Chapter Five: Trash and the Hakuko
The next morning, I ended up making breakfast, since the village slaves practically insisted on it. The cooking division slaves took care of all of the prep work, so all I had to do was cook the food.
“Alright, I made exactly what you asked for.”
“Yay!”
They all cheered. Sheesh . . . This must have been what people meant when they talked about kids only looking grown-up. Raphtalia had been a lot more mature by the time she was their size.
“Oh, little Naofumi! It all looks so yummy!”
“Yeah, whatever. You better not start drinking this early.”
“I won’t!”
Hmm? Sadeena and I weren’t the only ones causing a ruckus. Those voices . . . Ah, it was Fohl and Atla.
“It’s Mr. Naofumi’s cooking! I’m going to lick the plate clean!”
“Atla! No! You have better manners than that!”
I wasn’t even going to go there. I went about putting the food on the slaves’ plates, which they put on their trays and carried back to their seats. It reminded me of lunch back in elementary school. There were quite a few slaves now. That meant more helping hands, of course, but to think that three massive pots of food would disappear in a single meal . . .
“Huh? Who are you?”
There was a girl was standing next in line, waiting for me to serve her. She sure acted like she was right where she belonged, but I didn’t recognize her at all. She looked . . . 15 years old, maybe? She was a human, as far as I could tell. She looked sleepy, like she was only half awake. Her eyes were silver, and her hair was a silverish color, too. She had pale white skin, and something about her made her seem delicate. Being a human surrounded by all of the demi-human slaves made her even more conspicuous. There were soldiers from the castle here, too, but she wasn’t dressed like a soldier.
“Yeah, who is that girl?”
The slaves were looking at the unfamiliar girl and whispering.
“Raphtalia, do you know who this is?” I asked.
“No. She doesn’t appear to be a soldier,” she replied.
“Oh?” said Sadeena quizzically.
“Rafu?”
Filo came running up just then.
“Master! I’m back!”
“Hey, Filo. Are you going to eat, too?”
“Yup! I ate over at Mel-chan’s place, but I’ll eat again!”
What a pig.
“Huh? It’s the clown girl,” Filo said.
“Yes,” replied the unfamiliar girl.
Clown girl? Did I know any clown girls? Or was it a friend of Filo’s? Filo had been going out more on her own to help with peddling and other stuff. She must have met the girl that way.
“Did something happen? What are you doing heeere?” Filo asked the girl.
“Is she a friend of yours, Filo?”
“You’ve met her before, toooo, Master.”
I tried to think of someone that Filo knew, that I had met, and that looked like this sleepy-eyed girl waiting for me to feed her.
“I ha———breakfast . . .” said the girl.
Huh? All I could hear was static in the middle of her sentence. Wait. Hadn’t there been someone like that before? I could feel myself breaking out into a cold sweat.
“Who are you? Filo seems to know you, but I don’t. Answer me.”
“Huh?” she replied, confused.
The unfamiliar girl pulled a pair of scissors out and showed them to me. Umm, nope. That didn’t ring any bells. Then, right in front of my eyes, she transformed the pair of scissors into a ball of thread. Then she pulled out a familiar mask and showed it to me.
“Surely this———remember.”
“You?!”
That’s right. She was showing me the same equipment that had been used by Murder Pierrot—the freak that we had fought with Sadeena several days earlier in the underground coliseum! The Murder Pierrot in the coliseum had been wearing a mask and a weird outfit, so I didn’t recognize her at first. But there was only one person in the world that sounded like a sandstorm when they spoke!
“Murder Pierrot?! What are you doing in my village?!”
“I walked?”
“I’m not asking how you got here! And why did you say that like it was a question?!”
Was she trying to be funny? I wished she would stop it with the static already, too.
“Umm . . .”
Murder Pierrot put away the mask and ball of thread she’d used to identify herself and held her tray out to me, as if asking for food.
“Despite what it may look like, I’m not just handing out food for free.”
“Oh . . .”
