Chapter 6 — Why Is Everyone in the World like This?!
“A-Anyway, we have to hurry! Let’s go!”
“Why?”
“What?” Vivian had clearly intended for them to all run to the city together, so Yogiri’s response took her completely by surprise.
“I’m tired from climbing the mountain. Why should I hurry off to help put out a fire in a city I’ve never been to before?”
“You! You really are a villain, Yogiri Takatou! Normally, anyone would help to put out a fire! Whatever!”
With that, Vivian took off running at an incredible speed. The powers of an apostle seemed rather impressive.
“Takatou...”
“I mean, it’s not like we could keep up with her anyway.”
“Sure, but you could have said it a bit nicer.”
“We’ve kind of been acting friendly, but she is an enemy who wants to kill me, so I don’t feel like we should get that close to her.”
“I guess you’re right. She already feels like a friend...”
“Still,” Mokomoko interjected, “I am curious about what is occurring in that city. As such...”
A black shadow stretched out from Enju’s feet, making the shape of a board. It was her part of Furemaru transforming.
“Creating something like an automobile would be difficult, but if we only need to descend the mountain, it should be relatively easy to fashion something.”
“So, like a sled?” Yogiri sat down on Furemaru.
Once Enju and Tomochika had joined him, Furemaru began to slide down the side of the mountain at an incredible speed, reaching the bottom in no time at all.
“What was all that effort climbing the mountain for?” Yogiri complained.
“It would have been difficult to use for climbing. It can provide a burst of energy for a moment, but continuous propulsion is too hard.”
The city standing before them was surrounded by walls built from logs. Though not on the level of stone, they still looked rather sturdy.
“If it’s the same on the inside, I can imagine it would burn well,” Yogiri observed.
“It doesn’t seem like such a wealthy town, does it?” asked Tomochika.
“I suppose that’s the entrance? It looks like it’s been destroyed.”
The gate was made of logs as well, but it had taken serious damage. As such, it couldn’t stop anyone from entering or leaving the city.
“Are they under attack?”
“Considering the smoke, that is very possible,” Mokomoko answered. “I guess we should take a look inside.”
Passing through the gate, the three of them entered the city.
“You fool! You absolute fool!” a rather round woman was yelling at Vivian.
“Uh, well, the Yogiri Takatou Signal was—”
“I don’t know what that is, but what were you thinking, breaking the gate as you left?!”
“I mean, I couldn’t open it myself, so—”
“Are you the one who destroyed the barrier as well?!”
“Well, I’m invincible, so I thought I could ignore it—”
“The altar is in flames because the barrier was destroyed! What on earth have you done?!”
“I didn’t know this would happen...”
“Anyway, you’re not even allowed to go outside! What have you done?! Why now, of all times?! Idiot! Fool! You idiot!”
“I’m sorry, Miss Maanu,” Vivian said, the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
“Looks like the fire isn’t that big,” Yogiri said. “Actually, is it already starting to go out?” It didn’t seem like the flames were spreading. The plume of smoke rising from somewhere in the city was starting to thin.
“What do we do?” Tomochika asked. “I feel like it’s hard to just call out to them...”
“Maybe, but we can’t just sit here and watch. Excuse me!” Yogiri called to the woman named Maanu, who was still scolding Vivian.
“What?! Who are you people?! Are you adventurers?!”
“No! This is Yogiri Ta—”
“You be quiet!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When asked who he was, Yogiri wasn’t sure how to respond. According to Vivian’s story, West Ent was totally isolated. The existence of sea monsters made the explanation that they had drifted here across the sea hard to believe. It was suspicious for outsiders to have shown up at all.
“Our ship was wrecked and we washed ashore. Then we met Vivian, who guided us here. We’re not adventurers.” There was nothing he could say to trick her, so he just answered honestly.
“Find somewhere else. This city is already full.”
“Wow, what a rejection!” said Tomochika.
“If we’re not welcome, I guess there’s nothing we can do.”
They had already acquired some information from Vivian, so they would have to make do with that. If they wanted to reach the capital, they needed to head east. They knew they were on the southern side of West Ent, so if they could see the ocean, they would be able to tell which direction they were heading in. The Elven Forest seemed like a difficult place to traverse, but if their only concern was something attacking them, it should have been easy enough to manage.
“See you later, then.”
With a quick goodbye to Vivian, the three of them turned to leave the city behind. As they did, they saw four people pass through the gate. At first glance, Yogiri thought they were the adventurers that had been mentioned earlier. One man wore leather armor and had a sword at his hip. One had a hooded cloak concealing his face and body. One woman had a wide-brimmed, three-pointed hat. And the fourth woman wore loose white robes, similar to a priest’s vestments. They were likely a party consisting of a warrior, thief, mage, and priest. It looked just like the party of adventurers one would expect to see in a video game.
“Yo, sis, what city is this?” the warrior asked Tomochika.
“Huh? I have no idea.”
“What? Come on, there’s no way we can start the quest like that. The people right inside the gate should be like, ‘This is such-and-such village,’ like it’s the only line they’re smart enough to remember. That’s why we keep you guys alive.”
“Why is everyone around here like this?!”
Yogiri felt like sighing as well. People like that, who only cared about their own situation and tried to force their values onto everyone else, and who were effectively impossible to communicate with, were a dime a dozen here.
