"What is this child doing here?" Lord Gwendal von Voltaire turned to his two half brothers with an obvious expression of displeasure. His hair was long and of a very dark gray color; his eyes were blue, with a permanent look of bad humor in them which no beauty could get rid of. In my opinion, Gwendal was born to be the Maou, worthier than anyone else. His deep voice was chilling to the bone.

I felt glad that my brother wasn"t like that; otherwise years ago I would have run away from home. At this point, I had to take my hat off to Wolfram. He professed deep affection for this man.

"His Majesty intends to explain that the prisoner Suveria is holding captive is a fake." Conrad cheerfully said, trying to help me out. Unfortunately, at that moment I had hooked one foot in the saddle and was hanging writhingly against the horse"s belly.

"Ah! Really?" Gwendal growled. He had been waiting for us near the south border.

"Exactly!" I said hastily. "You probably already knew he was a fake, and so you thought it would be fine even if they go ahead and execute him. The only thing is, the prisoner isn"t me, I"m perfectly fine, I"ve returned and I will not allow him to be executed! So let"s get to Conansia or Cavrella or where ever the double and the Mateki are!"

"Conrad..."

"Yes?"

With the slightly raised eyebrow, Gwendal stared sharply at his brother, the one he held in high esteem as a soldier.

"Please do me a favor and take these two back to the capital!" He growled again.

"What?! Me too?!" Wolfram exclaimed indignantly.

The younger brother apparently did not think he should be treated the same way as me.

"I only obey orders from his Majesty." Conrad said smoothly.

Wow, don"t say such things so easily, else it"ll go to my head and I"ll end up believing myself all high and mighty. There is no way freshly crowned newbie Maou, and ordinary baseball kid (forever a bench-warmer) like me could be a great person.

"Okay, do whatever you want!" Gwendal grumbled, and turned his horse toward the river that ran along the border. The men in his troop followed, halting just enough to pay us respect.

I had the honor of sitting behind a stunningly beautiful young boy on the horse and looked up toward heaven. Everyone wore dresses like in the movie Lawrence of Arabia -- white cloaks to protect from the scorching sun, because we were riding through endless sand dunes of a desert. Safety measures against heat strokes are crucial when travelling through even a short stretch of desert.

"Inconceivable! You may have a heat stroke!" Günter hugged me tightly while fighting back tears. Holding onto my right hand, he implored.

"It"s not just the heat. A few years ago, Suberera was in a civil war. Since then the gap between rich and poor people has become large, and public safety is now in a miserable state. On the other hand, in the last two years there has been an unprecedented drought, everywhere people struggle for food. Please stay here, Your Majesty! Gwendal will take care of the magic flute! Instead, go with me, his faithful Günter, to the beach to enjoy the summer."

It was difficult to a.s.suage Gunter"s worries, because the snot dangling from his slender nose kept distracting me. As nothing could commence before we persuaded him, I rea.s.sured Gunter that getting acquainted with one"s neighbors was the first step in friends.h.i.+p, and that first hand experience was important in learning diplomacy. My presentation moved Gunter into a fit of exclamations.

"That is so n.o.ble of you, Your Majesty!"

Ha, that"s 1 point to Yuuri s.h.i.+buya. Finally, I"m getting the hang of persuading Lord von Kleist.

I had dyed my hair and put on contact lenses to hide my black eyes for this trip just as I had done for the previous one.

We had reached the edge of a parched river separating s.h.i.+n Makoku from the country Conas.h.i.+a. The river had completely dried up in what was called a "record drought." The cracked riverbed was about a kilometer wide. There was no comparison with the Tone River near my home...

"It"d be an amazing sight, if only there was water" I said.

"During the Civil War, lots of corpses would drift and land on the river bank on our side. But as the humans were afraid of setting foot on our territory, so no one came to collect the dead. We had to take care of those ourselves." Wolfram said.

"That... wasn"t the kind of amazing sight I meant."

When we crossed the riverbed, we arrived at a simple picket fence. There were soldiers all around; their number was considerably higher than ours.

It was understandable that the borders should be well protected, but the mazokus had never invaded their neighbors, yet I found their soldiers openly hostile against us. Their spears pointed directly to us. Some standing in the back row pressed the back of their hands to their chins.

"What are they doing?" I wondered.

Wolfram clucked his tongue.

"A malicious act against the mazokus. Although humans are actually scared their pants off by the mazokus, they feel safer as a group, and they become insolent. Nasty creatures!"

"Eh, sorry bout that." I muttered.

"Stop feeling defensive! You are not human but a mazoku! Accept that already!"

Eh, sorry about that, too.

At the south of s.h.i.+n Makoku was the territory of the Karbelnikoff. It was a popular vacation destination, famous for its white sand beaches and dry climate. Many tourists from the northern regions of s.h.i.+n Makoku come here to quench their need for the sunny weather.

