve got a point there. Makes sense for you to be pissed. After all...it’s your hard-won ‘achievement.’”

“Yeah. I know of your ‘circumstances.’ Getting your achievements snatched away and wasted would be a big pain for you. That’s what you mean, yeah?”

Edgar had emphasized “achievement” like that to ridicule Kaneki Mikihiko’s acting like a toady...so the knights accompanying him at the time had probably believed. However, Kaneki Mikihiko had a different impression. He couldn’t see the unnatural speech as anything other than Edgar’s verifying what he wanted to verify, then matching stories to calm things down.

“Who knows? You’re free to think what you want,” Edgar said.

“In that case, let me ask you just to see if I’m right. What’s your objective?”

Edgar continued to play dumb without meeting Mikihiko’s eyes, but that wasn’t enough to stop him.

“I thought you were Takahiro’s enemy,” Mikihiko said. “But I don’t think you are.”

If he was an enemy, Edgar wouldn’t have left Kaneki Mikihiko at large after having gleaned a sliver of his intentions. It didn’t match Edgar’s reputation as a battle maniac. After sinking into thought for a while, Edgar shrugged.

“Well, I figured someone who got along with that Majima Takahiro had more to him than that,” he said.

“So...like I thought?”

“But don’t misunderstand me. I’m not like you. I’m not his ally.”

“I don’t think that, so relax.”

Edgar had once taken it upon himself to risk his life in a surprise attack on Majima Takahiro during his stay in an elven reclamation village. As a result, Majima Takahiro had been forced into a harsh battle against the Maclaurin Provincial Army. Edgar couldn’t possibly be an ally.

So what was he thinking? Kaneki Mikihiko turned a quizzical glance his way, and Edgar turned only his eyes back at him. There was a strangely serious light behind the ogre’s gaze, despite his supposed singular interest in battle.

“You got any idea why the Holy Church has such a grudge against Majima Takahiro?” Edgar asked, giving off a different impression than usual. “This is just me guessing, so take it with a grain of salt. There are signs that bastard Harrison manipulated Travis pretty good.”

“Huh?”

Travis Mortimer had been the commander of the Holy Order’s Fourth Company. He was Edgar’s former officer and the first person to make an attempt on Majima Takahiro’s life. He didn’t care an ounce about others and was a problematic person in general, attacking Majima Takahiro for personal glory. That was supposed to be the case, but things were different if Harrison had been the one to manipulate him into action.

“Hang on a sec. You serious?” Mikihiko asked.

“Up to you whether you believe me.” Edgar didn’t really seem to care either way and continued without paying heed to Mikihiko. “There’s that guy called Ottmar, yeah? The asshole they say is a deserter that Travis hired for his private army. That guy ain’t just a deserter. He’s one of Harrison’s special forces.”

“Special forces? Even though he quit the order?”

“It’s probably set up that way so that he don’t cause the order trouble no matter what happens. Meaning he’s the one who does the shady jobs. Harrison’s got Archbishop Gerd above him. He’s quite literally the most powerful man in the world. Just goes to show you don’t get that high keeping your hands clean. Over the course of history, rot is sure to set in. As such...”

“You fight fire with fire?”

“Seems so. He used that asshole Travis to solve problems that can’t be solved the proper way. When necessary, he cut him loose. Well, I’m the one who actually fucked him up, but it’s all the same. If I didn’t do it, Ottmar or the like probably would’ve done it... So hey. When you think of it like that, don’t you start seeing the bigger picture?”

“You’re saying Harrison instigated everything?” Mikihiko said with a stern expression.

Travis had put the Fourth Company into action to take down Majima Takahiro for personal glory. Ottmar had guided him and had also lent a hand to the Maclaurin Provincial Army on their expedition to bring down the fake savior. And this time, Harrison had plotted this whole incident targeting Majima Takahiro, using Ottmar as a subordinate.

“Majima Takahiro was a target from the very beginning. That’s what I think,” Edgar said.

Mikihiko gulped. This was of course predicated on whether Ottmar truly was part of Harrison’s special forces, but Edgar seemed convinced.

“You’ve been investigating his reasons...? What for?” Mikihiko asked.

“Hah. Ain’t it obvious? To pay back everything that’s owed for my humiliation.” In that instant, Edgar’s expression returned to that of the Battle Ogre. “There was this guy called Zoltan... He was a boring ass I was stuck with for a long time. Right at the very end, he did something real fucking stupid. He covered for me and let me get away, kicking the bucket in my goddamn stead. I don’t know what the hell he saw in Majima Takahiro. All he said was he was dazzled by a brilliant light, then died in satisfaction all on his own. How could I take such humiliation?”