She stuck her hand in her pocket, pulled something out, and . . . placed it in my hand. It was two silver pieces. Umm, I wasn’t trying to ask for money. But two silver was more than I would have expected. Thirty copper was enough to get a pretty good meal in this world. Two silver would have bought a really nice set meal—something like fancy broiled eel served over hot rice at a posh restaurant if we had been in Japan. I was going to play along with her joke and say something clever, but she just stood there staring at me, completely serious.
“Oh, fine. Whatever.”
We weren’t getting anywhere like this. I decided to just feed her and then we could talk later. I put some food on a dish and handed it to Murder Pierrot. She sat down and began eating like everything was completely normal.
“Well, well, well . . .”
Sadeena sat down next to Murder Pierrot excitedly and struck up a conversation, although Murder Pierrot was hardly even responding. It was really more like Sadeena just talking to herself.
“Just who is she, anyway?” asked Raphtalia.
“Who knows? I’ll ask her later, but we need to get the slaves fed right now.”
It didn’t look like she was going to cause any trouble, and I could tell that Sadeena was on her guard just in case she did. The slaves did seem curious, but with all of the new slaves and everything else going on, they didn’t really seem bothered by her presence. But why in the world had she come to the village?
I finished serving the food to the slaves and sat down to eat my own breakfast.
“Little Naofumi, the girl told me that her previous contract was terminated, so she’s not tied to any employer at the moment. She said she came to find out if she could work for you.”
Fighting us at the coliseum had been purely business, I guess. Running off in the middle of a fight didn’t seem like it would be good for business, but I guess that kind of thing was probably common in the mercenary business.
“I don’t need any mercenaries.”
I was already working on training the slaves to fight, and I had no desire to hire a weirdo like her.
“Really? Then let’s be friends,” the girl responded.
“You realize it seems like you’re not actually listening to anything I say, right?”
“Umm, why do you want to associate with Mr. Naofumi?” asked Raphtalia, choosing her words carefully.
“. . .”
Murder Pierrot fell silent.
“At the coliseum, you told me, ‘You have to work harder, or you’ll die.’ What did that mean, anyway?” I asked.
“——trying to help.”
I was hearing static again. What was that? It felt like talking to someone on a cell phone with really bad reception.
“What’s going on, Mr. Naofumi?”
Atla came walking over with Fohl tagging along behind. If they were done eating, they should’ve already hurried home and started getting ready to head out. We were going to the castle today to reset her brother’s level.
“It’s nothing. This girl . . . We fought against her in a tournament at the Zeltoble coliseum and now she’s here asking to be friends.”
“Oh really?”
Atla turned to face Murder Pierrot.
“I sense a transient power that is on the verge of disappearing, together with a separate, untainted power. She doesn’t seem to be a bad person, Mr. Naofumi.”
“Still . . .”
I’d felt the same when she’d shared her impression of me. Atla’s “senses” were just a bit too out there for me. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them.
“Are you refusing to tell us why?” I asked.
Murder Pierrot shook her head emphatically.
“I want to stay——the village until——the waves. I want to help you do that.”
I hadn’t realized how frustrating it would be to try to have a conversation when you could only just barely get the gist of what the other person was saying. This was beyond annoying.
“Let me ask you this, too, while we’re at it. Who are you, really? And what’s with your weapons?”
Murder Pierrot stood there thinking for a moment and then started opening and closing her mouth, but . . .
“——and——at——”
Aside from the simplest of words, all I could hear was static. I had no idea what she was saying. What was with this girl?
“Also, about our fight at the coliseum . . . Judging from what I can make out of what you’ve said, you’re . . . the holder of a vassal weapon or a seven star weapon, right?”
I wasn’t dumb. It wasn’t like I just thought her weapon was odd. It had changed shape repeatedly, and it seemed to have mysterious powers that could restrict an opponent. That kind of performance meant it almost certainly had to be a vassal weapon. The only thing was, none of the seven star heroes had a weapon like hers, according to the queen.
