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Yay! I did it! Such relief XD
Without further ado…
Chapter 8
Flynn Gilbit had become half crazed.
“Dear, hold on! Norman! Oh please, please god! Save my husband!”
“… Huh?”
She had her silk-wrapped hands clasped together and she was praying to god while looking to heaven.
“Mughhgghh.”
The body on the stretcher was Norman Gilbit with his mask on writhing around. Wolfram was at the head of the stretcher and Flynn, Murata, and Josak were at the patient’s side as they ran along with him.
Disarrayed silver hair fluttered in the wind.
“Wow, how horrible. The lord was suddenly struck ill. With a young wife it’s such a shame… Huh!? Wait a minute!”
The masked feudal lord had been coming into bloom since the moment we met, or rather, the person who was pretending to be Norman Gilbit until today was no one else but me, Yuuri Shibuya. But, time flies by and just a little while ago the second generation Norman Gilbit the Masked Feudal Lord had officially retired.
Despite that, right now the man being transported at a reckless speed was wearing the mask that I had come to know too well.
“Wait, Flynn! Who is that!? Who is that man!?”
Did the third generation just come to an end?
When I ran after the group and tried to get in the room, the youngest lady in the group of curious onlookers in the hallway told me.
“Oh, you’re the young officer that danced with that lady, right?”
“Young off-…”
“You have a... relationship with that lady, don’t you?”
“What kind of relationship?”
“You know… a relationship. Adultery. Adultery. An adulterous relationship.” Even though she was deliberately speaking in a low voice, she emphasized and repeated it three times. “Of course, of course, that lady is beautiful, isn’t she? She’d have one or two lovers, huh? But this is good for you. Congratulations. You might be able to become her official husband.”
Having no idea that the relationship between Flynn and I had ended, the young lady kept on proudly unveiling the scandalous news.
“You know her husband, Mr. Norman Gilbit, fought hard in the tournament finals, right? He fought hard and won, but was injured, yeah? It seems like those injuries got worse and he finally collapsed. He’s apparently on the verge of death.”
“Collapsed!?”
Wait, I’m Norman Gilbit, right? Then who is that wearing the mask?
“Flynn!”
I go into the room in a big hurry and close the door so the secret doesn’t get out. All eight eyes of Flynn, Murata, Josak, and Wolfram focus on me.
“Why is a Norman Gilbit that isn’t me about to die?”
“Shh!”
All four of them raise a finger to their mouths simultaneously. The masked man was still in agony. He was grasping his knee – not his neck that got injured in the match – and rolling around.
A mischievous look appeared on Murata's face as he brushed snow off of his shoulder.
“We need the corpse of a man of high status. To be more accurate, the coffin. Because of that, we’re all putting on an act. Well, as for him…” The person playing Norman’s role was writhing around on the bed. “He’s not necessarily acting.”
“That’s the truth,” said Josak. He already had an amazed expression on his face. It looks like he wants to say that he just can’t keep up with the strange plans of the children. “After slipping in the snow and breaking his kneecap, this middle-aged soldier has a sock shoved in his mouth that was worn for three days straight.”
“Ugh.”
What a terribly simple gag. That’s very close to torture. Now I understand his realistic acting.
“Then this person is going to die after this…”
“That’s right.”
“Whaefer, ut alleaf ake ow is agh eesh,” the seriously injured young man said unintelligibly. “Amph inf you fay you ud iff me um paingifferz?”
“Ah, yeah yeah, painkillers. And you want me to take the gag out, huh?”
With the mask off, he was a completely normal guy. His hair wasn’t as long as a normal soldier and he didn’t have a stern look on his face that said ‘Let’s fight!’ He was a gentle man that had the feel of an artist to him and he seemed like the type that women would love.
“Phew… The inside of my mouth still feels gross. It was mean to not take the sock out even though I agreed to this.”
Feeling a little better after getting his painkillers, he sat on the bed and drank some water.
“The way he talks sounds like a diligent exchange student,” I said. (1)
“Ah, me, I’m called Gardino. I came to the capital to study art and drama, but since I was a student I didn’t have enough money. So, I became a temporary soldier in the garrison. I want to study art and drama more, but tuition at upper-level schools is high and I can’t afford it.
“He really does sound like an exchange student.”
The young Gardino clenched his fist and made some calculations with burning eyes.
“If I can get amount suggested, I can go to the upper-level school for two years. And also, if it’s just once a week, I can hire a lady to take off her clothes… I’ll do my best! My absolute best! It’s really going to be my best! I’ll put my body and soul into playing the role of the corpse! Everyone, please watch my death!”
We seem to have hired quite the unique actor. He’ll be wearing a mask so he probably only has to be careful of his breathing.