On the other side of the river, Suberera had suffered heavy losses of harvests due to the drought. But for the people of Karbelnikoff, whose main source of income was tourism, the motto was: More sun, more customers.

Lord Günter Von Christ was staying in the Maou"s resort complex, completely exhausted, as if the heat had finished him off also.

"He"s gone." He sighed.

His long gray hair had lost its l.u.s.ter and fell all over his back in a mess, and his violet eyes were desolate and empty. With a loose lock of hair clinging to his cheek, Günter"s tragic appearance looked like that of an exhausted homemaker whose energy has been completely spent on cleaning tasks. He stared absently through the window into the sky and sea.

"Why did His Majesty leave me here all alone? Has it finally come to the day he despises his faithful Günter?"

"It is entirely possible."

Startled, von Lord Christ raised his head.

In front of him was the body of a woman, full of exuberance, wrapped in a tight summer dress, or was it just a swimsuit?

The long golden curls reaching up to her hip were gathered to generously reveal an erotic waist under the summer dress. If one could look pa.s.s this exhibition so dazzlingly s.e.xy, her innocently smiling lips, her white skin, and her emerald green eyes hidden behind long eyelashes would remind one of her youngest son.

She did not look more than thirty years old, but in fact she had lived longer than the sisters Kin and Gin, the oldest twins in j.a.pan.

Lady Cecilie von Spitzberg was the mother of the three mazoku brothers who didn"t look one bit alike, as well as the previous mazoku queen. She was not only a s.e.xy queen, but also a genuine certified queen, my very predecessor.

"Your Royal Highness the Former Queen! What a bold outfit...!"

"And it doesn"t look good on me, my dear Gunter? I was told that His Majesty had arrived. If I had known that I would find only you here, I would have kept my legs covered."

"Cheri-sama, I humbly ask you to refrain from these constant attempts to seduce His Majesty."

"But Günter, you"re just the same as you"ve been sniffing the clothes of His Majesty all this while."

"W... Well, that"s..."

Madame Cheri s.n.a.t.c.hed the arms of a T-s.h.i.+rt Lord Von Christ had been holding.

"It"s very rude of you to keep all the prizes for yourself. Let me hold it too....hm?"

She held the damp cotton cloth to her nose and sniffed.

"Is this really the scent of his majesty? Don"t you wonder Günter? He seems to be such a sweet person."

"That scent actually befits a young man. A distinctive aroma of ... how shall I say? ... ocean air."

Most likely, the odor is from the dolphin... not from Yuuri.

From the hot saddle,

The sweat drips.

It is not just the sun.

A horse, two bodies... close together.

No, the verse did not help much against the heat. No haiku can alleviate this exasperating heat.

We were in the middle of the desert, with nothing within sight but endless rolling sand dunes.

I tried to s.h.i.+ft my body away from the boy sitting in front of me as much as possible so that some air could pa.s.s through between us. However, it was nothing but hot air all around us, and there was no stir even remotely resembling a breeze.

"If you slip further back, you"ll fall." Wolfram said.

"I"m dying of heat!" I complained.

Wolfram was obviously enjoying the situation.

Yes, thanks. Very funny. If only it had been a girl who was sitting in front of me, then I would have had my fun. Like a charming gentleman, I would have steadied her, with the reins held in my hands. Sadly for me, the front seat was occupied by a bishounen lovelier than a girl.

Our crew, consisting of twenty men, was crossing the desert under the sun instead of the moon, and on horses bred by humans instead of camels.

The soldiers at the borders who gestured rudely at us had claimed that animals must be kept quarantined for 20 days before allowed entry into the country. Coming from a modern society in j.a.pan, their claim made sense, but according to Wolfram and his subordinates it was merely petty faultfinding. We ended up sending back the mazoku"s horses (they have two hearts) and bought local horses at a border village near Conans.h.i.+a. It would have been more convenient if they had cars for rent, but it wasn"t like I had a license anyway.

This endless sienna arid region was supposedly not as big as a true desert. Born in Boston and brought up in Saitama, even though I can tell apart artificial gra.s.s fields from the real gra.s.s fields, I had no idea what was the difference between a desert and sand dunes.

Nor had I ever been in the mini desert in Tottori, j.a.pan.

Gwendal rode a distance away in front of us. The cloak on his back moved in a wavelike motion in the air like seaweed in a lake. I turned toward Conrad and lamented.

"d.a.m.n, why is no one else but me suffering so much from the heat?"

"It"s probably because of our training." Conrad replied, looking extremely fresh and relaxed.

They didn"t even sweat that much.

That was probably expected. After all, it was easier for well-trained soldiers, a.s.suming that they trained hard everyday under the supervision of an evil sergeant.

Like the armed forces of the j.a.panese self defense. They presumably traveled through forests and mountains, crossing swamps and building igloos in the snow. Maybe even stumbling everyday in forests where the trees were thick and the ground could suddenly slide. But this was more of a training routine for a Ninja.

