Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 23 - Chapter 11.1

Extra Chapter:

Geese and His Final Ally

FOUND MYSELF in the Biegoya Region of the Demon Continent inside a certain town mayor’s estate. The scent of booze stunk up the air. The men in the room, all completely hammered, were half-naked. Not a stitch on the bastards from the waist up.

I was smack in front of this group’s head honcho. I knew the guy by reputation, but he was a little outta my league. I knew his name, of course. I’d spied him from a ways off. It’s not like we ever hung out, though; not like we so much as talked. I was just kinda aware of him, right? Knew that he was out there in the world, doing something. That was the extent of our little relationship—if you could call that a relationship.

I’d been insinuating myself into his group lately, but I hadn’t got used to being around ’em. My knees were still knocking.

“Fwahaha! Fwahaha! Fwah! Fwah! Fwahahaha!”

The man was energetically necking his drink. His six arms clutched a whole barrel of the ale; he knocked it back and swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed. The way he guzzled suggested he wasn’t paying attention to the taste. Waste of a nice drink, if you asked me.

“You’re in a fine mood,” I said, approaching the man.

Having drained the last drop from the cask, the man tossed it off into the distance. His eyes fixed on me. “Fwahahaha! Yeah, I am!” He offered only that brief response before peeling his gaze away. “Get me another drink, I’ve taken a liking to your ale! A real vintage. Fwahaha!”

This guy wasn’t interested in me. I knew a word that’d grab his attention, though. As soon as he heard it, I knew he’d sit up and listen.

“So. Have you heard of the Man-God?” I asked.

His laughter stopped, and his eyes snapped to mine. “You,” he said. “Where did you hear that name?”

“Same place as you. In a dream.”

“Oh, really? Head over to Ranoa Kingdom’s University of Magic! You’ll find someone with a deep connection to the Man-God there! Fwahaha!”

I assumed he was referring to Boss. True, if I was connected to the Man-God and wanted a way out, that would be the right place for it. Reasonable bit of advice.

“Nope,” I said. “I’ve got business with you.”

“What?”

“I’m aligning myself with the Man-God. We’re fighting the Dragon God. Join us.”

“Oh?”

His whole posture changed. His jovial grin turned into something serious. It was a startling shift considering this was a perpetually cheerful, jolly sorta guy.

“If that’s what you want, let me tell you something. Consider it advice.”

I nodded. “Go on.”

“If you align yourself with the Man-God, one day you will destroy what’s most precious to you with your own hands. Get out while you can.”

“Yep, I know. I followed His advice before and it led me to destroying my entire homeland.”

He stared at me blankly. “Your homeland? Hm? And you still follow that guy?”

“Guess I do, yeah.”

This must be what it’s like to watch someone change their mind about you. I felt him regard me, suddenly, as an interesting figure. A curiosity. I think I liked it.

“You destroyed your homeland with your own hands and you felt nothing?”

I quickly shook my head. “Nah, course not. It was a real shock for me. How should I put it? It was only once it was too late, once things were already out of my control, that I realized all of a sudden—I didn’t hate the place. I’d thought of my family and siblings as nothing but scum, I’ll admit. But then I realized I never wanted ’em to die. I was all regret. ‘What’ve I done?’ I couldn’t even bring myself to stand for days.”

It’d been several years after I first started taking the Man-God’s advice and set off traveling when it all went down. Happened before I met Paul and the others, when I was an adventurer desperate for money. The Man-God had advised me to offer information to a certain guy. It was different from His usual advice, phrased more like a request. I did feel like something was a little hinky about it. Still, I did exactly as He told me to, offered the information, and netted myself a handsome reward for my trouble.

It wasn’t even that much money. Seemed like it at the time, but it was only enough to go a month without work before it’d dry up. Didn’t matter to me—I was pleased as hell. I took my money, marched down to a pub, treated everyone there to drinks, and drowned myself in liquor.

