Chapter 2 – The Thunder God Subjugates the Foreign Tribe
The carriage rattled and swayed.
We were traveling through the mountains now, and, of course, it was to deal with the foreign tribe. By Svetlana’s account, a fort somewhere near here, where the border patrol was garrisoned, was due to be raided by the tribe before long. Good odds, she’d said, that the Scarlet of Hades would turn up there.
“The foreign tribe, though…”
The memory’s still fresh: during the coup that broke out a while back, my father this time around, the former Duke Alcott, was the one who’d drawn the foreign tribe up from the south into the royal capital. And, to wander off the point a little, there’s a proper reason the tribe makes its living by raiding and other rough trades.
The thing is, the land within their sphere is mostly barren. Strictly speaking, it belongs to no nation at all. Or, more precisely, “land every nation has abandoned” is closer to the sense of it. The foreign tribe’s origins, they say, lie in criminals and bounty-marked men who could no longer stay in any country, gathering on stateless ground, banding together, and setting up in the bandit trade. It predates Sasha’s birth, so that’s a history of more than twelve hundred years, a thorough nuisance, all told.
And now we’re barreling straight through that tribe’s territory toward the fort, which is our present situation. Ordinarily this would be a reckless, life-forfeiting move. But there’s a sound reason we’re doing it.
That aside, I was sitting in the rear bed of the carriage, facing Merlin.
“You said Svetlana keeps studying magic. Just how good is she, exactly?”
“Well… better than me, I’d say.”
“She’s mastered higher-order magic than you have?”
Dragonkin don’t strike me as spellcasters, so it’s a hard thing to swallow on the spot. Merlin, looking flustered, corrected herself.
“In pure technical skill I’m the better. She and I have put in different amounts of practice, after all. But she is of the Dragon Emperor’s bloodline.”
“…Hm?”
“For a dragonkin to have trained up to high-order sorcery at all is a thing to shake heaven and earth. It seems the god of fortune took an interest in a dragon’s little diversion, and something about it caught his fancy…”
“Meaning?”
“When a dragonkin goes all out, they take dragon form, but she stays in human shape. On the back of the dragons’ bottomless magic power, she pours out a relentless barrage of Level 8 spells. She throws away defensive magic altogether and covers herself with her own draconic battle-aura instead. That said, her raw power as a dragon is apparently the weakest in her clan…”
“Merlin? That’s… all but unbeatable, isn’t it?”
“Yes. An impregnable fixed gun-battery. Nothing but a ceaseless offensive barrage of Level 8 magic.”
An unpleasant sweat prickled cold down my back. I turned it over for a while, but no first-sight answer to her came to mind. In fact, thinking it through only made it look worse. We have to spend part of our resources, and our formula-building speed, on defense, while she goes all in on attack and stands up a near-absolute defense on a separate track besides. “An impregnable fixed gun-battery” is exactly the phrase for it, and I couldn’t readily see a way through.
“She’s likely the peak of the dragonkin’s fighting strength. There are even those who call her the Dragon Sorcerer Emperor now… or rather, Sasha-sama does.”
“…Sasha granted her the title of Emperor?”
I swallowed hard. It meant, after all, that Sasha himself had recognized her as an equal of us Four Emperors. It’s rather different from being a disciple, but Svetlana’s growth makes me plainly glad, and I’d love a bout with her someday. My chest was pounding with the thrill of a new powerhouse to hear about, and I gave a wry smile, still, always and forever, the child who dreams of being the strongest.
And there the voices of the other three, up on the driver’s box working the horses, came drifting back. Three’s a chorus, as they say, and a bright peal of girls’ talk was carrying from the front of the carriage.
“…The only men I know are Brother and Ephthal, so if you ask me about my taste in men I honestly can’t say. If I must, then setting family aside, the one I hold in most regard is Ephthal, so pressed for my type, I could only answer that I like the pushy, take-charge, reckless sort, like Ephthal. Not that I understand romance.”
