Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 3 - Chapter 14

Chapter 14 – Confession from a Beast

The path through the Kittles Mountain Range was steep.

So as to make sure the difference in height between different sections of the path stayed as little as possible, the road weaved through the mountains instead of having a straight path through, so our travel time was lengthened severely.

Nevertheless, there were places where the slope was a bit too steep for the vehicle to traverse, so we oftentimes had to get out of the car and push to make up for the lack of horsepower.

It wasn’t all bad, though. Traces of maintenance were left behind from the Empire and Alliance war, and the path width never went below a certain margin for the most part.

When it did, though, it wasn’t something small. A fallen tree blocking the road was the easiest of the bunch. Some places were completely taken over by trees and shrubs, and worse, parts of the road had been buried or destroyed by a landslide from long ago.

If we were walking, at worst we would’ve had to cross over the mountain directly, using Lily and Gerbera to clear things here and there. With our vehicle, however, that wouldn’t work for us.

It would’ve been nice if there was a detour, but there’d be no hardship if such a convenient thing were to exist.

Besides, it wasn’t like we could just leave the vehicle behind.

The vehicle was something we’d borrowed, and even if it weren’t, there were a few among us that needed to remain hidden inside of it once we crossed the mountains.

Back in my old world, we would’ve just had to turn back and find another route.

Today, we met with yet another broken down section of the road. By this point we’d seen so many that we’d lost track.

Guess they fell over when the road collapsed. Fallen trees lay collapsed on the slope, their interiors rotting and hollow, and the outsides covered in moss. Some poisonous looking mushrooms were growing from it.

It looked like the collapse had happened long ago, and no maintenance had been done on it since.

The reason behind it must’ve been a lack of workers, so maintenance work was cut down on.

A minimum amount of repairs was needed in order for us to continue.

“Lily-dono. I have finished checking ahead.”

Silane had gone ahead up the path by herself, and had come back in a hurry.

She donned her Alliance Knight armor once more after we entered the mountains, and on the other side of the broken road she stood there, looking ahead with a much more gallant expression than previously.

“As always, there are no signs of people ahead. We may continue at any time.”

We hadn’t run into anyone as we travelled, but that didn’t mean no one used this road at all.

To put it another way, we had to make sure not to do anything too eye-catching.

Lily was examining the path, one knee on the ground, when she heard Silane’s words.

“Got it. It’s go time, then.”

She got up, and stretched out her right hand.

At her fingertips formed a yellow magical circle.

Second Rank Earth Magic. This was one of the two attributes of magic that Lily acquired from dining on the mountain of monsters at Fortress Tilia.

With a bubbling sound, the ground raised up to fill the broken path.

A few repeats of this magic later and Lily had filled the collapsed path like new.

Earth Magic was very convenient for situations like these.

Even before this, Lily practiced her newly acquired magic by removing the trees blocking the road, and doing things like simple repairs to the path.

There was one problem, however.

Earth Magic would not repair the advanced technical work done on the road.

This was because unless you were very skilled or a magician specializing in engineering, there was no way for you to skillfully make use of Earth Magic for such purposes.

In the army, for example, there were specialized magicians belonging to a “handyman crew”.

In Lily’s case, she could raise the ground with magic to fill in the broken parts of the road, but making a smooth, solid road like the original was out of her league.

It was not possible to drive a vehicle meant for smooth roads on an uneven surface, and forcing one to could lead to damage being inflicted on its frame.

Nevertheless, we were a team.

If the power of one was not enough, then another could simply lend a hand.

Thanks to Lily, the road ahead was now made.

No obstructions such as trees or shrubs lay ahead, and the “required base” was there, so to speak.

Our vehicle may not have been suited to cross this path, but that didn’t make it impassible.

“Well, the rest is up to you, Gerbera.”

“All right.” Gerbera nodded before bending her body, reaching out with her eight legs to secure herself in place.

She reached out with both hands and grabbed the mud plate on the vehicle’s front.

An odd creak came from the vehicle’s frame.

Gerbera then lifted up the vehicle with a blank expression, as though the car weighed nothing at all.