“I’m guessing you were trying to warn us that we could end up getting killed by invading vassal weapon holders if we didn’t get stronger—”
When I said that, Murder Pierrot started nodding her head emphatically. So I was right. Also, that meant she could understand what I was saying. I bet that was it—she’d probably snuck into this world to try to kill the holy heroes like Glass and the others had done, but now she couldn’t get back home because of the Spirit Tortoise’s barrier. Something like that.
“You seem to be under the impression that we’re weak, but I’ve used the power-up methods of all four holy heroes. I’m just in a weakened state because of a curse right now.”
Murder Pierrot shook her head. The little brat obviously wasn’t satisfied with my explanation.
“——not enough. You——more——”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever. I may not be able to explain it very well, but I know what the waves are. I know that other vassal weapon holders are trying to save their worlds by killing holy heroes.”
Murder Pierrot shook her head again.
“——destroy other worlds——even——won’t——”
The sandstorm was getting worse. It was almost pure static now. What was with her? Had she unlocked a curse series that made it impossible for her to carry on a conversation or something?
“I’m sorry, but I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
Murder Pierrot fell silent.
“What should we do, Mr. Naofumi?” asked Raphtalia.
“We can’t trust her. She could just be pretending to be an ally and end up betraying us when we least expect it.”
For all I knew, she was pretending to be a drifter to get close and wait for a chance to try to kill me. Even if she had exposed her own identity, I still couldn’t trust her.
“. . .”
Murder Pierrot just kept staring at me silently. What was this feeling? Something about her eyes reminded me of Raphtalia or Filo. It was true I didn’t detect any hostility. She showed no sign of ulterior motives. Even so, I still couldn’t trust her, and if she had no intention of fighting then there was no reason for her to come to me. She could just wait until the next wave and then go back through the rifts.
“If it’s money——accommodations——I’ll pay.”
Hmm . . . So she was offering to fight for me and even pay for her own room and board. Those were certainly favorable conditions. I knew that when something sounded too good to be true, it usually was. But the offer was still hard to refuse. But yeah, she was probably going to try to kill me in my sleep or something.
“I’m smart enough to know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you understand my words, then you understand I’m telling you to get out of my village.”
“Okay.”
Murder Pierrot looked down dejectedly. She finished eating and then stood up. Something about her reminded me of Glass, after we had settled our differences.
Another possibility I could think of was that she just wanted to get stronger and had come to this world looking for materials to power up her weapon like L’Arc and Therese had done. It wasn’t like going to another world meant she was trying to kill heroes. L’Arc had mentioned that the abilities and stat increases gained in another world could be shared between worlds, after all. And in fact, I’d retained my stat increases despite ending up back at level 1 when I first arrived in Kizuna’s world.
Murder Pierrot probably didn’t intend to kill any of the holy heroes. She had probably just gotten stuck in this world and didn’t know what to do. Still, the power on the verge of disappearing that Atla mentioned did have me a bit curious.
“. . .”
Murder Pierrot started walking away at a ridiculously slow pace while stopping to look back at me every few steps, like she was trying to stall or something. Was she hoping I would stop her? I just stood there silently, glaring at her, and she just kept doing the same thing over and over. She would turn around and start walking again, and then stop and look back again.
“Umm . . . Mr. Naofumi . . .”
“Ignore her. She’s just hoping that I’ll stop her.”
“If you can tell that’s what she wants, then why not stop her, little Naofumi? You do realize how strong she is, right?”
“Strong enough that she might actually be able to kill me in my sleep. I can’t trust her.”
“Aww . . . That’s too bad.”
Murder Pierrot stopped and looked back again.
“I’m not going to stop you, so just give up already.”
This was getting a bit awkward. Considering what was coming, it might have been a good idea to keep her around. We could always just kill her if she tried anything. But that wasn’t a chance I could take in my current state. Murder Pierrot continued walking slowly while glancing back at me every now and then, all the way to the edge of the village.
“Get out already!”
Once she had finally left the village, I started cleaning up the dining hall. Apparently something had been bothering Raphtalia.
“Umm . . . How did Murder Pierrot get here?”
“She said she walked, but she probably used some kind of portal.”
“Wouldn’t that mean she’d been here before?”
