Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 3 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Large Inconsistency Between Here and There

A fortress lay within the dense forest. The impression it gave could be summed up in one word: sturdy. The long years of wear and tear showed on its stony walls. Time gave its surface a different quality from the materials it was originally made from. We were only looking at its exterior, and a single portion of it at that, yet it was enough for us to see it as simply enormous.

I was completely under the impression they were going to bring us to a village or town or something. But after giving it some thought, there was no way a village or town could exist within this dangerous forest. The people here were surely unable to survive without sealing themselves within a sturdy box built with hundreds upon thousands of stones.

“My dear visitors from afar. Here lies Fort Tilia,” Shiran said, her stern expression now colored with relief. “You may feel at ease now. We knights clear the surroundings of monsters at regular intervals. Everyone within the fortress should be ready to welcome you. I’m sure your fellow visitor is also eagerly awaiting your arrival. Come now, let us move. Fort Tilia is but a few more steps away.”

The group started walking once more. Their footsteps were light.

“So, there are other visitors from our world in the fortress?” I asked Shiran, taking advantage of the students’ excited chatter.

“Yes. There is one other fortunate soul who made it through the forest, much like you have, sir,” Shiran replied as a shadow hung over her. “Unfortunate as it is, he was the only one capable of getting through the Woodlands using his own strength, aside from the two of you.”

“Just one aside from Mizushima and me...? Aren’t there many visitors here in the same circumstances as us?” I asked, taking a look at the other students walking in a festive mood. If Shiran was correct, what did it make them?

“Unlike you, they did not make it through the forest using their own strength.”

“So, how...?”

“There are multiple listening posts built throughout the forest to gather information for Fort Tilia on the Woodlands. Your brethren had secluded themselves in such places. We of the Third Company gathered them by patrolling four such listening posts and brought them here in the process.”

“...I see.”

I did find it pretty strange before hearing this. Rampaging cheaters had destroyed the Colony, our temporary housing here in the forest. At that point, around eight hundred students were living there. So, how many of them had managed to get out of the Colony alive? A hundred? Two? Or maybe even double that?

In any case, after escaping the living hell in the Colony, what awaited them was an entirely different form of hell—a forest rampant with monsters. That was precisely my experience; there was no mistaking it. In fact, I would’ve been long dead had I not met Lily.

Setting aside irregular cases like mine, it wouldn’t have been strange if all the survivors had been absolutely annihilated. This was why I was quite surprised the knights managed to find so many students. More to the point, there were too many of them here for them all to be students who had wandered aimlessly through the forest without dying.

“But it truly is astonishing. It goes to show that one can never know what might happen,” Shiran added in an earnest tone. “The listening posts I mentioned were designed to be resting areas used by our knights when patrolling the Depths. They look like nothing more than small huts.”

“...”

“They are all furnished with valuable barrier runestones, created using the most sophisticated magic technology, so monsters cannot approach. Your brethren here managed to survive by taking shelter within. You never know what can come in use.”

I sank into an unintentional silence. I recalled the hut where I’d first met Katou, the one I’d spent a single night in. It apparently belonged to these knights. The “barrier runestone” she mentioned was likely the mysterious stone that had prevented Lily and Rose from approaching the hut. I’d ended up destroying it so that the two of them could come in.

As I recalled such details, I suddenly realized something quite bad. “Is this fortress also equipped with these barrier runestones?”

It was entirely possible that Lily, who was walking beside me, Ayame, who was hiding within Lily’s body, and Asarina, who was bound beneath the bandage on my arm, wouldn’t be able to get into the fortress. This had me secretly panicking, but fortunately, my fears were immediately dispersed.

“No sir. Fort Tilia has no such runestones. The effective range of a barrier runestone is rather limited. It only creates a bubble about the size of a small hut. Although it’s theoretically possible, we lack the resources to cover the entire fortress.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Barrier runestones are a precious commodity, and the production method has long been lost, after all. Furthermore, their effects are limited. They can do no more than keep monsters at a distance. They do not completely obstruct their intrusion. There are also far too many conditions for setting one up. We are unable to use them here. There is nothing to fear, of course. There are over a thousand soldiers stationed in the fortress.”

“Is that so? That’s a relief.”

I gave a noncommittal response as a wave of relief washed over me. This was good news. It sounded like barrier runestones would be quite the rarity from now on.

Having managed to regain my composure, I took a look at the other students walking along in a festive mood. “But... You never know what might happen, huh? It really is just as you say,” I said, repeating Shiran’s own words with a sigh. “So, they were extremely lucky.”