“Hmph. The place that excels the most in the arts out of any country is the Royals Arts Association in our Great Demon Kingdom. There even cats can perform and there are even prodigal turtles that are master painters.”
Wolfram, who always proclaims that demons are the number one at everything, has flippantly said something amazing. Prodigal, master painter turtles. I want to see them. I really want to see them. But there is the danger that creating one painting would take several hundred years…
“Amazing! I want to study on exchange there… but I’m getting kind of tired…”
Laying the part-timer who had finally started to feel the effects of the painkiller on the bed, Flynn fires herself up and prepares to cry. She lets down her hair and musses it up and gives herself a gaunt appearance by messing up her makeup.
“… Wow, beautiful people are beautiful no matter what they do, huh?”
“Honestly, Your Majesty, what are you saying?”
My mood turns strangely miserable in a way that I can’t call bittersweet. People’s emotions are odd. Why can I unabashedly say a pick-up line as soon as I decided I wouldn’t fall in love?
“But why do we need a coffin? If it’s Norman Gilbit’s funeral, you can do it properly once you go home.”
“Huh? Did nobody tell Shibuya?”
“What? I’m the only one left out? Just who do you all think I-”
“Okay! And now we enter the second act, the Death of Norman Gilbit!”
Before they told me the truth about the situation, Josak opened the door.
With her hair disheveled and her eyes red with tears, Flynn entered the hallway while saying a prayer.
“Oh god, to think the trial you give me would be this painful!”
It is unbelievably horrible acting from the woman who pretended to be her husband for several years.
“Everyone, on this moment on this night in this month, my husband, Norman Gilbit, has passed away!”
-------
(1) In the original Japanese, parts of Gardino’s speech are written in katakana and some parts are elongated to show that he’s messing up the accents. I ended up italicizing the wrong parts of the English words to stress.
*.*.*.*.*
The funeral procession was subdued at first, then it was restless, and at the end it moved forward as if escaping.
As long as we were in Big Shimaron, we had to behave like we were part of a funeral service for an important person.
After all, now Norman Gilbit wasn’t the mandated overseer of Small Shimaron’s autonomous colony of Caloria. Caloria had gained official independence by being the first victorious team that wasn’t from the sponsoring nation of Big Shimaron in ‘Use you knowledge, speed, and skill to win! The World’s Best Fighter Tournament!’
The leader of an independent nation deserved to be sent off with respect. For example, the coffin holding the remains shouldn’t be handled carelessly.
Even if there was only another small box inside of it.
The more you heard of it, the more astonished you would be at the plan.
Not astonished by the ingenuity, but by the fact that the so-called savior of the kingdom, the Twin Black Great Sage, came up with such a childish plan! That sort of astonished.
It was all well and good that he got the ‘End of the Wind’ out of the temple in Big Shimaron by switching it with a DIY box made on the ship, but there was no way to get it somewhere safe. He even thought that since it was painted white and looked like a boy’s coffin that it should be carried in a funeral. However, if a soldier has questions during an inspection, he can’t be allowed to open the lid and check the contents.
Then how about putting it in a bigger box and giving a reason why they can’t look inside?
The reason for not opening the lid being… an ideal ‘deceased’ is inside.
It was Norman ‘You are already dead’ Gilbit who had just been injured during the World’s Best.
Big Shimaron had even given it a catchline of ‘Caloria’s Great Star, Fallen’ and had wanted to conduct a temporary burial for Norman Gilbit. They probably wanted to show their open-mindedness by showing respect to the victor even though they were defeated.
Gardino put on a splendid performance as a corpse without moving even the tiniest bit. However, his breathing while asleep was loud so someone had to stay by his side and continuously speak. Flynn held on to her grief and as a tragic wife who clung to her husband, she received sympathy from women all over the capital. Wolfram and Josak were extolled by a poet as teammates who fought together with him and whose friendship surpassed even death. Even though they had never met the actual person.
Murata employed his memories of the past and walked about as the experienced ceremony leader. Without him consistently coming up with plans, the temporary burial in a foreign country would have been impossible.
I’m the one who didn’t have a part.
I did wear goggles in the arena, but I didn’t wear the mask. As such, a part of the ladies and men who were watching recognize my Norman Gilbit face. On the other hand, the women at the party we were invited to treat me as Flynn Gilbit’s young lover. In the end, the young ladies who loved to gossip started up a rumor that Caloria’s mistress was giving her affection to a young man that looked like her husband.
Hurriedly dyed, chestnut brown hair and cosmetic, brown lenses. I don’t even want to know if that resembles the real Norman. However, just by being by Flynn’s side as she sobbed, all of the young women who came to offer their condolences whispered, ‘Look, that’s Madam Gilbit’s rumored lover.’
Far from her lover, I didn’t even have a lover in my actual life.
