Chapter 7

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Before we start, I wanted to mention something about Lady Celi! There are a couple of times in the previous chapters that I refer to her as ‘king’ and I’d just like to clarify that it’s not a typo and I am doing that on purpose. Everyone in the books, at least in the original j.a.panese, refers to the Demon King as a king regardless of their s.e.x. And, while Yuuri does sometimes refer to Lady Celi as the ‘s.e.xy Queen’ and the ‘Pheromone Queen’ in his head, he does so in English and when he thinks/speaks about her actual political position, he also refers to her as a king. As far as I know, this seems to be a cultural thing specific to the Great Demon Kingdom as female rulers in other countries mentioned in the novels that I have come across so far are referred to as a queen, or in Svelera’s case, the Honorable Princess. In real life cultures, a woman is named king when she has all the power and authority a man would have in the ruling position regardless of whether or not she is married or has a son (as opposed to how a queen is simply the king’s wife).

Yay! Cultural stuff!

I"ll shut up now ^-^

Chapter 7

      Your Majesty, right now I am at a place as cold as the northern lands testing my piety… I’m on my way to begin my morning prayers, but several hours ago, I just got done with the day-change dance- I mean, prayer…
      His words becoming ‘The Story of the Great Demon Kingdom, From the Northern Country’ without him realizing it, Günter von Christ climbs the long, dark staircase step by step to the overlooking, rooftop prayer area.
      “How are the bodies of the people here holding up? Do they not require sleep? How was it, Dacascos? You didn’t sleep at all, did you?”
      “Weelll thaz I did farrt inthe niigh a little.”
      “What!? Did you say you farted!? And without even think of my feelings, trapped in the same room with you!?”
      Dacascos stops yawning.
      “… I didn’t fart. But Your Excellency, if you’re going to freak out about something like that, you’ll never be able to get married.”
      “That’s fine… I will pledge… my love and loyalty… solely to His Majesty.”
      His breathing is quickly speeding up.
      But in any case, Lord von Christ still hasn’t given up trying to gain His Majesty’s favor?
      Dacascos lets out a sigh, careful not to attract his attention.
      The soldiers have a private hobby: His Majesty’s Special Occurrence Forecast (abbreviated ‘His Majesty’s Spec-Oc’). Currently, most of the wagers are on ‘Wolfram forcibly having his way with him,’ but the payoff is low. There are various other predictions like ‘He’ll fall for Her Prior Majesty Cecilie’s charms’ and ‘He’ll run away with a life-sized, stuffed beauty knitted by His Excellency Gwendal after having their love accepted by society.’
      He has some friends who are natural born gamblers who saw the ‘He’ll get a super younger girl and prepa… raise her according to his ideal’ and bet on that dark horse with a huge payback even while they were crying and hoping it would not come true. But at this rate, he can no longer say that ‘His Excellency Günter, losing his mind, emits a strange voice, kidnaps His Majesty and runs around madly’ is an unlikely scenario. That would get a huge payoff. He’d be able to pay all his house payments at once. His wife would fall in love with him all over again. Alright, Your Excellency Günter, I’ll buy it!
      Dacascos writes that down on his mental notepad.
      “These stairs… are seriously long… aren’t they?”
      “They make good training, though.”
      Compared to the new soldier’s rite of pa.s.sage, Bunny-hopping up the Five Thousand Stairs of h.e.l.l, this climb is nothing. You have to bunny-hop down the stairs too, so every year there are soldiers who are seriously injured after falling down from the top and soldiers who sink down and hug their knees with empty eyes around midway and bunches of soldiers who drop out. Although, there are some among the soldiers who managed to finish who have miraculously had their urinary tract stones pa.s.s.
      Because Günter was going so slow, many of the monks pa.s.sed them by. As a rule, all talk is forbidden outside of their personal rooms so no one called out to them, but for some reason, they all turn at them with a smile as if they want to say something.
      Around when Günter was about to explode because he wanted to know why, a resolute young monk came up next to him. In order to not be noticed by those around them, in a small voice he left a short message:
      “The diary was amazing.”
      Huh?
      After that, the monks around them all started to murmur ‘I thought so too, I thought so too.’