“You, the pushy sort… that man will never, ever make you happy, that taste of yours.”
“You’re the one saying that, Maria-san?!”
“Hey, Anastasia! They’ll hear you in the back!”
No, I hear you perfectly well. And what are those two thinking, talking romance with a child like Sheryl…
“Still, that one really is a piece of work, personality-wise.”
“Well, I do think Master is rather a lot to handle.”
“No mercy to his enemies, swaggering around like there’s no tomorrow… I truly can’t picture him as fifty or sixty in a past life.”
“Fifty’s generous, I think even ‘over twenty’ would be a stretch, Master. The showing-off is world-class, too.”
“How can I put it, when I heard ‘the Thunder God Emperor-sama,’ I’d imagined someone more… seasoned, more mellowed.”
“Mm. Well, he still seems to be chasing ‘strongest on the earth’ and all that, so a youthful mental age isn’t such a bad thing, I think.”
“But that solve-everything-by-force streak is, honestly, a bit much in practice.”
“And yet that’s the Master you’re fond of, Maria-san, isn’t it?”
“Th-that’s true, sure. But when you think ahead, building a household and all that, you can’t help feeling a little uneasy, can you? He’s fine because he’s invincible. But if he makes nothing but enemies, then what happens to me, or to the kids…”
“Ahh… I do think that too, a little.”
“You think it too? What do you mean?”
“Well, you see, I mean to be with Master forever, so bearing his children is naturally within the realm of what I’ve considered.”
“So you’ve given up hiding how you feel about Ephthal, then…”
“N-n-no! It’s h-hypothetical, hypothetical! I mean, if Master were to want me for his bedmate, as his slave, that’s all. Personally, I’d never dare hold romantic feelings for Master, it would be far too presumptuous…”
“…You’re really not going to admit it, are you.”
“Whatever could you mean?”
“And you say ‘bedmate’ so lightly, do you actually understand what that involves?”
“Well, I’ve been through all sorts, in the old days.”
“’All sorts’ meaning?”
“Back when I walked the shadow trades, I got a full course of training, and there was even a stint apprenticing at a brothel.”
“Eh?! You’re serious?!”
“Though it was only ever tagging along with my sister. Practice was on things like a phallus… and what I was actually taught was just the handwork, and of course I never took a single customer. So, that’s the way of it, I’ve had lessons from professionals, so I’m quite confident.”
“You really… are a woman full of surprises.”
“Fufu. I get told that a lot.”
“In any case, when Ephthal gets too reckless… it does put me in a bit of a spot too.”
“But that’s the very part of him you like, isn’t it?”
“Well, I mean… yeah, it is.”
Listening to all that, I let out a sigh. It’s just… how do I put it.
—Am I honestly bad enough to earn a roasting like that?
I’ll grant I’ve a faint idea of what they mean. Counting my past life I’m at grandpa age, and counting the life before that I’m the age of some great elder. So, no, I can’t deny there’s an excess of raising hell for a man my years… ah, there goes a sigh.
It seems even the Thunder God Emperor can be got down a little. As for Merlin, she was biting her lip with tremendous force, fighting to hold in a laugh.
“Even the great Thunder God Emperor… is quite undone in the hands of a few young girls.”
“Well, it’s precisely because I know they’ve got a point. But once my temper hits its boiling point, I’ve never been able to help myself, from the old days.”
“But I like that about you, Ephthal-sama, now as much as then.”
“Meaning?”
“When you’re angry, you’re angry all the way. Whatever you can’t abide, you blast flat by force. In your case the motive is a sense of justice, so I like it. And as for why ordinary people don’t do the same…”
“Why others don’t, you mean?”
“Because they haven’t the power. To put it Sasha-sama’s way, the power to drive your will through, to make others accept it, to compel them. But you, Ephthal-sama, worked harder than anyone and won that power, the privilege of a strength without equal. And so—”
Merlin threw out her chest, proud, and said it.