That was a good question. I should have asked her. Actually . . . I had been so focused on kicking her out that I didn’t even think to find out what she knew about fighting against other heroes. Now I was regretting not asking her more while she had still been interested in being friends.
“Should we go after her?” asked Raphtalia.
“That would be like falling for the enemy’s trap. We’re letting her go unharmed because she doesn’t seem to be interested in fighting. But I’m not prepared to let my guard down.”
It may not have seemed like it, but I was being plenty lax already. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if she had wanted to kill me. Honestly, I was a bit worried about what might happen if she ran across any of the other three heroes. We needed to find them and get them somewhere safe as soon as possible. They might very well end up dead if they were forced to fight against someone like Murder Pierrot.
We had finished eating, so it was time to take care of the day’s business.
“I guess we’ll start by heading to the Melromarc castle. It’s been a while. Raphtalia, Fohl, and Sadeena . . . You’re coming with me. We’re going to do the level resets we talked about yesterday.”
“I would like to go, too, Mr. Naofumi.”
“Okay, you’re coming, too, Atla.”
It was probably a good idea to take Atla along with us. Fohl would probably start causing trouble if I tried to leave her behind. Filo had gone back to hang out with Melty again after she finished eating. Raph-chan had taken it upon herself to help Rishia and the villagers with whatever they were doing. I would have been more than happy to take Raph-chan along, but whatever.
“Portal Shield!”
I used my portal skill to teleport us to the Melromarc castle. When we arrived, Sadeena looked over and commented on the mountains on top of the Spirit Tortoise’s back, which were visible from the castle.
“Wow . . . It’s been a long time since I came this way. Things seem pretty crazy outside the castle town gates.”
“So you’ve been here before?”
“I am a citizen of Melromarc, you know.”
Sadeena was still looking at the Spirit Tortoise mountains as she replied. As for the rest of the Spirit Tortoise . . . Oh? Looking closely, I could see that many of the trees had been cleared away. The reclamation of the land was coming along nicely. Humans sure were a hardy bunch. Disaster had struck, but everyone was working hard to bounce back.
“Where to now?” asked Sadeena.
“We’ll go talk to the queen first. We didn’t tell anyone we were coming, so they’ll probably need some time to make preparations.”
It made sense to go see the queen. Unlike class-ups, level resets were probably relatively uncommon, after all.
“Into the castle, then? I’ve seen the Melromarc castle from the outside like this plenty of times, but I’ve never actually stepped foot inside.”
I guess it would be rare for demi-humans or therianthropes to see the inside of a castle in a human-supremacist country.
“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. Although, we are in the courtyard right now.”
“I’ve been here many times, now, but the size of the castle never fails to amaze me,” Raphtalia remarked.
“It’s about the same size as L’Arc’s castle. But this isn’t a very good place for demi-humans to be.”
“You’re right. I’m on friendly terms with some of the people here, but it’s still uncomfortable.”
“I can imagine,” replied Sadeena.
Several of the castle soldiers noticed us and saluted, but they looked slightly disconcerted when they saw Sadeena. She was in her therianthrope form, which was normal for her, but I guess it only made sense that we would get some confused looks. But then again, they had invited all the adventures to the celebrations after we defeated the last wave. Hmm . . . Actually, I hadn’t really seen many demi-humans there. I guess being a demi-human in this country was hard in more ways than one. I’d started to forget that. It was only the queen that didn’t discriminate. The racism was deeply ingrained in the citizens themselves.
“Alright, then. I wonder where the queen is right now.”
She was probably staring at paperwork in that office of hers, like always. I asked a castle servant where the queen was. Apparently she had already been informed of our arrival and was headed out to meet us. We could just wait for her to come to us, then. Relaxing in the castle courtyard didn’t sound bad to me.
“We’re going to wait here,” I announced.
“Okay. Atla, aren’t you getting exhausted from standing? Do you want to sit down?”
“I’m fine, Brother.”
Crash! It sounded like something had fallen over behind us. I turned around to see Trash staring at us with his mouth hanging open like a fool.
“The . . .”
