Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 21 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

The Traitor Gets Away

GEESE NUKADIA. The last of the Nuka tribe. Weak point: combat. Strong point: everything else. Despite being hopeless with a sword and a dunce at magic, he persevered and managed to become an S-ranked adventurer.

That was the Geese who Orsted knew.

“Geese had always been consistent, regardless of my movements, and so I decided that he could not be a disciple…until now.”

That was how Orsted operated. He acted, watched how the world and the people in it reacted to him, then used that to identify the Man-God’s disciples or whatever else he was looking for. Orsted witnessed how history progressed when he intervened and when he did not, but in all the loops Geese’s actions stayed the same. Geese lived his life as an adventurer and died as an adventurer. Regardless of what happened around him, he’d never done anything to arouse Orsted’s suspicion.

Orsted was good at sniffing out the Man-God’s disciples. There weren’t a lot of disciples like Geese—not much good in a fight, specializing in collecting information and manufacturing disinformation—but they did exist. They kept to the shadows, carrying out their plans in the darkness, lending a helping hand to other disciples at crucial moments. These disciples were always careful not to reveal their true nature. Orsted killed all of them. He had the time loops. With enough repetitions, it wasn’t hard to work out who was a disciple and who wasn’t.

Geese alone was different. Geese alone failed to rouse suspicion; Orsted said that he had never been a disciple. No matter what Orsted did, he never acted like one. Not even when he was on the verge of being killed.

“But what that means,” Orsted told me, “is that he was a disciple in every loop, but hid it perfectly.”

Geese had never admitted to being a disciple in any previous loops. Orsted had suspected and killed him before, but even moments from death, even with a knife at his throat, Geese never cracked.

“I deluded myself that this was the normal course of history… Hence these defeats.”

When we communicated through messages I could always tell when Orsted was feeling sorry for himself.

Orsted never so much as suspected that Geese was a disciple until my message. The Man-God had to be pissing himself laughing: It still hasn’t clicked for him! Pfeh heh heh!

I think Orsted didn’t consider Geese to be all that important at first, that was all.

“Still. You did well, Rudeus,” he told me. “He was the Man-God’s trump card…but no longer.”

There couldn’t be any other disciples like Geese, though. At the end of the day, Orsted had the loops and the Man-God didn’t. The disciples acted more independently than you might think, anyway. Even if the Man-God wanted more disciples like Geese, acquiring them would be easier said than done.

Which meant Geese was more than likely the Man-God’s last line of defense. The last disciple he’d kept hidden was Geese… I was still struggling to get my head around it.

Orsted thought he was just a few turns from an easy victory, now. Which…yeah. He had the time loops. Even if we screwed it up this run, though, he could just kill Geese in his New Game+. Then he’d be one step closer to victory.

The only thing was, if Orsted lost and went on to the next time loop, I only had this one. Game over.

“I want to win in this loop,” I sent back, anxiety balling in my chest. 

Orsted’s answer came: “I merely meant he’s already played his trump card.”

I snorted. Nice recovery, Orsted.

***

A month had passed since Geese had outed himself as the Man-God’s disciple. 

Afterward, I tried to find him. With the help of the knight orders, we hunted for him up and down the Millis Continent. The Millis Church and the Latrias went out of their way to lend us a hand and the search was still ongoing. It seemed likely, though, that he’d gotten away clean.

Needless to say, I wasn’t only focusing on Millis. I got in touch with the Doldia tribe straight away and got them to put out a wanted notice for the Great Forest. I also notified Ariel and had her do the same in the Asura Kingdom, then asked Roxy to put in a request in the Ranoan Kingdom.

Even then, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t catch him. From the south and northeast of the Central Continent, to the Begaritt Continent, to the Demon Continent and the Divine Continent, it was a big world. There were lots of places my influence didn’t reach. I didn’t even know which way he’d fled. North? West? If he had contacts in the King Dragon Realm, then that would mean he’d gone to the Demon Continent for sure. But after the death of the king, that place was a bit of a mess. The Demon Continent was broad, and Geese could blend in there. Maybe he’d used a teleportation circle I didn’t know about, and then he could literally be anywhere. 

Geese, gone completely to ground. I felt ill. Honestly, I’d hoped we might catch him right away. Eventually, though, I had to accept that wasn’t happening and start thinking about how to protect myself. In his letter, Geese said that next time, he was going to fight me fair and square. Ridiculous. This was Geese; he lied as easily as breathing. What am I, a sucker?

