The red room is a sort of gathering place, just as Hazel said.

“Didn’t I tell you before, the Seisakoku people believe that their G.o.ds’ power doesn’t reach belowground. So we reversed its purpose, and use this place as somewhere to discuss matters. And if there’s no necessity, the soldiers will never step in here. Because to them this is an ominous place. But to people against the emperor, this is the ultimate hiding spot.”

As we’re listening to her experiences these past seventy years, a few s.h.i.+nzoku arrive, staying put once they find their shelter. Their outfits are all simple and tattered, wearing threadbare slippers and clothes on this cold land, s.h.i.+vering in the cold. Thankfully the temperature belowground is a lot warmer than on the surface, and there’s also torchlight for illumination in the room, so it should be more comfortable than running around in the night.

Some of them bring in bags with a little simple food, and others bring rolls of low-quality paper. Maybe maps or some sort of blueprint.

Josak has his arms crossed over his chest, standing guard by the stone door, and scaring the newcomers into staggering back a few steps. But they don’t attack us, giving me the impression that the slaves in Seisakoku are all rather well-tempered. I had the same feeling when we were on the boat, maybe it’s because they’re not violent by nature.

Whether that’s a good point or a weak point, I’m unable to conclude.

There are also amongst them some people who ran here out of curiosity to see the black-haired group, but they all backed away, nodding obediently once Hazel barks a loud order.

Seems like not only is Hazel senior in age, she’s also the leader of this faction.

But after five more people enter the room, I can’t help but offer her a suggestion. Because even I feel a little awkward.

“Uhm—Should we introduce ourselves or something?”

The gazes make me feel very uncomfortable. But that’s no wonder, after all their leader brought in unfamiliar foreigners, anyone would find that suspicious. Besides even though they look worn and their clothes tattered, they are after all the mazoku envoy who were supposed to have talks with the emperor Yels.h.i.+. I don’t know if anyone here knows the exact details, but just hearing a foreign language must be enough to make them feel uneasy.

“Because the way we look must seem really suspicious to these people, right? Not only are our hair and eye colors completely different from them, we’re also speaking an unknown language.”

“Your Majesty is my guest, not some suspicious strangers. I planned on waiting for everyone to arrive before making introductions… But to be honest, even I don’t know how to explain this.”

Maybe because she’s getting up there in the years, the wrinkles in Hazel’s brow seem even deeper, her expression hesitant to speak.

“Even if I know you’re not the enemy, I don’t have enough conditions to prove that you’re on our side. After all, I can’t even tell what your motive is, right?”

“Motive…”

Under the many golden gazes and Hazel’s red-brown eyes, I’m suddenly at a loss for words.

There are many motives for this trip, but they’re too complicated to be explained at once, and it’s hard to determine whether the talks with the brothers, Saralegui and Yels.h.i.+, can progress any further. Besides that, even more importantly, not just Hazel, but all the citizens in this country don’t even know they’re actually brothers!

“Our reason for crossing the ocean, was to witness the restoration of bilateral ties between Seisakoku and Shou s.h.i.+maron. But it was always to witness a third party, with absolutely no plan to interfere with the discussions between the two countries.”

Be it from s.h.i.+n Makoku’s or Dai s.h.i.+maron’s point of view, Lord Weller’s words are extremely neutral and impa.s.sive.

“But some unforeseen circ.u.mstances interrupted the discussion, so we had no choice but to leave the Shou s.h.i.+maron king, Saralegui behind as we excused ourselves.”

“I see, there were unforeseen circ.u.mstances…”

Hazel touches her forehead with a cracked finger.

“But you seem to have retreated under fairly dangerous circ.u.mstances, huh. Don’t tell be you weren’t attending peacefully? Forget it, I’m not suspecting your ident.i.ties, just worried that you and the Shou s.h.i.+maron king aren’t here for something as simple as restoring relations, and have a more sinister motive. For example…”

Just then the stone door opens, and she glances towards it. It seems to be an old acquaintance of hers, just raising a hand in lieu of a greeting.

“You may be searching for something extremely of use, and can be made into a weapon.”

I grip my fist tightly, damp sweat breaking out across my palm.

