Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 6 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Giving Chase

“Gerbera!” I yelled, my voice livelier at the sight of the flying white shadow. “You’re here!”

“Indeed. I see you’re safe and sound, My Lord. That is splendid.” Gerbera looked at everyone present and squinted her red eyes. “But from the looks of it, something has happened.”

She turned back toward me, and I gave her a nod. “Yeah, I need your strength.”

The faintest glimmer of hope had appeared within this hopeless situation. This was Gerbera we were talking about. She probably hadn’t been able to sit still and wait, so she had chased us down here after the landslide. The reason it had taken her some time to reach us was presumably because of her injuries.

The wounds she had sustained in the battle against Iino hadn’t healed yet. Of her eight legs, only two remained on the left and three on the right. Gerbera had dug her talons into the ground to stabilize herself, but she’d still staggered upon landing.

It was better than not being able to move at all, but her prided mobility was effectively impaired. Nevertheless, Gerbera was my strongest servant. At the very least, the probability of retrieving Lily was far greater with her here than trying to do it on my own.

To be honest, I would’ve liked Shiran with us as well, but unfortunately she was nowhere in sight. She was probably waiting with Kei at the site of the landslide. We didn’t have the leisure to go all the way back there, though. I could tell through our mental path that Lily was getting farther away by the minute. Her presence felt more and more distant. It was possible that, before long, I wouldn’t be able to sense her anymore.

There was no way anybody could’ve predicted Takaya’s attack. Even just having Gerbera here was extremely fortunate.

“I’ll tell you what happened on the way. Follow me,” I told her.

“Mm-hm. Very well.”

So long as there was the faintest possibility, I couldn’t sit here doing nothing. I broke out into a dash as Gerbera followed in bewilderment.

“M-Master?!” Rose called out from behind, astonished.

“Don’t worry!” I yelled back, not even sparing the time to turn around. “I’ll definitely bring Lily back!”

Despite saying it myself, I knew full well how hard it would be to accomplish. However, giving up was out of the question, so my only choice was to do the best I could. I had to push myself to my very limits. Thus, I clenched my fist and ran.

◆ ◆ ◆

Lily’s abductor seemed to be heading toward the imperial border. With the mental path, I could sense Lily’s presence approaching the southeast of the Kitrus Mountains. Takaya wasn’t using the meandering mountain path. Instead, he was using his physical strength as a cheater to travel over the mountain itself.

This appeared to be a precaution against pursuit. He was being rather careful. I could tell Lily’s general location thanks to the mental path, but without it, it would have definitely been a huge ordeal just tracking him.

To put it another way, we were acting against his expectations. He probably thought that we’d take the mountain path, or that we’d be unable to track him. It would be rather hard for him to cross over the mountains while carrying Lily, meaning we had to settle things before he cleared them. We had to catch up to him somehow.

“Wait a moment, My Lord. Could you explain what’s going on already?” Gerbera said impatiently, hopping by my side.

It was only then that I remembered that I hadn’t told her anything yet.

“O-Oh. Right. Sorry. I’ll tell you now. After the landslide...”

I briefly explained everything that had happened since then.

“I see. So Lily has been taken.”

“We’re definitely getting her back. Please lend me your strength.”

“Of course,” Gerbera answered with a reliable nod. “I shall do anything I can.”

“I’m grateful for that.”

“Having said that, I’m not in great condition. I’m not sure how much use I’ll be...”

“I think you should be fine.” I forced a smile on my stiffening face and turned to Gerbera, maintaining my speed all the while. “According to Iino, Takaya can’t use magic. Even as a warrior, he isn’t supposed to be all that strong. We should be able to find an opening we can take advantage of.”

I tried to compose myself as much as possible and get a grasp of the situation. Even now, anxiety boiled in my heart, making me want to scream. Panicking would get us nowhere, though. I needed to be calm. Nothing could be accomplished if I lost my presence of mind.

“He’s got a bunch of magic items,” I continued, “but so long as we can do something about them, we should win. Well, not if I were on my own, but you’re here now. There should be plenty of ways to handle this.”

“I’m happy to hear you say that, but you know...”

Gerbera seemed to have mixed feelings about this. She looked at me with anxious red eyes.

“What?” I urged her on.

“Perhaps this is just my imagination,” Gerbera started, shaking her head and looking at me once more. “What is this Takaya’s objective in the first place?”

“To get Mizushima Miho back...right?” I was a little bewildered by her question; the answer was obvious. “Takaya was Mizushima Miho’s childhood friend. He braved the Woodlands all on his own just for her sake. She was precious to him. What else could his objective be?”

“Are you being serious, My Lord?” Gerbera said, still running by taking small leaps. “So why did Takaya attack his precious Mizushima Miho?”

“That’s...” I started, surprised by her question, “a really good point.”