So he was still around, huh? More importantly . . . why was he half-naked? He was wearing nothing but underpants and a cloak. I guess he was going for the emperor’s . . . king’s new clothes look.
“What’s with the new look? Some kind of punishment? Or you lose a bet?”
A smile crept across my face. Why hadn’t they invited me to join in the fun? He even had a note stuck to his back that said, “I’m doing a lap around the castle grounds as punishment. Do not assist me in any way, no matter what I say.” The note was signed by the queen at the bottom. What had he done this time?
“The Shield finally shows his true colors!”
He pointed at me and started shouting.
“Come! Everyone! After the Shield! We must wipe the Shield Demon off the face of the earth!”
Trash grabbed the note and started running toward us. Several nearby castle guards blocked his path despite being clearly dumbfounded, and then restrained him.
“Let go! The Shield! The Shield has infiltrated the castle along with those hakuko! Bastards! Out of my way! Or else I can’t kill the Shield!”
I’d heard that there was bad blood between Trash and the hakuko, but this was an impressive show of rage even for him. And that last line of his was almost identical to a quote famous with otaku back in Japan.
“Huh?”
Atla turned around.
“Err . . .”
Trash had been stomping his feet violently, but he began to lose steam and then stopped completely. And then . . . What was going on? He was just standing there with a really strange look on his face. I couldn’t tell whether he wanted to smile or cry.
“Huh? Brother? Why are there two of you?”
Atla looked back and forth between Fohl and Trash.
“What are you talking about, Atla?”
How in the world had Atla managed to mistake Trash for Fohl, of all people? And when they were both right there in front of her? I guess they did share a tendency to be rather annoying, but otherwise they could hardly be more different. I mean, their ages and physical builds . . . umm, were irrelevant since Atla was blind, I guess.
“. . .”
Trash regained his composure, turned around, and hobbled back in the direction from which he had come, as if he’d lost any desire to confront us.
“Hey!” I shouted.
It was as if Trash couldn’t hear me at all. What in the world was going on?
“What happened? He looked like the empty shell of a person,” said Raphtalia.
“He looked really surprised when he saw little Atla,” Sadeena commented.
“Yeah.”
Had he seen something ominous in Atla’s face or something?
“What was all the commotion about?” asked the queen.
Having heard all of the shouting, she’d finally showed up several minutes later. I told her about how Trash had started raving when he saw Fohl, only to up and leave as soon as he saw Atla’s face.
“I see . . . So that’s what the noise was.”
“Any idea what that was about? I’ve never seen Trash act like that before.”
“Miss Atla, was it? Let me take a look at your face.”
“Of course.”
Atla stepped forward so that the queen could see her better.
“Ah, now I understand.”
“You do?”
“It’s a long story, but I’d be happy to explain if you have the time.”
“Hmm . . . I do have better things to do, but I’m curious after seeing Trash like that.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll skip the finer details.”
The queen began to explain why Trash had calmed down when he saw Atla.
“Lüge—the Staff Hero—had a sister much younger than himself who was blind. Her name was Lucia.”
Why was she making a point of not calling him Trash? I guess it didn’t matter. But . . . little sister?
“There were a number of issues that made Lüge’s birth rather complicated.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. His full name is Lüge Lansarz Faubrey. He was born as the thirtieth heir to the throne of Faubrey.”
“Faubrey is this world’s most powerful country, right? And he was the prince?”
“The youngest prince, but yes. However, there was an incident that prompted him to relinquish his right to the throne. That incident was the murder of his parents and everyone he loved by the hakuko.”
It sounded like Trash’s life had been one hell of a roller coaster. But now I understood why he seemed to detest Fohl—a hakuko—so much.
“Fortunately, Lüge and his younger sister had been away at the time, which is why they weren’t killed in the incident. However, for political reasons, Faubrey made no attempt to hold Siltvelt accountable. As a result, Lüge developed an intense hatred for both Faubrey and Siltvelt. He changed his last name and moved to Melromarc, a country hostile toward the demi-humans.”
The queen shifted the subject for a moment before delving into the bloody details of Trash’s personal feud.