It was like a scene out of a manga, but the vehicle really did weigh as much as it appeared to, as evidenced by it creaking under its own weight, despite prior reinforcement by Rose.

It made me think back to a picture I’d seen in a picture book back when I was a kid. The picture of an ant carrying something many times its weight.

So does that apply to spiders, too? As pointless thoughts like that one whirled around in my head, I watched Gerbera walk with careful footsteps as she held the car.

Even on uneven ground Gerbera’s spider legs were as stable as ever.

The vehicle was moved horizontally with weirdly smooth movement, and hardly bobbed up and down at all.

Gerbera’s physical capabilities were unmatched compared to a human’s.

Even her sense of balance was extraordinary.

After doing this countless times, she’d gotten considerably better at carrying things. I didn’t feel even the slightest hint of danger.

“…That aside, watching her carry the car like this makes it feel like we’ve gotten our priorities backwards.”

“It certainly does.”

Nearby, Katō-san smiled at my musings.

Rose, watching over the situation next to her, called out to Gerbera.

“Gerbera. You are leaning slightly to the right. Please be careful.”

“Hm, acknowledged. However, thy hands have made adjustments to this. It does feel a bit soft, but it shan’t break easily, I imagine.”

“Yes. It is true that so long as you proceed with caution, no danger will arise from this. …However, lightening the burden is the most important thing to do.”

“Hmm. Thou think so?

Smiling, Gerbera nodded at Rose’s warning.

Gerbera: complacent and an airhead at times; and Rose: diligent and punctual.

Recently I’d noticed that the pair were counteropposites, yet surprisingly worked well together.

Showing surprising dexterity, Gerbera smiled and directed her gaze upwards without shaking the car.

“Be careful. Kei’s in there too, you know?”

“I trust Gerbera-san.”

From somewhere within the vehicle, a girl’s voice echoed out—cheerful like a child’s.

“How art the scenery from up there?”

“It feels a bit strange…but it’s refreshing!”

“As long as thou art enjoying thyself.”

Inside of the vehicle that Gerbera was lifting up was Kei.

This was something Gerbera had suggested.

The only troublesome part was the fact it was extremely eye-catching. Setting that aside, a happy atmosphere tended to not stay in place, and soon even we started having fun despite only looking on from the side.

…Recently the countermeasures we’d been taking against the frayed path had become a routine of sorts, so getting time to mess around like this was new. The mountain path wasn’t exactly in the best of conditions when we first started travelling up it, and it gave us quite a bit of trouble.

To tell you the truth, after my experience of travelling through the Sea of Trees, a part of me thought it’d be easy to travel up a simple mountain path.

The poorly-maintained path proved quite difficult to traverse, however. Gerbera ended up pulling the vehicle more times than not.

We were able to slowly move thanks to that, but the shaking was so severe that we couldn’t stay in the car.

Once we got out and started walking, the steepness of the slope quickly sapped my strength.

I’d learned how to handle magical power after coming to this world, and despite her youth, Kei was still a knight apprentice, so we managed to tough it out. Katō-san, the weakest among us, wasn’t so lucky. There were times when she was physically carried by Rose in her arms.

Sometimes we were stuck waiting for hours as we worked to ensure the path could support the car.

The car would sometimes flip over, and more annoyingly, one time the wheel even broke. It took half of a day to repair.

There was also the occasional monster we’d run into every so often. Not only was it dangerous to fight on such a narrow path, we also had to make sure that no damage was inflicted on the path or the vehicle as we fought.

With no reason to hasten our journey, we travelled slowly, and ten days passed before I knew it.

If the village head’s words were to be trusted, we’d shortly be running into a branch of the Alaria River, which ran through the Kittles Mountain Range.

Our journey would finally be halfway done once we did.

We were getting used to the troubles waiting for us on the trail, so the other half of our journey would go by faster, or so I hoped.

Thanks to our resupply at the last pioneer village, we still had plenty of food.

It looks like we’ll be able to cross the mountain path without any difficulties, I thought.

The next day, it became clear that I was mistaken to believe that.

It appears you can sense the signs of something disturbing even as you sleep.

