Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 2 - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: The Puppet’s Request

The shadows squirming in the darkness of the nighttime forest approached us step by step. With my poor human vision, it took me several seconds to finally recognize their contours as human. There were five of these figures pushing through bushes as high as their waists. They were still far away from us, so the light from the bonfire and the moon didn’t reach them.

Were they residents of this world? Or were they students from mine? I squinted to try and see through the darkness and found it tremendously difficult to identify their facial features. That’s because they were all wearing helmets that covered their heads. All of their faces were hidden by the lowered visors. Paired with the dark gray armor that covered the rest of their bodies, they were dressed just like fully equipped soldiers.

I clicked my tongue. Things had become troublesome. I didn’t know their identities. I didn’t know their motives. It was a bad blow that they discovered us first. I wanted to verify what kind of people we were encountering before coming into contact with them whenever I could.

There was no meaning in moaning over it at this point, though. The first step here was to negotiate.

“Who are—”

“Step back, Master.” Lily held out her slender arm and stopped me. Her eyes were completely fixed on the soldiers as if they were definitely enemies.

“Lily? What...?”

“I was being careful, but our luck was a little bad, I guess. I definitely would’ve noticed them if they weren’t downwind.” Lily redirected her arm toward the soldiers walking our way. “Look. You should be able to see them clearly now.”

I complied and strained my eyes at the human figures gradually closing in on us. They... weren’t soldiers.

“Wha—?!”

The flames from the bonfire illuminated five beings who used to be soldiers. The most telling feature was their faces. All five were wearing helmets, but one among them had a broken visor. The light revealed a man’s face drastically changed from its original form. Perhaps having been torn off by a monster, he was missing his lower jaw. I was just barely able to distinguish his facial features as somewhat Caucasian.

The armor covering their bodies all showed signs of damage and breakage. One of them was even missing an arm. These were surely all fatal wounds they’d suffered in life.

Upon seeing one of them walking along, dragging their innards on the ground, I tasted something sour crawling up my throat. I had seen miserable corpses multiple times since coming to this world. However, seeing such excessively damaged corpses moving around like this had a unique repulsiveness to it.

“Aaaaaargh...”

Their mouths were half-open, and they let out hollow groans in a meaningless manner. The feeling of death brushing against my ears sent goosebumps down my skin. There was no mistaking it. These were undead monsters, much like the ones who’d appeared just once within the Colony. They called them ghouls.

I could understand Lily’s behavior now. Even if they looked human—just barely, at least—there was no room for negotiation with monsters.

“Graaaah, aaaargh, graaaaaaaah!”

In the next instant, the five ghouls rushed toward us with beastly speed.

“Urgh.”

My body froze at the terrifying sight of corpses running toward me. This was the dreadful characteristic specific to undead monsters that even inflicted casualties among the cheaters of the exploration team. Their form brought hesitation, making it difficult to bring a blade down upon them. And the unnatural sight of a corpse charging like this would cause anyone to falter.

However, that was only in the case of humans. My group was made up of monsters. It didn’t matter if their opponents were humans or former humans.

“—Hyah!”

Rose took the first strike by throwing her battleaxe. The weapon embedded itself right into the chest of one of the ghouls and drove it into the ground with terrifying force. The monster avoided bisection because of its armor, but the damage was serious. Furthermore, the axe went through far enough to dig into the ground, stopping it from moving. The remaining four ghouls continued their charge without even glancing at their fallen comrade. They didn’t have a sense of fellowship to begin with.

The distance between us and them closed quickly. However, there was one other who took action at the same time as Rose.

“I’d rather the dead not draw too near. We can’t have our lord catching some disease now, can we?” Gerbera said as she shot out her web. The thread spread out over a wide area and coiled around the soldiers and the objects around them. It didn’t completely obstruct their powerful movements, but it was more than enough to buy time.

“Tear them to shreds!” Lily shouted.

Lily used the few seconds her sisters bought to concentrate her mana and form a blue glyph. It was grade 2 water magic in the form of three swords. The transparent swords glided through the air and unerringly pierced through their targets’ heads. With their brains completely destroyed, the ghouls collapsed to the ground. The cheaters of the Colony had already confirmed that the core of these undead monsters was the same as when they were human.

“Aaaaargh!”

The final ghoul tore apart the spider threads and continued onward.

“Grawr!”