The next day, it all went to shit. That day, I discovered the information I’d handed over had provoked a Demon King’s wrath. This Demon King was a generally mild-mannered guy, but everyone has a secret they don’t want to get out. Well, the info I’d passed on related directly to that secret. The Demon King traced the leak to a demon of the Nuka Tribe.

The Demon King went straight to our clan’s settlement and massacred everybody. No mercy—none. Men and women, elderly and children—indiscriminate slaughter. Not even the Demon King survived his own massacre. The intel I’d passed on was key to killing off this Demon King. The man who’d bought this intel from me sold it off, and the buyers killed the Demon King.

I was the only survivor.

It was a shock. I wept. I wailed. I lamented. Why am I such an idiot? Why did I trust the Man-God?

How d’ya think the Man-God reacted to all of this? He mocked me and He laughed.

“Pretty awful, right? He made me experience the worst possible thing imaginable, then He kicked me in the guts when I was down,” I said, thinking back.

“And you trust the Man-God after all of that, hm? Fwahaha! You’re an interesting man!”

“Right? I get that a lot.”

I doubted there was another man alive who’d fallen to the depths of despair and still clung to the Man-God in spite of it. Rudeus hadn’t done that. Neither had the guy I was speaking to now.

“I think you’re pretty interestin’ yourself,” I said.

“Oh?”

Though I was skeptical from everything I’d heard until now, I started to suspect this guy wasn’t like Rudeus. He seemed like my kinda guy, to be honest.

“It’s not like I know all the details, but…you’ve got a girl you’re interested in, right?”

“I do! We’re engaged!”

“But you weren’t able to spit out what you felt about her, is that right?” I continued, pressing him.

“Got me there.”

“You only managed to tell her thanks to the Man-God, right? You owe him. Right?”

There was a pause.

“Hmm… Now that you mention it, I suppose I haven’t paid him back!”

“Why not pay back the debt you owe by lending us your strength now? Not a bad deal, right?”

Felt pretty risky considering he might crush me and my bones into a little ball with his bare hands. His interests were more on Rudeus’s side, after all. I bet he understood the pain that came from following the Man-God’s advice only to watch your most precious thing stomped into the dirt. At the same time, I bet he could comprehend how I felt, too. Yes, I’d been robbed of one thing that was precious to me, but I’d gotten off without losing the most precious thing of all.

This guy had to be like me. Although he’d been deceived like many others before, he was the only one who still remained, because in the end, he’d still gotten his hands on what he wanted most of all.

“Not a bad deal! I do have an obligation to lend my aid to the Man-God!”

I perked up. “Yeah, you do, don’t you?”

“But I refuse!”

“Huh? Why?!” I cried in disbelief.

“You!” He thrust his fingers at me—the index fingers of four of his hands. “Fwahaha! It would wound my reputation as a Demon King if I were to let myself be won over by word tricks and a little guilt!”

I snapped my mouth shut. Ah, I get the picture. That’s right, this guy is one of them—one of the immortal demons. His long lifespan gave him a funny preoccupation with reputation, agreements, and whatnot. Stubborn about his own self-enforced rules.

“My name is Immortal Demon King Badigadi! If you want to fight next to me, you need to defeat me first!”

That’s right. This was the Immortal Demon King Badigadi. He was a Demon King who bestowed wisdom. His sister, Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe, bestowed power. She could only be forced to submit by someone stronger than her. In contrast, it was said Badigadi would only capitulate to someone who showed they had a little cunning.

“Fine, all right. I’ll take you on.”

“A contest of wits? Fwahaha! What nonsense are you going on about? What would be the purpose of such a contest?”

“What?”

Well, crap. If it was a fistfight he was after, I had no chance. Should I bring someone else to fight for me?

“Not much glory to be found in beatin’ down a puny guy like me though, yeah? Or do ya really think that’d add to your honor as a Demon King?”

