The Thank-You Party
Satou here. I was always fond of the biergarten that my coworkers would frequent after work. If all you needed was to cool off, you could always go to a regular bar with an air conditioner, but I liked the festive nighttime atmosphere of the biergarten.
“There sure are a lot of food stalls.”
“Master, I believe it’s that group over there.”
One evening, a few days after we returned from the labyrinth, we were invited to an explorers’ banquet.
It was being held in a vacant lot in a certain corner of the downtown area, somewhere between the west gate and the labyrinth army base, where there were plenty of cheap lodging houses and tenements for explorers.
The normally empty lot was lined to the edges with stands selling food and drink.
It looked like most people were buying things at the stalls, then eating and drinking in the center.
There was no bonfire or anything, but the majority of the stalls had lit-up signs that brightened the area. An Everyday Magic user must have cast some kind of lighting spell.
“It’s like a nighttime festival or a flower viewing.”
I nodded in agreement with Arisa.
“Thank you very much for inviting us today.”
“Sir Knight! Come, take the seat of honor!”
Mr. Koshin, the organizer of the night, beckoned us over. Upon greeting him, I gave him the small casks of wine and liquor I’d brought as a thank-you.
Instead of chairs and tables, people were simply sitting on the ground in a circle. Lulu and Liza had already secured an area for us to sit.
There were many other people enjoying the food and drink stalls, too: explorers, sailors, day laborers, and so on. I also caught colorful glances of scantily clad ladies and oddly alluring young men, all of whom seemed like sex workers.
I rather enjoyed the bawdy atmosphere myself, although I wasn’t sure if it was entirely appropriate to have brought the young ones.
“Now, a toast to the Pendragon party for rescuing us! Let’s drink till dawn to celebrate our safe return!”
“““Woooo!”””
We must have been the last to arrive. With Mr. Koshin’s toast, the party began.
The main menu for the evening included baskets of rye bread, some kind of grilled meat, boiled beans, and boiled potatoes. There were mountains of all of these.
Several barrels of ale were set up in the center of the circle, although the only nonalcoholic beverage around was water.
A few of the men teased Koshin for “going all out” before the party started, so this must have been a particularly lavish spread by their standards.
At the encouragement of Koshin and the other explorers, my group started to dig in as well.
No alcohol for the kids, of course.
“Tooough…”
“Mr. Meat is pretty chewy, sir.”
“Ha-ha, you’ll never bite through it that way, kids. Cut it up with a knife before you eat.”
SNAP! Just as a young explorer was admonishing her, Pochi bit right through the meat. The young man’s eyes widened.
“Maybe it’s tendon meat?”
Lulu gave me a plate of meat cut into small pieces.
It certainly was tough when I chewed it. Cooking it in a pressure cooker might soften it up a bit. The taste was a bit too strong to call delicious, but not quite gross enough to spit out.
“It’s cheap monster meat. It might not suit your tastes, Mr. Noble.”
“Although bug meat does grow on ya if ya eat it every day.”
Some female explorers noticed my expression and spoke to me about the meat, which apparently came from an insectoid monster. It was very dark before being cooked and tasted like a tougher version of animal tendon.
The specific kind of insect varied depending on the day, so the explorers called it bug meat or even just meat. It was incredibly cheap. Only a copper coin for a skewer.
The black color reminded me a bit of the grasshopper monster meat I’d eaten in the Muno Barony, though the taste and texture were a little different.
They were both gross, for sure, but at least this kind wasn’t as harsh on the palate.
Although they were also similar in that I never wanted to eat either of them again.
“When we first became explorers, we used to follow stronger parties around and harvest the leftover meat from monsters after they killed and stripped them.”
“It paid the bills, but we sure got made fun of a lot.”
This anecdote came from the same female explorers who had identified the meat for me.
Evidently, many explorers took only the most valuable parts like shells and fangs from insect monsters. As a result, there were other explorers who specialized in retrieving meat from these discarded monsters. These explorers were known as Looters and had a bad reputation.