“What do you mean by that, sir?”

“I mean, according to what you just said, not only did they come across these protected huts through sheer coincidence, they were also coincidentally saved by your knights. Isn’t that amazing luck?”

In a sense, it was somewhat similar to my own circumstances. After the fall of the Colony, I walked through the forest with both my body and heart in a mess until I finally arrived at that cave. I nearly died there, but I was still standing here today because my feelings reached Lily and brought her to me. Perhaps I felt sympathy for the students walking around me.

“No, that’s not quite right,” Shiran said, denying my train of thought. “It was no coincidence. The reason we made our way to those huts in the Depths was because we were requested to look for possible survivors within them.”

“You were requested to? What exactly does that...?”

Shiran’s statement threw me off completely. This wasn’t Earth. It wasn’t the country we came from. Finding and taking these students under their protection by coincidence was one thing, but there was no way they would do so on purpose. They shouldn’t have gone out of their way to rescue them. None of them had any obligation to completely alien strangers to brave this dangerous forest. Who exactly could have made such a request to begin with?

My mind dove into a torrent of questions as a great cheer broke out around me. Ahead of us, a deep moat surrounding the enormous fortress and the drawbridge which led to its sturdy gates were now in sight. We had managed to reach the fortress while I was speaking with Shiran.

The trees around Fort Tilia were cut down by human hands. The greenery that had been dominating my vision to the left and right were now gone. The sky spread out vast and wide. It felt like we were liberated from some kind of invisible oppression that had been coiling around us.

This was human territory. We could feel it in our skin. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a reason for me to drop my guard. I could see dozens of knights standing in the distance across the drawbridge awaiting our arrival. Among them were several students in uniforms.

I thought she said only one student reached the fortress?

Just as I was about to question her regarding this discrepancy, I noticed Shiran had come to a complete stop.

“Lieutenant?”

“...Impossible.”

I turned around after taking a step past Shiran when she suddenly looked up at the sky. Right above her was a flickering yellow light. Even as we walked, the mysterious creature floated above her. Now it was flailing its short limbs while rotating energetically. It was like it was trying to tell us something, but unfortunately, I had no idea what. Shiran, on the other hand, knew exactly what it was saying.

“Third Company! To arms!”

Her warning pierced through the forest. The situation developed before anyone could ask what was going on. In the next instant, the trees we’d just passed through cracked and fell over as enormous green caterpillars revealed themselves.

“Uwaaah?!”

“Eeek!”

They were large monsters, more than three meters in length, and five of them at that. Their mandibles chittered as they charged toward us. The students screamed while the knights drew their swords in a hurry.

“Wh-Why are there so many bull wrigglers this close to the fortress...?!” one of the knights yelled in agitation. Shiran had just mentioned that they cleared out the monsters around the fortress on a regular basis. It probably wasn’t common to encounter so many monsters around here at once.

I drew the wooden sword at my waist. This was basically a reflex for me at this point. I also decided I didn’t have the time to get my shield out as I exchanged glances with Lily. The first thing we had to do was confirm the situation around us.

As I began to take a look around with that intent...I was left completely dumbstruck.

“...Huh?”

All of the students around us were panicking. Some tried to run away to the fortress right before their eyes without taking a proper look around them. They bumped into each other, and some fell to the ground. This reaction was still on the better side of things though. There were those who intentionally pushed down any who blocked their path, those who fell to their knees in fear, those who clung to the nearby knights... There was even an idiot who kicked down the person beside them to try and ensure their own escape.

This chaos prevented us from attempting an escape of our own. But above all else, it was a complete obstruction to the knights’ ability to fight. Panic was contagious. The knights were now becoming restless. This uproar wasn’t just a matter of holding them back; it was practically suicide.

What the hell is this...? Did these guys really survive until now like this? According to Shiran, they didn’t get through the forest by their own strength. They hid themselves in huts and stayed put until her knights saved them. However, these students were supposed to have at least survived the destruction of the Colony. They had to have escaped from that hell before taking refuge in a safe location. So why...?

“Do not falter!” Shiran yelled, rebuking her subordinates. She was the only one to maintain her composure. There was a sense of bitterness in her voice. She knew how bad this situation was. “Harden the line! They’re coming!”

The bull wrigglers charged in, their mandibles chittering all the while. They really did look like big caterpillars. They looked sluggish, but their movements were anything but. On the contrary, they were like charging bulls.