“I think my master should wield the strength he’s honed to the utmost exactly as he always has, by his own convictions and his own sense of right. For that is the very Ephthal-sama I look up to and hold dear.”
“…It’s a strange thing, but when you say it, Merlin, I actually start to believe it.”
And there Merlin, seeming to notice something, made to stand, shifted her gaze to the front of the carriage, shook her head, and sat back down. Why she’d started to rise, I could guess. Why she’d sat back down, I couldn’t. So, no help for it, I made to stand in her place, and a voice reached me.
“Three of them have already gone out to meet the attack, so there’s no need for concern.”
“That much I know. But Anastasia and the others are students, you realize. I’ll grant they’re passably capable, but real combat, on their own, is still too soon for those girls.”
“Ephthal-sama? Are you not being a touch overprotective?”
“Overprotective? When we’re surrounded by the foreign tribe, a pack of bloodthirsty bandits?”
“Yes, I would call it overprotective. Though in your case, Ephthal-sama, your baselines are all skewed in various ways, so perhaps that’s only to be expected…”
And there the voices of the tribesmen came in from outside.
“Prime women!”
“Aye, all kids, but they’ll fetch a good price!”
“Boss! These ones are armed, looks like they mean to fight!”
“Price drops, but if they resist, hack off an arm or two, no matter! Just don’t kill them!”
Bellowed filth enough to make your head spin came flying in from every side. And there was no chance Maria would sit still against scum like that.
“Excuse me, you lot? Who’s selling who, now?”
“Ho, a mouthy little elf brat, this one.”
“So, who’s selling who? I’d suggest keeping the jokes to your face.”
“Ha, well. You’ll all get sampled before you’re shipped out, you know that already. But you, you I’ll pass around good and proper.”
“Ah, so it’s not just your face that’s ugly, it’s your head too. And your character’s foul on top, truly, garbage past all saving. You disgust me.”
“Right, you lot. This brat’s off the sale list. Hack off her limbs and haul her back to the hideout cave.”
“What’ll we do with her, boss?”
“Keep her as a plaything. Heh, be a fine sight, watching how long a brat like her holds onto her sanity, limbs lopped off and toyed with till there’s nothing left.”
“The last woman didn’t last three days, mind.”
“Right, care to wager? She looks tough at the core, I say a week. Take the last woman as the mark: over or under, three days. I’ve got ten silver on four days or more!”
“I’ll take the same as before, twenty silver she breaks inside three days!”
A crew rotten in head and character both, it seemed. At this rate Maria and the others would— and, unable to bear it, I stood and came bounding down out of the carriage.
And the instant I stepped out—
“Gyaaah!”
“Gwuh!”
Anastasia’s thrown knives were burying themselves, one after another, in the tribesmen’s heads. These weren’t practice blades. They were the real thing. And, needless to say, the men sprawled with knives sprouting from their skulls like grotesque sculptures had no breath left in them.
“Gyagh!”
“Nnaaah!”
Maria’s arrows followed with the same screams, sinking likewise into the men. Anastasia and Maria alike. Every strike to the head—a headshot, one kill per motion.
And Sheryl, next, spoke up, soft and quiet.
“…Level 5: Evil Cutter.”
The whirlwind blades she loosed turned ten of the tribesmen to gobbets of meat in the blink of an eye.
“L-Level 5?!”
“H-h-hiiii!”
“Monsters!”
At that, Anastasia and Maria let fly Level 4 spells at the tribesmen, fear plain on their faces now. Both had gone with fire-attribute magic, by the look of it, and the tribesmen went flying amid the blast.
“Wh-what are these brats, what are they?!”
And so the remaining tribesmen bolted like startled hares, and I was left standing there, dumbstruck, on the spot.
“Ephthal-sama?”
“What is it, Merlin?”
