RATH 30

TL: Eevee

4. The others’ stories (4)

#6 Their story: No.1000’s story.

Unlike No.1 and No.17, No.1000 didn’t have a place to return to.

Meaning, she had to go back to the life where she couldn’t eat every day.

Once she realised that, No.1000 despaired.

“Kukuung!”

“There’s no need to make sound effects with your mouth.”

“It’s bad.”

“Re, really?”

When No.1000 started thinking with a dead serious expression, No.17 was going to ask whether she’d be interested in coming back to her house with her, but the one who stopped No.17 was Iris whose face was still sheet-white from shock.

“Hey, you. The princess said she’d be taking you. She refuses your refusals.”

“Huh?”

“The other kids might have their own families, but she told me to bring you back especially. Here.”

She brought out a small box specifically ordered from the imperial palace, and when she opened the box there was a fresh, steaming steak inside.

“Ca, can I eat it?”

“Of course.”

No.1000 gulped, and the moment when she put a bite-sized steak into her mouth.

“…!!!!!!!!!!”

In that instant, No.1000’s face turned bright red, and her eyes opened widely.

Her hands were flailing around in their air as if she didn’t know what to do with them.

“If you come with us, then this quality of meals will be your everyday…”

“I’ll come! I’ll come! I’ll come!”

And that was how No.1000 became the princess’s right-hand woman.

#7 Their story: No.17’s story.

“You did it!”

“Welcome back.”

At the warm gazes my family sent me, my heart felt… it should feel warm. How should I put it.

Why does it feel like I’m about to break out in gooseb.u.mps?

-Give up owner. Owner’s already, become accustomed to that place.

-No, no! It can’t be!

-Owner. Don’t deny it. Owner is already, one that this archdevil Surtr has acknowledged, a soul that is eviler and cruller than a devil.

-No! I’m a pure…

I suddenly shut up. That something, inside me is blocking it. No. it can’t be.

But!

-Now, owner. Pure… so. What?

-I’m still pu… krrrgghh… it, it can’t be. But, but!

What is this, the world’s will? Or is it the remnants of my conscience! Something is blocking from saying what I want to say.

-Urgh… I… am… not pure.

I was dirtied.

I was dirtied!

Only before I went to Howling there was a time where I simply enjoyed learning magic!

This is all the evil organization’s fault!

“I believed in you. Because among all my daughters you had the most talent to adjust to Howling.”

“Unni believed in you too. If it was you who lived less like a n.o.ble girl’s life than a boor… I mean free-spirited life you’d act like a sc.u.mb… I mean adjust and survive there.

-Owner. I think your family knew owner’s talents very well.

-No! Tha, that’s just unni lying! She’s just jealous that I’ve come back after completing a big job!

-Her eyes are way too pure for that.

-It, it can’t be… lies…

But the more I heard my family’s compliments the more I heard that they believed that I’d adapt well to an evil organization.

Moreover, Mother, the only one who didn’t say something along those lines.

“Now all you need to do now is get married.”

Went and said something like that!

What was the reason I went to Howling in the first place?! It was to get out of an arranged marriage!

But to be married off as soon as I got back!

“Mother, I am still lacking in knowledge.”

“It’s alright. Bridal lessons are something I can teach you quickly.”

“N, not that kind of knowledge, but I want to learn more magic.”

“Really?”

I barely convinced Mother who was looking at me with a slightly regrettable face and faced Father, the family head and announced loudly.

“I, will go to the academy for learning!”

I was someone who survived while feeling true pain.

A bunch of brats who simply played around in the fields going hahahoho would be no match for me!

But I didn’t know then.

That there would be existences whose academy lives were filled with even greater pain than mine.

#8 Their story: No.1’s story.

After returning home, and a bit of praise from Father I thought I’d be forgotten.

Well, of course.

Since mother pa.s.sed away I have no backers, and I’m not the oldest, and I’m not famous either?

