A date at the Sea World aquarium. With a guy. Oh, great. Why does this happen to me only?

It was summer vacation, time for the baseball. The newly formed amateur team and the Seibu Lions, of which I have been a devoted fan most of my life, took up all of my time. Until I got a call from Murata.

"She rejected me," he said moodily.

"Who? Your girlfriend?" I asked, curiously.

"No, I had planned to ask a girl to go out with me on a date to Sea World, then confess my feelings to her. So I bought pre-sale tickets, but she turned me down."

"So you confessed, and she turned you down?"

"No, I did not confess. She didn"t even want to go to Sea World with me."

"What? But that doesn"t mean she rejected you, maybe she just couldn"t join you this time."

"But I feel rejected." Murata sighed. "And I had already bought the tickets."

Although I tried to cheer him up, Murata only smiled weakly. He didn"t want to waste the tickets he had bought, but it was troublesome to return them. He was willing to give them away, but it was near the end of July, and most of our friends had already had plans.

"Well, of course that"s unfortunate."

"Don"t you want to go?"

"When is it?"

"The tickets are for the 28th."

"But that"s when we have the night game at the Seibu Dome..." I protested.

"Oh, to h.e.l.l with the night game!" Murata said irritatedly, which was unusual for him. "Have you forgotten how much time I"ve sacrificed for your stupid baseball games? Not just the games, you dragged me along to the training sessions too. And now you choose a d.a.m.ned game over your good old friend, even when he has a broken heart?! Come on, it costs you nothing. I"ve already paid for tickets. Come with me, please!"

"Okay, okay, I understand, I"ll go with you. But I have to say that if you"re persistent enough, she will eventually give in."

My friend looked up to the sky with an exaggerated expression.

"s.h.i.+buya Yuri Harajuku Furi, naive as you are, you can"t possibly know how it"s like."

"Wait, Murata! How old are you after all? And this has nothing to do with Harajuku Furi at all!"

And so Murata and I, Yuri s.h.i.+buya, spent the day at the Sea World aquarium. Yes, my name is Yuri s.h.i.+buya. Yuri as in "advantage" with the same kanji script as "interest," not a gentle pear or anything like that. I had spent a big part of my 15 years of life being teased for this stupid name.

As my father worked in the bank, I had thought that I had been given this name because my father was always thinking about interest rates. But then I found out that the blame was on a friendly young man who had shared his taxi ride with my mother, when she was on her way to the hospital to give birth to me. Even so, at least they could have chosen a different kanji for the name, which would have given it a different meaning! Well, yes, I consoled myself with the thought that my brother had got a worse deal: His name meant "victory"! s.h.i.+buya Victory, that was even a bigger laugh than my name!

Anyway, that afternoon I got stuck at the Sea World aquarium with a guy, who insisted that he was rejected by a girl, while it couldn"t be worse than a one-time refusal. And so the two of us, one boy wearing gla.s.ses and one baseball fan, went to Sea World together, surrounded by couples and parents with their children. Walking along the gla.s.s tunnel that ran right through the water, we could see the nautiluses, the fire fish, the banner fish, the Arapaima, and the sawfish swimming gracefully together with the delicious sardines and bonitos.

"If only I were with a sweet girl!" I sighed.

"Man, what is it now? You"re b.i.t.c.hing all the time."

"Hey, I was only cursing my lonely existence, you know. Tomorrow I"ll turn sixteen, and I still have no girlfriend."

"Tomorrow is your birthday?! I had no idea. Tell me then, what do you want for your birthday? Look here, do you want a cell phone strap from the gift shop? This one is really cute, isn"t it?"

"A cell phone strap? But you know my phone is broken."

"Then it"s a good time to buy a new one. The texting function is quite convenient."

I sighed and looked at the back of my right hand. The entry stamp for the day visitors had been pressed on my skin with a special ink. If I held my hand under a scanner, the stamp glowed with a pale mark.

"I don"t need a cell phone. And I have no use for texting function."