“…You’re talking about the Box, aren’t you?”

“Because Your Majesty is the king of the mazoku, and you said so yourself that the dangerous Box was created by you guys, right? If so, it wouldn’t be weird for Your Majesty to come retrieve it personally. At the very least you would know more about using it than an outsider who just happened to accidentally come to another world.”

If only that was so.

I can’t help but sigh inwardly, my voice becoming stiffer. Who’d have thought that after cancelling the summit with Saralegui and Yels.h.i.+, I would have to confer with the local underground leader—Hazel Graves, instead. But just this sort of scheming and testing each other out is already getting to be too much for me, I don’t even have time to catch my breath.

My so-called scheming, is only to mumble senselessly and try to throw them off their game.

“Whether you believe it or not, I’ll just be honest with you. We… At the very least, I’m not here to grab the Box, and besides we didn’t expect it to be in this continent anyway. And…”

I raise my head to look at Conrad, he says to me in a completely monotonous voice, “It should be ‘Inferno on the Tundra’.” That’s right, the Boxes’ names are ‘Wind’s End’, ‘Ends of the Earth’, and the one we just knew is here, ‘Inferno on the Tundra’.

“I never once thought of using ‘Inferno on the Tundra’ as a weapon.”

“Should I believe everything you say just like that?”

“I know no one can suddenly believe someone they just met. But we mazoku created those Boxes to seal away that power, and definitely not to be used by other countries or races. Even if I know the location of the Box now, to be honest I’d want nothing more than to leave it there untouched. If only I could sign a pact so that no one could abuse it. Like Dai s.h.i.+maron or Shou s.h.i.+maron…”

I pause—because I remember the boy king’s crime.

“If you can guarantee that it won’t fall into Saralegui’s hands, and you won’t abuse it, then I won’t enquire about its whereabouts any further.”

He once gathered criminals in the name of experimenting, and caused ma.s.s destruction to Caloria. It’s as different as possible from Anissina’s ideals, which is to enhance everyone’s strengths.

“Really?”

She uses those hazel eyes, just like her name, to stare at my face. Since she’s smaller than me, naturally she’s looking up at me. But the reason I feel such discomfort is her eyes. She has the eyes of someone who can see through everything, appraise everything.

“Don’t make the mistakes I made, owning a precious Box with incredible power. According to the records that survived, it may even be on par with Germany’s newly-designed bombs. That’s a terrifying thing that combines fusion and fission, strong enough to destroy a city. Once you have that much power in your hands, can you resist the temptation to use it?”

“We won’t use it. And to make sure it won’t be used by others, I hope to hide it somewhere deeper, somewhere it will never be found.”

Hazel stares at me, falling into a silence that lasts five whole minutes. I feel as though in that time, she’s been looking deep within my heart. And then her expression softens, turning back to that of a kind old lady.

“No offense, but I always thought that Little… Sorry, His Majesty here looks a lot like a j.a.panese person from Earth. If a country like that got such a brutal weapon, I really wouldn’t know what would happen to the world.”

“…a country like that…”

Nothing I can do about it, Hazel Graves’ world history knowledge stopped at 1936AD. Back then the whole of j.a.pan was under military rule, and America hadn’t joined the war. Not only that, the World Wars haven’t even started. She doesn’t know how the 20th century ended.

“International politics sure are complicated--”

“Yeah.”

Conrad, who knows a bit about the world after that, says as though to comfort me, all dejected. But I rather hope someone could comfort me with something like, ‘You’re doing a wonderful job.’

Hazel, who has no idea why I’m upset, apologizes with a laugh,

“So sorry, I actually did something as stupid as judging a book by its cover. It’s because I haven’t seen any black-haired and black-eyed people in a long time. But Your Majesty looks very honest, and extremely adorable to boot, it must be easy for you to win over the ladies. You’re worlds away from a certain Asian friend of mine.”

After that she turns solemn again, the gentle old grandma image disappearing in the blink of an eye. This should be “Venera’s” expression.

“And more importantly, you are the king of the mazoku, the only existence that can oppose s.h.i.+maron. I hope you’re trustworthy, or everything we’ve done to this day, will never come to fruition. The reason we keep on escaping on boats, is so that the outside world can know what this country is like now, that’s why we need to transmit the information to the other side of the ocean. Do you know what kind of wrecks our comrades had to ride across the sea in?”

