CHAPTER 4

Given the breathtaking beauty that lay exposed before them, no one dared to speak. Face white as wax; bloodless rose-colored lips. Eyelids adorned with long lashes concealing eyes filled with worry.

Truly this figure with its hands clasped over its chest looked like Sleeping Beauty, yet Lord Gunter von Kleist was a proven man. Even in the farthest corners of the world, one would never find such a perfect corpse a second time.

Yet he did have one critical flaw: "He"s not dead. So, unfortunately, I cannot cut his body open to take a peek inside."

Everyone present s.h.i.+vered as they heard those words. When it came to spreading fear and horror, no one could hold a candle to her: Lady Anissina von Kavernikov, one of the three nightmares of the Demon Empire, propped her hands on her hips and said self-importantly, "But at least this way I can prevent the poison from spreading further in his body. We can"t rely on the suspended animation that Gunter himself brought about. But don"t worry, with my knowledge and abilities, this matter will be resolved in no time."

Gunter had been laid in a coffin filled with ice. The areas surrounding him were all filled with powdery snow. The whole thing was reminiscent of the fish counter in a supermarket. 

"What do you think? Isn"t he a real work of art, this Snow-Gunter?" Anissina asked.

"Was it really necessary for him to be completely naked?" Gwendal asked.

"It"s all a question of aesthetics. And I"ve already taken care of the area that always gives you men reason to be ashamed and worried. Look here." 

Anissina pointed her finger at a small mound of snow. She probably would have liked to decorate the top of it with a fig leaf.

"Gwendal, what are you doing?!"

Without realizing he was doing it, Lord von Voltaire had formed a rabbit out of the snow. He"d been about to reach out his hand to place it on Gunter"s groin region. This was intended less as an act of friends.h.i.+p and much more as a chivalrous gesture of sympathy.



Anissina was tired. No wonder; after an evening when she"d experimented late into the night, she"d been pulled out of a deep sleep to care for the man in suspended animation. A whole day without sleep had pa.s.sed since then.

The measures Anissina had undertaken so far included the following: the application of a synthetic antivenin (result: ineffective), stomach pumping (result: catastrophic), and a deworming treatment (result: unknown). Whatever had caused the poison to stop spreading could not be determined with certainty, but the contents of Gunter"s stomach had brought a few interesting facts to light.

Lord von Kleist"s last supper had been a shrimp dish. According to the a.n.a.lysis, he had even eaten the hard tails. Apparently, as long as he believed himself to be un.o.bserved, he had an inclination towards laziness.

The result of all this research was that there was finally evidence at hand indicating what sort of poison they were dealing with, and how the detoxification should proceed.

Exhaustion was written all over Anissina"s face, yet her bright blue eyes shone with intelligence and sparked with curiosity and enthusiasm for her research. In moments like these, she was so beautiful it sent a cold s.h.i.+ver down everyone"s back. Yet none of the men standing around ever dared come too close.

"We appear to be dealing with the Wincott Poison," Anissina said.

"What is the Wincott Poison?" Gwendal asked.

"I haven"t the slightest intention to try to convince you, after all these years, to do something about your lack of knowledge. Still, you"d think someone in your position would at least have read The Handbook of Murder by Poison. No matter when and where it might be when someone takes aim at your life, with the knowledge from this book, you would be prepared to maintain your self-control and free will whatever the situation."

"There"s a handbook?!"

"Of course! It contains information about poisons and their symptoms throughout the ages and continents. All deaths by poison and the relevant circ.u.mstances are recorded down to the finest detail. Even just for casual reading, it has high entertainment value." Anissina ran her fingers lovingly over the cover of a thick violet book on the table. "There are 257 articles in this book on the Wincott Poison. In earlier times, it was used not only by demons, but also by the ruling families among the humans. Especially famous are the cases of The Evil Princess of G.o.dlan and The Pirate King of Kisilis. The purification of this poison has always proven to be difficult. That"s why, for the last 300 years, it"s only been found in the place where it was originally created."

"Is there any relation to our Lord von Wincott?"

"And how!"

"Impossible!"

Lord von Voltaire"s ill-tempered blue eyes sparked ice cold with fury.

"There"s an a.s.sa.s.sin in the Wincott family!"

"No, Gwendal. Listen carefully when someone is talking to you. What I said was that it only exists in the place where it was originally created. After the Wincott family came to this region, they renounced the murders. Even though they"d been driven out of their old homeland and betrayed by their own people. Everything that they owned had been taken away from them, yet they never acted on their anger towards those ungrateful humans even once."

