◇

"In praise of defeating the demon who had attacked the city. The viceroy of Gururian city awards you this medal."

The bald civil official who"s standing next to the young viceroy reads the award aloud. This is the audience room inside Gururian city castle. It"s only about a quarter as wide as the one in Muno city, but there are twenty heavy soldiers equipped with halberds lined up on both sides.
At this time, I had a carefree impression, "It"s nice when it really feels like a castle~", but in truth, later Arisa told me that the viceroy guards were reinforced as a precaution against me.

The only one inside the audience room is me. The other members are waiting in another room. I"m unarmed since I"ve given the fairy sword and the short cane to Arisa.

And then, the meeting with the viceroy ends without any problem and I withdraw.
In the end, the viceroy only said, "It was arduous."

◇

After leaving the audience room, I"m guided by a maid to a different room than the one Arisa and the others are.
There"s the bald civil official from earlier inside. He"s the consul of Gururian city.

"Sir Pendragon, I can"t thank you enough for your a.s.sistance on the occasion. Your help is admirable."
"Even though I"m of the lowest ranked n.o.ble, I"m still one of s.h.i.+ga kingdom"s n.o.bility. I was just fulfilling my duty."

We get down to the business after the regular greetings.
I talk about the state of the demon that has attacked Muno city, and the scales of its army. Even though they"ve known the detail from the duke, it"s better to check on the fact. Continuing on, we"re comparing it with the demon that has attacked Gururian city.

"I do not understand. I cannot read the demon"s intention."
"That"s right is it, it"s a different story if it has thoroughly prepared armies to attack like in Muno city, but there"s no meaning in just rampaging around in the city."

Since there"s that item, it might have only been a diversion for the rampage. I don"t report the thing about the magic tool [Short Horn]. Since I don"t know the character and ability of the viceroy, I won"t report an item this dangerous. If the information about it carelessly spread, it"d be scary if witch hunts happened. Arisa also opposed in reporting it.

"Sir Pendragon, won"t you tell me your opinion?"
"It might be a diversion, or possibly a way for implanting fears in the people."

The consul has probably expected my answer. He"s nodding solemnly.
Actually, when I was searching during the wait for the audience earlier, short horn demons had appeared in other cities. I haven"t confirmed if they"ve been exterminated, but there should be people who can defeat them in this season of martial arts tournament.

Afterwards, we finished our talk after exchanging some opinions.
The viceroy"s butler hands me an invitation for banquet before I head back. Even though I"ve intended to take Pochi and the others along to go on Gugurian city trying food around, keeping the n.o.bles company is troublesome.

◇

When I get back to the waiting room, the people who greet me are not only Arisa and the others. I"ve expected lady Karina and her maids, but there are also some unknown women. They"re probably not servants of the viceroy since they"re wearing poor clothes. When I check on their stats, they"re slaves with [No Master] displayed.

"Chevalier Pendragon-sama, I"m sorry for my impoliteness the other day. I thank you for saving me during the demon"s attack."

I wonder who?　I don"t remember helping her though?

"There was a cart carriage for slaves that fell down on the site earlier right, she was on it she said."

I see. But impoliteness--that"s right, isn"t she the part of the group who asked me to hand over mithril sword in Bollhart city.
However, why is she a slave?　When I ask her, she replies in vexation.

"Actually, we were deceived by the weaselkins that day."

Her words aren"t to the point, but, "We followed the weaselkins when they said that they had magic swords.", "They asked 30 gold coins for the magic sword.", "Since we only had five gold coins, we agreed to have a loan contract for the sword until the tournament was over.", that seems to be the case, I wonder where is the deceiving part?

"The scam was after that. We went straight to the Daregan city, but we were attacked by tigerkins and lionkins thieves and got the magic sword stolen."
"Were they real thieves?"
"If they were real, then my master and me would have already been killed. When we returned to Bollhart city, we met the weaselkin that had loaned us the magic sword. He saw through the fact that the magic sword was stolen. When I think about it again, he obviously knew that we didn"t have the magic sword."

Isn"t it paranoia?
The weaselkin would know that they were attacked by the thieves if they see their tattered clothes, and there might be those kind of chivalrous thieves who didn"t kill their victims.

"That, you see."

Arisa adds the fact that the women who are on the same carriage are telling similar stories. As for the young n.o.bles, they seem to have been sold to a mine city on the nearby small kingdom.
The women were taken here by lady Karina who appealed directly to the viceroy, or rather the consul. "They"ve become slaves and don"t know if their masters taken to the mine city have died, don"t you feel sorry for them," she said.

"If this story is true, this won"t end in just the weaselkins getting caught, but a war against the weaselkins kingdom won"t it?"

No wait, the weaselkins might be instigating someone to go to war against them instead. There seem to be war factions among the weaselkins. According to the story from the drinking bout with the merchants last night, it had been 15 years since the weaselkin merchants entered the dukedom.
Around 18 years ago, there were 7-9 kingdoms on the border of the dukedom, and there were princ.i.p.alities of lizardkin and tigerkin beyond those kingdoms. The weaselkins has swallowed those demi-humans kingdoms and became big, and they"re still growing their empire even now.
It seems that they"ve never meddled with human countries, but last year, they"ve utterly annihilated one of the small countries and touched the border of the dukedom.

Well, let"s hope that even if war happens, it won"t spread to Muno territory. There"s no soldiers to dispatch, Ninsan should be able to judge well.