“Your words earlier… the three being ‘passably capable students’, that is passably capable by the standards of four hundred years ago.”
“…”
“My academy, for all its faults, is where the truly capable of the present world gather. Which means that, by the measure of this era, those three are already more than strong enough. In adventurers’-guild terms, B to A rank, I should think.”
At that, I sighed. Well, weighing everything I’ve seen so far, I take the point, and it’s likely true. But those three, adventurer rank B to A… This era really has grown too weak, in every sense. Still, I suppose it’s about time I adapted to the common sense of the age.
“Well, there it is, Ephthal. Maybe it’s time you stopped treating us like small fry?”
Hearing that, I raised my palm high overhead—
“Level 7: Sagittarius.”
The ten arrows of light I loosed flew off to a point some two hundred meters up and shot down a gargoyle, and the beast-tamer riding it. A tribe beast-tamer, no doubt, but Maria hadn’t noticed the one aiming at us from on high with arrows.
“That’s why I keep telling you, it’s dangerous.”
“…Guh.”
No comeback left. I know the phrase. But she was the first child I’d met to actually say “guh” out loud, and I couldn’t help laughing.
At any rate, Anastasia and the others are short on real combat experience. There are absolutely things that training alone can’t teach, so part of the point here is to have them build some against the foreign tribe. I can’t keep them under a protective wing forever, but at the least I have to let them earn the experience.
“All right. Shall we make for the fort, then.”
⁂
A few days later, we were taking lunch on the terrace of a mountain teahouse.
“Looks like we’ll finally get a proper meal, Ephthal.”
“I was thoroughly sick of dried meat and hard bread myself, Master.”
“…I don’t mind either way.”
Well, Sheryl’s got no palate to speak of. And so it was a real, honest meal for the first time in ages. Getting this far, mind you, had meant wading through wave after wave of the foreign tribe. Anastasia and the others, having taken to heart the value of that concept called watching your surroundings, had turned the whole lot back on their own, and done it thoroughly. It was just about ideal for building real combat experience, though for my part the weakness of this era’s foreign tribe, or rather its bandits, left me genuinely deflated. At this rate the ordinary, non-magical strength of the national armies must be badly withered too, I thought, and a sigh came out.
Then again, even professional soldiers outside the mage trades use body-strengthening, that power of magic. So, thinking it over, with magic itself in decline this is perhaps only to be expected. The swordsmen I know of in this era are… Fraser nii-san, Cecilia nee-san, or maybe Principal Moria at the officers’ academy. Those people happen to belong to a wildly strong bracket, and because I’d been rating Anastasia’s and Maria’s close-quarters fighting against them, my sense of that had gone crooked as well, it seemed.
That aside, our food arrived at the table.
“Yaaay! Meat that isn’t dried!”
Eyes sparkling, Anastasia stabbed her fork into the ginger pork and took a bite.
“It’s delicious!”
Curious myself, I tried a mouthful too. Fat rich with savor spread over my tongue, and the sweet-salty seasoning suited it perfectly. It’s called ginger pork for a reason. There’s something of Japan’s buta no shōgayaki in it. The onion and broccoli fried alongside it were good too, coated in the pork fat and nicely browned. I was eating it with bread, but, well, if only there were rice, I couldn’t help thinking, which is likely the curse of a man who is, at the root, Japanese.
“You’re not eating, Maria?”
“No… meat’s a bit much for me. I can eat it, but when it’s plonked down as the whole main course… just looking at it turns my stomach.”
That’ll be the vegetarian-by-default sensibility particular to elves. “Excuse me, could we get a separate order, a salad with plenty of boiled beans?” When I put it to the mistress at the back of the shop, Maria’s face brightened.
“But the salad’s welcome, and of course I’ll eat it, still, Ephthal, I think I’ll try my best with the meat too. Because you like meat over salad, right?”
“Well, I do.”
“I want to like the same things you do, to be able to. I want to try, in that direction. That’s what I found myself thinking, just now.”