"It wasn"t any different for us."

"That is true."

Effortlessly, Anissina lifted the heavy book high with one hand and set it on the rim of the coffin. Her crossed legs trembled a little.

"That"s exactly the reason I want to get back as much as we can. All those powers we possessed before we were ever called by the name demons." She threw her hair back with a swing. "All the knowledge and the technologies we had to leave behind, and which we"ve forgotten. The original homeland of the Wincott’s belongs to Simaron now. The idea that that country is responsible for the attack seems obvious."

"Yes, no doubt about it."

"You can rest a.s.sured in leaving Gunter"s cure to me."

Anissina swung towards the chest of her childhood friend, and smiled as his step faltered. 

"Keep an eye on Wolfram. The way I judge his condition now, it"s only a matter of time until he takes off for Simaron. All his blood shoots straight to his head when it comes to His Majesty."

"You should get some rest."

"When I"ve got my hands on this once-in-a-lifetime test subject?! No wonder you never make any intellectual progress. How foolish it would be to waste my precious time right now by sleeping when there"s such a wonderful opportunity at hand to satisfy my intellectual curiosity!"
 

Without managing a single coherent thought, I pa.s.sed a wasted afternoon carrying loads at the docks. The heat was not as intense as it had been back at the beach, but the condition of my exhausted body combined with the meditative silence in my brain lead to hallucinations: I felt as if I were on the playing field at the height of summer, training by running from one base to the next. I wasn"t sixteen yet; in the third year of middle school, I was still on the school team. I hadn"t been thrown off the team for letting the coach have it. Along with my undercla.s.smen teammates, I spent my last baseball season of middle school full of enthusiasm. We lost in the semi-finals of the state champions.h.i.+p in a close game. And even though I was only a pinch hitter, I howled with disappointment. But of course that kind of summer was just a dream.

In reality, I had punched the coach and left the team before summer vacation. After that I began my life as an ordinary uppercla.s.sman. I kept myself away from baseball and tried very hard not to even think about it. I couldn"t let go of it emotionally, though; it was miserable. 

If I"d only held my anger in check back then, I"d probably be a rookie player on the high school baseball team now. And maybe, if I"d spent every day in training since the early spring, from dusk till dawn, maybe I would never have been flushed away to this world in the first place? Then I also wouldn"t have this fear for my friends" lives, and the terrible worries of a foreign country wouldn"t rob me of sleep at night. 

"s.h.i.+buya!"

"Hm? What is it?"

"We"ve got to get in line! Otherwise we won"t get paid."

As I came back to myself, I realized the temperature had fallen. The gently swaying waves mirrored an impressive sunset. The sea was dowsed with orange light; the heavens glowed purple. 

We took the money we were due from the work we"d accomplished and secured ourselves some new clothing. We also bought unders.h.i.+rts and jackets so we"d be prepared for the sudden cold that could come after sundown. 

The harbor workers were freed from their identical work uniforms. Some carried groceries home, others streamed into the same restaurant from lunch. Presumably it served as a bar in the evenings. Turning our backs to the harbor, Murata and I set off down a street paved with large stones. Houses with faded yellow paint were lined up one after the other to either side of us. In front of the entryways, skinny kids and dogs sat on stone steps. To my relief, they did give the impression of being healthy.

"Excuse me, where can we find the j.a.panese consulate?" Murata asked the residents over and over, but no one could help him. No wonder, since there was no j.a.panese consulate in this country -- there wasn"t even a country called j.a.pan in this world!

With a heavy heart, I waited for the right moment to let the cat out of the bag.

"Man, there really doesn"t seem to be a j.a.panese consulate here at all! But we are in a small town that I"ve never seen on any map before. Makes sense that there"s no j.a.panese community here. It doesn"t matter, we"ll just have to look for protection from another country. America, England, Germany, whatever."

"I have to tell you something, Murata."

"Hmm?"

"Don"t take it too hard if we don"t find any help at all in the end."

Murata snorted. "That"s coming from you? You"re the one that"s been moping around the entire time. Okay, so they"re not going to throw us a welcome party, but at least they could notify the j.a.panese officials. And if not, we"ll just have to take matters into our own hands. They would surely have to let us make one telephone call."

"And if they have no telephones?"

"Then we"ll just send a telegram. And if that still doesn"t work, we can just keep working at the harbor until somebody picks us up. By the end of summer vacation, our muscles will have turned to steel and everybody will mistake us for models. Then we"ll publish books about our odyssey and turn into stars overnight! And all the girls will only have eyes for us!"