      “I was moved.”
      “I cried.”
      “Is there any more?”
      “Are you going to write a continuation?”
      “Diaries are really amazing, huh?”
      After being bashfully handed a sketchbook with a ‘I tried making a few ill.u.s.trations to go along with it,’ Günter finally stops walking.
      “… Huh!?”
      It was a monastery with few diversions.

      According to The Hot Springs Doctor (which is a fake-sounding name) who claimed to have never seen demon injuries before, even though they gave him pain suppressants and infection suppressants and all kinds of suppressants and he’s probably not in too much pain at the moment, there’s no guarantee that he’ll survive.
      “Right now, he’s on the bank.”
      “Don’t you mean ‘the brink?’”(1)
      After my impulsive and flashy declaration of ‘I challenge you!,’ we put the near-dead Gegenhuber on a stretcher and left in a fairly plain fas.h.i.+on with a ‘Well, let’s call it a night.’ It took a while to get back to the hotel and it’ll probably be dawn soon.
      After placing the just barely breathing man on Conrad’s bed, Greta hasn’t left his side. I was burning with jealousy. Fathers are childish at times like these.
      “Your Majesty, don’t get close. If possible, stay with Wolf in the next room.”
      “Why? He doesn’t have the strength to hold a sword anymore. Even I’m not afraid of getting a.s.sa.s.sinated by someone so gravely injured.”
      “No, you can’t let your guard down. It’s gotten to the point where I want to record your wimpiness in the Airhead Book of World Records or something,” Wolf said as he leaned his head against the wall, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. Is he praising me?
      “But I just don’t get it. Why did Gegenhuber target you? Disregarding the ill will between him and Conrart, he wasn’t against the royal authority.”
      “Hube can’t have known that Yuuri was the Demon King.”
      “Ah, I see.”
      Greta had definitely said so, that the king wasn’t a woman. Which means, when they met each other before she came to Blood Pledge Castle, it’s possible that he told her that the ruler of the Great Demon Kingdom was Lady Celi and if she told them she was her hidden child, it would be easy to gain access. Sadly, that information is half a year old and he didn’t give her the current version.
      Greta targeted me in order to gain favor with the royalty in Svelera under which whose care she had been placed. Then why did he come after me with a sword? Of course, he wouldn’t know that I’m on good terms with Nicola and that his girlfriend is going to give birth in his home. If he did, it would be ungrateful. I don’t think he owes me anything, though.
      I sit backwards in the chair, chin resting on the seatback, and gaze at the bed. From far away.
      Conrad speaks in a low, emotionless voice.
      “… He probably wanted to make me serious.”
      “Serious? Ah, regardless of whether I’m the king or not, he figured you would get mad if he attacked your friend. Well from an outsider’s perspective, I’m more like your lazy son.”
      “Not so. He saw through it immediately.”
      I almost asked ‘through what?,’ but I stopped as I was unlikely to get an answer.
      Gripping the heavily injured man’s hand, Greta starts murmuring as if to herself.
      “… Hube wanted to die…”
      “Greta?”
      “… Hube told me, in the past, he did something very bad. Something so horrible, it was inexcusable for him to live. But because he had been given a job, he managed to keep going without thinking about it. Eventually he started to forget the past and started to think that it might be okay for him to live and he even found someone he liked. But…”
      He met Nicola, fell in love, and was instantly torn from his past life. Because, they were a demon and a human.
      “As he sat in the dungeon and a long time pa.s.sed, he said he understood that he hadn’t been forgiven for what happened in the past. But when he tried to take his own life, a woman appeared in his dreams. She said, ‘You can’t die. You can’t die yet.’ So he couldn’t kill himself and was waiting for someone to kill him. That’s why we left the castle together. Because, I knew all the shortcuts and secret pa.s.sageways even better than the soldiers.”
      This must be about the mistake he made in the past and the reason between the ill will between him and Conrad. I sneak a glance wondering what sort of face he was making while listening to this, but he had an even more charming look than usual and there was no trace of anger or resentment.
      “… We were together part of the way… then we split up and I went to Yuuri’s and Hube went somewhere else besides the Great Demon Kingdom in order to find strong people.”