Said to me with a perfectly straight face. As I sat there struggling for a response, a loud voice reached me from the table behind.
“A Minotaur, tamed by a foreign-tribe beast-tamer, brought down? Don’t talk nonsense. It’s an S-rank threat, that thing. And there’s been no word of a tribe-subjugation party being raised lately.”
“No, I saw it with these eyes. The Minotaur, and the tribe’s corpses.”
“So you came through Hell Road, where the tribe swarms thick?”
“Aye, on a great noble’s whim. A once-in-a-lifetime delivery, they hired adventurers for escort, and wait as we might, not a single raid came. An anticlimax, all told.”
“That’s the strange part. Half a year back the tribe got active, and near here a fort was taken once, retaken now, but at that level. Even with the border patrol reinforced it’s a dire situation, they say… did you really come through Hell Road?”
“Whatever else, I saw it. The Minotaur’s corpse.”
“A Minotaur’s the sort of thing they send a knight order to put down. You mistook something for it.”
“No, listen, that was a Minotaur, sure as anything.”
“But I’ve heard nothing of the kingdom’s subjugation squads or the guild moving…”
“Then what? You saying I’m a liar?”
“Don’t get sore. I’m only calling the impossible impossible. So then, you’ll tell me there were several A-rank adventurers out in a place like this? Hell Road’s narrow, ill-suited to any large-scale haulage. For a lone merchant to hire that as escort would be wildly over the top.”
“That’s what doesn’t add up… who in the world put down a Minotaur…”
Ah, that would be us. Even I was surprised the tribe had a Minotaur in tow, I’ll admit. Anastasia and the others couldn’t handle it alone, so Merlin stepped in, and from there it was over in an instant.
“What this gentleman says is the truth.”
At the voice, there was something familiar in it. I sent an offhand glance toward the table behind.
“And you are?”
“Upper C-rank. Edwards of the Mad Flame, they’d call me.”
Oh—you again!
Come to think of it, the last time I’d met this man was at a teahouse too. Back then, if I recall, he’d had Anastasia in tow as a slave. But he’d been calling himself A-rank then, so why an odd, middling rank like upper C-rank now? Well, for the moment I’ll keep my face turned away so he doesn’t notice me. Edwards and I have a history, and it’s a nuisance.
“Hm? Edwards of the Mad Flame, wasn’t that an A-rank? What’s this about?”
The man who’d been insisting “a Minotaur’s corpse is impossible” put the question to Edwards, having landed on the same doubt as me.
“…I made a mess of things a while ago. Spent a few months locked up, and when I was released I handed the A-rank title back to the guild.”
Ah, so he did turn himself in. Though it was rather an attempted-murder sort of affair; I wouldn’t have thought a few months would see him out of a cell…
“Made a mess? What did you do?”
“As for the charge, it shames me even now… might I be spared that? Ordinarily it would have been a sentence of several years, but with my family’s pull, somehow… A great deal of money to the victim, and words in the right ears among the judiciary. I caused trouble, it seems.”
“Ho, reach into the judiciary, eh? So you’re some great noble’s son?”
“A house of some standing, let’s leave it at that. Being a third son, I’m let do as I please. To my family, a noble’s son turned adventurer is a prodigal they’ve given up on.”
“If you’re a lordling, then, should I be minding my manners?”
“No, no need. Respect your elders, so a certain boy once taught me.”
“A certain boy? Well, never mind. And why did you surrender the A-rank title?”
“A lack of ability. That’s the whole of it. Merely being able to wield the top of the Level 4 spells, I never had more than B-rank strength to begin with. I put on airs over that, a noble’s prestige and bribes. The truth is, the A-rank title was as good as bought with money and connections.”
“Hm, I can’t follow the story.”
“That a station beyond your worth only ruins you, that’s what I realized. So I’m in the middle of making a fresh start, with a new heart.”
