Midnight Machinations
“Satou here. I think conspiracies tend to take place at night. If it’s dark enough that neither party can see the others’ faces, the mood is even better.”
“Good evening, Your Majesty.”
After the impromptu tempura party with the gourmet nobles, I checked my map and found that the king and prime minister were still working, even after the second cycle of night. I decided to visit with a little report and an apology.
“It’s the great ancestral k—I mean, Nanashi the Hero!”
As always, the king seemed to think that I, or at least Nanashi the Hero, was really the ancestral king Yamato.
“Sir Nanashi? Ooh, Ancest—erm, Sir Nanashi!”
Also in the room, the prime minister and a member of the Shiga Eight Swordsmen, Sir Juleburg, bowed to me along with the king. Judging by the papers on the desk, they appeared to be discussing candidates for the Shiga Eight Swordsmen.
“Please, raise your heads.”
At that, the king and prime minister looked up and invited me to take a seat on the office sofa.
“Sorry to interrupt while you’re working.”
“Why, you are always more than welcome!” the king responded eagerly.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
“Looking over the paperwork for prospective members of the Shiga Eight Swordsmen.”
The king showed me the aforementioned documents.
I noticed my name written on one of the fifteen or so sheets of paper. The recommender column started with the names of Lady Helmina, the gun user of the Shiga Eight Swordsmen, as well as Duke Ougoch and some other nobles from the old capital, the viceroy of Labyrinth City Celivera, General Erthal of the labyrinth army, and quite a few others.
“This candidate has only recently come of age, but he appears to have considerable skill and courage. According to Lady Helmina, the one who recommended him, he trained hard in the labyrinth and raised his level a great deal in a very short time.”
Since I had changed my public level in the social networking column in between my first and most recent meetings with Lady Helmina, she seemed to have gotten the wrong idea.
“Huh, is that right?”
I gave an indifferent grunt to Sir Juleburg’s explanation and flipped through the rest of the papers.
Most of them were level 45 or above. The majority were Holy Knights, though there were a lot of royal knights and knights from other territories as well. I even saw some vagrant knights and knights from other kingdoms.
The only labyrinth explorers appeared to be me and the Scarlet Nobleman, Baronet Jelil.
“Don’t you think these guys would be a better fit for the Shiga Eight Swordsmen than some kid with barely any experience?”
I tried to push for Baronet Jelil and a level-50 katana user with the nickname “Windblade.”
They were both Shiga Kingdom nobles with respectable histories.
“If that is how you feel, Sir Nanashi…”
“Yes, experience is important.”
The king and prime minister agreed with me, but Sir Juleburg quickly objected.
“Wait a minute. The most important trait in the Shiga Eight Swordsmen is strength. Sir Pendragon may be lacking experience, but he has potential to grow even stronger with training. I believe he will be an important swordsman to the Shiga Kingdom sooner or—”
“You’re pushing Pen-Pen pretty hard, huh?” I interrupted jokingly. All that praise was making me feel itchy.
“Sir Juleburg, is it your wish to make Sir Pendragon a member of the Shiga Eight Swordsmen?” asked the prime minister.
“I would not go that far just yet.” Sir Juleburg shook his head. “However, he is one of a select few who I would like to spar with in order to ascertain his skill.”
Phew, so he wasn’t going to insist that I join.
If I get stuck sparring with him, I’ll make sure I lose spectacularly.
“Oh yeah? Good luck with that.”
I tried to feign disinterest, attempting to shift the subject to the reason I’d come.
While Sir Juleburg didn’t seem to notice, the king and prime minister picked up on my hint and brought the topic of the Shiga Eight Swordsmen to a close.
“So I heard that airship I gave you made an emergency landing…”
“I am terribly sorry, Sir Nanashi.”
“We lost the airship so soon after you gifted it to us…”
Before I could apologize for the airship incident, the king and prime minister apologized to me instead.
“Don’t worry about it. I came to apologize about it myself.”
I tried to stop them from slamming their heads into the desk in apology and explained why I’d come.
“…Apologize, Sir Nanashi? But why?”
“Yeah, I came to take a look when I heard about the airship crashing. Looks like I was so worried about efficiency that I didn’t take enough safety precautions in case of problems.”
Adding any more Magic Furnaces would have been impossible without affecting the loading capacity, but I should have at least added a few small skypower engines with a battery-like magic storage system in case of an emergency.