“All that I know. I’ve come into contact with them before. To be honest, that was a very rash move.”

“That’s right, it’s basically suicide.”

They actually let those people ride those old s.h.i.+ps no better than fis.h.i.+ng vessels across those rapid torrents. And most of them drifted to Shou s.h.i.+maron, where eventually only the kids were taken away, and rest deported back. I rub my chest through my clothes, my heart aching from the uneasy feeling. That was when I got this letter from the twins I befriended—the letter that Jason and Freddy wrote. Moreover, this letter is also filled with Zeda and Zusha’s wishes and hopes on me.

In fact, behind that thin piece of paper, there’s probably many, many more, tens of thousands of people and their wishes.

“Even so, we have no choice but to set sail, because someone has to lead the advance. We’ve been doing the same thing for more than thirty years now, but we’ve confirmed that s.h.i.+maron land is off limits. Surely you are also aware what fate awaited our comrades who drifted to s.h.i.+maron. But on the other hand we’re not sure about any other countries besides s.h.i.+maron, because we have not the slightest clue about them. I figure they’re either completely ignored, or exploited as ready-made labor.”

My wandering gaze falls on Josak, who got some yellow cube-shaped thing from a woman, and is pointing at his mouth to ask if it is edible. That s.h.i.+nzoku lady tears it into strips with her slender fingers, bringing it to his mouth with a smile. They obviously can’t understand each other, but he still managed to mix with them in such a short time. Hazel seems to have seen the same image, her expression softening slightly.

“Just as we were sending people out to sea, the war got more and more intense. We heard that s.h.i.+maron even split into two, that info was leaked by the merchants who visited Dejima. At the same time we also know about the forces opposing s.h.i.+maron. I was really very surprised, s.h.i.+maron obviously hasn’t colonized as much land in these past hundred years as Rome or the British Empire. But since this continent is sealed off, the environment only allows us limited intel, that’s why we feel as though the whole world belonged to s.h.i.+maron. Just thinking that monopoly of the world has fallen into s.h.i.+maron hands, and is divided into the kings of Dai and Shou s.h.i.+maron no less, fills my comrades and I with despair.”

The spy is chewing the food he requested, all carefree. Even if it’s boring because you can’t understand English, Josak, you’re such a glutton. But I still force myself to bring my attention, which nearly got sidetracked, back to Venera’s topic.

“But s.h.i.+maron didn’t win the war, did it?”

It’s another country’s business, but Hazel is still laughing so happily her shoulders won’t stop shaking,

“Do you know how I felt, when I heard that some countries didn’t bow to the pressure, and can even fight back? I felt that the world was so big. Thinking that, other than Dai and Shou s.h.i.+maron, there might be other places that won’t oppress the victims, even dreaming that if that country knew about our situation, would they stand up for us as peacemakers? So I start harboring hope… But, hope is such a troublesome thing.”

Hazel opens her palms skywards and shrugs her shoulders, the foreigner pose I always see in the movies.

“…At the end I couldn’t stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop the boats from going out to sea.”

“Why has it come to that?”

I grip my hands and loosen them again, fl.u.s.tered, wiping the sweat on them on my thighs.

“So you’re saying that, though all the s.h.i.+nzokus know how reckless setting sail on such rickety boats is, they still won’t stop trying to escape… it’s actually all because of us… because s.h.i.+n Makoku was at war with s.h.i.+maron? If the mazokus had surrendered without a word like the other countries, then you guys might have given up sooner, and there wouldn’t have been so many needless sacrifices?”

“That’s not what I meant, Your Majesty.”

Looking at Hazel’s deprecating expression, I bite my lip wordlessly.

“I just wanted to say, the country that defeated s.h.i.+maronn gave us hope.”

Hope.

Hearing that simple word, I remember one of the reasons I’m standing on this land.

Venera, hope, save.

That’s right, we… at least, I wasn’t here to find the Box, and not to stop Seisakoku and Shou s.h.i.+maron restoring their relations either. I’m here to fulfill the wish Jason and Freddy wrote to me in their letter, and save them. I said before I would take responsibility for their lives, because I promised them.

