Epilogue
“Satou here. Someone once said that it’s easier to start something than to end it. And that applies in a fantasy world, too…”
“You got a letter, master?”
“Yeah, from Ms. Helmina.”
As I was reading the letter in my study, Arisa and Mia came into the room, all dressed up.
I held up the letter from Lady Helmina of the Shiga Eight, showing it to them.
“Cheating?”
Mia puffed up her cheeks indignantly, but I deflated them with a poke.
“Don’t be silly. It’s about the attack at the duke’s mansion the other day.”
Sir Gouen had been dismissed from the Shiga Eight Swordsmen and sentenced to become a criminal slave; the letter said that he was officially being appointed as the head of the Violet unit, an army composed of criminal slaves from the royal capital, and being sent to assist with developing the Azure Lands.
Most judges and nobles had demanded the death penalty for his treason, but there were many who were reluctant to lose such a strong asset, hence the resulting sentence.
“Exile?” Arisa asked. “But won’t that rebellious son’s faction come to steal him away? You said so yourself, master. If you control the City Core, you can cancel a slave contract, can’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, which is why he won’t be sent out until after the situation with Vistall Duchy is resolved.”
In the meantime, Sir Gouen was being confined in a royal villa designed to imprison high-class nobles.
Just as I suspected, his wife and children had been held hostage to force him to attack the duke. That day, I went as Kuro to rescue them, and I’d brought them to the prime minister to take care of. They should be in the same villa as Sir Gouen now.
“What about the Shiga Eight leader? Did he have to resign?”
“No, he managed to avoid that.”
There were demands that Sir Juleburg resign, too, but given his contributions to the kingdom thus far, and with the backing of the influential Marquis Kelten, he got off with only a salary cut and a loss of the right to appoint a new seat.
Since there had just recently been a demon attack in the royal capital, most people probably wanted to keep someone as strong and skillful as Sir Juleburg in a position to continue protecting them.
“Hmm. If this were Japan, the media and public opinions would probably have forced him into a one-two combo of an apology press conference and a resignation, I bet.”
I chuckled dryly at Arisa’s assessment.
“This?”
Mia pointed at a fancy-looking envelope decorated with gold leaf.
“That’s a letter from Duke Vistall.”
“Duke V.? Thanking you for the other day, I hope?”
“That part’s mostly just an afterthought. He wants me to join his army.”
He was sending out forces from the royal capital to Vistall Duchy to defeat the rebels sometime today.
The letter said that if I joined and made major contributions, I could at least become an honorary baronet, or maybe even an honorary baron. Even if that wasn’t an obnoxiously empty promise, I wasn’t interested in climbing the ranks anyway.
“They formed that army pretty fast.”
Arisa raised her eyebrows as she read the departure date for the anti-rebel army.
“He borrowed most of them from the kingdom’s standing army.”
Two squadrons of royal capital knights had been sent out as advance troops, with the infantry and supply wagons coming afterward.
The knight squadrons were carrying their provisions and water with Item Box users and Magic Bags.
“Huh. So what’s your reward?”
Arisa held out her hand for the letter, which I handed to her.
“Mrrr?”
Reading over Arisa’s shoulder, Mia furrowed her brow.
“A medal?”
“Basically, they need money to fight the rebels, so he wants to thank you with exposure.”
I didn’t really need a medal from Vistall Duchy, but it would be a serious insult to the duke to refuse. If I didn’t want to pick a fight with him, I had no choice but to accept.
What a pain. He was probably going to try to recruit me again when I accepted it.
But I was just going to refuse again anyway.
“Armyyy…?”
“Paraaade, sir!”
Leaning over the front rail of the open-air carriage, Tama and Pochi pointed at the street up ahead.
“That’s a knight squadron being sent to quash the rebellion in Vistall Duchy. Judging by the flags, it must be the Third Regiment of Knights,” the hired coachman explained.
Our group, Team Pendragon, was heading to the royal capital at His Majesty’s invitation.
He said he wanted to congratulate us for defeating a floormaster.
According to the schedule I’d been given in advance, we would only actually meet the king in an audience room for a short time. Then the minister of the military, Marquis Kelten, would give each of us a medal, followed by a lavish luncheon in one of the dining halls of the castle. Per tradition, there would be a ball afterward as well.
Once the procession passed, we crossed the road and entered the upper nobles’ district.
“You get a great view of the trees near the castle from here.”
Arisa gazed up at the giant “Royal Sakura” tree that towered over the entire district.
Unfortunately, the flowers hadn’t yet bloomed this year, but I’m sure the giant cherry blossom tree in full bloom next to the gorgeous white castle would make for an incredible view. I was told that it should bloom by New Year’s Day at the latest, which I was definitely excited to see.
“What kinda treee…?”
“Mm, sakura,” Mia responded.
We’d discussed it when we’d first arrived in the royal capital, but Tama and Pochi didn’t seem to remember.
“Is sakura yummy, sir?”
“Sakuranbo fruit, yummy.”
“I can’t wait to try it, sir.”
“Meee tooo…?”
Tama’s and Pochi’s eyes sparkled as they gazed up at the sakura tree.
“I didn’t know sakura trees could get so big.”
“Judging by the birdfolk soldiers flying nearby, it must be at least three hundred feet tall, I report.”
As we chatted about the tree, we drew close to the castle gates.
“It looks even more impressive from close up,” Arisa remarked.