Morning. As I lifted my heavy eyelids, I was greeted by the sight of two red yet charming eyes staring at me.

“…”

They didn’t belong to Lily.

I would often make eye contact with her right after waking up, as most of the time I would wake up cuddling her.

Sometimes I found it quite difficult to get out of bed, and I could tell even in my extremely lucid state that I would be hugging her slightly chilly body.

As such, it wasn’t uncommon for there to be a cute girl in front of me.

This morning, however, was different.

In front of me today, extremely close up without any warning, was a beautiful face that made even a goddess’ pale in comparison.

Her bewitching expression froze the moment my eyes met hers.

It was a bit strange──Ah, this is fitting for her. A random thought slipped in during my escapism.

“A─Mn, nngh…”

Groaning, she released the breath that’d caught in her throat due to surprise.

Her breath blew on the sensitive skin around my mouth, tickling it slightly.

That ticklish feeling turned into a switch, restarting my frozen mind.

“…What are you doing, Gerbera?”

With posture as though she’d been leaning over me as I slept, the white spider froze.

One of her arms was attempting to touch my chest, and the other trying to grasp my cheek.

Her dazzling white hair dangled over me, and the clothes around my chest seemed to have been carelessly dug into.

The spider legs of her lower body were thrust into the ground beside my head, one on each side, supporting her as she leaned forward.

It looked like she was a few seconds away from stealing my lips.

“Thou art mistaken, milord.”

Still frozen, Gerbera spoke.

“I’m mistaken? About what?”

I didn’t think she could explain her way out of this one.

She answered my query with a slight haste in her words.

“I-I made sure to hold myself back.”

She held herself back, it seemed.

I didn’t really have to ask what she was doing. No matter how she answered, I was troubled.

“Though I may have been looking at milord whilst thee slept soundly, it were just the two of us, and I’ve been here since daybreak. ‘Art this not wonderful’, I thought.”

Taking into consideration the greyness in the sky, I’d say it was about an hour after dawn.

She’d confessed to gazing at my sleeping face for that entire time without pause, but it appeared she herself had yet to realize this.

Her confession continued on.

“And as I stared, I suddenly blanked out. Before I knew it, I was in front of thy face… N-Not on purpose. Attacking thy sleeping figure whilst milord slept tis something I would never do. Thinking that I could steal thy lips as thee slept… T-Twas merely a delusion, perhaps.”

“All right. That’s enough. I think I get the gist of it.”

I stopped her there.

…The more I listened, the more embarrassing it got.

“So, could you step back a bit please?”

“A─Mm. My apologies.”

Gerbera drew herself back slightly.

Once she did, I started grasping the current situation a bit more.

It was still early in the morning.

Kei and Katō-san were nearby, Ayame was sleeping by herself, and everyone else was nowhere to be seen.

Ayame was the only one to realize we were chatting, and opened her eyes. She lifted up her snout and sniffed the air, but then laid her head back down and went back to sleep, as though saying “Nope. Not breakfast time yet”.

“Where are the others?”

“Lily-dono requested me to watch over thee, and went over to where Rose-dono is working. Silane were nowhere to be found when I awoke, but it seems Lily-dono told her to go patrol the area.”

“…I see.”

My brows creased slightly.

Lily was most likely practicing her new form of mimicry.

She’d run into a dead end. I was worried she was forcing herself.

As a slime, her vitality was high─even among monsters. Despite being aware of this, she was a very special girl to me. I couldn’t help but worry.

Silane was also pushing herself, so I was worried about her, too.

Nevertheless, it looked like she’d calmed down recently.

Right after we left Selatta, she’d had a forward attitude and would rush out first whenever we encountered a monster, but once we entered the mountains she’d let Gerbera take the wheel now that she could move as she pleased without the worry of other people.

I believed it was necessary to check up on her every once in a while since she was the type of person to do something reckless the moment you took your eyes off of her, but it was better for Lily to do that for the time being.

It looked like it was about time for Lily to speak to her again.

…Hold on. Forget that for now, Gerbera’s in front of me.

“Hey, Gerbera?”