After Shiran’s command brought them back to their senses, the knights just barely managed to get into formation. They quickly raised their shields to become a wall for the students. But their backs looked ever so unreliable in my eyes. Could they really obstruct the charge like this? I watched attentively as anxiety filled my heart.

The moment before the bull wrigglers collided with the armored knights...

“Leave them to me.”

A refreshing voice brushed against my ear. And by that time, everything was over.

“Wha—?!”

The bull wrigglers were blown away in the opposite direction. Their bodies were torn to shreds, scattering green bodily fluids to the winds as I watched in a daze. Before I knew it, the battle was over. All I saw was the conclusion, as if time had jumped. My mind couldn’t keep up with what happened. But the one thing that was clear to me here was the identity of the one responsible for this.

With a tap, a girl in a blazer, who had neither shape nor shadow just a moment ago, landed on the ground.

“It’s alright now.”

Her glamorous waist-length black hair fluttered in the wind as she turned toward us with a smile. It was a warm smile. One which could blow away the anxieties of any who looked upon it.

◆ ◆ ◆

Everyone held their breath at the girl’s sudden arrival. I was no exception. On the contrary, I might’ve been the most shocked of them all. She had a slender and delicate-looking sword in her grip. This was surely what had torn those five bull wrigglers into shreds. But that was only my conjecture. Even though it had happened right before my eyes, I didn’t actually see a single one of her strikes. It was unbelievable.

I had gained the ability to elevate my athleticism using mana. This also amplified my senses, so my eyes were now capable of at least following a firefang’s charge. I’d heard before that human sensory organs could perform much more than what the human body allowed. Whether I was able to deal with it or not, not being able to see even a single movement was out of the question, even if I was watching Gerbera.

But without any exaggeration whatsoever, I hadn’t seen a single movement this girl had made. It was all over by the time I saw a black shadow appear. In short, this girl was far faster than Gerbera. It was impossible. There had to be a limit to such outlandishness. I felt like the only possibility was that she existed on a different axis of time. Her strength, which bordered on completely illogical, was more than enough to identify her.

“...A cheater.”

The girl was all smiles upon hearing that word spill from someone’s lips. With that, her sharp features softened up in an instant. Even used to Lily’s smile as I was, it still felt like it could charm me.

“Oh come on, Iino. Don’t go stealing all the good spots for yourself.”

Someone threw a friendly complaint at the girl. I turned around just as two boys in school uniforms came down from the fortress. Their gaits were so casual it was like they were on their way home from school, but one had a broadsword in hand while the other held a staff inlaid with a dazzling gem.

The girl sheathed her slender sword and turned a bittersweet smile toward them. “It’s fine to complain and all, but it was a race against time, right? Everyone was being so slow. It was faster for me to jump in alone.”

“Everyone’s a turtle compared to you.”

These three had suddenly appeared and stolen center stage. Both the students and the knights were watching their every move. The scene which played out before our eyes simply had that tremendous an impact.

“Juumonji. They’re all confused. We should start with introductions,” the girl said as she held a finger in the air.

“Oh yeah, you got a point there,” the schoolboy with the broadsword replied. He gave off the impression of an athlete. He was tall with a firm build, and he took on the gazes of all present with a hardy attitude. “Nice to meet you. Name’s Juumonji Tatsuya. This here’s Iino Yuna and Watanabe Yoshiki.”

The girl who’d handily defeated the bull wrigglers shrugged and waved her hand shyly, while the schoolboy with the small build held up his staff in greeting.

“You probably realized this already, but we’re all members of the Colony’s exploration team,” Juumonji continued. The exploration team was an organization formed by the cheaters of the Colony, so these three really were cheaters. Meaning... “Well done in getting through the forest safely. As for you knights, thank you for responding to our request. Our school friends are safe and sound thanks to you.”

So that’s what’s going on...

I finally got a grasp of the situation. For starters, I’d heard the name “Iino Yuna” before. There were many types of cheaters, ranging from warriors who possessed enhanced athleticism and mana to ones like me who possessed no actual strength but had very peculiar abilities. However, there were fewer than ten exceptions who possessed both these traits. Iino Yuna was one such exception.

The Skanda Iino Yuna. Her name was even known to the members of the home team who had nothing to do with battle. Her weapon was her speed. She was simply fast. Fast beyond description, true to her namesake of the swift-footed Buddhist deity. It was said that even among the gathering of superhumans in the exploration team, none could keep up with her. Having now seen it for myself, her speed was simply overwhelming.