Liza nodded. “Yes, one can truly feel the majesty of nature.”
“Mrrr. World Tree.”
“Well, it’s not fair to compare it to that.”
“It may be smaller than a World Tree or the Mountain-Tree in the giants’ village, but this tree, too, is more than worthy of our admiration, don’t you agree?”
“Mrrrr…”
It was rare to hear Liza talk about anything but meat or battle, but her perspective seemed to be lost on Mia, since the latter had grown up in the shadow of the unreasonably massive World Tree.
Nana seemed to feel the same way, having been raised in the Cradle. Despite her lack of expression, she was tilting her head just like Mia.
“Were there any giant trees like that in your homeland, Liza?” Lulu asked.
“It wasn’t this enormous, but there was a large tree in the center of my village called the ‘Great Tree of Blessings’ that produced flowing water from its roots.”
As Liza responded, her eyes grew a little misty with nostalgia.
No wonder she sounded so passionate about admiring the Royal Sakura.
“Ooh, check out those hottie knights!”
Arisa shrieked as she looked up at the knight statues on either side of the castle gates.
They were more than sixty feet tall, and there were also golems like the stone statues protecting the eastern gate of Labyrinth City.
But instead of walking around and fighting like those golems, these golems seemed to be like stationary scarecrows that doubled as gun towers.
As we approached the gates, I felt a sensation like being scanned with the Practical Magic spell Sonar.
Tama was the only other one of us who seemed to notice, so it must have either been a fairly weak sensor or carefully disguised to avoid detection.
“They look just like the ‘Undefeatable Duo’ Raul and Suran from the shoujo manga ‘Teni X Hero,’” Arisa commented. “Maybe the ancestral king Yamato was actually a woman disguised as a man, too!”
“Arisa, don’t say that sort of thing in public. It’s considered heresy.”
I decided to tip the coachman later, since he was pretending not to have heard anything.
“I guess ‘Teni X Hero’ has appeal even in another world.”
“Were you a fan, too, Arisa?”
“Yeah, more or less. Why, you know it, master?”
“Yeah, one of my juniors at work used to read it a lot.”
What if my coworker who disappeared from work one day had actually wound up in this fantasy world, too…?
“Was this a female coworker?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just answer.”
Arisa and Mia stared at me with frightening expressions.
“No, it was a guy who happened to like shoujo manga.”
“Phew.”
“Mm. Innocent.”
Arisa and Mia smiled. I patted their heads.
Ichirou…
As we passed through the gates to the castle, I thought I heard someone calling me by my real name.
I looked around, half expecting to see the mysterious stalker girl who showed up during my battle against Doghead, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone.
“Something wrong, master?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
I patted Arisa on the back and smiled reassuringly.
“Dooove…?”
“Coo-coo, sir.”
Tama and Pochi looked up at a pigeon that had taken off from a knight statue’s head.
“Would a dove’s cry not be ‘co-coo-coo’? I inquire.”
“Mrrr. Coo-woo.”
“It’s coo-coo, sir.”
“Wrooong…? Coooo…”
I smiled at the healing sights and sounds of my kids imitating birds.
Things had been pretty hectic for a while now, but hopefully we could finally get to some peaceful sightseeing in the royal capital without any more interruptions.
Hopefully, any further disasters could wait until the New Year.
Far to the northeast of the royal capital of the Shiga Kingdom, there was a giant temple atop a sacred mountain that divided the east and west of the kingdom.
“There you are, Mito.”
“Hey there, Sky.”
A beautiful young girl with silver hair down to her ankles called out to a black-haired young woman in simple villager’s clothing.
The sharp-eyed girl with the silver hair had bat-like silver wings on her back.
“Looks like you finished making the transfer.”
“Indeed. It feels strange to be in such a body after several hundred years.” The silver-haired girl moved her arms and legs experimentally, then looked at Mito. “So, have you decided where to start searching?”
“Mm, not yet.”
“Shiga Kingdom is rather large to search for a single human without any leads, is it not?”
“I think it’ll be fine.” Mito gazed out at the sea of clouds beneath them. “I don’t have any leads, but the goddess of the shrine told me so.”
“That goddess from your world… Ama-no-Mizuhana-hime, was it?”
“Yes, she’s the deity of my family’s shrine. She said that I would be able to meet him again when I woke up from my artificial slumber.”
“If it is a god’s prediction, then it must be true.”
“…Yeah.” Mito nodded, looking a little embarrassed to have the silver-haired girl reassure her.
“A dove…?”
The silver-haired girl looked down through the clouds.
The shrine where they were standing was high above the clouds, where no ordinary bird would ever fly.
“Yep, it’s a dove.” Mito gazed at it with a smile. “Come here…”
She held out her hands and caught the bird as delicately as a treasure.
As the bird cooed in her arms, she looked at its feathers.
“No doubt about it. This is the alert rune I put on the Raul and Suran statues.”
“Mito?”
“C’mon, Sky,” Mito said brightly. “Let’s go to the royal capital.”
“All right. Want to ride on my back?”
“Just to the bottom of the mountain would be fine. I’ll get a wild runosaur to take me the rest of the way after that.”
“But I’d be much faster…,” the silver-haired girl grumbled, resentful of this plan.
“Yeah, yeah. I know you’re faster than anyone else.”
Mito smiled, still looking out toward the royal capital.
“Wait for me, Ichirou.”
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