Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 7 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Boy in Faraway Lands ~Kaneki Mikihiko’s POV~

The sound of metal clashing against metal drummed within the depths of my ears.

“Ugh. Hghh...”

Using the two shortswords in my hands, I fended off the blade coming at me. My opponent was armed with a single longsword. It had a little more range than my weapons, meaning I was naturally forced to defend rather than strike. I wanted to close the distance between us to get into range, but my opponent was more skilled than me, so it wasn’t easy. As we continued our bout, the impact of his strikes slowly pummeled the feeling out of my hands.

“Oooooh!”

I already had no chance of winning. I knew that, but I hung in there. There were goals I couldn’t reach if I gave up now. I couldn’t protect the things most important to me unless I exerted myself to my very limit, so I grit my teeth and swung my swords.

How much time had passed already? Whenever I played games in my room, time always flew by without my realizing it. However, right here and now, it felt like a tremendous amount of time had passed in mere moments.

“Ah!”

A particularly hard blow knocked the shortsword out of my numbed hand. Armed with only one remaining weapon, I couldn’t even last a few more seconds.

“Y-You got me, Marcus,” I said, falling to my butt. I looked up at the training sword pointed at my eyes.

“That is to say the match is mine, Mikihiko?”

“I give up! I surrender! I’m done!”

He finally lowered his sword. The tension vanished from the air, and I plopped down onto my back. My other training sword tumbled from my palm, and I looked up at the ridiculously blue sky.

“Man... A genuine knight sure is strong,” I grumbled.

“Ha ha. You’ve gotten rather strong yourself.”

“Hearing that from someone I couldn’t hit even once just makes me feel worse. It’d actually be better if you gloated.”

“You’re still a hundred years too early to get one up on me. Struggle all you want.”

“From one extreme to the other?!” I screamed as I sprang back up. I was quite the sore loser, so there was no way I could keep quiet. “Goddammit! I’m not gonna lose to you, asshole!”

I psyched up my exhausted body with pure willpower, only to be met with manly laughter.

“Okay, then! How about trying a spear this time?” Marcus suggested.

“Bring it on!”

I’d managed to build up some muscle lately, so I was trying all manner of weapons, not just shortswords. I gave Marcus a motivated nod, then turned around to go get a training spear.

“Hey, Mikihiko,” he suddenly said. “Let’s give it our all.”

I paused, but I didn’t turn back around. Then I nodded and ran off.

After the survivors of Fort Tilia’s fall, myself included, went to the trade city Serrata to inform them of the fort’s defeat, Margrave Maclaurin had arrested the commander. He’d left Serrata with the commander in tow three days after I split up with Takahiro’s group. About a month had passed since then.

I’d chosen to go with the convoy escorting the commander to the north. During that time, they hadn’t allowed me to see her at all. I’d used my status as a savior to twist some arms just to be part of the convoy, so I couldn’t push them any further. I passed my days alongside the one Alliance Knight assigned to take care of me while we were all under imperial watch. They hadn’t restrained either of us, but they were definitely wary.

After the commander’s arrest, I’d escaped Serrata. Because of that, Maclaurin had failed to secure all of the Alliance Knights. More importantly, Lieutenant Shiran had gotten away. We couldn’t possibly allow her to fall into his grasp now that she was an undead monster. And honestly speaking, it felt good to stick it to the margrave.

The reason they hadn’t allowed me to meet the commander was probably because they were expecting me to break her out with the help of the missing knights. Well, I’d actually been secretly in contact with some of them, but we had no plans to break her out. That would just aggravate her situation. Regardless, Maclaurin was definitely worried about the possibility, and that was pretty much what had them on guard against us.

After a while, the provincial army caught up with us, and the commander’s excessive military escort to the north carried on. The huge group moved at a slow pace. It had taken us ten days to leave Lorenz County and enter the granary regions of the Margraviate of Maclaurin’s territory. We had then followed the northeast road to the city of Dursis, known as the southern Empire’s grain storehouse. That had taken us another several days. Currently, we were headed toward the mining town of Nourias, located in the center of the margraviate. We were following the road running parallel to the grand Aralia River and found ourselves at a travelers’ rest stop. It would take us one more week to get to Nourias, making our entire journey one month long.

They’d told me that to reach our ultimate destination, the imperial capital, it would take another month after reaching Nourias. I didn’t know how long they planned on confining the commander in the capital. The margrave’s people wouldn’t give me a single detail. They probably hated me. Well, I hated them too, so it made us even.

In any case, I doubted our stay in the capital would be short. The attack on Fort Tilia was a major incident where humanity lost one of its strongholds. They were definitely going to request a detailed account of what had happened there and how much damage had been suffered.

After that, the commander would take responsibility for its capitulation. Just as I’d told Takahiro and Shiran before we split up, execution was out of the question. The Akerian royal family was loved by its people. If their princess were to be executed for irrational reasons, it would definitely lead to war with the margraviate. The Holy Order, who fought on the battlefield alongside the saviors and maintained global order, wouldn’t allow such meaningless chaos. No matter how much the margrave hated the commander, he couldn’t sentence her to death.

That said, the weight of her punishment would be relative to the number of voices calling for her to take responsibility. That was where I would come in. The Holy Church’s headquarters was located in the imperial capital. They revered the saviors, and had to have considerable influence. Being one such savior, in name anyway, there had to be something I could do for her. If so, even if the commander was sentenced to permanent house arrest, I could at least get her back to Aker...I hoped.

“It’s gonna be a loooooong road,” I grumbled.

I had to be patient. I ran over to the manamobile that carried our luggage and grabbed a stick with a cloth wrapped around the end used for spear training.

“I wonder when Takahiro’s gonna reach Aker...” I whispered to myself.

Even if their journey was going well, they probably weren’t there yet. I’d heard that the route through the Kitrus Mountains was fairly rough. Almost no one used it these days, and it was very likely that the miserable road conditions would block off their path completely. An unexpected accident could also occur.

Still, it was pretty much guaranteed that they would reach Aker before us. By the time they forced the commander to return home, he’d be there to greet us. I had to make sure I could smile when our reunion came.

Thus, I fired myself up once more and returned to my training.