Chapter 12 — I Managed to Get Us Through by Charming Them
After the incident with the Invincible Battalion, Yogiri’s group started moving again. Though there was little chance the soldiers would come back to attack them, there was always the possibility that after cooling off they would gather a larger army and try again, so the group decided it would be best to get out of the country. It wouldn’t make them safe, but they figured it wouldn’t be as easy for the soldiers of Manii to operate outside of their own nation.
Their destination was the neighboring kingdom of Lindy. A rather large river ran along the border, spanned by a single bridge. With each side of the bridge in a different country, there was a checkpoint on both ends.
“I’m not that familiar with crossing borders,” Yogiri mentioned to Theodisia as they rode in the carriage. “Do you think they’ll let us through?”
“I find it unlikely we will be able to pass without incident,” she replied.
In this world, national boundaries weren’t as precise as on Earth, and moving between kingdoms normally wasn’t all that difficult. But thanks to the river, with only a single crossing available, traffic between these two countries was limited to this one spot, making a border checkpoint possible.
Such checkpoints and inspection stations were no doubt filled with guards, so attempting to pass through with a group of half-demons seemed likely to get them captured. However, the line of carriages managed to make it through the Manii checkpoint without issue, and after crossing the long bridge, the guards on the Lindy side gave them similarly little trouble.
“What’s going on here?!” Tomochika blurted out, confused by how well things were going. She had been expecting some sort of trouble.
“I was able to get us through by Charming them,” Euphemia remarked offhandedly. As an Origin Blood, she had numerous powerful abilities.
“That Charm skill is really impressive, then! But wait, if you have that, why are you being chased in the first place?” If Euphemia had access to the Charm ability while freeing the other half-demons, Tomochika couldn’t imagine that what they were doing would be recognized as a crime.
“The effect only lasts for a short time. I’d thought we could avoid pursuit with a barrier of seclusion, but I wasn’t quite careful enough.”
Normally, it would have been impossible for anyone to find them, but Darian’s incredible ability to detect people must have been much stronger than the barrier Euphemia had erected. And if it had happened once, it could happen again. At this point, they wouldn’t be able to fully trust the spell anymore.
“So, we made it to the next country, but now what?” Carol asked. The original village of the half-demons was in the Haqua Forest within the Kingdom of Manii. Running away wasn’t necessarily a problem, but how far did they plan on going?
“Umm, actually,” Risley offered almost apologetically, “even though we ended up saving a bunch of half-demons on our way, that wasn’t our true goal.” She had been searching for Yogiri in order to ask him for a favor. Since Yogiri had been sleeping for most of the time, she hadn’t been able to broach the subject on the level she was hoping for yet. “But I guess if we don’t do something about all of these people, we won’t be able to accomplish our goals.”
While it seemed like Risley might have regretted helping the others a bit, she clearly had no intention of abandoning them now.
“Do you have any actual plans?” Yogiri asked.
“I believe it would be best to find a place where others won’t find us.” Theodisia’s answer was far from reassuring.
Tomochika tried to consider their options, but without much knowledge of this world, it was hard to come up with any helpful ideas.
“I suppose somewhere in the forest or mountains would be best,” Ryouko offered. “Somewhere you could be self-sufficient.”
“That would be good. Dealing with others will be difficult, so we will need to be able to acquire anything we need for ourselves. With that in mind, we’ll want a place of considerable size where others won’t go,” Theodisia mused.
“Do you have any ideas?” asked Tomochika.
“I’m not familiar with this area, so, unfortunately, no.”
“Then we really are just wandering at random, aren’t we?” It wasn’t all that surprising, but they had absolutely no idea where they were going. Tomochika wasn’t sure how they could proceed.
Why don’t I just fly up into the sky and take a look? Mokomoko offered.
“That’s right! You can fly as high up as you want, can’t you?!”
Not that far, but it would certainly be better than searching from ground level.
As Tomochika’s guardian spirit, the ghost couldn’t stray far from her descendant’s side, but as long as they weren’t too far from each other, it wasn’t likely to be much of an issue.
“Sounds a little contrived to me.”
Well, it all comes down to my perception in the end.