"You don"t need a cell phone?! What is this nonsense? Everyone needs a cell phone. And that"s why everyone has indeed got one, except you. Sometimes I really think you come from another world!"

If you only knew!

It had only been three months ago that I fell through a toilet and landed in another world! Really! And I had even been declared king against my will. No kidding! I, a fifteen-year-old high school student with average looks and ordinary intelligence, was really and truly been appointed king of the mazokus!

Of course initially I thought I was dreaming. But when I woke up, hung around my neck was a pendant that someone from that world had given me. It was a stone the size of a 500 yen coin, which I wore around my neck ever since. It had silver rim and was of a blue color deeper than the sky, the color of the Seibu Lions. This charm stone reminded me every day that it had not been a dream. It was for real: I was born with the soul of a mazoku and had committed to protect s.h.i.+n Makoku, the kingdom of the mazokus.

"Hurry up and take your number, s.h.i.+buya." Murata pushed me.

An employee at Sea World handed me a piece of green paper.

"Hmmm? Ah yes, thanks."

We had moved away from the exit of the aquarium and were now at the entrance to the show "Friends of the Sea." A heat wave suddenly hit us: we were in an open stadium and the summer sun was burning mercilessly above us. We walked down tiers of blue benches, looking for two empty seats. At the other side of the large water pool was the white performance stage.

"s.h.i.+t, it"s hot!" I complained.

"Stop whining! If you hadn"t come with me, you would be running around in your baseball uniform in the same heat."

Although I knew it was almost no use, I fanned with a piece of paper. A cool breeze brushed against my neck for a moment.

"Are there at least girls in swimsuits?"

"Why don"t you look at the stage?" Murata said.

Sure enough! There were the trainers - in bathing suits - with seals.

My thoughts wandered. Who was more majestic, the emperor penguin or me? Which formation should my team take for the practice match next week? Tilting my head to one side, I absentmindedly watched the seals performance: a seal headed a soccer ball through a basketball hoop, and a woman in a swimsuit tapped a pink drum vigorously.

"27! Number 27! Would you please come to the stage?"

On the adjacent seat, a toddler clung to the knees of his father and started to bawl.

"Hey, s.h.i.+buya!" Murata called out and prodded me with his elbow. "Number 27! That"s you!"

"Sorry, what am I?"

"The visitor with the number 27! May I ask you to come on stage?"

"Go on, go on! Hurry up, otherwise they will think you"re not here at all."

I glanced at the piece of paper in my hand. It had indeed number 27 printed on it. With a broad smile, Murata grabbed my arm and pulled me down the stair, as if he won a lottery.

"Hey! Slow down! Not so fast!" I protested.

The trainer put a blue cap on my head and led me through an acrylic door. Then she gave me a small thing that was hanging from her fingers.

"Congratulations! These are your souvenirs, a cool dolphin cap, and a key chain with a cute little dolphin. I"ll trap it to your belt so you won"t lose it."

I was still in a daze.

Indeed, my gifts were all decorated with gray-blue dolphins. The cap had a brim shaped as the dolphin"s beak, and two black eyes on two sides. The key chain had a little dolphin dangling with his beak slightly open. It looked very cute, much nicer than the real dolphin.

"On behalf of our audience, could I ask you to shake hand with our stars today?" said the young woman smiling.

Whom am I going to shake hands with? A dolphin? No way!

Without saying a word, three people from the staff pulled me to the side of the pool.

"Wait, wait a minute! Dolphins are not really my favorite. Don"t you have a couple of whales or sea lions I could shake hands with?"

No response.

"Here we are, our friends Bando and Eiji, the bottlenose dolphins!" The trainer announced.

Two s.h.i.+ny gray dorsal fins came gliding through the water to the side of the pool next to us.

"Hey guys! That wasn"t a joke! I really do not get along with dolphins!"

Still no reaction.

"Hey, Murata, Murata! Please help me!"

"s.h.i.+buya, you lucky devil! I envy you!"