We made a left turn and the houses, kids, and dogs gradually thinned out. The sky had become fully dark and the warm evening sea breeze wasn"t blowing on us any more. All around us, there were only meadows and fields. For lighting, we had half of a moon. It lit the straight path, upon which wagon wheels had left their mark.

"Hey, there was a light back there just now," I exclaimed.

"Really? Where?"

In the distance, countless small lights flickered. We identified the outline of a European style building. Judging from the size, it was somewhere between a manor house and a castle. The light came from the illuminated windows and the torches carried by the guards and gatekeepers. 

"When you seek shelter in an old manor house with European architecture, it"s guaranteed that some horrific murders took place there in the past, right?"

"Murata, you"ve played too much Kamaitachi no Yoru."

"You may be right."

As we reached the outside of the fence, the building turned out to be larger than expected. Running full out, it would take a good thirty seconds to get from the gate to the front entrance. Right after I"d absentmindedly taken hold of the iron bars of the fence with both fists, a guard with an arrogant face seized me by the wrist. 

"Hey you!"

"Yes?"

"What do you want with our prince?"

"We"ve been told this is where the consulate is," Murata answered. "We"re j.a.panese. Unfortunately we"ve been stranded here. We washed on sh.o.r.e at the harbor of Gilbit. We just wanted to ask whether the amba.s.sador could help us get back home again."

"Amba.s.sador? Who"s that supposed to be? This is the estate of Norman Gilbit, Prince of Gilbit, autonomous region of Carolia, feudal territory of Small Simaron."

"Yeah, exactly. He’s that important man who has withdrawn completely from public life, right? Don"t worry, we won"t bother him. It"ll be more than enough if we can just speak with one of his staff members."

"Sir Norman doesn"t receive any guests, especially not any youngsters from the common folk."

The light from the torches fell on the soldier"s face, on which no real facial hair was yet growing. He was taller than we were, but much lankier than the old musclemen we"d plodded around with all day. Apparently this was where the young people, whose absence had been lamented by the harbor workers, were serving their military service.

"Get out of here and back to the city before we throw you out!"

"But I already said we"d be happy to speak with just a staff member!"

"Murata, don"t!"

I tugged him away a few steps by the arm. Nothing else was going to work; I was going to have to tell him the truth at last. But where should I start?

"Listen, I haven"t had a chance to explain it all properly yet, but the thing is, we’re in another world here, man!"

I had problems finding the right words and stomped my feet against the ground. Each time it was jostled, my demon stone tapped me lightly on the chest. It was almost as if it wanted to console me. 

The gaze of one of the guards inside the fence fixed on my demon stone. Shoot! I grabbed the demon stone in my hand to hide it. This guard, who looked a little older than the gate guard, gestured to us. 

"You there! Come over here a moment."

The soldier stuck his hand through the iron bars. He asked me for permission and balanced the stone on the palm of his hand. 

"I"m not going to take it away from you, boy. Ey, where did you get this, then? The metalwork here on the setting looks d.a.m.n similar to a very important coat of arms."

"That"s a treasure that belongs to his family!" Murata quickly began to babble. "It"s a family heirloom, pa.s.sed down from generation to generation. It"s always inherited by the eldest son."

"Ey, then you"re a descendant of the Wincott family, hm?!"

Who would have thought I"d come across Julia"s family name here, so far abroad? As far as I could recall, I"d only been introduced to the head of the Wincott family once. I think he was supposed to have been Julia"s older brother. But I really couldn"t remember his face at all. Probably because he was always looking at the ground. That"s because when we were introduced, I was standing on a stage as the brand new Demon King, and all the n.o.bles had bowed their heads.

The guard"s expression towards us changed, and he opened the gate. He pulled Murata and me onto the estate. 

"Ey, what a surprise! You"re really a descendant of the Wincotts! Please excuse the impolite treatment earlier."

The soldier took a step backwards and followed us with his body half bowed. He indicated which way we should go with his right arm. The way he moved was reminiscent of a servant in a ryokan. 

"Listen up, Murata: we"re not visiting a consulate here, we"re visiting a real prince! And no way does that guarantee he"ll be able to help us get back home."

"I know that, of course. But hey, that guy thinks you are related to these people! That misunderstanding was just what we needed! Just see it through with this descendant thing. In the end, we"re going to be regaled as super-n.o.blemen here yet!"

Yeah, maybe. But it was also possible that exactly the opposite would happen.