“W-What art wrong, milord?”

Gerbera displayed the expression of a child who knew they’d made a mistake, and I smiled wryly.

“I’m not angry, so don’t be scared.”

There was no one around and the tension inside her was released, and I happened to be sleeping right next to her then, so she stared at me blankly. It would be wrong to condemn her for that.

She looked to be quite embarrassed about what she’d done, so I wasn’t angry.

And while she stared at me, she suddenly lost control of herself and approached me unaware. Sounded like something she’d do.

Once she’d gotten close enough, she finally realized and stopped herself at the last second. While it had surprised me a bit, I wasn’t angry at her.

“…Though, I would appreciate it if you could retract the thread.”

“Thread?” She spoke, confused, and tilted her head.

She looked in the direction my eyes were directing…down to my body, currently wrapped up.

“…”

The spider thread I was wrapped in reflected in her red eyes.

I couldn’t move properly with this on.

I’d been wrapped up completely in this for some time now.

“Hwah!?”

A strange voice came from her.

Guess she really didn’t notice. I thought this might be the case.

“M-My apologies. I did this unconsciously, perhaps on instinct. I never meant to…”

“As I said before, you don’t have to apologize because I’m not angry.”

Just how much of a daze were you in? I strained a smile as an itchy feeling overtook me.

“That aside, please be more careful in the future. This goes for your spider silk, too, but make sure not to wake anyone.”

Gerbera reached out to the place I was looking at, and just before her hands began trying to untie me──

“This is the kind of thing you’d do with a lover.”

──Her fingertips quivered and froze.

“…With a lover?”

The words barely escaped her lips, a tiny whisper.

My brows furrowed.

“Gerbera?” I said, tilting my head.

Her hand had stopped just before the string restraining me.

“…Thinking on it, it art rare for the two of us to converse alone. Hmm. Perhaps this art a good opportunity.”

Correction. To be accurate, it was only for a moment that she stopped.

“I tell others something proud like ‘Why do thee not convey thy feelings’, yet refuse to take a step forward when I art finally given a chance. …Thee can do this.”

Gerbera nodded for some reason, and then cheered herself on

Her red eyes gazed this way.

At that moment, I thought a terrifying spider was about to attack me.

“…Eh?”

A lack of caution left me completely open.

In my restrained state I was even prevented from reflexively trying to run.

Before I knew it, her supple arm was wrapping around the back of my head.

On the left half of my face, I could feel a soft fabric.

On the other half, I was caught up against a tense and elastic bulge.

In my field of view, up close, was the extremely revealing white clothes around her chest.

The deep valley woven by her soft skin was within arm’s reach.

“Wha-…!?”

The moment I realized what part of her my face was pushed up against, my heart rate skyrocketed.

A complete surprise attack. My throat dried up in a moment.

“…Milord.” A pained whisper tickled my ears.

Thus, the final blow was dealt.

Her heart was crushed by the weight of her feelings within, and she squeezed out a pained voice.

Gerbera spoke in a girl’s voice.

“Hey, milord. There… art a lot of things I cannot understand about humans. Their weaknesses and their back-to-back strengths are beyond my comprehension. …Hmm. I do not understand it. Not one bit. The only thing I did was that I could understand by talking.”

On the other side of the bulge I was pressed up against, the quick beating of Gerbera’s heart was transmitted to me.

It looked like she was nervous, too. Or maybe she was excited? I could hear her spider legs clicking.

“At the most basic level, I art a beast of some sort. As such, I have no choice but to convey this in a beast-like way, in my own words. That art my thinking.”

“Convey this…? What do you mean?”

When she finally heard the question come out my mouth, she tightly embraced me with the arm she was holding my head with.

“Milord. One thing remains unchanged. I still wish to capture you with my own hands.”

“…!”

I reflexively gulped.

Her desire had been openly laid out before me.

Of course, I’d known that she’d wanted to do this for a long time now──it’d become clear to me back when I was in her nest.

The path was connecting us, but even without it, it was clear she felt this way from how she normally behaved without even a single hint of trying to hide it. She’d even told me face-to-face that she wanted to capture me.