Then one of the two dolphins, I couldn"t tell whether he was Eiji or Bando, jumped out of the water then fell down, splas.h.i.+ng all around. Holy s.h.i.+t! The beast was huge! He extended a blue-green s.h.i.+mmering flipper toward me, his eyes looking straight at me and his beak slightly open, showing two rows of small sharp teeth like a zipper.

"There goes my sixteenth birthday tomorrow," I muttered.

"Don"t be scared! He"s not going to bite you."

There was no way out; the staff had blocked my escape route. The dolphin was at my feet and still looked at me attentively, his flexible tail and waist muscle moving gracefully as he stood floating in the water. "Hey you, human! Let"s get this over with quickly, so I can finally have my sardines!" His eyes seemed to say to me. He opened his gaping beak and a screech filled the air "Kschaaaaaa!"

"Ahhhhh!" I also let out a small cry of terror. Hesitantly I reached out my right hand and finally touched the slippery flipper. It felt sticky and cold as ice. I felt my hand squeezed tightly.

Wait a moment! How could it be?

He was just a dolphin; he couldn"t possibly hold my hand with his flipper, could he? But then what was it that was pulling on my hand?

"Hey, let me go! Let go!" I yelled.

Just before I was pulled into the pool, I could hear the indistinctive shout of the staff and the audience, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Murata stretch his hand toward me. But the next moment, blue water engulfed me. Although the pool could not be very deep, I sank deeper and deeper into what felt like an abyss. My clothes were completely soaked and became heavy, still wrapping around my arms and legs, pulling me down. d.a.m.n it, where"s the bottom of the pool?! Wait a minute. Hadn"t I been through something similar before? Twice?

"Not again!"

I was sucked backward into the depths. I swallowed a tremendous amount of water. It was really physically impossible... biologically and architecturally as well. My back ought to have hit the hard cement. Unless David Copperfield had his hands in the game. Or Princess Tenko!

"Tell me, Mama..."

"What, Yuu-chan?"

"Why are people so fond of playing with dolphins? It"s stupid."

"But they"re cute! Don"t you love dolphins?"

"Well, not at all. You never know what goes on in their heads. They might shake hands with us and swim around us amicably, but what if they are secretly mocking us? What if they actually look down upon us and think to themselves "Let"s have some fun with these little humans"?"

"Ah! I got it! You can"t get along with those you can"t understand. But that"s why, for Mama, it is important that you work toward that understanding. Friends.h.i.+p needs time to grow and blossom. Spending time together, gazing up at the stars while talking to each other, that"s how we come to understand one another better. Do you understand what I mean, Yuu-chan?"

Friends.h.i.+p? With dolphins? Thanks, but no thanks.

I looked up to a blazing blue sky dappled with contrasting white shreds. Salt water burnt my eyes. Probably that meant I was floating in the ocean and not in a pool. Listlessly, my body drifted like a jellyfish, slightly rocking back and forth.

The sun was still high in the sky, blindingly bright and intense. The skin on my face and neck felt painful under the summer sun. It reminded me of the summer vacations when I was a child. I had always looked forward to going to the beach with my family; we would have a lot of watermelon, fireworks and collect piles of sea sh.e.l.ls.

I"d become somewhat used to waking up in a completely different world, since this had happened to me for the third time in my life. So they summoned me again. Traveling through a whirlpool of water, being dragged here almost against my will, was no longer something new. But I had never expected it to happen in front of such a large audience. I had been lulled into a false sense of security.

Fortunately, I know the final destination of my journey, and I had friends there, so it was not all that bad. The story in broad strokes: the protagonist landed in a strange world of swords and magic and must perform heroic deeds. Plots like this were not at all uncommon. The only thing was that in this story I was not a hero, but the Demon King, the enemy"s last boss. It took me three months on Earth to accept the situation more calmly.

A gray triangle floated in the water and approached my right leg. It must be one of the dolphins. Poor guy, now I had accidentally dragged an innocent animal to this world. I overcame my fear and held out a hand to him to pat his s.h.i.+ny head. The tips of my fingers touched his forehead lightly. It felt much rougher than the dolphin"s flipper, which I had touched during the show.