After closing the lid, there wouldn’t be another government official who would check inside. Even though it was immediately following its independence, doubting the funeral of a leader of a country would be imprudent all by itself.
Although, what was inside the extravagant coffin wasn’t a corpse, but the ‘End of the Wind’ wrapped in cloth.
As soon as we got out of the capital, we started making our getaway in a mad rush.
Since the Demon King statue with the elephant head was stolen from the treasure room, they hadn’t realized that the box had been switched out yet. That being said, once they discovered it, we would fall under suspicion. We had to get away as soon as possible before they realized. We had the fastest group of sheep on our side.
Flynn, Murata, and I rode in the carriage being pulled by T-Zou’s Team ‘Seep.’ Apparently having been a sheep shepherd in his hometown, Gardino was sitting in the driver’s position in high spirits.
I don’t know why he’s coming with us.
Lady Celi stayed behind in Shimaron with Fanfan. Her next aspiration is to take a world cruise of free love. Naturally, Chevalier was underfoot waiting on her as usual.
Wolfram, Josak, Sizemore, and Dacascos were on a horse-driven carriage parallel to us. The troublesome part was that in Japan it’s said that horses and sheep are like cats and dogs, so they both had the sense of a huge rivalry about them. Lined up together, they meaninglessly dashed forward and if one of them fell behind, there would be a shower of feces from their displeasure. Sheep are super-early-morning types so by the afternoon, they were in a bad mood.
We reluctantly put a distance between the sheep carriage and the horse carriage, but if an enemy attacked us, we would be at a disadvantage.
No one told us that ‘seep’ and horses had this bad of a relationship with each other when we bought them.
“At any rate, there’s one thing I don’t get.”
“Hm?”
“You made Josak make a fake box while we were on the boat, right?” I asked Murata who was swaying around in the luggage compartment as I sat next to the driver.
“Yeah. His hobby is carpentry.”
“I didn’t know that… No, what I mean is, you planned on switching the box out while we were still at that stage?”
“Yeah.”
“Which, which means that even though you came along as a spare teammate, you thought that we couldn’t win!?”
Murata put a hand to the back of his head and laughed loudly. “No way, I didn’t think that. I absolutely believed that you would win.”
“But you were preparing for us to lose on the ship, way before the tournament even began.”
“That wasn’t preparation for when you lost.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying. I thought things would turn out the way they did.”
Flynn sticks her head out of the roof and lets the winter wind run through her silver hair.
My friend the Great Sage leaned on the gold-encrusted coffin in an unlucky way and petted it as if soothing the dangerous object within.
“I thought that you probably wouldn’t wish for the box even if you won.”
“… What’s up with that? You’re saying stuff like those twins’ predictions.”
“It wasn’t a prediction. I don’t have that sort of handy ESP. In any case, the only person with ESP in Japan is Esper Itou, right? I just thought that things would happen that way. I heard about the demon sword from Josak. If it were you-gah!”
The carriage ran over a rut. The luggage compartment swayed violently.
“Owow, I bit my tongue… If it were you, you would probably realize how dangerous it would be for Caloria to officially take the ‘End of the Wind.’”
“Nmofu?” T-Zou looked back at me. It was like she was asking if she were going the right way.
“You’re good.”
The sheep who were supposed to have much better eyesight than people suddenly fell into disorder and stopped running.
I hurriedly take out the magic-powered telescope and peer off into the distance.
“You guys, what are- whoa!”
“What’s wrong, Shibuya?”
“Soldiers! They’re on horseback and there’s more than thirty. Gardino, bring the carriage near the edge of the forest. Damn, how far away are the guys on the horse carriage!?”
The brown spot that I couldn’t see with my naked eye became larger in an instant. With the trembling of hooves hitting the earth, thirty men on horseback come directly at us from the front. In our ill-prepared state, we were surrounded by them. And it wasn’t just one or two, but thirty horsemen in uniform.
I call them uniformed, but I didn’t know what country they were soldiers from. It wasn’t the yellow, brown, and white that I was used to and it wasn’t the light blue and grey uniforms from the other side of the border in Small Shimaron.
More than their green clothes, there was a part of them that stood out.
It was their ominous red and green masks.
The moment I saw that, I felt like all the blood in my body started to boil. Everything started with these guys in masks.
They were the men who shot Günter before my eyes and cut Conrad’s arm off. They were the men who threw me into a rampage near the window in Norman Gilbit’s estate. I remember those sickening red and green masks. I haven’t forgotten those green, fluttering clothes.
They surrounded the sheep carriage from a distance and their bare blades shined in the afternoon light. When one horse got impatient and neighed, it spread around to all the others.
The man who had moved forward called out.
“Are you the party from Caloria!?”
I see, so the suspicion of them being a group of thieves in the wilderness was now cleared. They have clearly chosen their target. And quite a unique target.
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