But then again.

When I looked back, I realized that Geese could easily have killed me at any time in Millis. I let my guard down around him. I’d trusted him. But he hadn’t done it. All he’d done was try to trick me into falling into his trap, and even after the trap fell apart, he still didn’t move on me. Hell, he could have taken Aisha as a hostage. Aisha could defend herself with a sword and magic, so he might have thought that was biting off more than he could chew, but he’d had the opportunity. Yet he didn’t do it.

Maybe I could trust the letter. Maybe, despite the fact that he was working on the Man-God’s orders, Geese himself wanted to fight fair and square. 

When you gotta kill someone, you better play fair or you’ll mess it up. That felt like one of Geese’s jinxes, right?

But I could be wrong. He might want me to think that while actually plotting the opposite. For all I knew he was actually hiding out in a cupboard in Cliff’s house, waiting to slit my throat with a poison knife when I fell asleep. 

Imagining guys in the walls isn’t helping.

I hadn’t been attacked yet, which meant Geese hadn’t gathered his forces in advance. He was probably out there somewhere right now, gathering allies. He was coming for me, but not yet. 

That was what I tried to tell myself. In reality, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might get attacked at any moment.

I was scared.

***

Now, while I was busy hunting for Geese, Aisha had all the work setting up the mercenary band office under control. She chose a branch manager, recruited members, and came up with a plan for business going forward. Usually everything needed my approval, but Aisha handled all of it. The Latrias helped take care of Zenith, so it took a lot of pressure off of her, but even when taking that into account, her efficiency was off the charts.

She even thought of me in the middle of this. A month after Geese went missing, Eris arrived on dispatch to the Holy Country of Millis. She came via teleportation circle. She came to protect me.

When she arrived, she was in full battle mode. Rather than normal civilian clothes, she wore the overcoat of a Sword King and carried two swords—a bold announcement to anyone in viewing distance that here was a warrior they ought to know about.

“Now that I’m here, it’ll all be fine! I’ll cut them all in half!” Eris boasted. “Dumb move on Geese’s part, turning against you! Wormy guy was right when he was all ‘Aw, no, I’m no match for the boss, no way!’”

Hearing her chatter away, cheerful as anything, settled my nerves a bit. I wasn’t going to get caught up in a battle and murdered this week, I consoled myself. On some level, I probably even believed it.

“Eris…” I said, then wrapped her in my arms. That turned into fondling her breasts, at which point she beat me to death. As my consciousness faded, everything became clear: 

This.

This had been Geese’s plan all along.

— FIN —

…Anyway, joking aside.

Now that things had settled down a bit, it was time to get organized.

First up, take Geese at face value. Assuming he really was assembling his forces to attack me head-on, there were three things I needed to do.

One: Find Geese.

Two: Make the Magic Armor (and myself) stronger. 

Three: Hammer out a counterstrategy.

When I saw it laid out like that, this is what I’d been doing all along. The only difference was that now, instead of eighty years, I had a significantly compressed timeline. Just a couple years to get good. And Geese was no average dude. Who knew what a fair-and-square, head-on attack would look like coming from him? Would he come at me with numbers or with skill?

According to Orsted, there weren’t many out there who could beat me when I had my Magic Armor on. Even so, I’d learned firsthand the other day how numbers could tip a battle. If he could get fifteen or so world-class warriors who could coordinate like the Temple Knights had in a fight? I’d be toast. 

He would need time to find people like that, though. There weren’t a lot around. A year, maybe two? I felt pretty confident it would take that long at an absolute minimum. Caught in a trap carefully constructed over the course of years, and with numbers on his side? Even I couldn’t squeeze my way out of it. The Temple Knights had a shot at winning for a sec there, and a disciple of the Man-God would be so much worse.

I just had to stop him before it got to that. I’d travel around the world and make allies of his targets before he could get to them. If he’d already turned some of them, then I’d take them out before they could gang up on me. In every job going forward, no matter how minor, I had to look for enemies. I could narrow down Geese’s probable location to either the Demon Continent as a whole, and potentially to the King Dragon Realm if I really had to guess. Yeah, the Demon Continent seemed particularly likely. Ruffians like Atofe would probably jump at the chance to fight when they heard Geese was trying to take me down.

I’d planned to leave the Demon Continent till last, but it looked like we were moving it up the list. I could probably prioritize stopping by the King Dragon Realm, though. That was where Death God Randolph was, and he beat me in the souped-up Version Two. He would make a solid ally. I wanted to get to him first.