"Hey, good boy! No wonder you can swim so fast. Ian Thorpe used a swimming suit that mimics the skin of a shark."

Did someone just say shark?

Our eyes met. I found myself looking into the eyes of a shark ... A huge white shark!

I had always disliked sea creatures because you never knew what was going on in their heads. But this time it was totally different! What that animal was thinking at the time was not at all difficult to guess: dinner was served, in the form of a human! With the theme song of the movie "Jaws" as background music.

I gave a little cry and fled with a chaotic mixture of front crawl and dog paddle. Wasn"t it called freestyle? d.a.m.n. What should I do? Pretend to be dead? No, it worked with bears only. Just ignore him? No, it worked with teachers only. d.a.m.n, what was the trick with sharks again? Attack or unconditional surrender?

"Your Majesty, are you all right...? Oh no...!"

From the distance, a familiar voice pierced my ears. An overly showy luxury boat approached, moving at a breakneck speed towards me. In the boat sat the duo who were determined to make Yuri s.h.i.+buya an experienced Maou - no matter what it cost.

"How outrageous! A shark dares to approach His Majesty!" Lord Günter Von Kleist paled with anger.

He brandished the oar in his hands wildly, as if to challenge the shark to a duel. His long disheveled gray hair fell on his back; his sparkling lilac eyes were bloodshot; and the very seductive baritone voice was reduced to a hysterical falsetto. No woman could ever resist the beauty of this autocratic teacher, but when it came to me, this epitome of perfection inevitably crumbled into pieces.

Sir Weller"s face, however, bore a mixture of calm serenity and a pained smile while watching the "video-clip-of-the-dismemberment" of a small child.

Conrad, how could you do this to me?! Your only baseball companion in this world was about to become fish food!

"Calm down, Günter! Use the rudder to steer closer to His Majesty, try to get close to his head, I"ll pull him up."

Conrad took my arm and helped me climb up the boat, which I did with the last bit of my strength. I was drenched, breathless and my heart pounded with fear. Conrad held me steady with ease.

"I"m saved! I was almost eaten by the beast." I gasped.

"Don"t worry, Your Majesty! These animals do not attack human."

"That"s a shark, Conrad! A huge white shark! And it was about to bite my right leg!"

"Sharks are vegetarians, Your Majesty. I"m sure he just wanted to play with you a bit."

Oh yeah, that"s right. Most animals in this world behaved very differently than those in ours. I had already noticed that in my last stay.

I left Conrad"s arms.

"How many times have I told you not to call me Your Majesty? It was you who gave me the name Yuri."

Sir Conrad Weller was the one who took my soul - when I was still not "me" - on a journey to a strange world called Earth. And on a street in Boston, he had offered to share his taxi ride with my mother when she was going to the hospital to give birth to me, and during that ride, had suggested a name for me: Yuri.

Conrad looked like a young man about twenty years old, but his age was actually five times what he appeared to be, as with all other mazokus here.

The mazokus had long life and great beauty. As Conrad was only half mazoku, he looked a bit plainer than the full-blooded mazokus. All the other mazoku n.o.bles, however, would form a club of "pretty boys." Yet, as their king, I was nothing more than a normal boy whose looks, build and intelligence could only be cla.s.sified as mediocre. I found myself at a big disadvantage. I could only keep faith in Andersen"s fairytale of the ugly duckling and desperately hope that I would one day grow into a beautiful swan. On the other hand, maybe one day I would be able to find a girl, as in "Beauty and the Beast," who would a.s.sure me that for mazokus, personality is more important than appearance.

"d.a.m.n, it"s so hot here!" I groaned.

Summer seemed to be at its peak even in this world. My clothes were all wet but I didn"t feel cold. Damp clothes clinging to my skin made me sweat even more. With difficulty I peeled the T-s.h.i.+rt off. When I reached the belt buckle of my pants, my hand scratched against the dolphin key chain. Those stupid dolphins!

Conrad looked at me closely.

"Can it be that your muscles have grown a little?"

"Not just a little! Here, look at my biceps."