Come to think of it, I remembered hearing something similar from the young explorers we saw gathering goblin meat in the labyrinth.
It seemed strange to me that they would be looked down upon when their work supported the livelihood of others.
“We’ll pour you a drink, young master.”
A few young explorer women, probably in their twenties, crossed the center of the circle to pour liquor into my cup.
“Thank you.”
I nodded and took a sip of the ale.
Ewww, that’s sour.
It tasted like flat, watered-down beer mixed with vinegar. But everyone around me was savoring it like it was a rare delicacy.
“Ale is so good! It’s nothing like goblin liquor!”
Goblin liquor, one of them explained, was a fermented beverage acquired from monsters in the labyrinth called “demi-goblin drunkards.”
“Have you had much to eat, young master?”
“The bug meat’s tough, but these beans and potatoes are nice and soft.”
More explorer girls appeared from behind the ones with the ale, offering me and the rest of my group more food.
The beans and potatoes were made from walking beans and hopping potatoes, so if you ate them carelessly, you could end up with paralysis or an upset stomach.
Since they were so cheap and filling, though, they were popular calorie sources for poor newbie explorers, sailors, and the like.
“Here you are, young master.”
“Thank you.”
A kindly young woman offered me some beans from a plate.
In the face of her guileless smile, I couldn’t bring myself to say No thanks—they’re gross.
Because the dark-red veins in the potatoes and beans were the source of most of the bitterness, it probably wouldn’t be too bad as long as I avoided those.
I reached into my breast pocket and produced a slim spoon from Storage to remove the veins, then scoop out and eat the rest.
I couldn’t do much about the smaller veins, so it still maintained a bit of the bitterness, but it was fairly edible.
“Wow, nobles eat so fancy…”
“Maybe I’ll try using a spoon, too?”
…Oops.
I wasn’t trying to put on airs, but for some reason it seemed to catch the attention of some of the explorers around me.
The word fancy must have struck a chord with Mia and Arisa, who produced their own spoons from their Fairy Packs and started eating the same way.
They even stuck out their pinkies on the hands holding the spoons, looking rather pleased with themselves.
At least until Arisa started choking on her fancily eaten potato.
“W-water!”
Lulu passed a cup of water to Arisa.
“Geh, yuck!”
“Oh dear, is the river water too nasty for the young lady?”
“They sell well water at the stand over there.”
The female explorers laughed at Arisa, who had spit out the water as soon as it touched her lips.
I remembered the garbage-filled state of the aqueducts.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to drink that, either.
“Master! Our next renovation project is the filtration system! I can’t bear the thought of all that unsanitary drinking water.”
At least Arisa was processing her anger in a productive way.
The cleanup we did in the plaza after our soup kitchens was already well on its way to eliminating all the garbage from the streets, so it shouldn’t be too hard to assign our volunteers to clean the aqueducts next.
Realizing we might need permission to do it, I told Arisa we would have to inquire at the government office about it first.
Mr. Koshin came over to give Arisa a pitcher of water. “Here, missy, drink from this pitcher.” He held out a bottle of wine in his other hand. “Let me pour you a drink, too, Sir Knight.”
Behind him were some scantily clad women carrying plates full of meat skewers, fried vegetables, a dish of appetizers like spring rolls, roasted tree nuts, and so on.
They appeared to be not explorers but companions Mr. Koshin had hired. Specifically of the nighttime variety.
“Hey, Koshin! What about us, huh?”
“You guys eat your potatoes and meat! This food’s made special for the folks who saved our lives.”
When Koshin shouted at a rowdy explorer, the others around them guffawed heartily.
I guess they had kindly saved some slightly fancier food for us.
“Sorry, Sir Knight. These guys are all about quantity over quality. You might find this stuff a bit more to your liking.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t have to get anything special for us.”