      “So he became a bodyguard in order to be killed by someone stronger than him…”
      I’m fairly sure that that woman or whoever who popped up in his dreams didn’t tell him that he would meet his destined opponent if he took up the sword.
      “Yuuri.”
      “Hm?”
      I give an idiotic answer to Greta’s soft call.
      “Hube keeps getting colder… his temperature keeps falling!”
      “Eh!? That’s bad, we should call the doctor back, the doctor!”
      “You healed my fever, right!? You made Nina’s cold better, right!? Heal Hube like that, heal Hube’s wounds!”
      “That was, um, well I don’t know if what I did really had any effect…”
      The words of the health care provider come to mind.
      ‘With Your Majesty’s immense power, this level of technique would be simple.’
      Gisela, is that true? Have I progressed to the point where I am able to use Cure and Heal?
      “Yuuri, help. Hold his hand.”
      “Well, I guess I can try.”
      I move to stand up, but I’m pushed straight back down on the chair with Conrad’s large hands on both of my shoulders. I’m held down by his strong palms and even if I put strength into my knees, I can’t move.
      “No.”
“Don’t say something so heartless, Kaku-”
      “Even if you call me by my fake name, the answer is still no. I said it before. He’s pointed a sword at you and it’s not unthinkable that he’ll try to again. You can’t get close to someone like that. I know Gegenhuber’s abilities the best.”
      “But, but even so! He’s Nicola’s husband and the father of a child about to be born, right!? The one I have to help isn’t just him; Nicola waiting in the kingdom will be hurt too. And even if you guys are in different leagues now, wasn’t he on your team before? You’re not so a cold man as to stand by silently and watch an ex-teammate die, are you!?”

      Conrad’s eyes above me suddenly cloud over and darken. The little flecks of silver change their appearance to s.h.i.+ne coldly.
      “I am that sort of man.”
      “Conrad.”
      “If it"s going to endanger you, I’ll abandon Hube. I am that sort of man.”
      The charming, attractive, young, real-life nice guy Conrad. The man of which everything about is perfect, except for his bad jokes, Lord Conrart Weller. If a timid person was met with this sort of expression from him, they’d be unable to defy him.
      “… If I wasn’t the king… you wouldn’t have stopped me.”
      “Not at all. If you weren’t His Majesty the Demon King, I wouldn’t have made these irritating explanations and I"d have simply carried you from the room.”
      “How long’re ya two gonna go on widdall that complicated talk?”
      Half asleep with his eyes half open, Wolfram bites back an indiscreet yawn.
      “Ya’anna heal Gegenhuber with healin’ magic, righ?”
      “You’re not speaking properly.”
      “Why ‘on’t you ask me?”
      My powers of comprehension can’t keep up with this unexpected utterance
      “Because Wolf… did you have that kind of skill?”
      “I’m not as skilled as Gisela, but I do have some experience with raising people’s natural healing. There’s no way I can’t perform a technique that even the likes of you can do. Because you’re a-”
      “Wimp.”
      The Pretty Boy gives a satisfied snort and repeats ‘are you asking me?’ I do so without a second’s hesitation. I don’t care if he calls me a wimp.
      “Alright Yuuri, watch closely. This is how you use the healing arts. Hey Gegenhuber!”
      Rather than hold his hand, he grabs his wrist, roughly shakes it around and yells at him.
      “You listening, you injured guy!?   I don’t want to help you, but I am because Yuuri said ‘please!’ If you live any longer, thank him! Promise you’ll devote your loyalty to him for the rest of your life! You’ve got some serious nerve getting seriously injured and making me treat you. I don’t care if you die, but that woman and Yuuri will grieve.”
      After that, he kept piling on the vilification and he even took on the audience’s animosity.
      “… Well, he is drawing out his will to live, but…”
      “This is a unique situation, so please don’t remember and imitate this.”
      Because the injured man’s condition stabilized I laid down with the thought I’d catch some sleep, but I’m woken up moments later. According to my brave digital a.n.a.log G-shock, it was a little past 4:30.
      “If we don’t start making our way to the meeting place, we won’t be on time for our noon appointment.”
      Conrad was digging through a suitcase.