And so naturally like a rat in a hole, I thought I’d have to live quietly, and since my brothers seemed to feel sorry for sending a kid that wasn’t even much of a threat to Howling, plus they had other threats to take care of so they couldn’t be bothered dealing with me, and so it seemed like they were going to leave me alone.

But…

“Ha, so you’re saying you blocked my way for just this?”

When a visiting n.o.ble tried to destroy a food stall because it was in the way of his carriage, my thread of reason snapping was the problem.

“Pl, please stop!”

“Shut up! Just? Just this?”

Ahh, I wasn’t this kind of b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I wasn’t someone who’d step forward like this, I was someone who thought I could always fill my belly, but!

“The clothes you wear, the food you eat! Just where do you think they come from? You motherf.u.c.king leech, you dare cause trouble in a dining hall?! Do you have any idea how much it hurts when you’re starving!”

That was all I could remember.

From what I heard I cursed the n.o.ble and his entire clan with all the insults and curses I knew, and I beat down all his knights that tried to stop me by force and lectured him for about an hour on the importance of food.

And because of that, I became the most famous out of my brothers in the territory!

“His Excellence’s son Swin really thinks of us?”

“Yeah, apparently he understands our hunger well.”

“I heard he made huge achievements in the recent Howling incident as well, he’s quite the person.”

Whenever three or more people of our territory gather they start praising me.

The rumours became twisted and started to turn to something along the lines of me destroying the evil organization Howling that existed since the founding of the empire all by myself.

Because of this there were n.o.bles that started to take note of me as well, and when it seemed that my brothers too, felt they couldn’t afford to leave me alone anymore.

“Let’s gap it.”

I decided to run away from home.

#9 Their story: the host turned prisoner(slave)’s story.

The three kids were all taken away by their respective caretakers, and I was waiting on standby in Iris’s tent. But…

“How, how, how…”

The always n.o.ble, beautiful.

The lady Iris who had always seemed like an unreachable flower on an unclimbable precipice was broken.

All the lady did was gnaw on her thumbnail, repeat the same words over and over again as she circled around me holding my leash.

Just what kind of person is this princess to induce this kind of fear in this woman!

“Mi, milady?”

“Iris!”

But she’s still not forgetting that part.

“Miss Iris, it seems someone is here.”

“Huh?”

Knock knock knock.

The temporary cloth entrance made of cloth, someone was knocking on a wooden plank to let us know they were there.

“I’m the mage captain Legas. We’re going to be holding a meeting with Her Highness soon through communication tools, meet up in ten minutes. Bring that man Rein too.”

“I understand.”

Although she said she was calm, the n.o.ble girl’s voice is still shaking.

But as if this problem wasn’t this girl’s alone, the voice of the mage captain Legas also had the same fear embedded in it.

Just what kind of archdevil is the instructor being chased by?

If a knight order’s vice-captain, and the strongest nation’s overwhelmingly strongest mage corps’ captain is dyed in that much fear, that means that so are their subordinates!

Just as I was seriously thinking that the instructor would have to be caught by the princess for the sake of world peace, the girl took a deep breath and shouted with a dignified expression.

“Alright, the answer is suicide!”

The method isn’t at all dignified?!

“Mi, milady? Suicide, why would you…”

“Rein. Rein might not know, but there are times when a clean quiet death is preferable to life.”

…I know.

I know since I was. .h.i.t a lot!

Every time I was. .h.i.t by the metal bat I honestly wished that we’d get casualties like other instructors’ trainees!

“So, Rein… you can… come with me, right?”

Eh? Where?

“If, it’s together with Rein… I’m not scared…”

“Muh, Milady? ‘Scuse me, Milady? Calm down. Right now Milady is thinking something very radical and very dangerous!”

“Yep. It’s radical. But… I did all sorts of things while telling Her Highness I’d catch him… but I failed. I can’t. I’m done for.”

Ah, she’s out. Her eyes are spinning. Am, am I going to die here?

-Crackle.

It was then. That the large crystal ball in the corner of the room began to make noise.