Reformed, I suppose you’d call it. If so, that’s a happy thing for my part. That Edwards, back then, really was a piece of work.
“Whatever the case, I’ll vouch for it. That was a Minotaur’s corpse, sure enough. And from the traces of the fight, the work of several people, at that.”
“Several people, eh… now that’s something.”
Then the man thought a while and muttered, sounding truly mystified.
“But really, who on earth would do something so preposterous?”
And there, off in the distance, a band decked out in armor came into view, riding toward us. About ten of them, all mounted. They halted near the teahouse and dismounted with a great clatter, then made straight for the table behind us, every one of them.
“You look like adventurers, but I’ll ask you to come along to the border fort.”
At the words, Edwards addressed the armored man.
“To the fort? We four C-rank adventurers are in the middle of an escort commission from the guild.”
“The tribe’s grown active. A fort took a night raid only the other day, and the higher-ups are on edge.”
“I don’t follow…?”
“There’s no telling where a tribe spy might be, and the garrison captain’s gone nervy over it. Everyone bearing arms is to be brought in for questioning, is the order.”
“We have an escort commission, you understand? What of our employer? Fort or no fort nearby, this is the very edge of the tribe’s territory.”
“Pay me, and by my personal authority… I’ll not refuse to lodge your employer at the fort until the questioning’s done. Though, the most I can manage is a spare corner of the stables.”
The armored man laughed a coarse laugh, and Edwards’s employer, the merchant, let out something close to a shriek.
“That’s high-handed robbery, sir!”
“Regardless, this comes from above. It’s a state of emergency, on account of the tribe. So long as you’re in this kingdom, you’ll do as we say.”
And so, one way and another, the merchant seemed to settle things with the teahouse’s owner. He’d be staying in a spare second-floor room, it appeared, and Edwards and the rest set off for the fort. Eight of the armored band led Edwards’s group away, and the two that stayed turned to us as well.
“You heard how it stands. No exceptions for the armed. You’ll come to the fort too.”
Well, of course we would. I shrugged, and Merlin murmured a question at my ear.
“What shall we do, Ephthal-sama?”
“Let’s go along quietly here. Svetlana had word that the tribe holding the Scarlet of Hades means to raid the fort, if anything, this suits us. Merlin and I can hold the fort’s losses to a minimum.”
“But if it comes to questioning us on suspicion of being spies… that end of it may prove troublesome?”
“Well, my family’s rooted in this kingdom. Let’s meet it head-on and aboveboard. I can name the ducal house if need be, and a word or two should sort it out.”
At that Merlin nodded, and the armored man gave a smirk.
“Settled, then. You’ll come with us.”
⁂
The fort’s interrogation room.
Take the interrogation room from a crime drama and redo it in isekai flagstone, that should get the general sense across. And there the garrison captain, who looked to be in his late thirties, conducted the questioning himself.
“This crest is indeed the Thunder God Emperor’s. To think you truly are a son of the Alcott ducal house… my apologies.”
With those words, a short blade wrapped in clean cloth was placed back in my hands. It was the talisman blade Cecilia nee-san had given me as a parting gift. To think it would prove useful in a place like this. In any case, meeting it head-on had won them over after all.
“When my men reported someone claiming the ducal name, I doubted it, but I’m glad I came in person to be sure. Many of my common-born men wouldn’t know the Alcott crest.”
Across the long desk sat Captain Orgren; on our side, the five of us. My own suspicion had been cleared, it seemed, but as for the other four, I wondered.
“And what becomes of my companions?”
At that the captain shook his head hard, side to side, all perish the thought.
“I could hardly take up more of the ducal son’s companions’ time to no purpose. There’ll be no questioning them, of course.”
Truly, thank you, Cecilia nee-san. I hadn’t imagined the ducal prestige would tell this sharply. Then again, the house is reckoned one of the top three names in the kingdom, so perhaps it’s only natural.