“If we’re talking about hope, it should be you, Venera.”

I purposely avoid her real name, using the name people praise instead.

“You motivated those who were treated as slaves, mistreated, and had no power to object, letting them know that they can lead completely different lives, and taught them the way to change their current situation. Not only did you teach them, you even led them into concrete actions, didn’t you? The one who gave the people of this country hope, isn’t s.h.i.+n Makoku who signed a peace treaty with s.h.i.+maron, but Hazel Graves.”

Jason, Freddy, I’ve come here looking for you, just like we agreed. What are you actually hoping for? How do I save Venera, this symbolic existence?

“The reason I came to this land even after being separated from my comrades, is to fulfill my deal with my friends, those twins. Those two wanted me to save Venera. Jason and Freddy are two girls, around twelve-years-old, do you know where they are?”

“Jason and Freddy… those names sound familiar… did those two girls ask Your Majesty to save me?”

I don’t know if it’s because she has no clue about the twins’ whereabouts, or because this has to do with her own safety, but after Hazel ponders over it seriously for a few minutes, she says something that sounds like fortune teller,

“Those names don’t sound like s.h.i.+nzoku names, they shouldn’t belong to the slave cla.s.s, right?”

“I think they were taken from here shortly after they were born, and were raised by the foster care organization overseas. Maybe the people there gave them those names. Their majutsu… No, houjutsu is really strong. Like they were born with houryoku. Wait a sec, according to what Saralegui said…”

According to what Saralegui said, no matter how high a status you’re born into, any child without houryoku will be treated as a slave, not even one of the queen’s twins can be exempted. On the other hand there’s Jason and Freddy, they have powerful houryoku, and unlike other houjutsu users, they don’t need to rely on houseki to display astonis.h.i.+ng destructive force. I can’t match up to the tip of one of their toes, even.

Since they possess such scary attack power, it’s highly likely that they don’t belong to the slave cla.s.s. That means I’m trying to save kids who are different from the people here, in that they have better surroundings and facilities? And so I’m at a loss, unsure of whether I should say that out loud.

Josak flicks his finger beside my face, whispering to me, “It looks like they’ll feed us, you know.”

“Why don’t you take this chance to catch your breath, I’m sure Young Master is hungry as well, right?”

As for the woman who was standing by his side just now, she’s fumbling around her sack with a friendly smile. The problem is they already have very little food as it is, and yet they are still willing to share some with foreign strangers they’ve never met before.

What kind of expression should I wear to tell them, “I’m not here to help you”?

It’s Hazel, though, who ignores my hesitation and suddenly yells,

“It’s the returnees!”

“Eh?’

“Those two are returnees from abroad. When it comes to those who returned from the other end of the ocean, to differentiate them from the slaves who mostly don’t understand the outside world, that’s how we call them. If so, when I do my rounds normally, I may have seen them once or twice.”

Hazel says all that at once, and even laughs self-deprecatingly,

“After all, I was originally the old lady who pulled the manure cart.”

There’s already a high school baseball boy as Maou, a resistance leader who transports organic fertilizer is nothing surprising.

“But, if those two children really are returnees… I’m sorry, they’re being held at a very scary place.”

“They’re being held!? But they’re not criminals or rebels, for all you know they’re not even slave-cla.s.s children, right!? According to the value system in this country, aren’t children with high houryoku members of the elite?”

What she’s saying makes me feel rather uneasy. The girls I’m looking for aren’t pets or livestock that have to be chained up, their movements restricted.

“That’s only for good citizens who’ve never left the country their whole lives, whilst returnees don’t have it so well. If they’re really clueless, then they won’t harbor any suspicions about the current system, and they’ll be able to swear loyalty to the G.o.ds and the ruler. But once they’ve known the outside world, then it’s impossible for them to not notice the problems here, so they’ll be even more troublesome than simply the slaves.”

“Troublesome…!”

Hazel scratches her hair with her dry hands, shaking her head in despair,

“That’s why the returnees are isolated, and held in specialized facilities. To prevent them from teaching the people around them, and thus bringing a bad influence. But those places are called facilities in name only, and in reality they’re just concentration camps in the middle of nowhere. They’re just like prisoners, it’s no different from being incarcerated in prison.”