      “It’ll be effective, so wear this.”
      He spreads out my black, school uniform type outfit. Besides making an appeal as a stupid public high school student, how is this going to be effective?
      “If a Twin Black wearing black is calmly watching from the VIP seats, I think the spectators will look up with a sense of fear.”
      “Won’t they just say ‘that’s bad luck’ and cross their fingers? What I’m more worried about is the arrangements for our rare beast. I mean, it’s a rare beast race, right? If we don’t have an animal to enter, there’s no point. We can’t say ‘please choose for me’ or something like some line from a drama. If I end up running myself, I won’t get that far because my position is catcher.”
      “As for that, please be at ease. I’ve supplied us with a fast, charming one that ranks above an 80% on the rare beast scale.”
      As I put on my new shoes, I remember that we came here to heal my ankle, not for some huge gamble or to save anyone. It surprisingly hasn’t even been one day since we came to Hildyard’s resort town.
      In the next bed, Wolfram mumbles cutely, “I can’t eat anymore.”
      Lord Weller calls for room service and hands me a light meal on a tray.
      “You have to eat at least a little. You might not have an appet.i.te from the stress, however.”
      “Stress? Stress, huh. That’s right; it’d be weird to not be stressed.”
      In the heat of the moment, I had put my own body forth as a wager in a bet. If I win, I gain the business rights to the western district and Izura and Nina will be set free and it’ll all be a huge celebration. But on the off-chance that I lose, my body will come into possession of the low-life Luis Biron and I have no idea where he’ll take me. If things go bad, I might be stuffed like his other rare beasts and displayed in some millionaire’s living room. I wonder what they’d do with my underwear? Maybe they’ll be unnecessary with my beautiful, trained body.
      “I’ll say this in advance, but if some unforeseen accident happens and by some chance we lose…”
      The always meticulously prepared Conrad has, as predicted, already devised a plan for the version of events that ends in defeat.
      “… I’ll do something cowardly. If that happens, please don’t hate or speak ill of me.”
      “Something cowardly? Like what?”
      “I’ll pick up Your Majesty and run away on my bare feet.”
      “Why on your bare feet? Are you going to leave your wallet behind too?”
      I ended up laughing a bit. I guess speed is important either way.
      At this once in a decade event, Hildyard’s Pleasure Capitol’s Rare Beast Race, the little town of tents was quickly closed down and arranged into a special track exhibition.
      Maybe Luis Biron’s underlings worked really hard, but a facility like a racetrack appeared overnight. Spectators are already taking their seats on the gra.s.s outside of the fencing.
      “So what exactly is going to run the race? We can’t use normal horses, right?”
      “Now now, they’re waiting at the paddock.”
      Just by walking around in my school uniform, the humans around me clear the way.
      In an open lot in front of us, there is an animal going around in small circles.
      It’s moving gracefully on four feet and is taking heavy steps. At its side is a pet.i.te man who is busy petting and posing it. It’s got a beige and brown two tone color pattern. At first glance, one of Earth’s endangered species.
      “Gyeh!”
      Wolfram lets loose a sound like a frog. The color of his face is changing before my eyes.
      “No-no way are you thinking of entrusting Yuuri’s life to that impudent creature, jari!?” (2)
      “Hey Wolf, you’re relapsing into using jari again.”
      “Sh-shut up, jari! I’m not saying ‘jari jari,’ jari!”
      Lumbering around on the short, winter gra.s.s was a sand bear that looked just like a giant panda. The pet.i.te man who was animal trainer and rider sees us and waves with both hands.
      “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
      His narrow eyes are such gentle grey, I want to properly check if he can see.   It’s been around four months since his fateful encounter on the sand dune. Just like he said on that day, Ryan and the sand bear have become famous in the resort town.
      “Your Majesty, let me introduce you to Keiji. Hey Keiji, it seems His Majesty the Demon King has graciously come to see you run.”
      “… Actually, since he’s usually in a cage in the circus, is he really a fast runner?”
      “Oh he’s extremely fast. He’s been living in a sand dune his whole life, so he’s developed a lot of lower body strength in order to run through the sand.”
      Well, a fast panda can qualify as a rare beast.