And it crashed right into the fireball Ayame spat out. The ghoul ate it head-on, perhaps not even knowing of the concept of dodging, or perhaps because it was unable to deal with such a counter. The small explosion brought the ghoul’s charge to a stop.

“Please leave it to me,” Rose said as she rushed in with her spare axe in hand. “Hyaaah!”

She brought the axe straight down and pulverized the soldier’s skull. After confirming this, I lowered the large shield I had pulled out and let out my breath. Ten seconds hadn’t even passed, and the five ghouls were annihilated in a risk-free fight.

◆ ◆ ◆

After dealing the finishing blow to the first ghoul Rose had pinned down with her axe, we split up into two groups. The first group investigated the bodies of the ghouls who attacked us, while the other began preparing a new camp a little further away.

Decomposing corpses weren’t really sanitary. Even if they were dealt with before they got too close, it wasn’t good for our health to sleep near scattered entrails, from both a physical and mental perspective. That’s why we decided to move our camp.

Rose and I investigated the corpses. She was in charge of actually handling them, much like she did when we discovered those mangled bodies once before. I was watching over her work. We had enough people preparing the camp, so I decided it was better to have human eyes present for investigating the corpses. This could have also applied to Katou, but asking her to investigate a bunch of dead bodies was questionable, so I put her in the other group. She was likely serving as Ayame’s partner or something.

“So, as far as you can tell, Master, these people are not from your world. Meaning they’re residents of this one.”

Rose washed everything using a large bucket of water and lined them up on the ground. I stood behind her and nodded as I looked over the cleaned bodies.

“Yeah, look. Their facial features are somewhat different from mine or Katou’s.”

All of the naked corpses were adult males. Their faces were horribly damaged from becoming ghouls, but I could just barely tell they resembled Caucasians from our world.

“Of course, it’s possible they’re westerners who ended up in this world much like we did, though...”

I couldn’t deny any possibilities. We could only clarify things to a certain extent.

“At the very least, I’ve never seen this language before.”

One of them had a letter in their breast pocket. The pages were largely ruined by blackened blood, but from what I could see from a small, undamaged portion, it was pretty clear this was written in a language that didn’t use the alphabet or something similar. It was presumably a language from this world. If I had to say, the letters were closer to cursive script kanji. Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually read cursive script kanji, so I couldn’t differentiate it from something else.

“Having said that, I don’t know what many languages from my world look like, so I can’t say anything definitive.”

I couldn’t deny this was possibly a language from our world I simply didn’t know of. Corpses couldn’t talk, so there was a limit to the amount of information we could get. As such, I let out an involuntary sigh. I thought I’d finally met humans other than the students here in this world, but this was all it came to. It felt like I was fated to have no luck with humans in this world.

“Have you noticed anything, Rose?”

“I believe so.” Rose finished washing everything off, and then she picked up a few small objects off the ground and handed them to me.

“Rings?”

“Yes, they were all wearing these.”

They were apparently underneath their bracers. The metal rings were quite thin, probably so they wouldn’t get in the way when wielding a sword. A small yellow gem decorated each one, and all of them had different white letters carved within them. It was probably some sort of identification for what unit these soldiers belonged to.

“There’s one other thing I noticed,” Rose said as she pointed at the hands of the corpses. “They have yet to decompose all that much. It has seemingly only been a few days since they died.”

I was just about to ask why that mattered when I suddenly realized what she meant. “I see. So, you’re saying they were killed somewhere within a few days walking distance?”

“Yes.”

Even considering these were monsters who didn’t need rest, the distance presumably didn’t exceed ten days of constant walking. This was something we could cover quite easily.

“It’s also possible their base is somewhere nearby,” she added.

“Even if it’s not, it’s definite that people were there at one point. We might be able to gather some clues. All that’s left is to figure out how to get there...”

“Lily may be able to trace back their path using her sense of smell. They came from the northwest, so I don’t believe it’ll deviate much from our original path of going north.”

“So, even if we fail, we can just go back to heading straight north.” Our journey was only vaguely aiming in that direction anyway. It was worth checking out. “Okay. Let’s talk it out with Lily. Good job noticing this, Rose.”

“It was nothing.”

“There’s no need to be humble. Is there anything else you noticed?”

“Hmm. Nothing else comes to mind.”

Meaning there was no more information for us here. The only other thing to confirm was...

“Was there anything useful among their belongings?” I asked.

“They had some rations, but they appear to be spoiled. I believe it would be better not to try them.”