And precisely because she was so famous, even I knew she was part of the hand-picked elites who formed the first expeditionary force. The group had departed far to the east in search of information regarding this world...and as a result, they’d triggered the deterioration of public safety in the Colony. In a sense, one could say they were responsible for the Colony’s destruction.

They had apparently accomplished their goal of finding the inhabitants of this world. Shiran mentioned they hadn’t searched the listening posts and taken the students under their protection by coincidence. They were requested to do so in case there were survivors. In other words, it had been the first expeditionary force, these people before my eyes, who’d made that request.

They had saved these students with us. And once again, they annihilated the monsters and removed the threat before them. They did so without an ounce of uncertainty or anxiety. They had power, and they brought about the natural conclusion born of such power.

“I’m happy to see you all safe and sound. There’s no need to worry anymore. We’re here now, so it’s alright.”

Juumonji’s words conveyed his conviction that he was meant to protect others. And it wasn’t just him. Iino and Watanabe were the same. Their attitudes were different, but these three members of the exploration team were all overflowing with confidence. Confidence in their own strength, their wills, and their very beings. They were like heroes living in a fairytale.

Don’t be stupid. Like hell that’s the case. They can’t be heroes. They’re just students—teenagers you can find anywhere.

“Just leave everything to us.”

That was why his words gave me no relief. Leaving everything to them was what had brought about the tragedy in the Colony in the first place. I couldn’t forget that hell.

The ones who had carried out such destruction were cheaters, just like them. They weren’t saints. They were a group of minors liable to make mistakes when spurred on by greed. That was...supposed to be the case. So, what was going on around me?

I didn’t even need to look around. The atmosphere in the area affirmed them as if they were heroes. “We can finally shake off all this misfortune which befell us. Danger will never come for us again. We can at last relax and feel at peace.” The students, the knights, and even these three members of the exploration team didn’t feel a single doubt toward such thoughts.

There was just one exception. Something was strange here. Something was off. There was an inconsistency. Detachment. Or maybe... Maybe I was the strange one here.

“Majima...” Lily anxiously called me. It felt like the warmth from her body was the only thing that proved my sanity.

◆ ◆ ◆

I was safely shown into the fortress together with the other students. The three members of the exploration team had something to talk about with Shiran, so they all headed elsewhere within the building. We parted with the knights as well and followed our guide to our rooms.

The man who guided us differed from the fully armored knights. He only wore armor over his upper body and was equipped with only a round shield not too dissimilar from mine. I only caught a glance while we were moving, but it seemed the sentries were similarly equipped with spears in hand. They were perhaps from a different organization than the knights.

Everyone received their own rooms, but I asked them to give me a shared room with Lily. This was the obvious choice, taking my personal safety into consideration. There were other small groups who wanted to share rooms, perhaps out of anxiety from being in an unfamiliar place, so we didn’t really stand out in this regard.

The room we entered was simply furnished with two beds, a table by the window, and two chairs. The small window had a wooden frame. Surprisingly, there was a source of light installed on the wall, brightly illuminating the room. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t using electricity or fire. There was a stone about the size of a clenched fist embedded in the wall. The stone itself was emitting the light. This was probably some sort of magic. This world seemed to have gone through a technological development which differed greatly from ours.

By the time we managed to get a good look around our room, the man who guided us dropped by once more. He handed us a washbasin filled with water as well as a change of clothes before informing us that a banquet was going to be held to welcome the visitors from afar. He said he would come get us when the preparations were done. The man seemed quite nervous the entire time. His attitude was somewhat curious. But thinking of how strange aliens from another world were, his behavior was pretty normal.

After he left, I wiped off my body with a wet cloth and picked up the change of clothes. They honestly looked pretty uncomfortable. The fabric was kind of stiff. This was likely why the members of the exploration team we saw were all still wearing their blazers.

It already made me miss the feeling of the full set of clothes Gerbera made for me, but I couldn’t really complain. I kept on my undershirt woven from Gerbera’s threads and inlaid with Rose’s armor and put on my new clothes. None of the equipment I brought with me had been confiscated, so I decided to keep them on my person as well.

The pseudo-Damascus steel sword and black protective gear Rose had made were all disguised to look like regular magical puppet equipment. Nobody had noticed this yet. I checked that the camouflage could be removed at any moment and then put everything on.