Badigadi shook his head. “Of course not! It’s a Demon King’s duty to give a fighting chance to potential heroes.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Okay, then what kinda contest are you looking for?”

The man pulled over another cask of ale. “This,” he said. “From the looks of you, I’d bet you’re quite the heavy drinker!”

“I enjoy a drop.”

A drinking contest, then. I wasn’t all that good at holding my liquor. I liked it more than Talhand, yes, but not enough to brag about.

Badigadi had about ten empty casks strewn about around him. Taking that into account, maybe I can… Nah, I couldn’t get my hopes up. This man was an immortal demon. No matter how good my advantage here might seem, I’d bet the guy had an unlimited capacity to drink. He was like a bottomless pit. I wasn’t gonna win.

“Well?” Badigadi goaded me. “Have you chickened out? Or are you the type who only agrees to a challenge if he’s sure he can win?”

“Nah, more like I don’t bother with challenges I know I’m not gonna win,” I said, correcting him.

“Rudeus Greyrat was different. He didn’t flinch at a fight. He let out a loud laugh and suddenly slung an Emperor-tier spell at me. Of course, I still beat him! Fwahahaha!”

“I wouldn’t want you paintin’ Boss and me with the same brush anyhow. Unlike him, I wasn’t handed any talents.”

“Hmph. What’s all that about not taking on a challenge you can’t win and having no talent? You think Rudeus Greyrat was that confident at the time? That he threw himself into every single battle feeling he’d be protected by his own talents?”

I thought back to our time in the Teleportation Labyrinth. Boss’d had more confidence than me, to be sure, but he’d quaked with anxiety a fair few times. The slipup he made at the end nearly destroyed him completely. Roxy had forced him back to his feet, but it was close. He had improved as time went on, but he still carried Paul’s death with him like a weight.

I was willing to bet he had no illusions of being able to win when he faced Orsted, either. Rudeus barely held his own against that hydra, but that Orsted fella could have trounced that monster one-handed.

“You must realize it too, eh? There are some battles you can’t win just by manipulating things from the safety of the shadows. Sometimes you gotta put your life on the line, to gamble on your chance at victory.”

I said nothing in response.

“I know it,” said Badigadi. “There was a time when I didn’t, which is why I ended up losing everything. So, I learned. I’ve honed my body, chugged all kinds of alcohol, and made battalions of friends! Fwahahaha! I wish I could show you the puny nobody I used to be!”

I only knew what this soapboxing Demon King was like based on the little bit the Man-God told me. Still, lack of intel aside, there was one thing I was certain of: for a Demon King, a contract was absolute. This contest wasn’t impossible. It was just a drinking competition. If I could nab a win out of this, I knew he would honor his promise. He’d become the Man-God’s stooge and my puppet. Immortal Demon King Badigadi, the guy who’d faced and bested a Dragon God way back in historical times, would be at the beck and call of me: Geese Nukadia, the Man-God’s little yes-man, a guy who picked the bones off of other people’s lives to get by.

“Fine,” I said.

If it were a battle of fists, I wouldn’t have a prayer. As long as he wasn’t looking for physical combat, though, then it wasn’t impossible.

I nodded to myself. “You got a fight. Hope you’re up for gettin’ crushed, Demon King.”

“Fwahaha! That’s the spirit! Come then, show me what you’ve got!”

“You’d better not forget your promise,” I warned him.

“The rest of you! Bring us more ale!”

With the terms of our contest set, everyone around us erupted with excitement.

“All right, monkey-face! Show us what you’ve got!”

“Yeah, you’ve got some spirit for an outsider.”

“This fella’ll out-monkey you! Watch yourself!”

Tugged along by the men around us, I found myself pushed into a chair. I scanned the area and my eyes landed on a heap of unconscious bodies—poor idiots who’d challenged Badigadi only to fail spectacularly. There were five of them piled there, but I suspected there were many more besides those currently sleeping it off in a heap. That means the man’s gotta be pretty tanked, but… Jeez, do I really have a chance of winnin’ this?