“What about their weapons? All their armor looks broken, but some of them had swords at their waists, right?”

“I inspected them, but none appear useful.”

“I see. So, we can just dispose of everything... Or not.” I changed my mind in the middle of speaking. “Let’s just keep the rings.”

“The rings?”

“Yeah. I was just thinking that if we happen to come across someone they knew, we could hand them over as a memento or something.” I placed the rings in my pocket. “Alright, let’s dig up some graves and get them buried. Even if they’re not getting up anymore, I don’t feel like sleeping knowing there are corpses laying out in the open nearby like this.”

“Very well.”

“I guess we need a pretty deep hole to dispose of all their weapons and armor too. We’re probably better off with more hands on deck here. They should be about done setting up camp by now, so I’ll give everyone a quick call.”

I started walking over to where the others were. It was dangerous to separate too much here in this forest, so our new camp was still within shouting distance. Although, considering the worst-case scenario, it wasn’t smart for me to be all alone even when covering such a short distance. Rose was obviously right behind me as my guard... Well, she was supposed to be.

“Hm?” And yet, I couldn’t hear her footsteps. I came to a stop and turned around. “What’s wrong, Rose?”

She was still standing exactly where she was before. “Master... There is one more thing I’d like to say. Would that be alright?”

“Of course, I don’t mind, but...”

I found her hesitant manner somewhat strange. It was unusual for Rose to speak her mind without me asking for her to do so. So, with her hesitant attitude on top of that, it was doubly strange. Something must have happened, but nothing would begin until I heard her out.

“What’s this you want to talk about?” I said to urge her on.

“I would like to propose a certain idea,” Rose replied in an indecisive tone.

An idea? Is it something to do with these soldiers...?

I curiously mulled over what it could be in my mind. However, if it had something to do with the soldiers, she could’ve just mentioned it earlier. There was no reason for Rose to stop me here for that.

What else could it even be...?

I continued to give it thought as I gazed at Rose. She hung her head indecisively for several seconds before clenching her fists lightly and looking back up at me. It felt like she was resolving herself.

“My proposal is regarding none other than Katou’s earlier request.”

“...What?”

“I would like to serve the role of teaching her regarding the use of mana.” My eyes shot wide open as Rose earnestly put her words together with her hand to her chest. “I believe it should be possible for me to train her if it is only to the extent of grasping the sense for mana.”

“That’s...”

Lily had said this was the first stage Katou had to reach. It was certainly true that her teacher didn’t necessarily need to be capable of using magic. Rose could likely serve this role more than well enough.

“I am of course using mana when I create magical tools. I was thinking of using the time I work to help Katou train in sensing mana.”

“It’s not going to be a hindrance to your work, right?”

“Naturally.”

I was just asking to be sure. I didn’t actually believe Rose would neglect her own work. She was so devoted to her job it was practically excessive. That just made it all the more surprising to me that she would offer her opinion like this for Katou’s sake.

“I was thinking I would teach her at first, and after reaching a certain stage, we would ask Lily for help. By that time, your training should have progressed some, so I believe she should have the time. What do you think?”

It wasn’t a bad idea. That was my honest opinion upon hearing her suggestion. This proposal cleanly negated all the demerits of Katou’s case. I did want to somehow or other grant her small request. That’s what I sincerely thought, regardless of my distrust toward her.

“...”

However, even though my thoughts were capable of seeing that far ahead, I hesitated to give my consent.

Will this really be okay...?

That thought crept up on me. From a purely logical standpoint, it was fine. Katou wanted to learn healing magic. She couldn’t hurt anyone with it. It wasn’t like giving her a weapon. There was no reason for me to deny this request.

It had only reached this stage because, by her own will, she’d restricted what she wanted to learn to healing magic. It was as if she had read my mind. In truth, considering her personality, there was no mistaking she made that request knowing full well I would object. In other words, she restricted it to healing magic precisely because she knew I hesitated to give her a weapon. Meaning Katou had a proper grasp of the suspicions I harbored against her.

I felt the shame from her finding out about my ungrateful attitude. And at the same time, another suspicion sprouted within me. I fundamentally couldn’t trust the human Katou. It was extremely insincere and should’ve been unpleasant to her. Regardless, despite knowing what was going through my mind, she risked her life to save me. And now she was asking to learn healing magic so she could help us.

Why? Why does she go so far...?