“But truly, my apologies! My subordinate’s blunder, yet the responsibility is mine. I beg you, I beg you, of your great magnanimity, your pardon!”
Captain Orgren was bowing his head, near tears, looking about to start slamming his forehead into the desk.
Hmm, but this is rather laying it on thick, and, well… I felt for the man.
“You needn’t put yourself out this much over someone like me.”
“No, I shall put myself out!”
“That I’m the former duke’s son is true, and that I’m the current duke’s brother is true. But, well… I’m not a pure-blooded noble.”
“Hm? Not a pure-blooded noble, you say?”
“Yes. I’m the current duke’s half-brother, by a different mother.”
“Hmm… a different mother? If it’s no imposition, the details… I’d be glad to hear them.”
“I’m the child of a commoner mother and the former duke. A comfortable enough position, all told.”
And with those words, Captain Orgren’s lowered head snapped up in an instant, and he fixed me with a glare.
“Ah, you’re a commoner’s child. A bastard.”
Abruptly he clapped his hands and called back to the soldiers standing behind him.
“You there. There’s no need to treat this child with any care.”
Then, as if catching himself, he cleared his throat once, ahem.
“That may have come out badly worded. Show him some courtesy, only, the bare minimum will do.”
He shrugged, and Captain Orgren let out a sigh.
“Still, the young these days simply don’t understand the noble order. In any case, your questioning continues.”
“But you just said—”
“Strictly speaking, unlike me, you are not a noble. You’re a quasi-noble, treated a shade better than a commoner. And that only for a single generation. But, boy, don’t you think that an affront?”
“An affront, you say?”
“I am, as you see me, the head of the barony of Orgren. Seeing a true-blooded noble like myself bow his head, why did you not at once bid me stop? If that’s not an affront, what is?”
No, you were the one bowing at tremendous speed, entirely of your own accord… I gave a wry smile.
“In any case, I cannot treat you as a noble. Just as you’re treated within the Alcott ducal house itself.”
And there Captain Orgren leaned back into his chair and crossed his legs in one unhurried motion. Talk about being thoroughly looked down on. But that aside, it’s true the previous Duke Alcott had treated me exactly so. And, as the word purist attests, the great majority of nobles are inclined to despise the very existence of a bastard. This man, beyond any doubt, is no exception—
“As for how I’m treated, you’d do better to ask the current head, Fraser nii-san, or Cecilia nee-san, who serves at court. I should be recognized as family, properly.”
At my words the captain began to laugh, as though this were the finest joke.
“Ha, hahaha! What nonsense is this! There’s no chance a child born of a commoner is acknowledged as one of the house! A half-sibling. A bastard can’t so much as get an audience; that’s common knowledge. No lies, now. No lies!”
Wearing a coarse grin, the captain shifted his gaze to Merlin and Anastasia.
“And these women… demons, are they? You do know a permit’s required to walk our nation?”
On the temple of Merlin, who’d kept silent through the whole exchange, several veins had risen. Ah, this is bad, I thought. But Merlin and Anastasia meekly laid their permits down on the desk.
“Ho. Your name’s Merlin, is it.”
“…It is.”
“A grand name, though.”
“A grand name how?”
“There’s a hero of the demon race who bears such a name. The founder of our kingdom’s Alcott ducal house, the Thunder God Emperor’s own direct disciple. Ah, that reminds me: I’ve long wanted to ask one of the Alcott blood. What do you make of him, your ancestor, the Thunder God Emperor?”
Well, it’s my own self we’re talking about, so it’s an awkward one to answer.
“The previous Alcott duke was a rather odious sort. A mere descendant of the Inferior Emperor, yet he’d stroll the court throwing his weight about.”
“The Inferior Emperor… you say?”
“Just so. The Thunder God Emperor is the weakest of the Four Emperors, isn’t he? A makeweight on a wholly different plane from the other three, and treated as their equal for some reason all the same. A troublesome business.”