His words came from the heart. Even Kaneki Mikihiko, who’d resolved himself for death, was overawed by this for a moment.

“I just don’t get it. It’s so fucking stupid. Fighting hasn’t been fun since then. Fighting was my everything, and Zoltan screwed it all up with that stupid shit he did. It’s absolutely unforgivable.”

“But Zoltan is dead, right? What’s there to forgive?”

“Nope. You’ve got it wrong,” Edgar denied, his tone strong. “One of the reasons Zoltan died is because of Travis’s actions. Ottmar was the one who strung Travis along, and he was acting on Harrison’s orders. Hypothetically, say Harrison was targeting Majima Takahiro for some bullshit reason... Heh heh. Hey, ain’t it a riot? It makes Zoltan look like a jackass for dying contentedly. I’ll settle things with Harrison too while laughing my ass off about it.”

“Is that why you cooperated with the Maclaurin Provincial Army and launched a surprise attack on Takahiro back then?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I needed some clout to go through Ottmar and work for the guy giving him orders. Besides, Zoltan saw some value in Majima Takahiro. If that was enough to crush the guy, I figured I could laugh at Zoltan’s lousy perception too.”

“Doesn’t that mean...?”

Kaneki Mikihiko was at a sudden loss for words. There was a certain deception in Edgar’s story. That said, it didn’t come from malice. It was something subconscious, as though Edgar wasn’t even aware that he was lying. Maybe this was Kaneki Mikihiko’s instincts at work, having spent the last few months deceiving everyone around him.

An abrupt thought came to mind. At that time, Majima Takahiro had pulled through Edgar’s surprise attack and the Maclaurin Provincial Army’s pursuit. Edgar had said, “If that was enough to crush the guy, I figured I could laugh at Zoltan’s lousy perception too.” However, this logically implied, “So long as Majima Takahiro overcame the situation, Zoltan’s read was right.” In the end, Edgar was simply stating the inverse.

It didn’t seem that he was aware of this himself, though. From the conversations they’d had, Kaneki Mikihiko didn’t think Edgar was foolish enough not to notice. Was it that he hadn’t, or couldn’t? Or maybe...he didn’t want to. This could also be related to Zoltan’s death, in a way. Did Edgar want to verify whether it had been meaningless, or meaningful? Either way, it didn’t change what had to be done.

Why did he consider fighting so boring now, to begin with? Why was he so angry at having been saved from the verge of death? Perhaps Edgar was so fixated on his way of life as the Battle Ogre that he was no longer able to consider other possibilities.

At any rate, this was just Kaneki Mikihiko’s intuition. He had nothing to base it on. As such, he couldn’t go deeper into this topic. Instead, he spoke of something else.

“I get what you’re saying, but is that all right? You drew the short end of the stick just for that. You’ve realized by now, yeah? We’re sacrificial pawns.”

It was exactly as they’d just discussed. Fight fire with fire, and if necessary, cut them loose. Kaneki Mikihiko was no longer under suspicion, but that didn’t mean he’d built any trust. The Holy Order wouldn’t care if he died. That was why, now that things had reached the stage for a head-on confrontation, it wasn’t strange for him to be used as the first sacrificial pawn.

“Hah. You’re one to talk,” Edgar said, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “Ain’t you in the same boat? Or do you wanna die?”

“Like hell I do...” Mikihiko grimaced. He had resolved to die, but he wasn’t delighted by the prospect. “There’s just no other way. This is my only choice. But...”

“But?”

His last word caught Edgar’s interest. Despite saying things as though he’d given up already, the boy’s eyes were still full of spirit. However, just then, a knight’s voice played from the long-range communication device Kaneki Mikihiko was carrying.

“Respond.”

He could tell it was the man who’d been assigned to keep an eye on the woman who was dearest to him. This meant they were reminding him about the collar around his neck right before the battle with his best friend, just in case of betrayal. It was an effective measure to take, but ultimately pointless against someone who’d long steeled his resolve.

“Yes, yes, what is it?” Mikihiko responded as Edgar clicked his tongue at having their conversation interrupted.

“I’ve gotten word that Majima Takahiro is headed your way,” the knight said. “Coordinate with Edgar to eliminate him.”