Re:Monster - Volume 4 - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Day 136 ~ Day 140

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Day 136

While training the second group of palace guards this morning, a messenger came to me around noon with a message from the Tomboy Princess’ mother, the First Queen.

In case you were wondering, this is the exact same queen that is deeply religious that I had worries about before....

As I expected, there wasn’t any way that she wouldn’t contact us during our stay here.

Honestly though, I’m not too worried about trouble, especially given that she actually went through the trouble of approaching us first. That being said, I came to the conclusion that it’s not necessarily possible to decline her invitation without consequence.

It looks like I have been invited to eat lunch with the First Queen. It seemed pretty reasonable for me to be summoned to do so, so in all honesty, it really can’t be helped at all. Though all the same, it’s something i’d prefer to avoid.

I was informed that I’m allowed to bring one partner along, so I had Kanami-chan accompany me.

After that, the Princess brought the Boy Knight along with her which gave us a total count of four people.

Although there were many palace guards and maids in the area, we were left completely alone. Lunch took place in a very beautiful courtyard located deep within the Platinum Palace in which the Queen took her residence.

The queen that was hosting the lunch resembled the Tomboy Princess quite a bit. She had long silver hair that seemed to shine beautifully with her deep, golden colored eyes. The Queen’s skin was fair which combined with her other features, only seemed to make her even more beautiful, yet her skin did give her a touch of frailty and give her a sickly looking nature. It seemed that the lunch was not going to be full of hearty meat dishes, but instead a light meal centered upon bread and vegetables. For myself, I wanted to consume a vast quantity of delicious meat, so I found the bread and vegetables that were offered to be highly unsatisfactory, however, at least Kanami-chan seemed to enjoy it… Even though the amount and type of food wasn’t sufficient for me personally, I quietly stifled my dissatisfaction since it DID taste delicious…

As for the queen, when we spoke, she didn’t give off a bad impression. This is probably because she spoke to me with actual respect, or to be more precise… she spoke to me with respect and… affection… or perhaps I should rather say that there weren’t any negative emotions in her speech. Her attitude was similar to a believer who genuinely viewed the person in front of her with great respect. There were no signs of impending outbursts of violence, such as attempting to kill me and devouring my body which carries a god’s divine protection in a zealous attempt to cleanse one’s whole body by bathing in my fresh blood or using my bones as sacred adornments... While feeling relieved at those points, I decided to observe my surroundings.

In the end, it was quite a worthwhile lunch part.

The first impression I had of the queen has changed.

It seems that she has an amiable character. It may have been possible for this acquaintanceship to change into a good friendship in time. ...Or… At least that’s what I thought for a moment… After we finished with the lunch and returned to the Amber Palace, my clone which I had left in the Platinum Palace witnessed the final event.

This event in particular, convinced me that I wanted as little to do with the queen as physically, and or in any other shape or form, possible.

To quickly summarize what happened without touching on this subject for too long… it went something like this:

Naturally, after we finished eating and returned, there was the used tableware left behind.

Of course, one would expect the table to be cleared of it’s tableware and completely cleaned to be prepared for the next time it would be used.

However, the Queen willingly picked up the knife and fork that I used this time and fell into a trance as she passionately licked them clean with an… overly enthusiastic look on her face…

Then, the beautiful noblewomen with fair skin, shining silver hair and golden colored pupils let out an extremely… alluring sound. In any case… Is licking the silverware that I used that delightful…?

The Platinum Palace’s guards in the vicinity of the Queen, which seemed to be almost all women, watched the queen with envious expressions on their faces.

What the hell is going on…?

Also, why was the tableware that was licked clean placed into a luxurious case of it’s own and put into a display case in the Queen’s bedroom? There were an endless tide of questions that I wanted to ask, however, I honestly have no further wish to become better acquainted with the Queen after this series of events.

My story about the Queen, which has easily exceeded my common sense in various ways, ends here. I determined that it was best to proactively avoid associating with her… sigh… at least for the time being… Shaking off the scene I had just witnessed…

I decided to take all of my confusion and frustration out on the training the group of palace knights for the rest of the afternoon to put this behind me.

* * * 

Day 137

This morning, I began the training of the third group of palace guards.

Unfortunately… it was raining that day.

The condition of the training grounds was horrible, the ground, which had absorbed a large quantity of water had become very muddy and thus very slippery. This made it difficult to keep your footing and move around in. Most of all, our clothes became filthy.

A high percentage of the Amber Palace’s guards that were women voiced a desire to cancel the training session, however, I encouraged them to continue regardless. Their objections were thoroughly silenced with hard training and forced effort.

Moreover, with their bodies exhausted, the meal they had afterwards tasted was even more delicious. Maybe I should continue this carrot and stick policy to encourage more effort.

For now though, I think it’s important for them to be able to fight even if the weather’s bad, it’s something that you cannot control.

When the time comes to defend the [Royal Family], you don’t get to choose the weather.

Although I don’t think I want to do this everyday, it’s a good idea to mix it up every once in awhile.

I’ll try to keep this in mind.

* * * 

Day 138

I entrusted today’s training to Kanami-chan since today I am rather forcefully being taken by the Tomboy Princess to meet with her father, the King.

The meeting, with the exception of us, was full of many nobles voicing their complaints, many of which were being rather overly exaggerated. I’ll leave out a majority of the lengthy conversation, but it seems that the Sternbild Kingdom has recognized us as the Princess’ private soldiers. Since we’re mercenaries, once we finish our job and collect the reward, we’d be free to join the opposing faction.