“Lüge concealed the fact that he was royalty and established an impressive track record for himself as both a soldier and officer of Melromarc’s military at a time when the country was constantly at war. He was eventually chosen to wield the seven star staff and went on to make a name for himself as a hero.”
It was a picture-perfect story of self-made success. I started to feel a bit jealous. But then . . . a slight look of distress came across the queen’s face.
“When I was still young, it was that very cleverness and strength of his that stole my heart.”
“I’m not interested in that lovey-dovey stuff. Get back to the explanation.”
“Just as things had begun to go his way, Lüge’s blind young sister, who he loved dearly, was attacked by a hakuko and . . . presumed dead due to the bloody scene of carnage left behind. But her body was never found. More than ever, Lüge was consumed by a desire for revenge, pushing him to finally confront and overthrow the king of Siltvelt, who was a hakuko.”
“And? What does that have to do with his reaction earlier?”
I already had a good idea of what the answer was going to be. More than likely—
“Just as you suspect, Atla is the spitting image of Lüge’s beloved younger sister, Lucia.”
“I knew it.”
“Yes.”
This was just conjecture, but the following possibility came to mind. Trash’s beloved younger sister didn’t actually die. Instead, she was taken back to Siltvelt as a plaything and raped by the hakuko, which is how Fohl and Atla were conceived. But there were several problems with that theory. For example, why wouldn’t they have used her as a hostage? Maybe the younger sister and the hakuko were secretly in love, like some kind of soap opera or something.
I had no idea what had actually happened, but the fact that Atla mistook Trash for Fohl probably meant that there was some kind of blood ties that she had sensed. Now that I thought about it, I remembered Fohl mentioning having had a sizable amount of money devoted to Atla’s treatment.
“It all seems a little . . . too convenient to be true,” said Raphtalia.
“Oh? What about how you and little Naofumi met? Does that not seem too convenient to be true? It sure does to me,” Sadeena interjected.
“Well . . . I guess it does, but still . . .”
Oh, come on. Surely Raphtalia and I meeting had nothing to do with fate or anything like that. Sadeena just associated me with destiny because I couldn’t get drunk on this world’s alcohol.
“Fohl. Atla. Are you two half human?” I asked.
“Who knows? I was too young at the time to remember anything before our parents died. Brother would know more, I think.”
“All I know is that our grandfather was supposedly really impressive. We were told to never mention our last name, and our parents died in some war when I was still young, so I don’t really remember much. I’m pretty sure they had been well-off, though. We had servants and other helpers, too.”
“Did one of the servants run off with all of the money or something?”
This world was full of worthless people. They must have fell victim to one of those people and that’s how they ended up as slaves.
“Nothing like that. Once we couldn’t afford to pay for Atla’s treatment anymore, we divided up the family assets among the servants and said our goodbyes.”
So they were bankrupted by Atla’s medical fees. And they even had loyal servants. They had gotten lucky with that one.
“Your grandfather, you say?”
The queen looked at Fohl long and hard.
“Fate sure works in mysterious ways,” she finally said.
“What does that mean?” asked Fohl.
“Your last name . . . is Fayon, I assume.”
“Yeah . . . We were told to never mention it, but that’s it. How did you know?”
The queen nodded as if it all finally made sense.
“You should definitely remain by the Shield Hero’s side. Your late grandfather would be thrilled.”
“Whatever!”
Yeah . . . Fohl was a rebellious little brat. There was no way he would want to stick around with me longer than he had to.
“How do you know about my grandfather?”
“I know because that man who was causing a commotion earlier is the one who killed him.”
“Wh . . . what?!”
Ah, now it made sense. Fohl and Atla were the grandchildren of Trash’s most despised enemy, and on top of that, he had realized that Atla was the orphaned child of his precious younger sister. No wonder he had left looking like that.
“Do you know much about your grandfather?”
“All my parents told me was that he was a really impressive man. Was he the king of Siltvelt, then?”
“That’s all they told you? Perhaps I’ve said too much, then.”
“. . .”