I was happy and proud with the result of my fervent daily training. Conrad smiled while looking at my "muscle-of-a-baseball-player" appreciatively.

"Then I"ll get you a new sword, one made for adult men."

"I don"t need a sword, Conrad."

"Well, but..."

Conrad was interrupted by a long, indefinable cry.

Günter was about to be hara.s.sed by a group of sharks. "Geez, these animals are cuddly, but really."

Vegetarian-and-cuddly-sharks. I still hadn"t got used to this sort of thing yet.

This was my third stay in this world. And this time I landed at a place completely unknown to me. The white sand and greenish blue water would have made a perfect travel brochure for the Greek Adriatic. Not far from this picturesque backdrop was the Royal House, a summer residence with the architectural style of a castle, but its structure was quite different from the two castles where I had stayed previously.

I was worried that I would have to wear my school uniform in this unbearably hot weather, but fortunately the clothes that the maid brought me were a set of two-piece upper and lower summer clothes in beige color, made of a light material that felt like linen. I put the slightly large pants on. The waistband was a little loose. The maid lowered her head with a fearful look in her eyes. Probably she was worried that she had made a mistake with the clothes and I was going to get angry with her for that.

"Never mind, I can wear a belt and everything will be all right." I tried to cheer her up.

"Your Majesty, have you lost weight? Hopefully it"s not your health that..." said the girl.

"No, don"t worry. This is just the result of my muscle training. I have even bought a body-building equipment to tone my abs."

I got it for a mere 1000 yen in a discount store! My goal was to get a six-pack abs like Kamen-Rider. As I fumbled to pull my belt off from the wet pants, Günter entered the room and ran to the corner where I was.

"One moment, Your Majesty, I will make sure you can enjoy a pleasant temperature."

In a world of magic and swords, of course electricity or household appliances wouldn"t exist. But despite the lack of air conditioning, the further one went into this stone house, the cooler it became. Once I took off my shoes and socks and stepped on the stone floor, I felt coldness penetrating the soles of my feet.

However, before I could a.s.sure him that it wasn"t so hot, Günter had already made a gesture with his right hand. An attendant gracefully stepped forward, his hand holding a large duck by its neck. The tortured duck flapped his wings with all his might. Aha, I got the idea! And indeed, the air felt cooler, only the breeze stank of poultry, and I felt terrible for the animal.

"Please stop!" I hurriedly said. "This is an act of cruelty against animals... And it is cool enough in here anyway!"

"Oh, the compa.s.sion of His Majesty has no limits! His kind heart feels for even these insignificant creatures! This is our Majesty, the 27th Maou of our Kingdom: "Glory to the Mighty s.h.i.+nou and his people, the mazokus! Never let it be forgotten that our people, the mazokus, have existed since the dawn of the world! Our strength, wisdom and courage have once forced even the Creator G.o.ds to kneel! The mazokus will prosper in this kingdom for all eternity!""

That was the lengthy name of our country. Or, in short: s.h.i.+n Makoku.

While he talked, his hands moved beautifully in perfect ch.o.r.eography.

"Your Majesty, I have deliberately inserted a mistake. Can you tell which part of the name was incorrect?"

"Uh... Sorry, I... uh... was not paying attention." I stammered.

The beautiful man looked disappointed.

"Really, Your Majesty, I must earnestly request you to spend more time here and learn more about the country, its people, and the basics of our diplomatic relations. You should no longer return to the other world. Your Günter would like to remain by your side forever."

The situation was clearly straying from the right track. But Conrad, who had ushered out the fanning duck, beautifully and effortlessly turned it around again. He always knew how to handle tricky situations. There were many things I could learn from him, for example, how to deal with Günter. With an att.i.tude as calm and composed as usual, he said:

"Günter, haven"t I told you already? We have no exclusive right to His Majesty. He is also very important to Earth and j.a.pan."

If I was really that important, then why had I been a mere bench-warmer for the past three years?

"Günter! What is the meaning of this?" A voice bellowed. The thundering footsteps that were rapidly approaching sounded extremely intimidating.