“No, it is not your fault, Sir Nanashi! The airship captain said so, too. The airship was attacked by countless flying monsters, and other monsters even caused destruction in the engine room, yet the airship didn’t fall apart in midair, the Magic Furnaces didn’t explode, and the skypower engines didn’t stop running until right before the emergency landing.”
“Sir Nanashi, it is as the prime minister says. It would be absurd to ask anything more.”
“Really?”
“Most certainly!”
I supposed they might be right, since it wasn’t a military airship, but I still wanted to add a bit more safety features, if possible.
“So you don’t need this, then?”
I held up the new airship blueprints I’d drawn in light of recent events.
“Blueprints?”
“Yeah, I added six smaller skypower engines so that it can land safely even if the main engines all fail.”
I’d made these smaller engines with the specific goal of creating more buoyancy than usual in a short period of time, rather than a steady but smaller amount over a long period of time.
The airship would carry about 20 percent fewer passengers than the previous model, but it still had a bigger loading capacity than the airships that were already in use in the Shiga Kingdom.
“Don’t worry, I’ll give you the extra parts to go along with the large skypower engines for free.”
The leaders insisted that they would pay, but I refused to accept, thinking of the airship revamp like a recall or maintenance. Besides, I’d just whipped them up with some spare parts I had lying around.
“By the way, why did the airship go down in the first place?”
It seemed like some kind of infighting within Duke Vistall’s family, but I didn’t know all the details, so I figured I would ask.
“I am ashamed of how it reflects on me as a king, but…”
With that apologetic preface, the king and prime minister gave me what information they had.
Evidently, it was Duke Vistall’s disowned son who had tried to have him assassinated on the airship. The official reason given for the disownment was that he was “unfit to be a duke,” though even the king didn’t know the real details.
“Huh, so it was a Vistall family matter…”
Since the airship had been lost because of a family fight about inheritance, Duke Vistall was to pay a fine that included the cost of rebuilding the airship. That seemed reasonable enough to me.
“Do you know why they attacked the airship?”
I was curious why they chose to make their move in the king’s territory instead of on their home turf. If assassination was their goal, wouldn’t it have been more efficient to use standard methods, like killing him in his sleep or poisoning his food?
“They say that killing a lord in his own territory is as difficult as hunting a dragon.”
Ah, that makes sense.
The prime minister’s words reminded me that it would be hard to kill a lord at home when he could use the powerful might of the City Core.
“Prime Minister, surely Sir Nanashi knew that,” the king chided.
“Right, of course. Please take a look at this, Sir Nanashi.”
The prime minister produced two objects wrapped in a blue cloth: a broken apparatus of some kind and a large screwlike object.
“These were found implanted in the miscreants and monsters who attacked the airship.”
The former looked familiar. It was a Demonic Heart, the nasty magic tool that was embedded in the terrorists working inside the airship.
“What’s this?” I pointed at the Demonic Heart on the table. “Do you know what it does?”
“I am sure you know this, Ancestr—er, Sir Nanashi—but it is an item called a Demonic Heart that was made in the ancient Flue Empire during the final stages of their war with the Orc Empire. It is a foul, cursed tool that contains the crystalized heart of a demon.”
There are plenty of instances of nations losing their sense of ethics in war, but this seemed especially evil.
“Once it has been equipped, it continuously provides the user with an effect similar to demonic potions, and it cannot be removed until the user dies. Like a demonic potion, it gradually causes the user to lose their humanity; the only possible end is for the user to be transfigured beyond recovery or turn into a monster, or so they say.”
Either way, there were no examples of anyone surviving more than half a month after being equipped with one.
Additionally, I learned that the tentacles weren’t a normal function of the Demonic Heart, but rather an irregularity caused by the device going into overdrive.
The king and prime minister were currently investigating how the terrorists had acquired them.
“And this?”
After requesting the prime minister’s permission, I picked up the screw and looked at it in detail.
It was a crushed screw around the size of a two-liter plastic bottle, with unfamiliar magic circuit-like patterns engraved into the grooves.
“What a strange pattern. I’m guessing it’s a magic tool, but I’ve never seen one like it before.”
“According to the royal research laboratory, it’s a kind of enslavement collar, which is used to forcibly take control of savage monsters that normally cannot be tamed.”