      The sand bear, which looks about five times heavier than Ryan, is leaning its entire body on him. It’s playfully rubbing him with a clawed paw that looks like it can gouge a heart out.
      “Wahaha, Keiji is such a sweetie! Oh, my little honey~!”
      ‘Is it really playing with you and not just trying to dissect its prey?’ is what I want to ask, but I hold my tongue. There is obviously a trust between this rare beast and animal trainer that we ordinary people can’t understand.
      When the spectator s.p.a.ce got pretty crowded, something like a fanfare is loudly played from bra.s.s instruments. In the VIP section that looked like a watchtower, there is just enough room for five people and we all sit together with our knees and thighs pressed together. Mr. Biron is relaxing comfortably in the adjacent watchtower with just one other person.
      When the partic.i.p.ating animals are announced, the racetrack was filled with the sound of the spectator’s stomping.
      “On the Red Course! From The O’Sullivan’s Circus and The World’s Dangerous Animals, Non-Member 167, the sand bear Keiji---!”
      There were exclamations of ‘Oh, a sand bear!’ ‘They eat humans in the desert!’ ‘I get to see a sand bear run!’ ‘Sand bears are so cute!’ etc. etc.
      “You know, this doesn’t really sound like the announcements for a race… but anyway, what does Outsider 167 mean? What’s ‘Outsider’ supposed to signify?”
      “On the Blue Course! Owned by The World Famous Luis Biron, Outsider 201, the h.e.l.l’s Paradise Goala----!
      Excited voices were raised saying ‘Whoa! A h.e.l.l’s Paradise Goala!?’ ‘The h.e.l.l’s Paradise Goala that’s said to kya! turn into a monster if it’s not dangling and whose staple food is yucca leaves!’ ‘I’m gonna see something awesome!’ etc. etc.
      “Its staple food isn’t yucca leaves, but eucalyptus, isn’t it? But anyway, what kind of animal is a goala? And ‘h.e.l.l’s Paradise’ sounds like some kind of Buddhist phrase…” (3)
      But what appeared on the turf was a completely ordinary koala. Of course, it was huge; the same size or bigger than the sand bear Keiji. It was carried out together with a thick trunk, but it was holding on to a branch and had its eyes closed as it dangled there happily.
      “What’s so ‘h.e.l.l’s Paradise’ about that thing?”
      “It’ll be fun if you watch closely. It’s a so-called ‘Jekyll and Hyde.’”
      It’s one lap around the race track and the goal is in front of this seat. Ryan was riding on the sand bear Keiji’s back, but on the goala’s side there were only three men with axes standing around the trunk. I wonder if they’re last night’s ‘Hah! Hah! Ho!" guys.
      The starter raises his right hand high and as soon as he waves it down, the axes start swinging. The thick trunk makes dull noises and sways and the goala falls from the branch. As soon as it falls, the animal’s expression changes. Its opened eyes are bloodshot and completely red and it seems like veins are about to pop up on its brown nose. When it opens its mouth, it bares its large teeth and lets loose something more akin to a war cry than a roar.
      “GOAA-!”
      “It-it’s scary!”
      Once it lays eyes on the sand bear Keiji, who made a smooth start to the race, it takes off after it with a hunter’s run. I see, so it doesn’t need a rider. Does it have a rule that no one (or thing?) is allowed to run in front of it?
      “I wonder if Ryan and Keiji are going to be alright. It looks like they’ll be devoured if that thing catches up to them.”
      “Probably, h.e.l.l’s Paradise Goalas are carnivorous.”
      This is dangerous, Detective Sandbear! Will your backup from the police department arrive in time!? (4)
      Just like the animal trainer boasted, the rare beasts were as fast as horses. Their front and back legs were moving so fast, my visual abilities weren’t able to keep up with the movement.
      “Last night, I went to give Ryan his severance pay.”
      “Ah, so you went to a guy’s place, not a girl’s.”
      “…. The scene I saw there, it was really not of this world. I mean, Ryan and the sand bear were living together.”
      What’s more unbelievable, that or the rooms of girls who don’t know how to clean?
