Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 8 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The Slime and the Wolf’s Evening ~Lily’s POV~

Before dawn, while I was practicing my partial mimicry—which I still hadn’t properly mastered—I suddenly felt my concentration break. I looked around and saw everyone fast asleep.

My master was sleeping right by my side. I could feel his body heat seeping into me through his clothes. I tried touching his cheek, feeling a slightly rough texture beneath my fingers. The skin of a man, I thought. That obvious fact caused a slight pang in my heart, and there was a touch of heat to my breath.

I wanted him to look at me, and I also wanted to continue looking at his sleeping face forever. Even though I had no idea what to do with those feelings, time spent adoring him like this was one of my few diversions over the long nights.

I could hear Gerbera sleeping to our master’s other side. Ayame was curled up in my lap, sound asleep with her nose twitching about. Across the campfire, Thaddeus and Fukatsu were lying on the ground. Among all this, what caught my eye was Salvia, a little farther away, playing around with Asarina.

“Masss—ter.”

“Come now, you can’t just spring out, okay?”

Salvia was very close to being a spirit. She floated in the air, her golden-brown hair and fluttery clothes swaying about as if underwater. Asarina, currently stretching out of our master’s hand, wrapped around her voluptuous body, looking like she was truly attached to her. It was like a scene out of a painting.

“Looks like Asarina has really taken a liking to you, Salvia,” I said.

“We’re like roommates, after all,” Salvia replied with a giggle.

“Ssster!” Asarina added in agreement as Salvia stroked her head.

“It seems Asarina would like to learn glamor magic,” Salvia said. “She wants to be able to speak with our master.”

“Speak? Is that possible?” I asked, not quite getting how that would work.

“Yes. Using glamor magic, the caster can make someone see something that isn’t there and hear sounds that don’t exist. It’s an application of this technique.”

“Oh, I get it now. That’s true. Depending on its usage, it can be used for conversation, huh?”

“Right? She actually managed to speak with him in the world of the Misty Lodge. Asarina has an affinity for glamor magic, so she should be able to learn it relatively fast.”

“Hmm.”

Just then, Ayame suddenly got up. She must have heard us talking. She looked at Asarina with a shocked expression.

“K-Kuu...?”

It was hard to tell, but her face seemed to be implying, “I’ve been betrayed!” Her cute round eyes were perfect circles. And then she suddenly jumped off my lap and ran away.

“Kuuu!”

“H-Hey! Where are you going?!” I yelled, stretching out my hand.

Ayame’s tiny body vanished into the darkness of the forest as she wailed cutely. Seeing that she was no longer in sight, I lowered my hand.

“Jeez, that Ayame...”

“Shouldn’t you chase her?” Salvia asked.

I looked around. Ayame’s wailing had also woken up Gerbera, who was looking my way.

“Nope. Ayame isn’t that careless,” I said. “In fact, it’s the norm for her to wander around close by. Besides, it doesn’t look like she was just blindly charging off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Berta went that way tonight. Looks like Ayame is going after her.”

Berta had left a while ago, but Ayame could easily track her by scent. I pointed at my own nose to imply this. Salvia now looked convinced, and Gerbera closed her eyes once more.

“You know your little sisters so well,” Salvia said with a laugh, putting her hand to her mouth. “Oh, right, Lily. This is a good opportunity, so allow me to thank you.”

“What for?”

“For putting together the plan to catch up to the stray dragon.”

Just as Salvia had said, over the last two days of searching, we’d managed to find a clue regarding the stray dragon. It appeared to be injured, and it was definitely in hiding and resting somewhere around this area. It was probably trying to remain unnoticed, but keeping still made it far easier for me to track it by smell. It wouldn’t take us long to find it.

“Thank you, Lily.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t really do anything worth thanking me for. You should be thanking our master instead.”

He was the one who’d decided to help Thaddeus. Dragons and humans alike wanted to avoid any tragedy, and our master had responded to Thaddeus, Shiran, and Kei’s strong feelings on the matter. He wasn’t the type to enjoy pointless bloodshed, and he wanted to respect his promise to Salvia. However, I felt like there was more to it.

“We need to do something before it gets too bad...”

I recalled his sincere expression when he muttered those words, as if this involved him directly. In my eyes, it looked like my master wanted to avoid killing the stray dragon by any means necessary. Just maybe, he felt a special sense of empathy with Thaddeus’s clan. That was what I believed, and if so, it was likely because of the clan’s nature. In other words, they were a clan of dragons who possessed wills. They were related to the one who knew that past that Salvia had mentioned. They were also monsters with whom my master couldn’t connect the mental path. I could largely guess their true identity myself. It would be nice if my hunch was right.