With that, Mokomoko slipped through the roof of the carriage and up into the sky.
She returned almost immediately.
“How’d it go?”
There is a mountain nearby, but although it has mineral resources, they don’t seem that plentiful. There is a forest as well, but it isn’t too large. It’s also being used by a nearby town, so it wouldn’t make an ideal place to hide.
“No good, then.”
Indeed. It appears there are no well-suited places in close proximity. The only other thing that stood out to me was a large city in the distance. It may be the capital of this country.
“So finding a place to set up camp won’t be that easy. Why don’t we ask around in the nearby town?” Yogiri suggested.
Since no one in their party was familiar with this kingdom, it was no surprise that they were making little progress. Making inquiries at a nearby town was a sensible next step.
Yogiri, Tomochika, and Euphemia headed into the town as a group of three.
“We’re mainly just going to ask questions, so I’m not sure you needed to bother coming with us, Euphemia,” Tomochika commented.
The remainder of their group was waiting a short distance from the town. A barrier had been erected to keep them hidden. In spite of the fact that it had failed them earlier, they assumed it would be enough as long as they didn’t come across any monsters like Darian.
“I believe it would be unacceptable to leave this to someone else.”
“I suppose that’s true. It’s not like we’re really all that involved ourselves,” Yogiri noted.
“And Takatou is likely to get fed up with whatever you guys have to deal with, so that’s why I’m here,” Tomochika added.
Yogiri was coming along in case anything went wrong, and Tomochika had joined them mainly to keep him in line. There were some parts of his behavior that were ethically questionable, so she felt uneasy at the prospect of letting him go alone.
“But vampires sort of seem like they can do anything, don’t they?”
Euphemia had transformed herself to look Japanese like Yogiri and Tomochika in order to hide her half-demon heritage. It wasn’t simply an illusion or some kind of disguise but an actual reconstruction of her physical body. It would take someone a significant amount of work to expose her true identity.
“It does seem that way,” Euphemia agreed. “There isn’t much of a downside, so it feels like overall I’ve essentially just become stronger.”
Normal vampires had all sorts of weaknesses, including silver, sunlight, being unable to cross running water, and being unable to enter a building without an invitation. An Origin Blood, however, was capable of overcoming all of those limitations.
“Was Lain incredibly strong or something?”
“Yes. Sages are not permitted to fight each other, so it is difficult to compare them, but I suspect she was among the strongest.”
“She attacked us out of nowhere, so I don’t know much about her.”
From Yogiri and Tomochika’s perspective, Lain’s attack had been sudden and surprising. Yogiri had defeated her before they’d even fully understood what was happening, so they had never actually spoken to her. She had gone through the trouble of leaving a younger copy of herself—Risley—behind, so it seemed like she had planned for that eventuality, but they weren’t quite sure what she was after.
“Well, it has walls, I guess, but that’s about all I can say for it,” Tomochika remarked, cocking her head.
As they made their way towards the wall, they passed through a forest. The route to the city was rather indistinct, and it looked like one would be able to climb the trees over the wall fairly easily.
“The walls are just a deterrent,” Euphemia explained. “I doubt they offer any actual defensive abilities.”
Most cities were surrounded by some kind of fortification, and as long as a settlement was under the protection of a Sage, the area would be defended by them as well. Such protection prevented Aggressors from entering and reported attempted intrusions to the Sages. The Aggressors with some level of intelligence had learned that attacking walled cities was more trouble than it was worth, so even having a rundown wall was sufficiently discouraging to monsters.
The trio reached the city gate and found a guard who seemed awfully surprised to see them.
“Can we go inside?” Yogiri asked.
“Uh, sure. That’s fine, but...”
“They’re saying they want to go in,” another guard interrupted. “Just let them go.”
The first had been about to try to convince them to stay outside, but the second guard acted as if their arrival were somehow convenient.
“What kind of flag is this?!” Tomochika couldn’t help but find their behavior questionable. “There’s definitely something going on here. Why don’t we turn back?”
“If we go back now, we won’t have learned anything,” Yogiri protested.
“What’s going on inside?” Tomochika asked the guards.