      Whether because it was born to run or it’s just hungry, the goala is clearly closing the gap from its starting time. The swaying white streaks coming out of its mouth weren’t strings or threads, but drool. Even its heavy breathing was closing in on them.
"It’s gonna catch up! It’s gonna catch up! And they’re already on the third corner! Was it really that bad that the course wasn’t sand!?”
      “If it was sand, he would roll around, dig a hole, climb down, make a home, set a trap and this wouldn’t be a race at all. It doesn’t need to be sand. Anyway, it was good for us that they made this special track in this open s.p.a.ce here. Look there. Right before the goal, there’s a huge tree that looks very old, right?”
      “Yeah, that well-formed tree.”
      “That is the key.”
      Mr. s.h.i.+ny is switching back and forth between completely over the top joy and dejection. Next to me, Conrad is smiling calmly and poking the tired looking Wolfram every once in a while.
      Turning the last corner, the two animals start charging straight to the finish. The goala’s sharp fangs are in a position that makes it look like it’s going to bite the sand bear’s short, upright tail at any moment.
      “Ah, Keiji, look out! Ryan! Ryan!”
      I don’t know if there’s an applicable word for this, but a cloud of gra.s.s pulls a curtain over our field of vision and around where they’ll pa.s.s the huge tree in question, the spectators lose sight of the race. And! Only the sand bear Keiji crosses the finish line in front of us.
      “Eh!?”
      Ryan wraps his arms around the neck of his beloved bear and after a hug, strikes a triumphant pose from his hunched over position.
      There’s a huge roar of delight from the crowd and a bunch of losing betting stubs fluttering about in the air. Hey wait, since when did this race become a public bet?
      “…. What?   What, what, why did only Keiji… where did the goala disappear to?”
      When I look up like Conrad indicates, I see the h.e.l.l’s Paradise Goala hanging from a prominent branch sticking out of the huge tree before the finish line.
      It’s clinging to the yellow, k.n.o.bby limb and its eyes are closed in rapture. It seems to be completely in paradise mode.
      “Goalas are ferocious carnivores, but it can’t resist hanging on a branch that it likes. No matter what the situation, if it’s faced with its favorite tree, it loses control of itself.”
      As the grey beast dreamily clings to the tree, if you don’t pay attention to the perspective, it was as cute as Australia’s symbol. If you didn’t see the sudden transformation into a Violence Goala, it might even be able to become a mascot character.
      But no matter how cute it was, it clearly had a pattern of giving up. Because it abandoned the match, Keiji and Ryan’s victory was decided and my body became my own again.
      “I can’t accept this!”
      Luis Biron stands with an enraged expression in the neighboring watchtower two meters away. That anger was misplaced, but his clenched fist was shaking.
      “I absolutely cannot accept this! Because it was interrupted by an accident, this race is invalid! I request a rematch!”
      “You must be joking. It wasn’t an accident or anything. Your chosen partic.i.p.ant just retired. Isn’t the reason for the loss because of the fact that the owner entered his horse in the race without knowing his horse’s personality or how the horse would deal with the location? Complaining with ‘it’s invalid’ or ‘I want a rematch’ is pathetic.”
      “I won’t accept it, that a h.e.l.l’s Paradise Goala would lose to a sand bear… someone! Get another mount! This was an invalid race, invalid. We’re racing all over again.”
    His Kinpachi-style, one length hair is getting in his mouth in bunches. His upturned eyebrows have been upgraded to the Mount Fuji version and he’s. .h.i.tting his subordinate beside him.
      “Get another one! Ah, a labakap! Bring a labakap!!
      “Are you kidding me!?   The one who decides whether a match is forfeit is the referee, not the players! And anyway, what’s that weird creature that sounds like Robocop that’s not a llama or a horse or even a kappa!?” (5)
      Hyscliff lightly gets to his feet and holds out the signed doc.u.ment he got last night.
      “You don’t know when to give up, Luis Biron. You have agreed to the terms as such. Any more resistance will just hurt your reputation. You need to carefully consider between ill-repute and fame, however… ah.”
      That surprised me. A black goat tore the doc.u.ment from him and started eating it without even reading it.