“Go on then, have your first cup.”

I was handed a tankard—a wooden cup the size of an enormous fist, into which they poured a translucent, golden ale, filling the tankard to the brim.

“Bottoms up!”

“Yeah, knock ’em back!”

I managed to guzzle down the first drink without any issues. Mm, yeah, this ale actually goes down pretty easily. I could down this stuff almost endlessly. Although, judging by the bodies on the floor, I wasn’t the only one who’d been convinced of that.

“Kehehe, they were fools, all of them—thinking they could challenge an Immortal Demon King like me to a drinking contest,” said Badigadi.

“Has anyone ever beaten you at this before?”

“Yes!”

Someone handed me my second tankard. We knocked our overfilled tankards together and then drained them dry.

“Pwah!” I exhaled once I’d finished swallowing it all. “You gonna tell me the name of this fella?”

“That should be obvious! It was the Demon World’s Great Emperor Kishirika Kishirisu!”

“Gimme a break. She don’t count.”

“Fwahahahaha! A win is a win, and a loss is a loss!”

Kishirika Kishirisu was Badigadi’s fiancée. During the Second Great Human-Demon War, the two were in a master-servant relationship. It was a good bet Badigadi had purposefully lost to her as a show of deference.

“You mean to tell me you lost in a fair fight?” I asked, skeptical.

“Yup. You have just as much chance! It’d make a good story for the last surviving Nukadia to beat me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why do you know that?”

“Fwahaha! I know the people of my region. I know which clans have recently been snuffed out!”

I finished my fourth tankard. It was a delicious ale. Went down smooth.

“Geese Nukadia,” Badigadi went on, “what do you consider to be a ‘fair fight,’ hm?”

“That’s a weird question. I’d say it’s exactly the way you put it yourself before. No losing on purpose, no holding back, and continuing until one side’s the clear victor. Right?”

“Yes! Exactly!”

One of the men presented me with my fifth tankard. I took it in hand. I can still do this. All is good, I told myself.

“But victory is a vague concept. Wouldn’t you agree?”

I nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I would. There are a lotta losers out there who act like they’ve won something.”

“Fwahaha! See, you do get it!”

Next came my sixth tankard. I felt the edges of my vision begin to blur, but I was still in the game. I could knock more back. The alcohol hadn’t yet inebriated me. That’s right, all good.

“Think for a moment. What’s victory mean to you?” Badigadi asked.

“Victory?”

This ain’t good. This ale’s dangerous. It was delicious enough to chug it down without thinking. Proof-wise, this stuff was more potent than Asura’s wine. It was on par with Ranoa’s hard liquor or the ale the dwarves served. It was hard to notice thanks to the flavor, but this was a drink for people who wanted to get hammered ASAP. This wasn’t the kinda stuff you wanted to keep knocking back like this.

Calm it down a bit, I told myself. You gotta slow down your pace or you’re gonna lose this. I couldn’t afford to be defeated here. Win or lose, I couldn’t let things end here.

“Yep, you got it. Think about it long and hard.”

Think? Think about it… Think about what? Oh, victory. Yes, victory… What’s victory anyway? What’s it mean to me? What’ve I gotta do to win? Drink Badigadi into a stupor? Nah. That ain’t what I’m after. There’s gotta be something else—some other reason why we’re having this contest.

“Here ya go, number eight.”

I couldn’t even remember the seventh one. Something was coming into focus for me—this was a battle of wits to him. It was a roundabout method, sure, but he was gonna get me drunk, then challenge me to scrape myself together and talk him into something. The important thing wasn’t trying to out-drink him. He wanted me to know that the deeper game was to get him to admit defeat.

I realized he’d been sprinkling hints at ways to achieve victory throughout our conversation. This was a game. A game in which I had to follow the hints, find the appropriate words, and guess correctly. 