“Nah, no big deal. ’S the least we could do.” Sitting down across from me, Koshin smiled humbly and bowed his head. “We really do owe you a huge debt of gratitude, Sir Knight. If you all hadn’t come along, I don’t think most of these guys woulda made it back.”
He had already thanked me countless times, but it still didn’t seem to be enough for him.
As we drank together, I asked him to tell me some of his exploring stories. According to him, this most recent venture wasn’t his first time heading deep into the labyrinth with multiple parties.
“ ’S not that unusual for someone to mess up and get hurt or worse, but…”
Most of these expeditions were made with all-male or all-female parties, but since Koshin accepted anyone, they sometimes ran into trouble.
“The last time we were in that much danger was when we got caught in a chain rampage caused by plunderers.”
“A man-made chain rampage?”
Now that he mentioned it, I did remember that incident when plunderers created a chain rampage and nearly wiped out the labyrinth army.
“Yeah. Plunderers sacrifice slaves or new recruits to run ahead and bait monsters into a chain rampage. The ones who don’t run fast enough get eaten by the monsters.”
That level of cruelty was typical of plunderers.
“Wooow, sir.”
“Whoa, Nellyyy?”
I was starting to get angry, but the cheers of Pochi, Tama, and some other explorers successfully distracted me.
In the center of the circle, a big bearfolk man was hoisting a green fairyfolk man over his head and spinning him around like a ball.
What’s so impressive about that?
As I looked on in confusion, the fairyfolk man suddenly jumped nearly ten feet in the air, eliciting another chorus of cheers.
It wasn’t just the bearfolk man’s “Super Strength” skill. The fairyfolk man had jumped up in perfect time with the bearfolk man’s toss to achieve that kind of height.
“Those guys are explorers who used to be traveling performers,” Koshin explained.
“What an interesting career path.”
“Let’s tryyy?”
“I want to try, too, sir.”
Tama and Pochi looked to me for permission.
“Just be careful and don’t hurt yourselves.”
“Aye-aye!”
“Yes, sir.”
Tama and Pochi saluted, then ran into the middle of the circle.
I signaled to Liza and Nana to be on alert in case of an emergency.
Of course, I also had my Magic Hand on standby, but that was a last resort.
“Pochiii!”
“Tamaaa, sir!”
Tama was the base, while Pochi was to be the ball.
They were spinning a little too fast, though.
“Ready, seeet…?”
“Go, sir!”
Pochi’s eyes spun as she went sailing into next week.
“Watch out!”
Pochi nearly went flying out of the circle, but Liza jumped up to catch her.
Since she caught her by the ankle, though, Pochi smacked face-first into the ground as soon as Liza landed.
“Ouchie, sir.”
“I’m sorry, Pochi. That was my mistake.”
“It’s no big deal, sir.”
Brushing away the dirt on her face, Pochi grinned broadly.
“Okaaay?”
“Nosebleed.”
Mia used lesser Healing Magic on Pochi.
“Must be nice having a mage around.”
“It takes a hell of a donation to get a priest who can use Holy Magic into your party, though, right?”
“Yeah, I hear it’ll cost ya an arm and a leg.”
The explorers chatted enviously among themselves.
“Whaaat? Why not use potions, then?”
“Sure, if you could afford to buy cheap ones at the guild all the time.”
“The potion shops are crazy expensive, and the ones you can buy on the street don’t really work.”
“Yeah, ’cause most of them are expired or made by untrained alchemists.”
“But it’s stressful not having one on you at all, y’know?”
“Right. You’d be in real trouble if a strong monster showed up in your hunting grounds, then.”
Magic potions tended to be expensive and didn’t last long, so they were an expensive emergency item for newbie adventurers.
“Y’know how the garnet-badge explorer Kumuli and the Beetle Breaker Margill both retired ’cause of injuries? Well, I heard it happened ’cause they ran outta potions and weren’t able to heal up in time.”
“Oh geez. Even a garnet?”
“But wasn’t it ’cause they kept hunting even though they used up all their potions?”