“Nothing.”
“Could you try saying that without shifting your eyes?!”
There was no response. The guard clearly had no intention of telling them anything else.
“What is happening inside the city?” This time Euphemia asked the question, and the two guards’ eyes suddenly took on hollow gazes.
“Oh, that’s right! We can just Charm them! Having a vampire around is so convenient.”
“There is nothing in the city. It’s just a normal city...” the guard murmured as if half asleep.
“They can’t lie, right?” Yogiri asked.
“Correct. But it is possible that their memories were altered beforehand.”
“Hey, why did you try to stop us?” Yogiri asked one of the guards.
“Recently...they show up around this time... If you meet them, it won’t end well...”
“And why did you say to let us do what we wanted?” he asked, turning to the other.
“They only attack a few people each time... If they saw you, I thought maybe they wouldn’t go after our townspeople...”
“All right, we probably shouldn’t stick our noses into something like this.” Tomochika was hesitant to proceed. It wasn’t like they absolutely had to visit this place. If they wanted to learn about the country, they could go to any other settlement.
“Who are ‘they’?” Yogiri asked again.
“Servants of the Sage known as the God of War...”
“I see. Then I guess we need to take a look.” He promptly began walking forward.
“Hold on a second! Don’t you think it’s a bad idea to mess with the Sages right now?” After all, they were supposed to be looking for a place where Euphemia and the other half-demons could live in peace. If they got involved with the Sages, they would lose that chance.
“We just found a clue about where one of the Sages might be,” Yogiri replied. “Sorry, but that takes priority.”
“Still...”
“Please don’t worry,” Euphemia interjected. “No matter where we go, there is always the possibility of crossing the Sages. There is no need for us to go out of our way to avoid them.”
At her urging, Tomochika relented and followed Yogiri into the town. There were numerous large trees growing within the walls. Some buildings had been built right into them, while others appeared to be only trees with doors on them. It was a place overflowing with natural beauty.
But there was a bizarre aura of quiet about it. Considering its size, one would have expected it to be much more lively, but there was barely anyone around. The few people they did see were sneaking about, darting indoors at the first chance they got.
“It’s kind of lifeless, isn’t it?”
“We won’t be able to talk to anyone like this,” Yogiri said. “I suppose we should look for somewhere to eat first.”
Walking down the main street, they found a restaurant fairly quickly. On a large tree with doors and windows built into it were hanging signs indicating food and drink. The building appeared to have been made by digging out the inside of the tree.
“Not that we would ever go to some family restaurant to gather information in our own world,” Tomochika muttered. It was strange that the waitresses of this world always seemed ready to info-dump on request.
“With Euphemia on our side, we’re gathering information on easy mode,” Yogiri replied. “That will be a big help.”
“I suppose so. You are pretty bad at negotiating. Even when you try to threaten people, it just ends with a bunch of them dying.” Tomochika put a hand on the door. “Wait, is it closed?!” The door wouldn’t budge. Looking through the window, she saw that it had been boarded up from the inside. “I’ve never seen a restaurant try so hard to keep their customers out!”
“There are people in there,” Yogiri noted, peering through cracks in the boards.
It did seem like there were staff moving about inside, but the door was locked, and the windows were covered as if the locals were hiding.
“Euphemia, can you do something about this?”
“Yes, if I can meet their eyes... Like that.” As she spoke, one of the restaurant staff stumbled over to the door and opened it.
“Wow, your powers make everything so easy, I’m starting to feel guilty about it!” Tomochika exclaimed.
“So, that’s what they mean by ‘cheat powers.’ If this were a game, I’d have to start complaining.” But it was real life, so Yogiri had no problem doing things the easy way.
The three of them stepped inside.
“How did you get in?!” another staff member shouted as they entered.
“Huh? Wait, why did I let them in?” The charmed waitress returned to her senses and was immediately surprised by her own actions.
“Whatever, just lock the door!”
The waitress hurriedly locked the door behind them.
“What’s going on here?” Yogiri asked. “We just arrived in town, so we’re not sure what the trouble is.”
“This city is already done for.”
The waitress slowly began to explain the situation to them.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login