I could even say I had hope. Precisely because of that, I stowed that hope deep inside me. I couldn’t start panicking. My master would fulfill his promise to Salvia in the not-too-distant future, after all.

◆ ◆ ◆

After playing with Asarina for a while, Salvia withdrew once more into our master. Some time after that, I saw a two-headed wolf approach the campfire. I’d been spending my time as always, practicing partial mimicry and gazing at my master’s sleeping face every now and then for a breather, so I was still awake.

“Oh, welcome back, Berta.”

Kudou Riku’s servant Berta was accompanying us on our journey as an escort. Now that I’d recovered, we didn’t really need her as a guard, but since she had no other orders from her master, she continued to accompany us anyway. The reason for that was because she couldn’t get in touch with Kudou right now. Kudou had told her beforehand that this could happen, though.

A situation where she couldn’t contact her master... Did that mean Kudou was so busy with something that he couldn’t deal with anything else? Thinking about what he could possibly be up to felt a little ominous. I’d tried asking Berta about it before, but she’d told me that she didn’t know. She probably wouldn’t have answered even if she had, but from what I could tell, she hadn’t been lying.

When she first started traveling with us, I’d considered trying to get information on Kudou Riku’s movements from her, but lately, I’d given up on the thought. Right now, Berta was nothing more than a kind travel companion.

“Sorry, Berta. Looks like Ayame’s been bothering you.”

The small fox was curled up on top of one of Berta’s heads. Just as I’d expected, she’d run off straight to Berta.

“Huh? Doesn’t Ayame look plumper than usual?” I asked. She didn’t look like she’d sucked in air to inflate herself, but her body looked about three times its normal size.

Berta looked at Ayame with her other head, then let out a very human sigh of exasperation.

“She simply overate...” she said.

“Aah. That’s why she got sleepy...”

She’d apparently been out stress eating. I wondered what had her so shocked that she felt a need to do so.

“We were eating a monster I hunted,” Berta explained, “and then while she was grumbling about something, she suddenly fell asleep. It was quite the shock.”

“Hah hah. She is just a child.”

“For a moment, I thought she caught some sort of strange disease.”

Berta sounded fed up, but she still walked carefully so as to not wake Ayame up. It was adorable to watch. She passed in front of me, then curled up on the ground a small distance away from everyone else. Berta was always like this.

“Hey, Berta?” I said, a gentle feeling in my heart.

“What?”

“Are you hiding something from me?”

“What’s this about?”

There was the slightest shake in her voice. It was as I thought. Berta kept her distance from us. The only exception was Ayame, who’d closed the gap between them with her carefree manner.

Among all of us, Berta was the coldest to me. According to my master, after the incident with Takaya Jun, Berta had returned to Kudou for some time. When she came back, something about her had been strange. I guessed that Kudou had figured out something related to me...or maybe to Mizushima Miho.

The fact that Berta couldn’t keep this hidden was a sign of her honest personality. It was one of her virtues, but it was also a flaw since she couldn’t keep secrets. In that sense, Kudou had made an error in judgment by sending Berta to us.

Thinking back on it, it was a little strange. Why had Kudou chosen Berta? Was there some kind of scheme behind it, or was it simple whimsy? It could also have been by process of elimination. Just the same, even if it was a mistake on Kudou’s part, it was an opportunity for us.

“Hey, Berta?” I said once more. “Your master...Kudou Riku won’t stop, will he?”

Berta had put herself on guard a little, perhaps thinking I was going to ask the same question as before, but then she opened her eyes slightly.

“Why does that concern you?” she asked.

“Hmm. He lent a hand in saving me from Takaya Jun, so there’s that too... Well, I guess it’s because he’s similar to my master.”

Kudou and my master were both mindful of each other, albeit for different reasons. Everyone around them knew it too. I also had a certain interest in Kudou.

“Kudou Riku is the Demon King born from the weak and unsightly side of humanity,” I said. “In a sense, he’s one way my master could have turned out. If Kudou can stop, I’d like him to. Above all else, that’s what my master wishes for.”

To add one other reason, I didn’t hate this awkward and caring wolf. Berta was Kudou’s servant and obeyed his commands absolutely; that was all. So far as I could tell from watching her take care of Ayame, she was very far from evil by nature. I didn’t want her to be our enemy.

At present, I hadn’t been able to get any information on what Kudou was up to, aside from this something that Berta had been keeping from me. Unfortunately, since information traveled very slowly in this world, it would be too late by the time we heard about an incident major enough for the news to reach us. We didn’t know how long this time of peace we had would last.