“Guess they reaped what they sowed, then.”
From the sound of things, explorers who didn’t take safety precautions risked losing their reputations.
Many retired explorers seemed to end up out on the streets, too.
“So you should always save the last one just in case, huh?” I commented.
“Oh, I wish. But I never have any potions on me in the first place!”
“I know, right? They’re way too expensive.”
The newbie explorers sighed in response.
“Rumor has it that the potion shops get away with overcharging because they’ve got some nasty noble behind them.”
“Yeah, some bastard named Dyukeli, right?”
“Ugh, I hope that guy drops dead, y’know?”
“Yeah right. Even if he did, someone else would just take his place.”
The explorers grumbled about Baronet Dyukeli.
I’d once heard similar rumors from some explorers at a bar. Baronet Dyukeli did have a vested interest in the fields of potions and magic tools, so maybe there was some truth to it.
“Y’know, weapons and armor have been going up in price lately. Think it’s the same kind of thing?”
“Have they?”
“The cheap stuff’s still the same, but now there’s pricy stuff like Antwing Silver Swords and Mantis Swords out there, too.”
“For real? Man, my goal just keeps getting further away…”
“You can’t say that when you haven’t even bought a real weapon yet, idiot.”
The explorers stopped their complaining to tease a youngster, then burst out laughing.
They were probably so drunk that everything seemed funny to them.
“Ohhhh damn!”
“Whoa, you for real?”
In the middle of the circle, Tama and Pochi had succeeded at their performance this time.
And since leveling up had made them that much stronger, they got twice the height of the previous performers, even without using “Body Strengthening.”
“It’s exactly like the twins’ finishing move from Wing Captain.”
“What was it, Love-Love Tornado?”
“Bzzzt! Nope, it was Sky-Sky Typhoon.”
I did vaguely remember the soccer manga Arisa was referring to, but it had been so long since I’d read it that I got the moves mixed up.
“…A finishing move, you say?”
“A cooperative move might be a wise idea, I propose.”
Liza and Nana took things in a different direction.
But in a world with a level system, maybe re-creating manga and anime moves might actually be pretty doable.
“Sir Koshin, care for a song?”
“Ooh, a minstrel, are ya? Give us a lively one, please.”
Holding a lute in one hand, the minstrel accepted a large copper coin from Koshin and went into the center of the circle.
“Now, if you’ll lend me your ear…”
Removing his wide-rimmed cap and bowing, the minstrel strummed the lute.
“ ’Twas a pale moon that rose that night…”
His song was about our battle with the demon Ludaman from a few days prior.
It focused mostly on General Erthal, the guildmaster, and Miss Sebelkeya, but it did mention me in phrases like a youthful noble and young man with the beautiful mithril sword.
In the end, of course, the Hero’s disciple Kuro appeared, brought lightning down from the sky, and defeated the demon Ludaman after he’d merged with the pink slime, ending the tale.
I had to say, listening to a dramatized version of my own battle was pretty embarrassing.
At least the song didn’t mention the names Satou or Pendragon.
“My, how refreshing. Thank you, Sir Pendragon; this will make things far more comfortable.”
Today I was visiting the home of Baron Moffo, a noble who had always hated me. Miss Miteruna told me that the temperature in Labyrinth City was rising, so I made a fan from a moss crab bee wing to bring as a gift, but it got an even better reception than I’d expected.
Next thing I knew, he was treating me like an old friend.
Never underestimate the power of an electric-fan-style magic tool, I guess…
Since it was hastily made, it didn’t have a magic-power storage vessel. Thanks to that, it had to be constantly supplied with magic to work, which one of the maids of the baron’s house was currently doing. This flaw didn’t seem to bother them, though.
I noticed that at some point I had acquired the title Bribe Master .
“Did you make this fan yourself, good sir?”
The baron looked like he wanted to acquire more.
“A traveling merchant from Lalagi, the Kingdom of Sorcery, supplied us with the materials, so unfortunately, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to purchase more.”