“Oh my G.o.d!”

“Those facilities are scattered all across the country, one of them isn’t too far away from Yels.h.i.+urad. Every twenty days they’ll send supplies over there. The supply cart isn’t pulled by me, but by oxen. Since I never opened the covers, I don’t know what’s inside, but judging from the smell, it doesn’t seem to be the prisoners’ food. Maybe it’s the personal necessities of the officials who work in such an isolated area.”

Hazel’s tone is full of sympathy. Because of me, those two girls are in a situation even worse than that of the people here.

“When I’m in charge of helping transport the supplies, I’ll try my best to get around there a bit more. Because there are a lot of people there who failed to get away and got deported back, so I have a responsibility towards them.”

Her voice is mixed with pity and pain, clenching her teeth and speaking slowly to maintain her cool. But I can’t listen to her talk calmly anymore. It feels as though the ground underneath my feet has turned to sand, and my body is starting to sink downwards. Just keeping my balance takes a lot out of me.

“…It’s all me.”

I spread open my hands to hold my trembling cheeks, the cold pale red houseki stuck on my little finger now plastered to the corner of my eyes. I’m extremely angry, hating someone from the very bottom of my heart, but I can’t let out my emotions so easily.

Because, all the responsibility is on me.

“I was the one who put them in such a terrible place…”

“No, Your Majesty.”

Conrad grabs my shoulders, helping me finally dispel that feeling of falling. But words of regret start forming in my mind,

“If only I’d stopped them back then. Forget stopping, at the very least I should have investigated the political state of Seisakoku and the s.h.i.+nzoku culture before sending them back… If I had convinced them to wait until then, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

I shake away his hands, turning to him, but suddenly my whole body just falls towards the wall. Hazel’s expression changes abruptly, staring directly at the stone wall behind me. That time, I still had no idea what I’d done.

“No, I should have just followed them here. Back then I’d said so proudly that I would be responsible for them until the end, but at the most important moment I handed them over to someone else to handle. I should’ve personally sent them back, I should have seen them obtain their happiness with my own eyes! That’s right, what about the other kids that were with them? Don’t tell me those kids have met such misfortune as well…”

“This isn’t your fault!”

“Young Master?”

Josak, having sensed something amiss, rushes over here. He glances at Conrad, at the same time putting his hand on his sword. Looks like Conrad’s still under suspicion, if I were him, I’d surely feel terrible about it.

“That’s why I said, Young Master, you should catch your breath first and eat something. If you talk about these serious things on an empty stomach, you’ll stand until you get dizzy and finally you’ll faint, you know.”

“It’s not because I’m hungry, sheesh.”

“No!! It’s precisely because you’re hungry!”

He concludes, sounding absolutely sure of himself.

“‘Thinking of things on an empty stomach, will never come to any good.’ Those are our ancestor’s words of wisdom, pa.s.sed down through the generations, even His Majesty s.h.i.+nou said that before.”

“On the contrary, when you eat too much the blood gathers in your gut and… Mmph!”

“Stop forcing your way out of this. Listen up, Your Majesty: this is something only someone who’s truly been hungry would know!”

Gurrier, looking like a middle-aged auntie in his long-sleeved ap.r.o.n, stuffs the yellow cube thing into my mouth. The taste on my mouth is something between cheese and yoghurt, and then the turns around to face Lord Weller, moving almost automatically,

“It’s been tested for poison.”

“…I know.”

Although Gurrier exaggerated that it’s the ancestral words of wisdom, it seems that half of it is true. Ad I’m chewing what seems to be a dairy product, that sense of self-hatred seems to have decreased somewhat, and what rises is a little energy to think of my words and actions just now… more or less. It’s still mostly the self-hatred, though.

It’s depressing, that I actually made such a serious mistake in such an important part of someone’s life. Just thinking about that stupid thing I did and the consequences, makes me feel as though even the beasts on the wall behind me are laughing at me.

But it isn’t over yet.

There’s still ninety per cent left to go in Jason and Freddy’s lives, I still have a chance to make it up to them.