Ah, this is no good. Merlin was trembling, the vessels standing out all over her face, half her eyes gone to white. That she’d stayed silent until now. She’d just barely been holding on while it was the present-day Alcott house under discussion. But the instant the talk reached my previous self, her anger needle seemed to have swung clean off the dial. And there, in that hair-trigger moment before the blast, Maria whispered at my ear.
“Ephthal? You all right letting him say what he likes? This is honestly getting a bit—”
Looking over, it wasn’t only Merlin; Anastasia and Sheryl too had their brows knit. Everyone was a breath from boiling over. And, granted, being trashed this thoroughly is unpleasant even for me. As it stands it’s just insults, plain and simple. But announcing “I am the Thunder God Emperor” here would be a strange thing to do, and taking it to force would only make a mess, and amount to bullying the weak besides.
“Everyone, anger and violence are no good.”
I let out a small sigh.
“In any case, you’ll be lodging at this fort a while. Just to confirm, you’re of quasi-noble standing, correct?”
“Yes, under the system that’s how it stands.”
“A commoner adventurer would be swept up under emergency conscription, but in your case it takes the form of a request from the national army. As a quasi-noble who upholds the state… you won’t be telling me you refuse, surely?”
“I don’t follow you?”
“There’s a reason we’re gathering the armed. The truth is, the tribe are a good deal tougher than they look. We were handled roughly the other day, and requests for reinforcements to the capital go nowhere. Cases just like ours keep cropping up, and there’s no strength to spare for this place.”
“Don’t tell me, that’s why, under the pretext of questioning spies…?”
At my question, Captain Orgren grinned and gave a great nod.
“Aye, we’re mustering combatants to defend the realm. In a state of emergency, local conscription, civilians included, is permitted at the commander’s discretion.”
“But that’s a different tale, isn’t it? The story was questioning, verify a man’s identity and he’s released at once?”
“To pledge your life on the road to the fort, to speak the plain truth like a fool, and to obey it like a fool, is a fool’s work, wouldn’t you say? I simply chose the easy road.”
Well, at least where I’m concerned, if I’d been asked in good faith I’d not have been unwilling. This kingdom’s king of four hundred years ago treated me well, to begin with, it’s the very reason House Alcott put down roots here.
“And if the adventurers you’ve hauled in refuse?”
“Desertion before the enemy means prison, as a rule. A commoner has no right of refusal, none.”
The captain leaned on the word commoner.
“Ah, but as a commoner’s child, you do have the right to refuse. For whatever reason, in this kingdom a bastard of a great noble of ducal rank or above gets quasi-noble treatment. Fortunate in your parents, weren’t you, Ephthal-kun.”
Then, with a small chuckle, he went on.
“Still, quasi-noble though you may be, if you mean to put on the airs of a noble after a fashion… I’d like you to fulfill a noble’s duty first, and defend the realm.”
No, I’m not putting on any noble airs.
“…”
“Why silent? Don’t tell me you refuse? I’ll not ask you to lodge here a month or two. The raid we anticipate is the new moon the day after tomorrow, stay only that long and your duty to the state is discharged.”
“…No help for it, I suppose. Understood.”
“Mm, obedient, and rightly so. Were I in your place, I’d have nodded far, far sooner, mind. This is why the half-made things with commoner blood in them… I’ll expect you to show us a noble’s pride on the battlefield.”
Captain Orgren rose and started for the door. And there, hand on the knob, he muttered as if it had just come to him.
“It was the crack adventurers who put down the Minotaur troubling the region, those are the ones I’d thought would come up in the net, not women and children. Damn it. No sense hauling in dead weight.”
Made to sound like a private aside, but that last was said to carry, plainly on purpose. Purists really are a vile breed… no, that’s not it. In this case it’s simply that the man’s own character is rotten. And so, with the creak of the opening door, Captain Orgren took his leave.