“I see. That’s a shame.”
I didn’t actually say that it came from Lalagi or that we bought it, and I didn’t plan to buy them; therefore, I wasn’t lying.
Because an old butler in the room had Eyes of Truth , a gift from the Urion faith, I decided to give a roundabout answer. The gift couldn’t actually detect lies, to my knowledge, but I didn’t have all the details about it, so I was trying to be careful.
“Still, it seems unfair to keep an item like this all to myself…”
“Don’t worry. I have some to offer His Excellency the viceroy as well.”
I had already made enough for the viceroy, the guildmaster, General Erthal, and so on. The wings of a single moss crab bee could make around twenty fans. I still had plenty of materials left.
I had also installed three cooling fans in the orphanage.
The fans required a regular supply of magic, which the kids took turns doing. Perhaps some of them might gain the “Magic Manipulation” skill.
“Good, good.”
The baron tapped his chin thoughtfully.
His attempt at seriousness was somewhat ruined by his relaxed expression as he enjoyed the breeze from the fan, but obviously I wouldn’t be so rude as to point that out.
“As thanks for this splendid gift, let me offer you two pieces of information.”
He went on to share some intel with me, acting self-important all the while…
“…A war?”
“Indeed. I heard this information from a merchant who had just returned from the west part of the continent. He said the prices of food and iron ore had risen in that area and that the export of Magic Swords—as well as mithril, monster parts, and anything else that could be used to make them—was being restricted.”
According to him, the actual fighting was still a long way away, but I wasn’t sure how information about some far-off corner of the continent could pertain to me. It was a conversation starter at best.
“You don’t seem to understand.” The baron looked at me like a teacher judging a slow-witted pupil. “This means that merchants will be trying to buy up monster parts before our own land starts restricting exports as well.”
In other words, he was telling me that if I hunted monsters for weapon parts, I could sell them at high prices and turn a big profit.
“The other piece is about magic potions.”
“Are they about to jump in value, too?”
“No, Sir Dyukeli controls those prices within Labyrinth City, so that won’t change.”
My prediction was wrong.
“But the price of potion ingredients will probably rise in the king’s territories and coastal areas. The potion prices at the guild might go up, or their supply might go down, I suppose.”
That seemed like it would cause problems for a lot of explorers.
If their stock was to get that low, I might have to disguise myself as Kuro and bring some watered-down potions to the guild myself.
“But I digress…” The baron took a bite of sorbet, which I’d brought as a gift along with the fan, then sighed. “What I was trying to speak of is the demonic potion that the viceroy’s flunky was making in secret.”
I remembered the flunky in question: the former acting viceroy Sokell.
He was now confined in a prison in the viceroy’s castle, albeit one for aristocrats.
“They uncovered a large-scale demonic-potion smuggling operation in Tartumina Bay.”
I had been to the trade city Tartumina before, too.
Come to think of it, I had seen an illegal drug deal go down when I was there.
Fortunately, they’d managed to put a stop to the smuggling itself, but the smugglers got away.
Based on the build of their ship, it was suspected to be a weaselfolk merchant ship, but the situation was further complicated because a Parion Province warship also disappeared.
I’m no detective, so I personally wasn’t that interested in the business of a faraway city.
So why did he make a show of giving me such irrelevant information…?
“Patience, friend. I wasn’t finished yet.”
Taking the final bite of his sorbet, the baron gestured to a maid for seconds, then waved his spoon.
“The crime-syndicate members who were captured swore that Marquis Kelten was the one who provided them with the demonic potions.”
Marquis Kelten… If I remembered correctly, he was an important noble of the royal capital, with strong influence in the military.
“Of course, no one is going to take some criminals at their word, but the subject of demonic potions is no laughing matter.”
“Right,” I agreed absently, since it felt rude to sit there in silence.
“So the kingdom secretly put their intelligence unit on the matter…and they found a huge amount of demonic potions in the storehouse of one of Marquis Kelten’s armies.”