“…Please tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

Hazel, who was standing by and quietly watching me, now retorts with a question, her arms folded over her chest.

“The places where the returnees are being isolated, please tell me everything you know about it. Starting with the one closest to the capital. Hey--!”

I wave over the young s.h.i.+nzoku standing in the corner of the room, praying that the paper cylinder in their hands is a map.

“I have to save them… I have to!”

Hazel raises her chin comically, cracking her knuckles like a tough guy.

“All right, at least you got guts.”

There absolutely no trace of the gentle old grandma anymore.

“Looking at Little Buddy here reminds me of my granddaughter! She’s a stubborn kid who doesn’t know how to give up, back then when we separated, she was about as old as you are now. I’ll do my best to help you. After all, those two girls brought Your Majesty over here because they were worried about me, right?”

“I guess you could say so.”

“They’re already in danger, but they’re still worried about others, so I can tell they’re good children who were raised right. How can I just let them be… Right, let’s start from here.”

And with that she unfurls the paper on the ground, pressing down on the right side with her knee. The map of the entire Seisakoku is surrounded by wave symbols, looking like an enormous sh.e.l.l. It’s a map made by the locals, but there are still obvious signs differentiating the mountainous areas and the plains. Though there are quite a few mountain ranges represented here, but as a whole, there’s doesn’t seem to be too many drastic changes in the topography.

I follow Hazel’s fingertip, moving towards the center, west, and south-east.

“I know these four places: north-west of Yels.h.i.+urad, the east cliffs, opposite Dejima… and…”

Her finger slows down when she reaches the fourth place, as though that place is even more terrifying than the previous three. I raise my head to look at her with eyes full of disbelief, and the corners of Hazel’s mouth lift with something like cynicism. She doesn’t seem to test my patience anymore, either, and continues,

“And there’s one here, on the northern-most tip of the continent, surrounded by the royal mausoleums, where some horseback tribes hold the actual authority, under the pretense of watching the royal tombs.”

“What do you mean by ‘hold the actual authority’?”

Could it be that Seisakoku isn’t under an absolute monarchy? Doesn’t Yels.h.i.+ hold all the authority? Just as I’m making to ask her, Hazel’s next words dispel all my doubts. What she says is this—

“That was the place I first landed when I came to this world, that time when I came here together with the ‘Box’.”

“What did you say!? T-then, that thing is there, too?”

“Right, it’s highly likely. If no one found it, it should still be sleeping in the old tombs, hibernating together with the riches of the previous emperors. I just hope that after my desperate break for freedom, no one went in there to raid the tombs.”

Hazel ignores the way we look at each other, continuing to pretend that she doesn’t see any of us,

“But back then I was actually in an ancient tomb. Isn’t that the best place to trap a treasure hunter? If that Box had a conscience, it would have a rather good sense of humor.”

What a painful joke. Especially towards those of us who had witnessed the destruction of Caloria.

But I give up protesting, there’s really no need to increase the number of people who know the Box’s secret anymore. Though to be precise, I lost the chance to protest, because everyone’s attention is pulled to a sudden, heavy sound.

That’s the sound of someone knocking the stone from outside, intense and frantic. The young man closest to it quickly pulls aside the stone door.

“Venera!”

The man yells Hazels name as soon as he comes in, rus.h.i.+ng in and talking non-stop. After he hands over the paper slip in his hands, his now empty hands continue moving continuously, as though he’s chopping vegetables—it should be a personal habit of his when he talks. His gaze tells us how frenzied he is, his huge golden eyes moving left and right behind those thick lenses. I don’t mean to look down on any YUTA[1], though.

That white mold-like beard, especially, that covers his cheeks and chin, look awfully familiar…

“Ah!”

The man, who’s finished a part of what he wants to say, jumps at the sound of my voice, and when he looks towards my direction for the first time he’s so shocked he takes quite a few steps backwards.

“Ajira-san!?”

“Y-yujira-san…!?[2]”

This man is the translator who attended the summit. That white mold beard that stands on end whenever he gets agitated is still the same. I remember clearly the nametag on his chest with the error: ‘Translator: Ajira’, but the third words seems to be horizontally inverted.