With those thoughts in mind, I chose my words carefully. “At this rate, Kudou Riku can’t be saved. As such—”

“Leave it at that,” Berta said, cutting me off. “You should know damn well. My king will never stop.” She looked at me with tranquil eyes. “No. Maybe he can’t stop. He can no longer live without something to hate.”

Her voice was indifferent, but the emotions behind it weren’t.

“If it were the evil in humanity that pained him back before he was a king, then things might have turned out better,” she continued. “If so, he could live by hating evil. However, what wounded him was panicking humans. It was the weakness of people cornered by the fear of death. This is something all humans possess. Hating that is equivalent to hating humanity. This is the reason he became the Demon King.”

The way Berta quietly told me this made me believe that she’d already given this exhaustive thought. I’d considered their master-servant relationship to be far more indifferent before this. Or maybe Berta was unique in this regard. What I knew for certain now was that Berta understood her master far more than I thought she did.

“My king has already started on his path. There is no means of stopping him. If he were going to be saved...then surely, it would have had to have been done before he’d started.”

“Berta...”

“Slime, I heard about it. You saved the one who is falsely similar to my king, didn’t you? If you had chanced upon my king instead, maybe things would’ve been different.” Berta’s gaze wandered through the air as her tail slowly waved about. “But you weren’t there during my king’s beginnings. Instead, it was...” A shadow fell over her, and Berta emptied her lungs in one long breath. “Or maybe...if I weren’t Berta...if I were Anton, then maybe something would’ve changed.”

I could feel a pronounced sense of powerlessness and regret in her, but I couldn’t really understand the meaning behind her words.

“What does that mean?” I asked curiously.

“It’s nothing,” Berta answered curtly. Her tail plopped down on the ground. That motion indicated that all talks on this topic were over. “In any case, just keep your mind on your own companions. Don’t forget. I’m not your damn friend or anything of the like.”

Her tone was cold now, drawing a line between herself and everyone else as she always did. Her attitude built an invisible wall between us. Still, things had gone a little differently tonight. Maybe Berta thought that she’d said too much. Voicing her opinions about her master had left her considerably shaken. If not, she would never have said one last thing.

“Either way, if you have the leisure to analyze us, you’re better off minding the problems in your own damn group,” she said bitterly.

“My group’s problems?”

Berta fell silent. It was hard to read a wolf’s expression, but there was an air about her that implied she hadn’t meant to let that slip. I didn’t know what she meant, but I couldn’t let it pass. I opened my mouth to press her for answers, but then I sensed a presence approaching us. I immediately changed gears to fulfill my role as a guard and took a look around.

“I’ve returned, Lily,” Shiran said, striding quickly toward me.

“Welcome back, Shiran. Good work out there on patrol,” I said and then shifted my focus back to Berta.

All four of her eyes were already closed. What bad timing. I could wake her up, but Berta had surely prepared herself by now to fend off any questions. So long as she clearly expressed her intent to keep silent, it didn’t seem she would let anything slip.

I sighed, then suddenly sniffed at the air. “Hm? Shiran, did you find a monster?”

“Yes... I mean, I went on patrol to find it,” she said, her expression somewhat stiff. “Do I stink of blood?”

“Just a little. You don’t need to worry about it.”

When we were all together, Rose and Shiran handled nighttime security. Every few hours, Shiran would investigate the area for any abnormalities. During those times, it fell to Rose and me to protect everyone while they slept. If we were to encounter an enemy we couldn’t deal with, we would wake up Gerbera and buy time until she could help us. Even with Rose, Katou, and Kei currently elsewhere, this process hadn’t changed.

“Are you hurt? You could’ve called us,” I said.

“I haven’t weakened that much.”

That made sense. Shiran was currently somewhere around Rose’s level. Her physical abilities had deteriorated substantially, but her swordsmanship compensated for that. There weren’t many enemies who could defeat her. One exception was that incident back in town...

As I thought of such things, I noticed Shiran’s expression stiffen a little. Sensing a presence, I looked to where Fukatsu was getting up a short distance away from us. After smoothing down his slightly disheveled hair, he let out a yawn.

“Morning, Fukatsu. You’re up early,” I said, not particularly worked up or anything.

“Yo.”

Our exchange was harmless and inoffensive, a totally commonplace greeting. My impression of Fukatsu wasn’t as bad as what I’d heard from my master and Rose. In fact, I didn’t have much of an impression of him at all. I’d heard that he’d blown a lid at our master, but ever since our journey together began, there’d been none of that. He pretty much never talked unless it was with Thaddeus. That was why I found it surprising when he struck up a conversation with me.

“Hey, Lily. I’ve got a question for you. You mind?”

“What is it?” I asked, wondering what he could possibly want.