On top of that, he added, there were Fire Rods and monster-part weapons hidden in the warehouse that weren’t in the army’s records. They even had a big anti-fortress Magic Cannon.
As such, the other nobles started raising a fuss about Marquis Kelten potentially plotting an uprising, throwing the royal capital into chaos.
“You still don’t get it? For someone the viceroy’s wife values so highly, you have a long way to go in terms of finesse.”
Sighing, the baron explained that if Marquis Kelten was to lose his title, it would present the opportunity to snag a military position in the royal capital with the support of the viceroy’s wife.
I appreciated his thoughtful suggestion, but I wasn’t interested in climbing the ranks any more than I already had.
I thanked him for the information but conveyed, in a roundabout way, that I had no intention of advancing my station in that manner.
“Hmph. Then you’ll never become a permanent noble.”
“That’s quite all right. An honorary title is more than enough for me.”
Once that conversation ended and the baron finished the sorbet I’d brought, I excused myself.
Then I went around visiting other noble families.
The rest of them weren’t as high-ranking as Baron Moffo, so instead of cooling fans, I brought them sorbet and five ice pillars for cooling down a room.
I had been told at the viceroy’s wife’s tea party that both were highly prized, and sure enough, all the families were delighted to receive them.
It didn’t earn me the same bosom-buddy treatment as it did with the baron, but it seemed like they at least stopped viewing me with hostility.
It’s important to get along with your neighbors, after all.
“Oh my. You certainly catch wind of things quickly, don’t you, Sir Pendragon?”
Once I finished making the rounds to the noble families, I visited the viceroy’s wife to verify the truth of the rumors of war I’d heard from Baron Moffo.
“The western part of the continent is always having skirmishes,” the viceroy’s wife said as she savored the breeze from the cooling fan. “There have been rumors of impending war among a few nations there for around half a year now. I heard recently from Dyukeli that more foreign merchants have been coming to Labyrinth City to buy weapons and supplies lately.”
As it turned out, the discussions I’d heard the night before at the explorers’ banquet, about magic weapons getting more expensive, were directly related. Baronet Dyukeli was deliberately raising those prices to minimize the exporting of Magic Swords.
“Is there some problem with Magic Swords being exported?”
“Well, yes. The loss of Magic Swords, mithril weapons, and so on reduces the defensive capabilities of our land and raises the incentive of other nations, after all.”
The viceroy’s wife added that it wasn’t too big of a problem if it was only a few being exported.
Personally, I thought it would be better to amass lots of Magic Guns and large golems if you were planning to go to war, but in a world with a level system, high-level soldiers with powerful weapons were certainly nothing to sneeze at.
In spite of the unpleasant rumors, I guess Baronet Dyukeli was more than just a simple miser.
“Many monster-part weapons can’t be repaired if they’re damaged, so Shiga Kingdom knights and soldiers generally don’t like to use them… But I’m told that in the west of the continent, they have a secret technique for repairing them.”
The viceroy whispered this last part of the rumor to me.
Oh, wait. I wonder if Liza’s Magic Spear is like that, too?
I was pretty sure I remembered it getting small cracks or chips before, but I couldn’t actually recall seeing them on the spear.
Maybe it fixed itself or something.
I decided to ask Liza when I got back.
“Baron Moffo is right about the effects of war. You’re certainly free to capitalize on this opportunity, but please do be careful about whom you sell materials to. Said materials possess the potential to become powerful weapons, after all.”
“I will. Thank you very much.”
I wasn’t planning on selling rare materials like those from areamasters and their spawn in the first place, but I would have to be careful about selling other materials, too.
But enough about the war situation.
“I also heard that a demonic-potion-smuggling operation was uncovered in the trade city Tartumina. Do you think they were the same goods that were being sold in Labyrinth City?”
“I imagine the materials came from the same place. Only a labyrinth can produce enough materials to make such a massive amount of demonic potion.” Sadness crept into the round face of the viceroy’s wife. “We know how they were smuggling it into Labyrinth City, too.”