However, it seems that the Princess has, in some way, spread that we have been recognized as her private army. When I carried her into the meeting on my shoulder, she acted as if she was connected to it.

To the Sternbild Kingdom, we’re already part of the faction that protects the Princess, so it seems very unlikely that we’d be hired by someone else. Considering the hostile glares that they were giving us, I’m guessing that the Nobles Faction, centered around the Minister, is most likely the opposing faction.

Well, so long as we’re paid, it’s not a particularly big issue, however, I can’t make light of the fact that our opportunity to escape was cut off.

With an adorable expression, the Princess conducted her business like royalty would. Well, since I’m also using the Princess in various ways, I guess this is fair trade-off of sorts.

I let out a small sigh. For the time being, it seems that the Tomboy Princess’ private army has caused the higher ups of the Sternbild Kingdom to be cautious. It also seems likely that people who fear the power that she possesses will try to assassinate her.

Taking this into consideration, I decided to set up some traps in order to stop any assassination attempts that were going to take place in the Amber Palace that we’re staying at. There’s no problem if they only target me, but I will NEVER tolerate them going after Auro and the others.

In the evening, given that my shoulders were stiff by the end of the meeting, I received a massage from Kanami-chan after we entered the bath. The way her beautiful hands moved was… fascinating.

In any case, by the end of the day, I was pretty tired, so it was a good chance to relax and… let off some steam.

* * * 

Day 139

Early in the morning, just before we left, the assassins came.

While most of them were either caught or killed in the traps I set up last night, only one actually managed to get past them and make it into my bedroom. The man that invaded was wearing a mask and black cloths and had a knife that was dripping with a purple liquid. Still drowsy, I faced the man and went to seize him when both [Intuition] and [Release Trap] set off very violent warning bells in my head.

After blinking a few times, I noticed the reason why I was getting these warnings.

Apparently, something quite similar to a bomb had been buried inside of his body. What had saved us is that it seems that the bomb will not activate from a distance.

Well, this is certainly annoying…

For the time being, I couldn’t kill him because the others would have gotten caught up in his suicide attack, I’m fine with taking a bit of damage, I’ll just heal instantly, but I’m not willing to put the others in harms way needlessly.

In the end, I just used [Parasite] and forcibly made him into my slave.

Although it was my intention to immobilize him and withdraw information with my finger, it seems that their free will and memories had been intentionally wiped clean. Most likely by using either magic or a specific magical item to manipulate their minds.

The rest of the men who were captured were in the same state, assassins that were more or less just meat puppets. I couldn’t even give them orders, they were just empty shells.

I was able to take away their physical freedom by using my parasitic clones to make them into my slaves, but their minds were broken from the beginning and I don’t have any reason to try and restore them. It’s no use, so I’ll just have to give up on trying to draw out any real information from these doll-like would-be assassins.

I inserted a clone into their bodies and removed the magical item near their hearts. In doing so, the assassin’s chest burst open from the inside, that part couldn’t be helped though.

The bodies of the assassins were eaten in their entirety and while I was at it, I also ate the magic item’s explosive device as well.

Ability unlocked: [Burst]

Ability unlocked: [Human Bomb]

Although there was no way to trace their equipment back to the person who sent them, since I took the assassin’s gear, I did secure a small amount of profit.

After eating them, I gave the Princess my report. She responded to it with,

“I see, if that’s the case, we must find the culprits immediately. It’ll be a good way to vent today’s anger and dissatisfaction when we find them.”

Well, I thought that the Princess would be able to determine the culprit immediately, but I guess not. Afterwards, since I have grasped the general strength and general habits of the palace guards, I had them separate into groups and do basic training in shifts.

From this point on, I intend to strengthen each section a great deal.

* * * 

Day 140

Today, the palace guards only had to do training in the morning since we’re going to be heading out to the palace’s surrounding town in the afternoon.

It’s been decided that we’ll go around the town with the Tomboy Princess as her guard detail. Because it’s the first time most of the group have been out on an expedition, I took this opportunity to give each of them, including Seiji-kun, the day off.

They decided to look around the Royal Capital on their own, however, I don’t know where the hand of an assassin might strike from, so I gave them instructions to stay relatively close to one another.

Just in case, I gave them each one of my clones because the clone’s combat ability is reasonably high. So in the case something happens, they should be okay, most likely at any rate.

Basically, if anyone tries to kidnap or kill them, the clone should attack the enemy immediately so it should be fine.

Back to the main issue of the Princess’ guard detail. The people from Parabellum are myself, Kanami-chan, Redhead, Auro and Argento, just these five people in total.

In addition, the Boy Knight and ten or so palace guards that have changed into normal clothes will be coming along as well.

This is our current group. Until now, dozens of guards have usually made up the guard detail, so this number has decreased significantly. However, well… it should be alright.

Like this, we walked around and visited several places. We didn’t just explore along the main street, but also along the side streets and the back alleyways as well. All according to the instructions of the Princess sitting upon my shoulder.

One could get turned around very easily in the back alleyways. I observed the crime scene of a human abduction as well as crushing several assassins that I encountered. Well, given the fact that we found a well-known store, i’d say the day was well worthwhile.

Since I have a full day off in two days, I have decided when that moment comes, I will go to the Labyrinth City Purgatory for a short time. I also hope to find some dungeon alcohol as well as some decent monsters that I haven’t encountered yet to eat them and gain some new abilities.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to it, I seriously can’t wait….