“Ah, I was right, no wonder you look so familiar.”

“Why is the translator… Why are you, who knows translation houjutsu, joining the underground resistance!?”

Surely he must be having the same thoughts as I am. Why is the idiotic guest who fell from the balcony here at the entrance to the underground maze!?

“Ajira may be a citizen, but he’s a great a.s.set of ours. Because his grandparents’ generation were still slaves, all I gave him was a little suggestion. On that note, he’s here with intel, I think Your Majesty would be interested to know.”

“Listen?”

I pause for a while before I understand that he’s asking if I want to listen to the information. He has a way of abbreviating his common language, and he speaks as short and sweet as ever. Rather than saying he’s a special houjutsu user, it’s better to say he’s good at languages.

And I reply loudly, too—only in verbs.

“Listen, listen!”

“Tomorrow, daytime, execute.”

“…What does that mean?”

“It’s an execution, Your Majesty.”

Conrad replies in English with a tone that makes me feel uncomfortable. Hazel nods, as well.

“W-wait a sec, Conrad, no one would make a cold joke out of this, right? No one would be that crazy, right?”

“An execution means to sentence someone to death, Your Majesty. It’s to make an example for us to see. In other words they choose some rebels who were caught, or pick a few unlucky winners from the returnees we mentioned just now…”

“T-they’ll be killed?”

Hazel, who was listening at the side, has an expression of surprise that says, ‘how can you still not understand the situation’.

“Don’t the mazokus have corporal punishment? But this is still too sudden, what on earth happened? There haven’t been public executions here for several years now. Especially after Yels.h.i.+ ascended the throne, we were all still happy that his restrictions on us are so much looser than before. Could it be that he’s changed his principles too, and decided to go the same way as his mother?”

Faced with the leader who says such scary things, I retort her agitatedly, even making to pull her collar.

“You’ll save them, right? You will save them, right!?”

“Of course I want to, but… Just thinking that it might cost other lives, I can’t make this decision easily.”

“No way? Don’t tell me you’re going to just watch them die!?”

Hazel, with her expression still solemn, is shaken by the shoulders strongly by someone young enough to be her great-grandson, and finally Lord Weller can’t bear to watch anymore, pulling me away from her.

“I know!”

This is a foreign organization’s problem, it’s not good for me to interfere too much. I just didn’t think that I would lose my mind and threaten the other side.

“Of course I know! But I still feel… feel as though Saralegui must have influenced this.”

“So what do you want to say? Even if the execution was Saralegui’s idea, but we’re still in Seisakoku, the one to make the decision is still Venera. We can’t force them to save them, can we?”

Lord Weller says in a voice so calm I hate it. Even this simple brain of mine can understand that, but I still can’t control my childish emotions. I’m so angry I kick the ground that’s been here for several centuries, bringing up a cloud of dust.

In the rebound of my emotions, I even say some things I shouldn’t say,

“And from what position are you saying this, huh!?”

Even raising some questions I shouldn’t raise.

“As my companion? Or… as Dai s.h.i.+maron’s amba.s.sador?”

After a long time, Lord Weller replies in a hoa.r.s.e voice,

“…What kind of position do you wish me to be in?”

He even repeats the same thing, word for word, in the mazoku language,

“What kind of position does Your Majesty wish me to be in?”

I can’t say a thing.

“Sorry for interrupting your conversation.”

Looking at the paper slip Ajira the informant pa.s.ses to her, Hazel cuts in our conversation without raising her head. Although I was the one who asked him the question first, I still heave a quiet sigh of relief. Thank goodness he didn’t reply.

But that short sense of relief disappears without a trace at the next piece of information. Looking at that unique writing, like still shots of a bird flying, Hazel clenches her fist tightly.

“There’s good news and bad news, which do you guys want to hear first?”

“Good…”

“Then I’ll read out the good news first. This time there are five people unlucky enough to be pulled out, a lot fewer than usual.”

How is that good news?

“But out of those five there are names that don’t sound like s.h.i.+nzoku, I have to admit, it’s two girls.”

Hazel adds a simple comment in what sounds like a swearing tone,

“Well, that sucks bad.”