I truly couldn’t understand what was going through her mind.

Because she’s all alone in this world? Because there’s nobody else for her to rely on?

That was what I thought before. Such facets likely factored into her behavior. However, that wasn’t enough to explain it. For example, Lily told me it was fine to lack ability. I also said I would never abandon my servants even if they were useless. We were special to each other. Our bond was priceless. That’s why we didn’t find it a nuisance to be troubled by each other’s problems. We would actually be sad if we weren’t relied on in difficult times.

However, Katou was different from them. She wasn’t my servant, and I wasn’t her master. In other words, I was not a special, priceless existence to her. I was nothing more than a casual guardian who happened across her by coincidence in that hut.

That’s all. That’s all it should’ve been...

But would such a stranger risk her life to save me without asking for any recompense? There was no way she would. Even if that was the case, she had more human nature than Lily and the others. If my train of thought was all correct up until this point, she was definitely looking for some form of recompense. I just simply couldn’t read her.

Right. Even if she’s scheming something, I’m unable to read—

Aah, goddammit...

I couldn’t think of such things. I had to keep telling myself this. The question of “What is Katou thinking?” had somehow turned into “What is Katou scheming?” This was practically a disease. Actually, it pretty much was a sickness in my heart.

I was aware that I was jumping at shadows.

I had a grasp of this abnormal portion within me thanks to Gerbera.

I knew I was overthinking things, and I recognized my own thoughts as rather cruel.

However, even though I knew all that, I couldn’t do anything about it. That’s why people referred to such behavior as a sickness.

“Master.”

A somewhat deep voice for a woman called out to me as I froze up in silence. It was Rose’s voice, which I was well accustomed to now. My gaze had fallen to the ground before I knew it. I steadily looked back up and was left shocked. Rose was bowing down deeply right before me.

“Please, Master. I want to grant her request.”

“...”

I stood there in a daze. That Rose would say such a thing was inconceivable to me. I couldn’t even figure out how I should react.

“...”

As a result, I ended up responding with silence.

I wasn’t sure how Rose misinterpreted this, but she lowered her head even more. “I understand I am speaking beyond my station. It’s reasonable for you to be angry. I will accept any punishment. But please...”

“H-Hang on! I’m not angry or anything!”

In a panic, I quickly corrected Rose as she jumped to the wrong conclusion. I was far from angry. There was no way I’d be angry at her over such a thing.

That’s right. There’s no way I could be.

This was something I’d wished for myself. I once hoped to hear what Rose wanted, what she desired of me, from her very own mouth. I never would’ve predicted her request would be to grant Katou’s request... But this was still something worth celebrating.

“So, now you can not only voice your opinion, but you can even speak of your aspirations. No matter what that entails, it’s something for me to be happy about.” Those were my true thoughts on the matter. However, there was one doubt that came to mind. “If it’s alright with you, can you tell me one thing? Why are you lowering your head for Katou’s sake? What drives you to do so?”

Something I didn’t know of changed Rose to such an extent. It was a natural impulse to want to know what caused it.

“That’s...”

Rose seemed somehow embarrassed and hesitated to speak. Anyone who saw her like this, even if it wasn’t me, would never believe her heart was that of an inorganic puppet. Her behavior was much like a teenage girl. But that only stood to reason.

“That’s because she’s my friend, Master.” This was Rose’s reply to my question, her fist clenched in front of her chest.

Her answer struck a curious chord within me. “...Your friend, huh?”

I recalled how Rose and Katou had been speaking with each other quite frequently lately. I only just realized they were talking like good friends. It also explained the change Rose was going through. For better or worse, people all changed in their own ways. That was no different for a puppet with a will. Being able to express her opinions and hopes like this was surely just the tip of the iceberg. As far as I could tell, Katou was having a positive effect on her. In other words, Katou was at least a good friend to Rose.

“Got it.” The moment that thought passed through my mind, I was able to speak immediately as if my earlier hesitation had all been a lie. “Go ahead and teach Katou how to handle mana.”

“Is that alright?” Rose asked, unable to hide her astonishment.

“Yeah,” I replied with a nod.

I tightly clenched my sweaty hand. The image of my classmates’ horrendous and twisted smiles looking down on me the day the Colony fell came to mind. I was still unable to overcome the malice of the ghosts of my past. It was pathetic, but I also understood it. I wasn’t that strong a person. That was why I still couldn’t trust Katou, a human. However...