I"ll leave the problem to the concerned person. I ring the bell that"s on the table to call the maid who"s standing by outside the room, and pa.s.s her a letter for the consul. It"s hard to orally convey the content of the letter. It"s up to the consul if the girl can be meet.

◇

"Nevertheless, this sure is a world with many troubles."
"Fantasy world is like this you know."

Right now, I"m with Arisa on a jewelry shop near the viceroy castle. Of course it"s for the banquet tonight. Arisa said, "Your clothes is already quite n.o.ble-like, but there aren"t enough decorations.", so we went to buy some accessories. I only had wrist.w.a.tch in the original world since I liked it simple; I didn"t know what to choose, so I brought Arisa along.

The ones who will attend the banquet tonight are lady Karina and me. I can"t bring slaves or demi-humans, so there"s only Nana among my companions that I could take along, but since the viceroy"s wife has Status Check skill, I ask lady Karina instead. The wife is only level 4, so the Status Check skill level is low and can only know name, but there"s no need to take the risk. I have to learn the nature magic [Fake Patch] quickly.

I check on the accessories that Arisa and the shopkeepers have recommended, but there"s nothing that fancy me. The accessories in this world are fundamentally rough. Most of the goods are all about seeing the limit on how many jewels or gold can be put on it.

If the banquet isn"t tonight, I"d make one myself.

I check on the market price while ignoring Arisa"s and the shopkeeper"s conversation. Processed goods are more expensive after all. I"ve saved a lot of raws of amber, corundum, and zircon when I discover the veins by chance. I also have other ores like jade and crystal, I want to make magic tools for polis.h.i.+ng or learn the mountain magic, [Polish].

In the end, I picked "Something that won"t embarra.s.s me even if I meet the viceroy." The 30 gold coins spent are truly wasteful.

◇

When I"m going to the room that the viceroy has prepared, a maid of this mansion is waiting for me, and says that there"s a visitor for me.
The other party is the pink-haired princess and her companions. I"ve originally intended to meet her, so this is convenient. I tell the maid that I consent, and go meet them together with Arisa. I"ve already told all the informations about the princess and her companions to Arisa beforehand.

"Sir Pendragon, I want to thank you for saving me from the dangerous situation in this occasion."

Menea Rumooku is a princess of one of the small kingdom bordering the dukedom. She"s 16 years old. Level 9, she has summoning magic skill. It"s quite rare. Her waist-long loosely-waved pink hair, and emerald colored pupils are followed with chiseled face that"s not too deep. Her height is only around 150cm, but her waist is thin, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are big. They"re C-cup on the brink of D-cup. If our standings aren"t different, I"d have wanted to court this beautiful girl in 2-3 years.

It was originally planned that she, as the third princess, was to marry the prince of a small kingdom, but the kingdom of her partner was destroyed by the weaselkins and the prince had died. Therefore, for the sake of meeting her next marriage partner, she"s going to study in the the place where there are a lot of s.h.i.+ga kingdom n.o.bles, Kayou Royal Academy. Of course the academy is located in the royal capital.

From the knights and subordinates that have accompanied her until here, half have died from the demon attack, and the remaining three are being healed of their serious injuries in Tenion temple.

The wise-looking woman past 20 years old wearing civil official-like clothes who"s standing behind the princess seems to be her attendant, she"s called Poni-san. Her level is 7, her skills are [Negotiation], [Spy], and [Etiquette]. The spy skill is too suspicious.

So far so good, the problem is her black-haired attendants.

First, the boy gives his name. He has longish hair even though he"s a boy, with biggish black eyes, he"s 10 years old. His level is 1. His skill is only [Arithmetic]. His height is 132 cm. It"s slightly lower than the average. He"s the so-called [Girly boy], you can only see a girl when you look at his face. He"s wearing girl clothes too.
Arisa can"t leave it alone, so he must be a true boy. In fact, she"s muttering, "Not bad, it"d be nice if the hair is shorter", beside me.

"I"m Aoi Haruka. Thank you for the help."

I wonder if it"s Aoi Ryo or Haruka?

"I"m Yui Akasaki. I work as an idol. Onii-san, do you recognize my face?"

Akasaki Yui?　She has shoulder-length black hair, and black pupils, she"s 13 years old. Her level is 2. Her skill is only [Acting]. There are no Singing and Dancing (skills)?　Her height is 149 cm. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are about B-cup. It"s probably quite big for her age. However, even though she says that she"s an idol, I"ve never seen her. I peep at Arisa, it looks like she doesn"t know either.

"Yui, you"re being rude to chevalier-sama. Speak the words properly."

Poni-san rebukes Yui"s language, but it seems she doesn"t look like she"s going to change it.
With lip reading skill, I see that she"s been speaking in j.a.panese all this time, but what I"ve heard is in s.h.i.+ga kingdom language. Poni-san tells me later that with the translation ring the girl is wearing, her words are translated to s.h.i.+ga kingdom.

It can be understand from the two"s name that they"re j.a.panese--they should be transported people, but they don"t even have the [Self-Status] skill that any reincarnated or transported person should have according to Arisa, let alone unique skills. There"s a possibility that they could hide it like me, but they might be the never-before-seen fourth type.

"So, which j.a.pan are you coming from? Is it like this child"s Great Rich j.a.pan Empire? Or like my Southern j.a.pan Federation? You can"t be from the Northern j.a.pan Republic right?"

I see, so it"s come to this.

Poker Face skill is doing a good job today too.