Takaya had stabbed Lily through the head. Anyone else would have died from that. There were other ways he could have stopped Mizushima Miho from resisting. Actually, even that seemed strange now that I thought of it. Why would Takaya think she would resist him? There was no need for a surprise attack. He could’ve just spoken to her normally. And yet Takaya had snuck up on her and struck her from behind. Not only that, he had done so by stabbing her right through the head.

“What’s going on...?” I wondered aloud.

“Come now, My Lord,” Gerbera said, knitting her thin eyebrows together and giving me a sidelong glance. She seemed strangely serious. “That little girl just now, Sandra or something, I think?”

“Skanda. Her name is Iino Yuna.”

“Right, that. Do you remember the first thing the little girl said when she appeared before us?”

Despite the continuous chain of shocking events, it had only happened moments ago, so of course I remembered.

“She asked us, ‘Did you feed Mizushima to the monster you’re manipulating,’ right?”

Gerbera nodded. “Exactly. That little girl already knew Lily’s true identity. This Takaya fellow who abducted Lily was with her, wasn’t he? That means we can assume he knew as well.”

Now that she mentioned it, that made a lot of sense. Takaya’s actions fit in line with him knowing of Lily’s identity beforehand. The manashackles he had on him wouldn’t work on an unwilling target. Unlike Mizushima Miho, rendering a monster like Lily unconscious required issuing major damage. To that end, the best approach was to strike at her mimicked cranium. It seemed rather crude at first glance, but it was the most efficient way of binding her.

“But there’s still something strange about this,” Gerbera continued. “He knew Lily was a monster borrowing Mizushima Miho’s form, yet still abducted her. This part doesn’t make any sense.”

“Even disregarding that... He was calling her Miho. He also said, ‘I’ll protect you properly this time.’ It didn’t look like an act to me.”

What was going on? He wouldn’t have said that if he knew it wasn’t actually Mizushima Miho before him. But if it had been her, he wouldn’t have secured her in such a violent way.

“Maybe...”

I suddenly thought of a possibility and grimaced.

“I finally got you back, Miho.”

I recalled his voice. It had been the very definition of naive innocence. In contrast, his actions had been ruthless. I had felt the malice from the aberrant look in his eyes.

“Takaya might’ve lost it...”

It was a little late, but that was my conclusion.

“Lost what?”

“His mind. Takaya Jun was in love with his childhood friend Mizushima Miho. That’s why he was so desperate to save her no matter what. And then he lost her. It’s understandable he’d go insane from that.”

A chill ran down my spine as I spoke. An image I didn’t want to see came to mind, of someone more important than myself—a girl precious and dear to me. That was how I viewed Lily and how Takaya viewed Mizushima Miho. That was why I could easily picture it. If I were to lose Lily, could I retain my sanity? I panicked and brought my thoughts to an immediate halt. I couldn’t think of that in this situation. Doing so might lead to it actually happening.

“I see,” Gerbera said. “So this Takaya fellow may no longer be able to distinguish between Mizushima Miho and Lily. But is that not a cause for relief?”

“Huh...?” Her words brought me back to my senses. “What?”

“Keep it together, My Lord. Are you all right?”

“Y-Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine. What do you mean by ‘relief’?”

“You fear that Takaya will find out that Lily isn’t Mizushima Miho and cause her harm, correct?” Though she seemed kind of puzzled, Gerbera suddenly looked at me comfortingly. “But that possibility is gone now, isn’t it? Takaya already knew Lily’s identity when he abducted her.”

“Y-Yeah...”

When she put it like that, it did seem true. But I still didn’t feel any relief from it. Logic rarely conquered such emotions.

“You have a point,” I replied with a small nod.

We ended our conversation there and proceeded in silence. I could see the sun flickering in the corner of my vision. Dusk was approaching. I felt a prickling on the back of my neck. How much time had passed since Lily had been abducted? How much distance had we managed to make up? Were they actually getting farther away from us? Things kept racing through my mind that I couldn’t do anything about.

“Hm?” I murmured, only realizing that Gerbera had been examining me after several minutes of silence. “Something wrong?”

“My Lord...”

Gerbera dug her talons into the ground, skidding to a sudden stop. I followed suit and stopped too.

“Ah!”

I lost my balance, pitching forward and nearly falling over. I tried to right myself and stop myself from falling, but I failed. One of my hands slammed against the ground. A shiver of pain ran up my arm. I had nearly sprained my wrist.

“Haah... Haah...”

I realized my breathing was ragged. My heart pounded in my chest. A dizzy spell assaulted me as I stood back up. I shook it off and turned around.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Gerbera stood behind me. Clouds of dust were coming up from where she had dug her talons into the ground. Her long hair was covering her face because of the sudden halt in momentum, hiding her expression.

“I take it back,” Gerbera muttered. “It seems this isn’t my imagination at all.”