She explained that they had found an underground tunnel leading out of the city in the basement of a house that had been Sokell’s love nest, at the outskirts of the pleasure quarters near the outer walls.
“Creating a tunnel like that in secret must have required several talented earth mages, but Sokell didn’t have any such connections. Poputema said he wasn’t involved in that when he was brainwashed by the demon, either. The only organizations with earth mages like that would be the Shiga Thirty Staffs of the royal court or the kingdom army.”
In other words, there was a good chance that the person who was pulling the strings behind Sokell had influence with either the royal court mages or the kingdom army.
“Did you know they found demonic potions in the royal capital, as well?”
“Something about finding them in an army warehouse, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right. There’s quite a fuss in the royal capital that the man in charge of that army may have been planning a revolt.”
The viceroy’s wife quietly told me the man’s name, which was, of course, Marquis Kelten.
“So now we won’t be able to send Sokell to the royal capital for a while yet.”
The information about this incident had come on the very airship that was supposed to escort him there. If they sent Sokell to the royal capital now, he might be used as a tool in the political uproar around Marquis Kelten, so he was being confined to the tower in the viceroy’s castle instead.
Oh right…
“That reminds me. Was Sokell being brainwashed by a demon, too? He certainly seemed deranged when he was arrested.”
I had been wondering about this for a while.
Since it seemed like demons and even demon lord worshippers had been involved in the incident in Labyrinth City, it occurred to me that they might be connected to Sokell’s case, too.
“Hmm? I thought you weren’t interested in Sokell, Sir Pendragon.” The viceroy’s wife’s eyes flashed. “After we put Poputema in suspended animation, we had the head priestess of Heraluon, who discovered his brainwashing, examine Sokell as well, but she said there were no signs of brainwashing there.”
Sokell’s derangement was apparently a side effect of a magic potion he’d been using, the equivalent of what we on Earth would call a semilegal drug. This potion was a by-product of demonic-potion creation.
Honestly. Why does something like that even exist in a fantasy world?
The conversation threatened to take a dark turn, but fortunately a maid brought out some tasty-looking sorbet just in time to lighten the mood.
“Sorbet is particularly delicious on a hot day like today.”
The sorbet, which seemed to have been made by freezing a citrus-like fruit, had an invigorating scent and a deliciously light aftertaste.
“Celivera is close to an enormous desert, so it can get quite hot without proper climate regulation.”
“…Climate regulation?”
“Oh, yes. Normally, my husband uses his power as the viceroy to regulate the climate, but since he had to use it to sweep the area for demons, I’m afraid it will be hot until enough magic power has been saved up.”
So using the City Core to search takes so much magic that they can’t even adjust the climate…? No wonder they don’t do it regularly, even if it means demons have a much easier time getting in.
It must be very different from my “Search Entire Map” skill, which uses almost no magic at all.
“The entire Shiga Kingdom received an imperial command from His Majesty, not just his directly controlled territories. The royal capital and duchies have enough magic to spare, but in counties and smaller cities, the lack of magic power means a poorer climate.”
As an example, she mentioned Seiryuu County in the north, where she said it had become considerably colder.
I worried about crop failure and famine, but she said the magic power needed to adjust the climate should be back up within a month or so, so it shouldn’t lead to anything too dire.
“But following the order was worth it. Three demons were discovered in the kingdom and some of the neighboring territories.”
There were lesser demons found in the neighboring Zetts County and Kiriku County, one in Vistall Duchy in the north of the Shiga Kingdom, and even an intermediate demon found in Lessau County.
Still, I was curious why they didn’t find any demons in the royal capital, which seemed like the most likely target. Was it because the Eight Swordsmen of Shiga—said to be the strongest band of fighters in the kingdom—were there?
Oh, that’s right.
I opened my map and checked the marker I’d put on the avatar of the green greater demon that had caused the demon incident in Labyrinth City a few days ago.