Pfft, as if I can even remember a word that’s come outta him. You tryin’ to mess with me, makin’ me guzzle down this strong ale only to ask questions that require me to think?

“You tryin’ to keep me dancin’ for your entertainment? That it? Huh?” I scowled at him.

“Fwahaha! The palms of my hands are quite large, so they should be easy to dance on!”

“Who d’ya think you’re talkin’ to, huh? The one who’ll be dancin’ before this is through is you! On the palm of my hand!”

The ninth tankard went down the hatch.

“Well said! But goodness, it looks like your body is starting to sway before mine!”

“Oh, shut it!” I snapped at him. 

I accepted the tenth cup with a hand that shook uncontrollably. I knew that if I swallowed all of this down, I was definitely gonna vomit after. That didn’t stop me. I had no choice but to do it. It wasn’t like I had a specific reason, really. I just knew that if I gave up, I wasn’t gonna be able to beat Rudeus.

“Urp…”

Unable to withstand all the alcohol, my stomach began to contract. My head felt like it was spinning round and round. I clenched my jaw, trying desperately to hold it in, but something sour crawled up my throat and began filling my mouth. I kept my lips clamped shut, but it rushed into my nose instead. A sickening chill ran through me.

“Bleeeegh!”

I retched. What came out of me had no form—it was all fluid, stomach acid mixed with ale, which created a disgusting puddle on the floor. An acrid odor filled the room. The men around us scrunched their faces in disgust even as they broke out into applause, fawning over the Demon King and his victory.

“Fwahaha! That’s the end of our match then!”

I was down on all fours on the floor, saliva dripping down my chin as I stared at the sick pooling beneath me. Everything felt awful. My whole body, my heart—all of it. I had lost, utterly and completely. I was a loser.

I forced my head up, where I could see the six-armed Demon King. He stood, still looking as dignified as ever even as he approached, drink in hand. He wore a triumphant look on his face.

I averted my eyes. I couldn’t believe he’d defeated me. Sure, I knew there was no avenue of victory from the outside, but somewhere deep down, I knew there had to be some way to win. That if we were just doing a drinking contest, I had a chance. But in reality, I…

Suddenly, it dawned on me.

“Hm?”

I returned to my seat and silently took my tankard in hand, holding it up. It was the eleventh drink someone had poured for me at some point.

“Who made a rule that if ya vomit ya lose, huh?” I spoke.

Badigadi’s face went blank for a moment. He was completely taken aback. He soon grinned and plonked himself down. “Nobody did!” he admitted gleefully.

Oh, hell yeah. Time for round two. 

***

I forgot how many tankards I’d downed and how many times I’d vomited all that ale back up again. Midway through, I started retching between each tankard I drank. I even threw up as I drank a few times. My body was past its limit. I knew that. My consciousness was going in and out, my vision blurry, my memories disjointed. I couldn’t even speak, merely groaning. I became a machine, robotically grabbing a newly filled tankard only to immediately down it. It was some kinda miracle that I hadn’t passed out yet.

“Ooh… Urgh…”

“Fwahaha! Fwahaha! Fwahaha! Fwahahahaha!”

Through the haze of my drunken stupor, Badigadi’s hearty laughter faded in and out. I stopped hearing the crowd and their cheering and jeering a while back. I felt like I was in the middle of a dream.

Hold up. When did Badigadi fall over sideways? Nah, it’s me that’s fallen over, huh? Crap…

“If you keep this up, milord, he’s going to die.”

“Hm. I hadn’t pegged him for the type to go this far,” Badigadi said thoughtfully.

“What shall we do with him?”

“Use Detoxification magic on him and lay him down over there.”

“What about your match?”

“Fwahaha! For a coward like him to put his life on the line—that’s heroic! I have no choice but to admit defeat! Being a hero doesn’t necessarily mean being physically strong, does it? Fwahahaha!”

I managed to make out that short exchange before my consciousness sank into the hungry dark.