With that, my course was set.

The mercenary band was still in its teething stages, but the Latrias and the church were here to back it up. So long as the two Millis Church big shots were bringing us work, the office should be able to stay afloat for the time being. I’d achieved the bare minimum of what I came to Millis to do. It was time to head back to the main office in Sharia. Then Orsted and I could hammer out the rest of our plan. 

But first, time to say goodbye.

***

I called in at the Latria estate, where I introduced Eris and announced that I was returning home.

“I see,” Claire said. Even faced with Eris, who wasn’t exactly a lady, she didn’t betray any disapproval. It looked like she’d taken my words to heart. The only emotion I could detect was, faintly, disappointment.

“I assume you will be taking Zenith with you?” she asked.

“That’s right. I take my responsibility to care for her seriously.”

“Very well.”

While Aisha and I were running ourselves ragged, Zenith had instead stayed with the Latrias for the past month. Claire said she’d been pretty active. Perhaps it was the nostalgia of being back in the house she’d grown up in. Apparently, she wandered around the estate and often went out to look at the gardens. She always wanted to be outside. She was as vacant as ever, but it was clear she was making the most of being back in her old hometown.

Every man and woman in the Latria estate watched her with sadness. 

In the end, I didn’t get to meet Edgar or Anise… All because of Geese. I asked Claire to pass along the message that I would absolutely set aside time to visit when I was next in Millishion.

“It pains me I didn’t get to lay eyes on Norn again…”

“We’ll be back,” I reassured her. “Next time, I’ll bring Norn. And my kids too. Aisha… Well, I can’t guarantee anything with her.”

Aisha and Claire’s relationship hadn’t gotten any better. Claire might have promised not to interfere with my family anymore, but Aisha’s existing dislike for Claire couldn’t be undone in a day. Claire, to the best of my knowledge, had basically only done what she thought was best for Aisha. A bastard should know her place and let the legitimate children have the spotlight. A daughter of the Greyrat family should act like a lady. A maid for the Greyrat family should devote herself to the master of the house.

Claire was trying to tell her to conduct herself in accordance with her station.

But Aisha was all those things and also none of them. She had no set role, and Claire apparently had a lot of opinions about that. Even now, after making that promise to me, her gaze was harsh every time it fell upon Aisha.

“I won’t go on at length about it, as promised, but I worry about her future,” Claire said.

“What? Oh, no, I think she’ll be just fine.”

Aisha was incredible and clever—she was almost too clever. She’d be all right.

“I wonder…” Claire said, sounding unconvinced. “I cannot shake the feeling that she’ll make some mistake she can’t come back from.”

“There’s not too many things you can’t come back from. Besides, no matter what happens, I’ll be there for her. Me, Sylphie, and Roxy. Eris can be pretty helpful too, for certain kinds of problems.”

Claire fell silent for a moment, then said, “If that is your opinion, I will say no more on the subject.”

She looked like she had more she wanted to say, though. But hey, if she was worried about Aisha, that was fine. She was free to worry about whoever she liked.

“Just wait, we’ll be back again soon enough,” I said. “I’m sure Aisha will grow up a bit in the meantime. Though I can’t promise it’ll be in a direction you approve of.”

Sure, there’d been some bumps along the way, but Claire wasn’t a bad person. Not the nicest, perhaps, but she wasn’t evil. I had no issue with bringing my wives and kids along for a visit. Next time, I’d make sure we’d keep it light and short. Show her we were all well, have a meal together, chat about recent developments, then see each other off with a smile.

“I’m afraid that, given my age, this may be our last farewell.”

Our last farewell. Claire was over sixty years old. I wasn’t sure what the average lifespan in this world was, but she was still in good health. But it was a four-year return journey from Millis to Sharia. It wasn’t a short trip. We weren’t going to turn around and come back the moment we arrived; it would be a minimum of ten years before we were reunited. Claire would be past seventy. At that age, well. It wouldn’t be a huge shock.

I understood where she was coming from.

Of course in my family we got around using teleportation circles, so in reality travel didn’t take long at all. I could tell her about that, but at the same time… I didn’t like making it widely known that I was teleporting everywhere. It was safer to keep it close to the chest in case someone used that against me. Also, you know, teleportation was a worldwide taboo. It was still used in some capacity by the Asura Kingdom, and the King Dragon Realm, and probably by the Royal Family in Millis, too—but those were the three greatest nations in the world and even they kept quiet about it. 