"Why was my brother the only one who went to pick Yuri up?! Without informing me! I will not let you treat me like a fool! As his fiancé, I have the right..."

The one who barged in was the angel-like bishounen, Wolfram von Bielefeld. He stopped dead in the hallway upon seeing my naked torso, and seemed to be at a loss for words, his cute face fl.u.s.tered.

"Yuri... my G.o.d! Your face and arms ... So dark! Have you caught a terrible disease? Or a curse?"

"Are you looking for a fight?" I sulked.

In fact, my face and my arms were well-tanned, but my torso and legs were still white as snow. For baseball players, having this s.h.i.+rt-like tan would be considered an achievement, but when my upper body was exposed like this, it was indeed not the best look.

With the thumb and forefinger, Wolfram pinched my cheek.

"Ow-ow-aie-ooh-aie!! What do you think you"re doing?"

He looking directly at Conrad and asked.

"Is he real?"

Conrad nodded.

"But if this is Yuri, who is the one my older brother went to pick up?"

"Probably an impostor."

When Wolfram mentioned his big brother, it would not be Conrad who was in front of him, but his other older brother, Lord Gwendal von Voltaire.

Conrad, Wolfram and Gwendal were half-brothers, sharing the same mother. Until recently they were Their Royal Highnesses, the mazoku princes. But when their mother the former Maou stepped down and I had to take over, the three brothers became Their Excellencies, the former princes.

Wolfram was a rival-less super bishounen, like a Vienna choir boy who had jumped straight out of a shoujo manga. He had inherited his mother"s s.h.i.+ny golden hair and her emerald green eyes. While his build was no better or worse than mine, the difference between our looks was as wide as the gap between heaven and earth. I imagined all artists in the world would fight over the chance to paint his portrait. If he had appeared in someone"s dream, the dreamer might even be moved to tears thinking they had seen an angel. However, he was angel-like only as long as he kept his mouth shut. Else he was just a terribly spoiled and bratty prince. As he claimed, and if one could believe his words, he was already eighty-two years old. If he was living in j.a.pan, he would be a stubborn old man. And because of a small tiny minor cultural difference, we were engaged to each other.

Lady Cecilie von Spitzweg was the mother of the three brothers as well as the former Maou - who insisted that we call her "Cheri." Her love for men extended beyond the barrier between different species, as she happily declared. The son of her union with a human of unknown origin was the half-blooded Conrad. Maybe it was because of his human DNA that Conrad"s features were not as captivating as the other mazokus. However his face with a cheeky smile and a thin scar across one eyebrow could still be described as attractive. Had he lived in the United States, he would probably have become a model for the GI Joe. No one looked as good as Conrad in a military uniform.

"Wolfram, take your hands off His Majesty at once!" Günter admonished him in an upset tone, and pulled the younger ex-prince"s fingers away from my deformed cheeks. "I"ll never forgive you if there should be even one small fingerprint on that beautiful face!"

I could never understand the mazokus" standards of beauty, given that Günter seriously believed I was more beautiful than all the mazokus, including himself.

Black hair and eyes were extremely rare around here, and that rarity gave it a great value.

"What is really going on here? What impostor are you talking about? Why should I not be "me"?"

"While you were away, a brazen man pretended to be you and committed crimes under your name." Günter said.

"Incredible! Someone claimed to be "Yuri s.h.i.+buya"?"

"Not exactly so, Your Majesty. In Suveria, the southern country near Conas.h.i.+a, a criminal was caught posing as the Maou. We ignored this at first because we believed it couldn"t have been you. But now that the execution date has been announced, we all felt a bit uneasy. As long as we couldn"t say with absolute certainty whether that criminal was Your Majesty or not..."

Conrad interrupted him.

"We could not exclude the possibility that Your Majesty had come to our world outside the country and without our knowledge. We had to clarify the actual circ.u.mstances. This was also the reason why we called you back this time."

"Sure, sure...! And because of that, I fell into the pool while shaking hand with Bando, and ended up floating next to a shark in the ocean..."

"Bando? Who is Bando? Another guy?" Wolfram growled unhappily.