“Oh, wow.”
So that was how they got strong monsters like the many-winged centipede under their control.
I couldn’t tell from the information in the AR or from my “Analyze” skill results where the item had been made.
“Is it a military weapon?”
“Yes, there are rumors that the monster tamers of the Weaselman Empire in the eastern part of the continent use them.”
The prime minister added that the weaselmen used these screws and special one-rider golems to attack and devastate surrounding countries, which subsequently grew from small domains into dominating empires.
“So does that mean the Weaselman Empire was behind this rebellion thing?”
“Yes. We believe they were trying to cause chaos from behind the scenes.”
The prime minister added that the Weaselman Empire was probably trying to hinder the Shiga Kingdom’s ability to interfere before they attacked the smaller countries in the east.
“A war, huh…?”
I guess they have war even in a fantasy world.
They didn’t seem to be as utterly focused on wars between nations as Earth was, since this world had the threat of monsters and the help of monster-infested buffer zones, but evidently they still had military conflicts.
“As a king, I am ashamed that I have yet to achieve the eternal peace that the ancestral king sought to create.”
Wow, I didn’t know your goals were so crazy high…
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Your Majesty. You just have to do the best that you can.”
I would rather not have wars, either, but it wouldn’t be any good if the king was so preoccupied with such ideals that he got distracted.
“I shall carve your directive into my heart and work myself to the bone, O Ancestral King.”
“No need to go that far. Also, I’m not the ancestral king.”
“Yes, of course, I know.”
I can tell from your face that you don’t.
“Will you be sending punitive forces to Vistall Duchy?”
Since all the feudal lords were gathered in the royal capital right now, I didn’t want to get summoned to do something like that, hence the question.
“…Yes, we plan to send the Third or Fifth Regiment of Knights, since they can be dispatched at once.”
“I know it goes against your preferences, Sir Nanashi, but since Duke Vistall himself requested it, I’m afraid I cannot refuse…”
Having caught on that I didn’t like war, the prime minister and king responded reluctantly.
For now, I was just relieved that I wouldn’t have to do anything as a vassal of Baron Muno.
“Nah, I get it. Will the Shiga Eight be going, too?”
“We have no plans to do so,” Sir Juleburg said bluntly. “We exist as the swords of the Shiga Kingdom to protect the land from only the greatest of threats.”
Phew. At least the Shiga Eight Swordsmen candidates probably won’t get enlisted, then.
“Duke Vistall has requested that Sir Gouen be sent along, too.”
“Ah, right. Gouen’s family are vassals to the duke…”
Sir Juleburg grimaced at the prime minister’s words.
Judging by the context, Sir Gouen must be one of the Shiga Eight Swordsmen.
“It goes against the ideals of the Shiga Eight, but if Sir Gouen himself wishes to participate out of his strong loyalty to Duke Vistall, it would not be right to stop him,” the prime minister pointed out.
I guess there was no rule stating that they couldn’t participate in a civil war.
Now that the conversation had turned to private matters, I decided to get out of the way of the king and company. I had already stayed longer than I planned.
“I’d better head out, Your Majesty.” I stood up from the sofa. “See you later.”
With a casual wave, I jumped out the window, then used Return in midair to teleport back to the mansion of Baron Muno.
“Welcome back, master.”
Arisa sat up in bed and greeted me in a low voice.
Tama’s ears twitched, but instead of waking up she just buried her face in Pochi.
“Remove Field Sensor.”
After quietly using a spell, Arisa gave me a mug from her Item Box.
“It seems like you had a long day. Why don’t you stop being such a workaholic and take a drink of this and sleep?”
I accepted the mug, which smelled warm and sweet. It seemed to be sweetened milk.
“Now, fall asleep in the arms of Holy Mother Arisa—”
Partway through her sentence, Nana returned from the bathroom, captured Arisa, and dragged her into the bed.
Nana was supposed to be sleeping along with her sisters, but she must have come here instead while she was half-asleep. She usually used Mia as a hug pillow; maybe she’d mistaken Arisa for Mia.
Once I drank the contents of the mug and put it in Storage, I slipped onto the edge of the bed, too.
“Good night, Arisa.”
As Arisa struggled not to suffocate from Nana’s chest pressing against her, I fell asleep the moment I closed my eyes.
I guess I was more tired than I thought.
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