He had been wandering around near the border of Vistall Duchy and Lessau County, but now the marker was gone.
They probably found him with the demon search and dispatched an army to destroy him.
I had let it go in the hopes of finding out where the demons planned to cause trouble next, but I guess that wasn’t going to happen now.
I’ll just have to put another marker on the next one I find.
“Was there a lot of damage in the process?”
“I’m told the capital of Lessau County was greatly damaged, and Count Lessau was killed in battle.”
Count Lessau was the depraved lord who had sexually harassed Tifaleeza and Neru and made them into criminal slaves.
I wouldn’t say I felt good about news of his death, but I wasn’t exactly troubled by it, either.
“Count Lessau’s son led the city’s army to destroy the demon, so now they’re focused on rebuilding. He intends to make his fiancée, Lady Sistina, his first wife at the next kingdom meeting. He must be in a hurry to get his land back on its feet.”
I hope the son is a little better than his father.
But since the demon was defeated, I guess I had nothing to worry about.
“I haven’t heard the damage reports from the other cities, but there’s bound to have been damage and casualties until the emergency armies arrived on the scene to dispatch them. It’s nothing short of a miracle that powerful fighters like General Erthal and the Crimson Devil Lady Zona happened to be on the scene when those demons showed up here a few days ago. Most cases aren’t so lucky.
“And brave youngsters like you, too,” she added with a smile.
Crimson Devil was apparently a nickname for the guildmaster.
“So we don’t need any special permission to clean the aqueducts?”
“Not really, but please do let the government offices know that you plan to do so in advance. They hate things being done without their knowledge.”
“Understood. Thank you.”
Since Arisa was raring to clean up the city aqueducts, I checked with the viceroy’s wife to see if we could start clearing the garbage from them as part of our volunteer efforts. She said it wouldn’t be a problem.
The government did clean them twice a year, she added, but people threw trash in them so frequently that they quickly grew dirty again.
There was a knock at the door, and a lady-in-waiting peered inside.
“Lady Reythel, he’s arrived.”
“Send him in, please.”
With her permission, a cruel-looking government official entered the room.
As it turned out, he was a royal capital official sent to make a record of the demon-attack incident that happened a few days prior.
Normally he would question me alone, but the viceroy’s wife was concerned for me, so she had the questioning take place in the viceroy’s castle and even sat in on it herself.
It may have been thanks to her presence that the questioning was simply a cursory summary of the events.
Except at the end…
“Did the intermediate demon say anything else?”
“Like what?”
“I’ll ask the questions here.”
“Erm, okay. But I don’t think he said anything noteworthy?”
I played the memory back in my mind, but I couldn’t recall anything special that was said.
At any rate, it was the green demon’s avatar who said things like that.
“Nothing about the Rite of the Second Coming or a False King?”
“No, not that I recall.”
So don’t raise flags with important-sounding key words like that, please.
“Are you quite finished with your interrogation? I do have other business with Sir Pendragon. If you’re done, I would appreciate it if you left, please.”
Recognizing that the viceroy’s wife’s request was in fact an order, the official withdrew.
Those words sure hinted at a demon-lord revival to me, but he had nothing to worry about. I had already crushed the green demon’s plot to revive one in Labyrinth City.
As long as there weren’t other plans to revive any more demon lords anyway.
“S-S-S-Sir Pendragon!”
After my meeting with the viceroy’s wife, I got permission from the government office to clean the aqueducts. I was headed to the guildmaster’s office in the west to relay information about the potential war. However, along the way, a plump young noble boy called out to me.
“Hello, Sir Luram.”
The boy came running up to me in such a panic, he nearly tripped and fell. “H-help!”
There must’ve been some kind of emergency. He looked like he was at his wit’s end.
“What’s the matter?”
“I-it’s Mary-Ann!” Luram cried as he grabbed my arm. “Sh-she went into the labyrinth!”
I guess a new round of trouble was already beginning.
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