"I don"t know if Bando is male or female! Besides, Bando is just a dolphin."

I turned back to Conrad and Günter. "So now that I am here in front of you, I"m the proof that the other guy couldn"t have been me."

"That"s right, Your Majesty! Your wisdom always delights me."

Now that wasn"t a difficult one to figure out. With Günter slopping all over me, I badly wished I could indeed be somewhere else at that moment.

So in a foreign country, an impostor had claimed to be me, and had painted the town red. How bold! As far as I knew, only Master Mito Komon, the Bold Shogun, or Michael Jackson had been impersonated. For the celebrities or deities, it is inevitable that there would be cheap imitations. Then wasn"t an impostor the best way to prove that my fame had elevated?

"But, why do you want to go to look for my double? The fact that I"m here would clear all doubts, right? And why would Gwendal himself take the trouble...?" I trailed off. Suddenly I could imagine the figure of the eldest brother in front of my eyes.

"You are right. Of course, Your Majesty, we wouldn"t really care if a crazy man who impersonated you would die on the scaffold. But this ... what is the word he used?"

"Double."

"Yes, we have received information that this double is in possession of a special item that only the Maou can handle. This is an extremely precious treasure to the mazokus. It was taken out of the country two hundred years ago and has since disappeared. If this information is correct, we need to bring the treasure back, to revive our power. Twenty years ago we sent a man, a relative of Gwendal, to look for it."

"What was his name again?" Asked Conrad.

"Lord Grisela, Lord Gegenhuber Grisela."

"Ah, yes, exactly, this Huber."

Conrad tugged his ear uncomfortably. Although he was kind and pleasant by nature, even he did not seem to get along with everybody. I turned to the younger brother, trying to find out some information about this Huber.

"Who"s that?" I asked.

"He is the cousin of my brother from his father"s side. An aunt from the Voltaire family has married into the Griesela family."

"Oh." I mumbled, a little bit disappointed. I was hoping for something more dramatic. "So no one else can touch this treasure? Does it bite, burn, or spit on you?"

I was vividly reminded of my encounter with the Maken Morgif, who had done all that.

"Not exactly, Your Majesty. Anyone could possibly touch this treasure. But in this world, only you can play it."

"Play it?"

"Yes, in Svelera there are people who have seen the Mateki, a Mazoku treasure."

"The Mateki?!"

Wolfram who was strangely brus.h.i.+ng the limit of my suntan, stepped into our conversation excitedly. As expected from a Vienna Boys Choir singer, the tone of his voice would even be a little annoying for Mozart.

"I"ve only heard the stories about it from my father, but he said that the sound of the flute is fantastic! It can make the sky roar and the earth shake. Its sound can conjure a loud storm, that would make you cower[1]!"

"C-cows go?"

"Cows go mosa mosa."

Since it can conjure a storm, it must certainly make a very loud noise and be as destructive as the open air solo recitals of Kouda Takes.h.i.+[2] in the vacant lots. As I had immediately imagined a flute with a clear sound or a piccolo, I forced myself to revise my picture of the Mateki. Maybe it was a kind of conch?

"I"ve always wanted to hear the sound of the Mateki. I can"t wait! I"m curious to see how well Yuri can play it." Wolfram said cheerfully.

"Playing the flute?! Me?! Are you kidding?! Get that idea right out of your head!"

Arms folded on his chest, Conrad had leaned against the wall and was listening to the conversation, as usual.

"I strongly doubt that the people of Suveria will do us a favor and show us the possessions of the executed criminal in his coffin."

"You think they would confiscate all his belongings? Wait a minute, his coffin...? Are they really going to execute my double?! What has he done?"

"If I"m not mistaken, he ran away without paying the bill."

"Death sentence for eating and running without paying the bill?!"

Wow, blow me down! My double was going to be executed for failing to pay for his food! You might not like such a person, but you can"t kill him! That would be a scandal! I had to stop that!

"We must save him, Conrad!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"We have to save my double!"

(This translation was originally posted here. Please do not repost elsewhere.)