However, this time she meant it differently.

“Milord, I wish to push thee down.”

Frank, open, and straightforward… A confession truly fitting for her.

“If possible, milord, I wish for thee to respond to my feelings.”

Gerbera said that she was a beast.

Sure, that might’ve been true.

But at the same time, Gerbera was a girl.

She was also extremely charming.

…For example, if I were to embrace her here…I was fully confident that she wouldn’t be able to hold herself back.

She separated herself from me slightly, and looked down at me.

“Art I perhaps…no good?” She whimpered.

“Gerbera…”

Her eyes, moist as though she was out of it from a fever, were entrancing.

The dream-like sensation robbed me of my reason, numbing my entire body.

Glued to her, I could feel uneasy movements coming from her.

The soft clicking of her spider legs reached my ears.

A dangerous softness enveloped me. The feminine scent wafting from her arm tickled my nose.

“If it art fine, then please prove so. Should thee return the embrace, then I…”

Hearing her overly passionate words in this situation overwhelmed any sense of reason I had left, and then──…

Creak, creak. The sound of the wheels colliding against rough earth rang out intermittently.

We were currently travelling the mountain path curving around the mountainside.

To the right of us lay the steep cliff wall. The exposed layers of rock were rather fragile, and we’d run into broken parts of the road twice already this morning.

To the left of the path, a fast-flowing river could be seen below the steep slope.

The Alaria River. A large river twisting through the center of the continent, it boasted an impressively sized watershed.

The mountain range we were attempting to cross also contained branches of the Alaria River. The stream flowing beside us must’ve been one of them.

According to what I heard, the river flowed out of the Kittles Mountain Range, and by following it downstream the entire way, running into several other branches of the river merging into this one in the process, we would run into the Dark Forest on the border between Count Long’s dominion (northward) and Aker─our point of destination.

A leftover scrap of the Sea of Trees, the Dark Forest was always inhabited by powerful monsters due to the circumstances behind its formation.

Downstream of this river contained the territory of a legendary monster known as the Wrath of the Earth.

Once we settled down in Aker, there might come the opportunity for us to visit.

As I was thinking about this, Lily spoke to me in a slightly hushed voice as she walked beside me.

“Hey, Master?”

Her gaze wasn’t towards me.

She was more worried about the vehicle behind us moving too far behind the rest of us.

“Gerbera looks really down in the dumps. Did something happen?”

“…Something might’ve, something might not’ve.”

I returned a vague reply and glanced back at her.

Gerbera was tottering down the mountain path, pulling the rickshaw-esque handle Rose had attached to the vehicle as a secondary option.

Yeah, it’s obvious something’s seriously wrong.

I scratched my cheek, thinking back to what happened.

In the end, nothing had happened between Gerbera and I after that.

We didn’t even hug each other, much less kiss.

──If it art fine, then please prove so. Should thee return the embrace, then I…

Spurred on by Gerbera’s passionate wish, I tried to return a hug.

But I couldn’t.

There was no way I could.

…It was physically impossible considering both my hands were restrained by spider thread.

As soon as I told her I couldn’t unless she removed the thread, the passionate atmosphere washed away in an instant, only to be replaced by an awkward air.

I guess the atmosphere is important for that kind of thing.

Once I came to my senses, it was difficult for us to continue.

“Why art..I like this…” Stricken by sadness, Gerbera heaved a sigh somewhat in self reflection.

There was nothing I could say in return.

Though, thinking you’d gotten a good chance only to ruin it right before it got good was totally something Gerbera would do.

“Seeing your expression, I think I can guess roughly what happened.”

Lily peered at my face as I thought back to what happened this morning.

“So the reason she’s sad is, perhaps, because something rather disappointing happened?”

“…”

Her words made me feel as though I’d messed up.

Despite that, her expression remained calm.

“I’m sure you don’t need to hear it from me, but please do it properly, Master.”

Aside from the specifics, Lily really seemed to know what’d happened. Even with the path helping, a woman’s intuition was sharp, it seemed. Or maybe Gerbera and I were too easy to read?

“…Are you okay with that?”