“Rudeus,” Claire said, “thank you for bringing Zenith back to me.” She bowed her head to me. Apparently, she and Zenith had taken a carriage to see a play of all things the other day. Claire frowned through the whole thing, but one of the servants said it was a long, long time since the mistress of the house looked so happy.

“I’ll be back,” I said. “Soon.” The words were out before I had time to stop them.

“But…”

“I will definitely be back,” I said, putting as much strength behind the words as I could.

Claire smiled.

The last thing she said to me, still beaming, was: “Zenith raised a good boy.”

I went to say goodbye to the Blessed Child, too. I had two parting gifts for her. In the past month, Aisha had found a Millishion artisan to make something for her. So, my first gift was an armband almost identical to my own. The usual design had a jewel-inlaid bezel, into which was embedded a stone. For this one, I made the stone myself with earth magic. It was black and glossy, and engraved with the emblem of the Dragon God. It ought to convey to anyone who saw it that the wearer was one of his followers. The second gift: a scroll Orsted sent me to summon a Guardian Beast.

I showed up with my gifts and had the Blessed Child sent for, only for the simp squad to come out to meet me. Therese was with them too. She’d dodged the transfer. Apparently a petition with my name on it had helped with that. Still, she got a demotion instead, so she wasn’t commanding the Blessed Child’s guard anymore. A new captain had been appointed, so now Therese served under her as a sort of deputy.

As it happened, the new captain turned out to be a bit inflexible. The armband was one thing, but the idea of using unknown summoning magic inside the church was rejected as totally outrageous. But I made her do things my way.

“This is a gift from the Dragon God Orsted to the Blessed Child, to thank her for her protection of his humble servant Rudeus!” I declared. “You, a mere guard captain, have no right to interfere!”

I was bad luck for these people’s careers…

The beast that emerged from the scroll turned out to be a silver owl. It was about a meter tall—smaller than Leo, but fairly imposing, and its golden eyes had something awe-inspiring about them. It wasn’t one of Perugius’s spirits, but those were super rare. I doubt things like those show up much. Plus this one was for the Blessed Child’s exclusive use, so it was probably from a different pack? At least the holo-edged beastie we drew had a divine vibe to it. I might have struggled to get the captain to sign off on a gigantic shiny black spider.

“I’ll be sure to take good care of it,” said the Blessed Child, her eyes shining as she gazed at the owl. She reached out to stroke it, and it closed its eyes in evident pleasure. The Blessed Child seemed enchanted that it had taken to her right after being summoned.

“That’s the owl’s job, actually,” I replied. It wasn’t a pet. She needed to relax and let it protect her, nothing more.

“Well. Until next time, then.”

“Indeed. Stay well, Sir Rudeus!” the Blessed Child replied.

On my way out, I bowed to Therese and the other Keepers of Anastasia as well. I’d probably run into them again.

Last up was Cliff.

He seemed to be off to an incredibly good start here. After the other day, both the papalists and the cardinalists had taken notice of him. All sorts of stories were circulating about him, none of them quite accurate.

“Cliff Grimor talked down the Dragon God’s right-hand man and saved the Blessed Child.”

“Amidst the pope and the cardinal’s feud, he spoke for justice and made them all see reason in the end.”

“He’s an example for all of us who follow Millis. A truly admirable young man.”

The funny part was that, as far as I could tell, the origins of the rumors were the commander of the Temple Knights and the vice-captain of the Cathedral Knights. Thanks to that, lesser knights and priests all trusted their reports and were convinced that the pope had snagged himself an exceptional right-hand man.

Also, perhaps thanks to those stories, Cliff was getting real work. Right now, that meant officiating weddings for important nobles. No matter what was going on in the world, a priest was never out of a job. Without getting into the details, Cliff had gotten plenty of real-life experience in Sharia. He was new, but he had plenty of skills and his superiors viewed him as an exceptionally talented employee. Some people weren’t so pleased to have him around, apparently… But hey, what’re you gonna do? It’s only natural that, when a talented new hire showed up who also happened to be the pope’s grandson, a few people got jealous. Cliff would have to navigate that himself.

I wasn’t worried, though. Not about Cliff. Not the Cliff I knew. He’d come out on top of whatever the world threw at him.

Just one niggling little thing.

“I’m off home then. Good to see you, Cliff,” I said.

“You too…” he replied. “Give my best to Lise.”