      This isn’t the time to sit around and write a response. Looking for something to swap out with the balled up paper in its mouth, I dig in my pocket and pull out a wrinkled object. What was this again? Opening it, I see the inside is money and the outside is white.
      “… Fake money? Right, that’s right it’s fake money! Hey Brand Bag, no, Luis Biron! Even if you try to hide the evidence like that, you can’t hide your villainous deeds! You made a huge deposit of illegal fake money under the two-horned thing in the adjoining tent, didn’t you? Here, I have two of the bills. With only the top face printed and the back a pure white, it’s obviously counterfeit.”
      I wave around the thin paper.
      “Your Majesty…”
      “Hm? What, Conrad? Why are you using such an apologetic tone of voice?”
      “I’m sorry for only giving you small change… this is difficult to say, but… well, Hildyard’s paper money is…”
      He nervously hands me a bill so crisp and new you can only find it in a bank envelope.
      “Geh!”
      “… normally only printed on one side.”
      The back is pure white. My brain goes white too.
      “Hmph! What does a young foreign brat know about anything? I will not tolerate these extremely rude accusations!”
      At Biron’s yell, Hyscliff raises his eyebrows in indignation and, with his fingers on the hilt of his sword, says:
      “But the problem isn’t Hildyard’s money, but the money of my home country of Cavalcade!”
      Kinpachi Biron’s face color changes.
      “Of course, the drachma bills of my mother country are not printed on only one side! Now, Mr. Luis Biron, what kind of story are you going to tell me now?” (6)
      Mr. s.h.i.+ny’s head shone brightly in the sun as he moved forward steadily.
      “Even if you bribe the Hildyard officials, you won’t be able to escape an investigation by Cavalcade. Now, Biron, resign yourself and give up the deed, be ashamed of your actions and confine yourself to your home.”
      “… You want the business rights to this land that much?”
      Everyone including me readied themselves wondering what he’s going to say this late in the game. Only Greta looks around and her nostrils twitch like a small animal.
      Luis Biron lets loose a laugh filled with madness and brushes the strands of hair out of his mouth.
      “Then I’ll give it to you as you wish. Losing one or two backwater resort areas like this doesn’t bother me at all! Just as written, I’ll gladly let you start up a hypocritically clean business in the brand new western district. I, Luis Biron, as the one who is leaving, will promptly clear out my business so as to not leave a mess for you.”
      Now it’s not just Greta, but my nose is also twitching. Judging by this scorched smell, is someone illegally burning garbage somewhere?
      “On the pleasure quarter purified by flames, you can even build a church or temple!”
      “Yuuri, over there!”
      Hearing a high, hysteric laugh behind me, I turn my attention to where Greta points. Smoke and flames are rising from the wooden buildings surrounding the plaza.
      “You set it on fire!?”
      The spectators who came to the special race track start scrambling over each other to escape in the other direction. Pressed with the weight of the flow of people, the watchtower shakes and we can’t even get down to the ground.
      “d.a.m.n you, Luis Biron! This is cowardly!”
"The fire truck, where’s the fire truck!? Where are the firefighters!? And… uwa!”
      Two closed windows suddenly explode and flames come blowing out. The back draft that blew away Kurt Russell is right in front of my eyes.
      In the blink of an eye, the blaze consumed the building and started to spread to the neighboring shops and surrounding gra.s.s. Finally, firefighter-like men came running, pulling along a handcart with a pump. However, the flames are so vigorous I don’t even know if they can be contained anymore and they’re licking at numerous wooden buildings.
      “Actually… why aren’t the girls evacuating?”
      The ones who have escaped out into the street, running for their lives, are all male employees and I can’t see any of the many girls working there.
      “In order for them to properly-pon work at night, I give them lots of thorough-pon rest. My working conditions are fair. At this time, they’re all soundly-pon sleeping. In order to create a safe environment for them to rest in, I prevent any outsiders from getting in and lock the door. I wanted them treated well, you see.”
      “Then… they can’t get out…”
      Hyscliff’s subordinates cut through the crowd and move to help the firefighters.
      “Luis Biron, you, this is despicable.”
      “Please stop, Mr. Hyscliff, that’s disgraceful. This is just an unfortunate accident. An unfortunate accident that my insurance will pay out on.”