“Mmm. I know what you want to say, Master, but that’s a bit off the mark.”

Lily looked troubled by my reflexive question.

“We’re not humans from your world, Master…far from it, in fact. From our perspective, there is no such thing as ‘cheating’. In the first place, we are all a member of your family, but you are the master of us all. Leaving aside the fact I have the memories of Miho Mizushima, I don’t think the others even know what you’re worrying about, Master.”

“But you know, don’t you?”

“I can understand your feelings, yes. Feeling that way, however, is another story. Those are Miho Mizushima’s values, not mine.” Speaking in a clear tone, Lily shrugged her shoulders.

“Of course, I know you’re not one to change your mind quickly. So, to tell you the truth, there are some parts I’m worried about. …But, I think that’s fine. If you went far enough for it to be disappointing you stopped, then there’s just a bit more to go.”

What Lily was saying was right on point.

In this case I felt that if I’d responded to Gerbera’s advances even slightly, then that was all she wrote.

That was testament to how attracted I was to her.

Gerbera’s confession, a head-on strike from out of nowhere, was backing enough destructive force to make me aware of her feelings. There was no shutting my eyes after today’s events.

Lily stared at me as a small groan escaped my lips, and smiled.

“Hehehe. Gerbera’s pretty direct, isn’t she? She’s clumsy and can’t make a detour, but maybe that’s why she can reach the destination the fastest. I’m sure the things she did well help you when it comes down to it. Something different than her normal brute strength.”

And then, Lily sighed.

“I hope I can have peace of mind now, too,” She muttered.

“…?”

The meaning behind her statement was unclear.

I gazed at the side of Lily’s face.

The smile showing on her face was highly transparent.

Haven’t I seen this once before? I thought before remembering.

The town on the outskirts of Selatta. That was the same smile as the one she’d shown me back in the inn that we were borrowing when it was just the two of us.

Intuitively, I realized that I couldn’t overlook this.

However, the situation rolled in a direction where my thoughts had to be shelved.

“What do you mean by that…?”

It happened the very moment I asked.

“!!”

As she stared ahead, Lily’s expression went stiff, and I could hear sounds coming from in front of us.

“…!”

I switched my thinking in an instant.

Though I was starting to get used to it, the mountain trail held many dangers.

Landslides, for example. Or monster attacks.

I’d always made sure to try to keep myself tense so I could respond to any situation.

As quickly as possible, I began grasping the situation.

The noises had come from in front of us, and not from more than a few meters away.

Their presence had appeared alongside the sudden noises.

I hadn’t been aware that someone was approaching until this very moment.

To word it another way, the enemy had approached while hiding its presence in order to not be noticed by us.

We couldn’t expect them to have come with good intentions.

As such, our counter approach was obvious. There wasn’t even a need to communicate.

Lily went up ahead, standing in a position to shield me.

I reached for the handle of my sword and attempted to speedily retreat──

“I’ve finally caught up with you.”

──The moment the voice coming from ahead reached my ears, I realized my judgement was partly correct and partly incorrect.

The correct part had been the fact that they hadn’t come with good intentions.

Hostility in their gaze, she blocked the way.

The part I was mistaken about was them hiding their presence as they approached.

She hadn’t done that.

There was no reason to. She was strong enough to not even consider doing so, much less actually doing it.

She was blocking our way. However, that was it.

However, to be so speedy that it made you think that she just appeared there…it was a feat accomplished by the only one who could bring such speed into reality.

“…Eno Yuna.”

Standing before us was the fastest girl in the ‘Scouting Corps’, the Great Runner Eno Yuna.

Editor’s Notes

The novel’s been licensed by JNC, so this chapter likely concludes our journey with Monster Tamer (which is the official name for the series). It’s been a wild ride starting off with C16-C17 which looking back can only be called unreadable. Thanks to all of ya’ll who stuck with us despite all that.

Special shoutout to jorgelotr for bailing us out nearly every chapter on things that neither Unsus or I could make heads or tails out of.

Not sure what the future holds, but perhaps we’ll continue with some other series that Unsus picks up.

-Upsilon