With all that in order, I took a seat on one of the beds and let out a long sigh. Everything up until now was going so well it was frightening. It made me feel stupid for preparing so much. But I couldn’t honestly feel happy about it because of this sense of inconsistency I felt the entire time.

“Are you tired, Master?” Lily asked after carefully investigating the room. She stood before me and looked me in the eyes.

“...Cut the ‘master’ stuff out. We don’t know who could be listening.”

“It’s at least fine here in this room, right? It looks properly soundproofed and all. Besides, this is about the only place Ayame and Asarina can stretch a bit, you know?”

“That’s true...”

The moment I replied, Lily took off her blazer and placed it on the bed. She then unbuttoned her shirt. Her delicate nape down to her shoulders was exposed to the air along with her beautiful breasts—and everything illuminated by the room’s light fixture from her chest down transformed into a transparent slime. There was a large cavity where her stomach was. The little fox curled up within raised her head with a curious yip.

If there was some sort of surveillance mechanism in this room, then our secrets were out of the bag all at once... But that really was overthinking things. I couldn’t judge what was possible here, considering I had no knowledge of human society or what they could do with magic. If I began suspecting everything, I’d even have to consider whether we were safe hiding things beneath Lily’s clothes.

“Got it, Lily. You can act normally when we’re alone.”

“So he says, Ayame.”

Ayame had been waiting for my decision, and after being urged on by Lily, she jumped down to the floor, ran across the ground with a pitter-patter, and came over to me as I sprawled out on top of my bed. Her tail, which was about as large as her body, swayed vigorously behind her. It seemed she wanted attention. I stretched out my hand and scratched under her jaw as Ayame squinted in pleasure.

My playful heart stopped my fingers, causing Ayame to scratch at my hand with both her forelegs. She wasn’t using her claws, so it didn’t hurt in the least. Giving in to her pleading, I scratched her once more, following the grain of her fur then grazing against it. Ayame’s fur was soft. This was because she bathed periodically and Gerbera groomed her fur once in a while using a comb Rose made.

When I stopped, she scratched at me once more. When I still didn’t give in, she used both her forelegs to pull on my hand. Her desperate behavior was adorable. It really healed my heart.

I decided to stop being mean when she began yelping at me pitifully. While I was at it, I also undid the bandage around my left arm. The parasite creeper Asarina stretched out like a snake and coiled around Ayame.

“Master.”

As I watched the two children play with each other, Lily changed clothes and sat down on the bed next to me. A tender warmth wrapped around my right arm. Lily leaned her body against me with an impish smile. Her sweet lips touched my cheek. She was like a little bird pecking at her food, or much like a small fox pulling at my hand. I could tell what she was asking for right away, so I honestly complied.

“Can you hear me out for a bit?” I asked.

“Of course.”

I told Lily about what I had been feeling before our arrival at the fortress. She quietly listened to me until the very end.

There were some things I managed to figure out as I talked about it. To sum up this sense of discomfort, everyone was trusting each other too much too quickly.

To Shiran and the people of this world, we were suspicious foreigners. They didn’t have a single reason to trust us. They had risked their lives by braving the dangerous forest to rescue the students at the exploration team’s request, but they had absolutely no obligation to do so.

This even applied to the students they were protecting. They all knew of that hell which had taken place at the Colony. So, how were they able to so easily accept us? Their reception was so favorable one would think they knew nothing of distrust.

“...It really is strange,” Lily said in agreement after hearing me out. “I also felt the same inconsistency as you, Master. There’s probably some circumstance behind this that we don’t know about.”

“Seems like we should find Shiran or the like to get the details sooner rather than later.”

“Mm. You’re right. But...” Lily nodded, but she hesitantly chose her next words. “Is it really that inconvenient?”

“Huh?” I stiffened up at her question.

“You described it as trusting too much too quickly, but that’s not actually inconvenient for us, right? Actually, it’s been going well for us so far, hasn’t it?”

“That’s...”

“We don’t know what circumstances are driving this, so we need to confirm the situation just in case. But you know? That’s not what you’re actually worried about, Master.”

I met Lily’s eyes as she cocked her head and looked up at me. I was at a loss for words. She had a point. Things were going smoothly, so it was fine to be honestly pleased with that. Suspicions of the circumstances were a different problem entirely. And yet, I was unable to rejoice over this. As for why that was...

“From my view, it’s like you’re shocked by the inconsistency itself...” Lily said, looking me in the eyes.

And just then, a knock resounded through the room.