“Hey, aren’t you western people supposed to help us with these quests? If you can’t give us a real reply, we’ll have to report that this village has fallen to the dark powers. And then a quest will come out like, ‘Destroy the base of the dark forces!’” the woman who looked like a mage said.
Maanu reluctantly stepped forward to answer her. “This is the city of Kadan.”
“Emergency Quest, Eliminate the Remnants of the Royal Family! Mission 1: ‘Go to the City of Kadan,’ complete!” a voice suddenly called out from nowhere in particular.
“What is that about?!” Maanu cried. “This isn’t what we were told to expect!”
“Unfortunately, it seems this city was doomed from the start,” the mage continued. “Oh, of course, if you string up the head person from the royal family hiding around here and bring it out to us, we can finish this as smoothly as possible. The final objective of the quest is to eliminate the runaway royal, so we don’t have to kill everyone else...”
“Emergency Quest, Eliminate the Remnants of the Royal Family! Mission 2: ‘Find the Remnants of the Royal Family,’ complete!”
“Huh? Looks like mission 2 just went ahead and finished itself,” the warrior said.
“In that case, I suppose one of the people we can see is the person we’re looking for?” the mage offered.
“One of these?” The warrior looked around. His gaze passed over Yogiri, Tomochika, Enju, Vivian, and Maanu in turn. Only the five of them were visible. “If we’re talking about royalty, they’d have to look good, right? Looks like...she’s probably the best option? Doesn’t she look like a princess?” After thinking it over for a moment, the warrior pointed at Enju.
“Enju is the successor of the Sumeragi family, so I guess she is kind of like a princess.”
“However, princesses being beautiful is only true in fiction,” Mokomoko said. “With political marriages being so common, it was more likely for them to have much more frightful complexions.”
“Ahh...so that’s why Mokomoko looks that way...” Tomochika mused.
“Do you have a problem with my beautiful face?!”
“What is wrong with you?!” Vivian interrupted, shouting angrily. “How can you not recognize my noble heritage just from my visage?!”
“Why are you revealing yourself?! You fool! Idiot! Fool!” Maanu’s angry insults were rather lacking in variety.
“Uhh, what exactly is going on here?” asked Tomochika.
“So, you were being hunted yourself. Are you really in a position to be hunting me down?” Yogiri asked Vivian.
“Hm. Perhaps it would be best for us to head to the capital immediately and avoid getting involved?” Mokomoko suggested.
Vivian was apparently a member of the old royal family and was therefore being targeted by the adventurers. As the hands of the empire, they had been instructed to eliminate the remnants of the royal line.
“No, no, no, this is supposed to be a story like us saving the princess of a lost kingdom from the hands of an evil empire, right?!”
“You can say that, but you’ve seen the princess, right?” Yogiri replied. “I’m not really excited about the thought of trying to save her, although if what she said earlier is true, she doesn’t need our help anyway.”
They didn’t know how strong the adventurers were, but Vivian was proud of her invincible defenses. There should have been no need for them to worry.
Yogiri started walking towards the gate.
“Oh, you thought we would let you go?” the mage said, pointing her staff at him. “We can’t prove which among you is the royal, but it has to be one of you five.”
She must have planned on killing everyone present, but instead she promptly collapsed to the ground. Yogiri had got to her first after sensing her killing intent.
The other three adventurers cried out in surprise. One of them being killed with no warning at all must have shocked them considerably. And in that opening, Vivian leaped into action.
“Chainsaw Shield!”
She threw a shield, which cut through the air with a terrifying roar. That loud sound wasn’t just the shield passing through the air; it was from an actual chainsaw. For some reason, countless blades had sprouted from the edge of the shield, spinning rapidly with a violent howl. It tore apart the leather armor of the warrior and punched through the magical defenses of the priest. The thief dropped to the ground, easily dodging the attack before sprinting away.
“Wait! I won’t let you— Ack!” The shield suddenly flew backwards, hitting Vivian in the face.
“Oh, right, she said it was like a boomerang, didn’t she?”
“So in the end, it’s a Boomerang Chainsaw Shield.”
“It appears she is unable to control it all that well...”
Tomochika, Yogiri, and Mokomoko commented in turn. Vivian was unhurt, but being struck in the face by her own Chainsaw Shield had left her stunned. She had crouched down, dumbfounded.
“It appears they died instantly,” Mokomoko said, looking at the fallen adventurers.
The warrior and the priest had been sliced cleanly in half, with no signs that they were still alive. They had been relaxed when they’d first arrived, so they must have had no idea that their prey was so strong. They had said it was a quest, so it had likely had some sort of difficulty indicator at the beginning that had thrown them off, Yogiri thought.
“Regardless, we’re not welcome here, so we should get a move on,” he stated, turning to the gate once more.
“Hold on.”
As they tried to leave again, Maanu called out to stop them.
“What?”
“Now that you know, we can’t let you go.”
“But one of them already ran away.”
The adventurers had said they were on a quest. They could probably assume that quite a few people knew there was a member of the royal family living in the city.
“We know who they are, but we don’t know anything about you. We have no idea what you’ll end up doing if we let you go.”
“It’s not like we’re going to go around spreading rumors, but...fine. Could you take us somewhere a bit more calm?”
It didn’t seem like Maanu had any combat ability, so they could easily ignore her and leave. But they had originally come to the city to gather information, so if the option to remain was available to them, Yogiri decided they should do just that.
“Come to my place. You’ll be safe with me.”
Surprisingly, Maanu didn’t seem to think the three of them were bad people.
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