Fohl looked like he wasn’t sure what to think. I could see how it might bother him to find out about things his parents refused to tell him in a place like this. Still, the queen was being overly dramatic. Surely he would want to know more about his roots. That’s what I thought, anyway, but it didn’t seem like either Fohl or Atla had any intention of asking the queen for more details.
“. . .”
Fohl seemed to be lost in thought.
“None of that matters! My loyalty lies with Mr. Naofumi!”
Atla obviously wasn’t interested.
“My apologies for the trouble, Mr. Iwatani. How are things going?”
The queen changed the subject.
“Things are progressing well, I guess.”
“You’re referring to the territory, I assume. I’ve heard as much. You came at just the right time.”
“Did something happen?”
“Let us address your business first. What brings you here today?”
“Oh yeah. I want to reset the levels of a couple of my slaves so that I can level them up from scratch.”
I told the queen why we had come and she happily obliged.
“Understood. I will see to it that preparations begin at once. They should be complete by the time you and your companions reach the dragon hourglass.”
“Thanks. Now, what was the news that you mentioned earlier?”
The queen opened her folding fan and covered her mouth before speaking.
“There have been sightings of the holy heroes near Melromarc recently and we’ve been able to determine where one of the heroes is likely to appear sometime in the next few days.”
“What? Seriously?”
The queen nodded.
“Yes. We think that the Spear Hero—Mr. Kitamura—will be making an appearance.”
Motoyasu, huh? Motoyasu was the last of the three that I wanted to see, but this wasn’t the time to be picky.
“We managed to locate one of the Spear Hero’s companions.”
They found one of Motoyasu’s companions? Judging from the queen’s wording, she wasn’t talking about Bitch. That meant it was one of the other two girls that ran around with him. I’d just call them Girl 1 and Girl 2. I guess that might not make it clear which I was referring to, but I didn’t know their names and I’d hardly ever talked to either one. Trying to recall anything about them was a hassle. All I remembered was that they both seemed really annoying.
“You mean a corpse?”
“No. A member of Melromarc’s nobility, who is also a father, had expressed concern about his missing daughter. But then he returned home one day to find her helping her mother run the family business, as if nothing had happened.”
What the hell?! His missing daughter had just shown up and acted as if nothing had happened? It sounded like some kind of joke.
“And that daughter is one of the other two girls in the Spear Hero’s party?” asked Raphtalia.
“If she was one of Motoyasu’s companions and it’s not Bitch, then she must be,” I replied.
“Oh? Is that a friend of yours?” quipped Sadeena.
“Hell no,” I snapped.
“Bitch sure is one heck of a name,” said Fohl.
“Heh heh heh . . .”
Fohl’s comment brought a smile to my face. That was one of my greatest achievements.
“That’s nothing to be proud of, Mr. Naofumi,” chided Raphtalia.
“It’s a glorious achievement, Mr. Naofumi. I am certain she deserved the name.”
“Atla . . . I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but your way of looking at it is questionable . . .”
Raphtalia was always so serious. I continued my conversation with the queen.
“Did you not take her into custody?”
“We did question her. I was hoping that you would meet her and try to convince her to help lure the Spear Hero out of hiding.”
Now it made sense. The queen believed that Motoyasu might try to see the girl. It was a bit of a gamble, but if it meant possibly capturing Motoyasu, then it was worth a try.
“And you think she’ll cooperate? She could betray us and leak the details to Motoyasu.”
“I already have a shadow keeping an eye on her. She seems fully compliant so far.”
“Hmm . . .”
So she was basically trying to protect herself in a plea bargain. It made sense. The girls that ran around with Motoyasu had all seemed like scum.
“Fine. After we finish the level resets, we’ll return to the village and then head out to meet her.”
“I’ll show you her location.”
The queen unfolded a map and showed us where to find Motoyasu’s companion.
“Alright, let’s get these level resets over with and get back to the village.
We have an important mission now,” I announced. “Hopefully it all works out,” said Raphtalia. “Sounds like wishful thinking to me, but whatever.” I couldn’t help but be skeptical.
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