In any case, among all travelers, I was the only one who was dying of the heat. And then I even saw hallucinations.

"Do you also see over there in the middle of the sand a small animal raising its arms?"

"What? Where? What small animal? I can"t see anything." Wolfram said.

I could see the head of an animal unknown to me sticking out from a hole about ten meters away. Bu no one would expect such an animal in the middle of the desert.

A soldier on a dark brown horse disappeared right in front of me. The gray horse Wolfram and I were riding suddenly flexed, lost his balance and sank.

"Yikes, what"s happening now?!" I cried.

"A sand bear!"

A sand bear?! Everything became fuzzy around me, and the whole world turned into the color of gold and orange. Here and there helmets, or a forearm, came into my sight. We sank deeper and deeper into the smooth sand. There was no escape. We were being inevitably sucked in.

"Wh... what happens?! How can this be?!"

When I opened my mouth, sand immediately filled between my teeth. I tried to hold Wolfram back by the hem of his robe, but his arms, legs, hands and finally even his face disappeared. I could barely breathe.

What kind of animal could this be?! In my field of vision, which was becoming blurred, I could see a huge two-toned panda moved his arms up and down at the center of a whirling ma.s.s of sand.

"That"s a d.a.m.ned panda!" I cried.

A panda in the middle of a desert. With a new variation of color too: his coat was of beige and brown. Where did you leave your bamboo?

Suddenly someone grabbed my arm firmly, freeing me from my immersion into this giant sand hour gla.s.s.

"Conrad..."

No, that could not be Conrad. My indestructible protector was supporting my legs from below with his shoulders.

When I looked up I saw Gwendal standing right on the edge of the hole. Wolfram and the other soldiers had been sucked into the vortex. I saw only a few horses" legs and someone"s hands that I could not recognize. The sand kept swirling down the center of the vortex.

"What about Wolfram?! He fell in front of me into the sand! But he won"t die, right?!" I cried and wailed.

"If he was unlucky..." Gwendal said above me.

"Don"t worry, if he"s not suffocated he"ll find his way back to the surface." Conrad rea.s.sured me. "Your Majesty, climb up quickly!"

"But we have to go back to help! We don"t know if he has a chance against the bear!" I protested.

I tried to slide down the slope, but Gwendal held my arm tightly and would not let me go.

"You cannot help!" He reproached me.

"But I can"t just leave him like that! Then at least you go and save him, he is your brother! Go and save him instead!"

I turned to Conrad. "Hey, you can deal with that bear, can"t you? You are a sword master! Surely you can deal with a middle-stage boss character?" I appealed while being dragged up. Though it was in order to steady his feet, he avoided my eyes.

"The top priority now is your security." He looked up and panted, still trying to push upward.

"But I"m fine, so..."

"No!"

For a split second, his eyes, brown with flecks of silver, met mine. Conrad bit his lips, frowned, a scar barely noticeable on an eyebrow, and then spoke with tormented voice. He turned towards the center of the vortex.

"Your Majesty, Wolfram would agree with me immediately. He is also a grownup warrior and knows that things like this can happen. Your safety comes first!"

"But-!"

By now, there was no visible trace of the soldiers who had been swallowed by the sand vortex. Would they pa.s.s off falling into such a land hole as a matter of bad luck? Just imagining the honey blond hair and brilliant emerald green eyes, frozen with terror, hurt my chest; I couldn"t breathe. Of course twenty lives would weigh more than one, even if it was my own life that was at risk. Go and save those twenty people, rather than staying here for me. The choice is straightforward. No one should be sacrificed, even for a king!

"Conrad, I don"t want you to be someone who abandon his own brother." I finally said.

"Your Majesty... we must leave this place immediately. Everything can collapse any moment now."

I reached up and got to the solid ground. Finally the sand under my feet felt solid and stable. I turned to Conrad:

"You"ve said that you would only follow my orders." I said.

"Yes, but that was..."

"You said you"ll follow my catcher"s signs. Then I order you to save Wolfram. Please! I"m fine; you have no reason to worry about me. After all I still have a strong guard here."

Conrad looked surprised and s.h.i.+fted his eyes back and forth between me and Gwendal

"Any order?" He finally turned to Gwendal and murmured. "Okay. But you take care of him!"

"Mhmmm." Gwendal grumbled.

He was standing behind me so I could not see his face, but I thought I heard a bit of relief in his voice. Confidence grew in me that my decision could not have been wrong.

Conrad slid down the slippery slope, to rescue his brother and subordinates.

"Do you know how to find the hidden tunnel out of that beast"s den?!" Shouted Gwendal a moment later.

"No need to worry, this is the third time I have had to deal with a sand bear! See you at the capital!"

Yes, my decision was correct. It has to be.

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