“You got it. I’ll tell her not to cheat on you.”

Cliff, so far as I knew, still hadn’t told anyone that he was married. All he’d said publicly was that his heart belonged to another… That wasn’t like him. I did get why announcing his marriage to Elinalise might be a bit tricky, though. Even around these parts, all the adventurers knew the stories about Elinalise d’Slut. There were now grizzled old veterans wandering around who’d spent their first time in her bed.

Yeah, maybe it was for the best if Cliff didn’t say who he’d married quite yet. It wouldn’t hurt to wait until he was important enough that he could deal with a few people talking behind his back. He’d get there one day. I was sure he wouldn’t take that secret to his grave. 

There was always the chance that proposals might start coming in the mail, though. And then there was Wendy. She was a servant and went home at night, but when a young man and a young woman spend some time together under one roof… Scratch that, that was stupid. This was Cliff. Beyond even my twisted mind. No way was Cliff sleeping around after all his holier-than-thou preaching. Not when even I wouldn’t go there!

Welp. Time to stop brooding about this or I’m going to jinx it. You do your best, Cliff.

“Keep it in your pants,” I cautioned him. “Saint Millis is always watching!”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t know where to find the time,” he replied.

Cliff had been busy lately. He was good at his job, and people were coming to view him as the pope’s right-hand man. With his social capital climbing like this, there were even a few nobles cozying up to him. 

“Really? You’re hot stuff lately, I hear. You might just toss sweet little Wendy down on the bed and…”

“Wendy is basically my little sister,” Cliff objected. “If you haven’t touched yours, why would it even cross my mind?”

I would never make a move on my sisters! The cheek!

I assumed an offended expression, and Cliff looked down.

“It’s just…” he began. “I really wanted to make it this far on my own merit.”

I had to laugh as I replied, “If it wasn’t for you, you think any of this would have worked out?” 

“Snrk!” I’d wanted to sound cool, but Cliff laughed through his nose at me. 

Point taken, jeez. Cliff saved the day, but he also brought me here, and I’m the one who started trouble in the first place. 

There was a sense of fireman-turned-arsonist about it all. Still, he’d stayed true to himself the whole way through, and now he was getting recognized for it. In the end, Cliff’s good fortune all stemmed back to Cliff.

“Anyway,” he went on, “thank you, Rudeus. I’m getting noticed now, and it’s all thanks to you.”

“No, thank you. You connected me to the right people in Millis, and now we’ve got the mercenary band set up here too.”

The sale of Ruijerd figurines, on the other hand… That looked like it might take a bit longer. If I rushed things along, I could get us ready for sales immediately, but I didn’t see us getting many customers. The mercenary band also wasn’t totally settled in yet, so it’d also lead to problems on that front… But hey, any other challenges we faced here were as good as solved. I’d just throw Cliff at them as another chance to prove himself.

“Everything from here on out is all me,” he said.

“You got it. Good luck,” I said.

It didn’t turn out exactly how I’d planned it, but I was pretty sure I’d fulfilled my promise to Elinalise too. Cliff would be okay. However things went with the other priests, he’d gotten off on the right foot. And it wasn’t like there was a shortage of problems for him to tackle on his own. The feud between the papalists and the cardinalists was very much unresolved. I was excited to see Cliff achieve great things in his own way. And if it all went to hell, he could always come back and work for me.

Try to take it easy, I thought.

“Sorry I couldn’t do much for you this past month,” he said.

“Oh, don’t sweat it,” I replied. I had my battles; Cliff had his. “If something happens with one of the Man-God’s servants, though, send me a message on the communication stone right away. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“You got it,” Cliff said, with a decisive nod. I wasn’t going to be there for every battle, but in an emergency I’d come running. He was my friend.

“All right then, Cliff… Stay well.”

“You too, Rudeus.”

“Keep in mind, though—I might end up back here again in a year.”

“Good. I should be ready by then to present Lise to everyone.”

Oh, yeah, there’s the business of Elinalise’s curse. This can’t be goodbye for long.

“…We’ve come a long way since you were the new kid at the university, huh?” he said.

“Nah, you’ll always be the same old genius Cliff to me,” I replied.

Cliff shrugged with a hopeless smile.

And with that, my battles in Millis were over. The clash with the Latrias, then the machinations of the Millis Church, and finally Geese’s betrayal… A lot had happened, but all these new experiences propelled me toward what I had to do.

Get ready, Geese. I’m coming.