“I can trust you, Rose. I’m sure nothing bad will come of it.”

She undoubtedly heard this in a different manner from what I meant. I was certain she interpreted it as “I’m sure you’ll be able to guide Katou properly.” That in of itself was fine, seeing how my goal in saying it aloud wasn’t to get across my intent to her. I said it to force that hopeless portion within me to yield.

I could trust Rose. She said Katou was her friend. She wanted to do something for her very first friend. So, as Rose’s master, I wanted to support her. There was nothing to hesitate over. Not only that, it was perfectly natural for me to accommodate my dear Rose’s friend.

“I’ll leave Katou to you, okay?”

This was the best logical loophole I could jump through to recompense Katou as I was now.

“...”

Before I knew it, the ghosts in my mind were no longer visible. As I took a slow sigh of relief over this, Rose bowed down once more.

“Thank you very much, Master.”

“...Don’t worry about it. I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

Rose didn’t seem to understand me. She looked back up at me curiously.

“Excuse me, Master. What exactly do you mean?”

“It’s fine if you don’t get it.”

I smiled ever so slightly and turned on my heel. I had to go call the others to get some help to bury these bodies. This time, Rose followed behind me.

“...Oh, right.” After a few seconds, I suddenly remembered something and came to a stop as I looked back. “Setting aside Katou’s matter, is there anything you desire for yourself, Rose?”

As long as she didn’t understand that she was actually doing something for me here, thanking her was nothing more than simple self-satisfaction on my part. That’s why I wanted to at least reward the work she was unaware she was doing for me. That was my thought process.

“You’ve really done well for me up until now. If there’s anything you want, then I’d like to grant it to you.”

“I don’t really...”

“I’ll just cut you off there. There’s no need to hold back. Think of it as being for my sake. Be as self-indulgent as you want. Is there anything?”

Her reservations were well within my expectations, so I repeated my question. Rose was likely still holding back her desires, but she inevitably realized I had no intention of backing down.

After a few seconds of thinking it over, she gave me her answer.

“Then... just one thing.” In a complete change from earlier, she was acting extremely timid. It was an entirely different matter when it came to herself. This awkwardness of hers was rather cute. “I don’t mind if it’s just for a small amount of time each day, but I would like time to make things other than equipment.”

“So, you want free time?”

Thinking back on it, Rose worked day and night ever since I met her. As for my other servants, Lily had time to deepen her intimacy with me, scant as it was, and Gerbera enjoyed spending time taking care of Ayame. And yet, Rose had no such time. I was stupid for not noticing. Even she required some free time.

Fortunately, we weren’t in an urgent situation right now. Furthermore, seeing how we were on the move, there was no meaning in stockpiling equipment, so she had time to spare. It was quite like her to want to use that time to make something, though.

“I don’t mind. Do as you like.”

“Th-Thank you.”

After getting my permission, though her featureless face couldn’t express emotion, her voice conveyed her happiness. I was glad she reacted in such a way and casually touched on the subject just to chat.

“By the way, have you decided on what you want to make?”

“Th-That’s...”

“Hm?”

It was strange. I felt like I saw Rose’s entire body stiffen up with a jolt. But there was no reason for her to be agitated by my question.

“That’s, um... something, cute?”

“What’s with that?”

Her explanation was rather vague considering her personality. Was this perhaps... her being embarrassed? In that case, Rose wanted to make something that would be embarrassing if I knew about it. My only hint was something cute.

“Are you planning on making a cute doll or something?”

“Y-Yes. Exactly.”

I was just joking, but she acknowledged me regardless. This was quite astonishing. Rose was just full of surprises tonight. That said, all of them were happy surprises. Even now, I was glad to discover a new facet to her.

“You’re also a girl, I see.”

“Y-Yes. Th-That’s mostly right...”

Rose was acting strangely suspicious. I didn’t think it was something to be that embarrassed over. It certainly didn’t fit her sober and honest image, but I didn’t think this side of her was bad. Regardless, it wasn’t very nice to drag this conversation on if she found it embarrassing. With that, I decided not to press her any further and added one last thing.

“If it’s okay with you, could you show me when you’re done?” I had plenty of interest in anything Rose wanted to make.

“Y-Yes. Very well. Please look forward to it.”

“Great. I’ll do just that,” I replied with a smile before moving my feet once more.

—It would be some time before I remembered this little exchange of ours.