      “Your Majesty, and Greta, too. You shouldn’t watch…”
      A window facing this way is removed and one girl leans out. Wondering if it’s Izura or Nina, I gaze intently while the smoke hurts my eyes, but the girl with the long, pale blonde hair is a face I don’t know. Seeing the long distance between the third floor and the ground, the girl hesitates and leans back inside. She’d be able to escape the heat if she jumped, but who knows how badly she’ll be hurt from falling from that distance.
      “Your Majesty?”
      I can’t stop staring at the girl. Without knowing it, I start screaming in my mind ‘don’t jump!’ Don’t jump, just wait a little. Someone will definitely come help you.
      And who is ‘someone?’
      “… Who is… someone… Just who would, faced with this…”
      With flames licking at her back, the girl puts her feet on the windowsill. When she lifts her head, our gazes meet for just a moment.
      “Stop!”
      I get the feeling she laughed.
      “… why…”
      I simply gaze at the now unoccupied window without the courage or preparedness to see what happened. The room was lit up with an orange glow, rather, it was filled with a divine-seeming light.
      My thought processes go blank with my rage, despair and helplessness.
      The afterimage of the body that fell straight to the ground is projected on the other side of the smoke.
      How did this happen?
      The magic stone at my chest is burning hot and even the air in front of my face is swaying. Somewhere from inside my skull, a small electric current runs through my synapses. The shock creeping up my spine is made all the more intense in a natural, pulsating rhythm. I’m a.s.saulted by a heavy, low tone and a high ringing in my ears of an unbearable intensity.
      “Just a little… they’re children…”
      The orange spread of the fire and the grey of the smoke, the flash that erased all that turns my vision pure white.
      Like my adrenaline and dopamine have mixed together, energy and a sense of ecstasy spreads through my entire body.
      Becoming a memory out of the folds of my soul and making an appearance, the person who protected me smiles in the form of light.
      Do it.
      Go on.
      That’s impossible. I can’t do something like distorting the world by myself.
      Then what do you want to do?
      Whose power do you want to borrow?
      “No.”
      I want to move with my own power. I want my own power.

      Prayers come true when one strongly and firmly makes a vow and overcomes their fear and desire to give up.
      You become who you want to be when you wish to be so from the bottom of your heart and you have faith and put forth the effort.

----

(1)    This was a mini-pun with ‘tode’ (an embankment), and ‘touge’ (the difficult part). ‘Touge’ can also mean ‘mountain pa.s.s’ so it’s also a pun that way (in that ‘tode and ‘touge’ are both land features).
(2)    Jari is a childish thing to tack on the end of sentences. Wolfram has done this before in Svelera.
(3)    This was another pun. In the j.a.panese, the spectator said ‘…shushoku wa yuukai…’ (the staple food is abduction) and Yuuri’s like ‘shushoku wa yuukai janakute, yuukari nan janai ka na’ (its staple food isn’t abduction, but eucalyptus, isn’t it?). The pun here being ‘yuukai/yuukari’ (abduction/eucalyptus). Honestly, I’m not sure how you eat abduction o.O; That might be part of the joke, though.
(4)    Another pun! The joke here is that ‘keiji’ can mean detective if you write it with the correct characters
(5)    Ah, puns and stuff! I actually only changed donkey to llama here (donkey in j.a.panese being ‘roba’). The rest of the joke actually fit kinda well. A kappa is a water monster. The most popular version being a turtle creature with a little bowl-like spot on the top of their head that needs to stay filled with water or they lose all their power. They’re said to do stuff ranging from little pranks to straight up drowning people in the river.
(6)    Takabayas.h.i.+-sensei specifically says ‘drachma’ here. To be honest, when I first read this book I didn’t know what it was and, thinking it was some made up animal that was printed on the money, I just skipped past it (in j.a.panese it’s written ‘dorak.u.ma’ so I immediately thought ‘tiger-bear?’). But! I ran it through the dictionary just in case and came up with ‘drachma’ and I was like, okay, that doesn’t sound like an animal… It turns out it’s a type of Greek money! -->Yay Wikipedia! I’m learning stuff!

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