After hesitating a little, he said, “You’re...not Mizushima Miho, right?”

“Did you know her?”

We hadn’t told Thaddeus and Fukatsu more about us than necessary. We’d never mentioned that my body was modeled after Miho. In other words, he’d known Miho before the Colony fell apart.

Miho, on the other hand, had no memories of him. Lately, she’d been shutting herself in completely—screaming sometimes when I got along with my master—but I could sense her curiosity inside me now. She wasn’t acquainted with him.

“Um, I saw her with Katou before,” he said.

“Aah... Are you maybe Katou’s classmate or something?”

Now it made sense. My master and Fukatsu didn’t poke their heads into each other’s business. At most, they were cooperating with Thaddeus as an intermediary. Consequently, even if my master could tell that they weren’t in the same grade and that Fukatsu was probably an underclassman, they didn’t really know much about each other.

“So you’re acquainted with Katou... Huh? But I don’t remember her ever saying anything about you.”

“Oh... No. I know Mitarai, Katou’s friend.”

“Oh. Mitarai.”

The image of an energetic girl came to mind. I’d heard of her before. She was called the Stalwart Snow White. Since she was Katou’s friend, Miho obviously knew her too.

“So, were you Mitarai’s classmate? Hm, that can’t be. In that case, you would’ve been in Katou’s class and known her. So...the same club?”

“No, neither. We were both at the same event right after the entrance ceremony. That astronomy thing.”

“Aah. The yearly stargazing event.”

That was the event where my master and Miho first met. Well, they hadn’t actually spoken to each other from then all the way up to getting teleported to this world. Yet Miho had spoken to my master precisely because she’d remembered that event, so perhaps it had been a relatively major incident.

At the mention of the exploration team’s Stalwart Snow White, I remembered that the Skanda Iino Yuna’s best friend, the Beast of Darkness Todoroki Miya, had also been at the event. Miho had met her there.

It had come up during our brief conversation with Iino at Fort Tilia. Miho and Iino had spoken to each other back in their world a few times too. That was because Miho had become acquainted with Todoroki during the stargazing event.

“Katou didn’t participate in the event,” Fukatsu said, “so I didn’t know her back then, but I saw her a few times with Mitarai after that.”

“Hmmm.”

Fukatsu averted his eyes for some reason. It seemed he did this every time he mentioned Katou. Huh? Is this maybe what I think it is? That thought came to mind as he turned back to me.

“But seein’ how you know about Mitarai and the stargazing event, that means you really are Mizushima Miho?”

“That’s a tough question. I’m not Mizushima Miho, but you could say I am too. I’d have to tell you a whole lot to explain the details, but it’s not like you’re telling us everything either. It’s a little troubling if I don’t talk it out with my master first.”

“I see... Right...”

He accepted this rather easily. Just guessing...maybe he really wanted to ask about Katou’s circumstances. According to Miho’s memories, Katou was rather popular with the boys. She was petite, around 150 centimeters tall, and really cute. Her personality...was quite different now, but I didn’t feel it had changed much at its core.

Fukatsu had said that they weren’t acquainted, and it didn’t seem they’d ever spoken to each other, so his feelings probably weren’t strong enough to be love, but it was likely that he had a crush on her. I suddenly felt like this was the real reason Fukatsu had formed such a terrible impression of my master when they first met.

“I owe you guys for helpin’ Thaddeus. I can’t keep actin’ like an ass forever just ’cause it’s awkward.”

Fukatsu wasn’t a bad person, and the fewer enemies we had, the better. Maybe it would be a good idea to mediate between them when my master woke up.

I turned to my master, when suddenly...

“Wha?!”

My master jolted awake and away from me, causing me to yelp.

“Wh-What? Majima, you were awake?” Fukatsu said awkwardly, thinking my master had overheard us.

However, my master remained silent.

“Master? What’s wrong?”

I immediately realized that something wasn’t right. His attention was wholly preoccupied with something else, and he stared at a single point in the forest.

“I got through...” he muttered, but he wasn’t replying to me. “I thought so... But...” he whispered as if tugging on the tiniest of threads. “This is bad...” His expression was suddenly tense. “Gerbera! Thaddeus! Get up!”

My master grabbed his nearby sword and the one piece of armor he’d removed, his bracers, and immediately stood up.

“We’re setting out right now!” he shouted, already running at full sprint.

“M-Master?!”

Our bewildered voices didn’t seem to reach him at all. He was going to disappear into the treeline any second. I had no idea what was going on, but I couldn’t just sit idle. I got up in a fluster and gave chase as Gerbera followed behind me.

At the same time, I felt like I heard a grief-stricken cry begging for help.