-krrck, krrrckrr, rkrkcrrrrk…. Ah, crkckkk, ah, ah… ckrkcrrrk… ah, ah. Hm. Is it working?”

“Y, Your Highness?!”

In the crystal ball was a beautiful, brightly smiling, silver-haired, red eyed woman that reminded me of Sia.

-Ah, Iris. Vice-captain of my most trusted Third Knight Order.

“Ye, yes!”

Unlike the princess who was smiling as if she was very pleased, Lady Iris was stiff like she’d been affected by a witch’s petrification spell that you only heard of in folk tales.

-Yes, Iris. My most trusted Iris. And my trusted Iris went and cut my foot?”

“Hiiik!”

The princess was smiling even more brightly, but that laugh was, yes, the savagery of that smile made me think that was the sort of smile that the king of h.e.l.l, King Yumra(1) would make when he sentenced sinners to h.e.l.l.

-Our Iris got the person named Rein that she wanted, but I didn’t get my Ast that I waited ten years for? Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ve failed before when I tried to catch Ast previously.

The princess smiled even more brightly as she looked at the quivering n.o.ble lady like a lion staring down a rabbit. But unlike that smile the chill that spread throughout my body only increased.

-So, if it’s the Iris I know, I thought you would die together with that kid Rein for a peaceful death. Surely that’s just my imagination, right?

Shake shake shake shake.

That moment my leash started shaking like it had a vibrating function added to it. Of course, that was the lady’s shakes that were being transmitted through the leash in her hand!

“N, n… No…”

-Indeed. That’s right. Surely. To think you’d die comfortably after losing him. There’s. No. Way. I. Would. Allow. That. Right?”

Shakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshake.

My body started to shake along with my collar.

Ah, of course it’s also because the n.o.ble lady’s shivers had reached fever pitch, but I started to shake myself! Seriously what, it feels like she’d revive us with black magic even if we killed ourselves!

-You guys are mine. It is also my right to allow you to die. You do not have that choice.

“Yeyeyeyeyeyes ma’am!”

-Very good. Now since we need to start the meeting. Bring that boy Rein and get over here.

“Un, understood!”

The place where the n.o.ble lady hurriedly dragged me by the leash was a place where hundreds, no, thousands of people were waiting. Since all of their gazes are focused on me it feels uncomfortable as h.e.l.l.

I’m not going to get publicly executed, right?

“Th, that’s?!”

“It can’t be!”

And on the way to the lady’s seat, everyone’s eyes turned to me. More accurately, the thing on my belt…

“That bat… Did you get it from Ast, no Naruan!”

Yes, to the bat.

Hm. But it seems like that bat is quite famous. To think even the empire’s army would know of it.

“Indeed I did?”

The moment I said that scores of people in my vicinity immediately took a knee, bowed their heads and shouted.

“Greetings to the successor of the bat!”

And

-Greetings to the successor of the bat!

Aside from the lady and a few others, everyone on the wide plain, thousands of people immediately took a knee and shouted.

“…Rein? What’s a bat?”

To the lady who had a face that couldn’t believe what she was seeing, I couldn’t reply either.

I thought I knew it well but I now I don’t know… Instructor, just what the h.e.l.l did you do with the bat in the empire?

#10 Their story: a certain academy’s story.

“Is this person really coming into our academy?”

“But the conditions are just as shocking.”

At one point, it used to compete for the number 1, 2 position among the empire’s Four Great Academies, but currently it was the lowest, no there were even calls to remove Yugrasia from the four academies altogether and call it the Three Great Academies instead, that was how low the summoner’s school Yugrasia had fallen.

And the old man that was that Yugrasia’s current princ.i.p.al looked over a sheet of paper and nodded.

“We’ll take him in.”

“Understood.”

But the dilemma didn’t last long.

That was how bad Yugrasia’s current situation was, and this person’s fame was significant enough to be able to chart a path through these troubled times.

“The legendary summoner, Nicerwin. We will put our trust in him.”

And thus was the beginning of a new age in Yugrasia’s history.