Episode 30 — Red Shadow
～ Part 2 ～
After this would be laying the groundwork with the staying behind group. Before that though, they needed to wait for Rin to come out from her long bath.
Kyousuke and Akira were killing time in a salon prepared for guests. When looking for something to kill time with, they found a shogi board. Was this also a product introduced by the Japanese? There were plenty of board games such as chess and playing cards. If it was though, Akira would burn it, so they made it chess. Since the pieces were made of stone, there wasn’t much worry of burning them.
“Kyousuke, did anything happen yesterday?”
While moving a pawn, Akira suddenly asked sharply.
“You knew? I’m beaten.”
“Obviously. How many years do you think we’ve been together?”
Saying what happened, it was obviously the matter with Akai. However, Kyousuke hesitated to talk about it. It seemed that she didn’t like the information that she said at that time to spread around. As his creed, Kyousuke always tried to not do things that people hated.
Kyousuke remained silent for a while, and Akira finally gave a little sigh.
“Well, it’s fine. You don’t have to say it.”
“Sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize. This is how it has always been with you.”
It was as Akira said, Kyousuke and Akira had been together for a long time. Next to Akira who had few friends had always been Kyousuke, and Kyousuke’s unreliable attitude had always been remonstrated by Akira. And then Akira would never intervene more than necessary, he always tried to respect Kyousuke’s independence as much as possible.
Well, Kyousuke’s halfhearted indecisiveness always made Akira angry though.
For a little while, they continued playing chess silently.
“Kyousuke.”
Akira suddenly called him.
“The thing Himemizu said yesterday…”
“Ah, yeah? What was it?”
“You don’t remember? You…”
“Checkmate.”
“…!? Wa–wait a minute Kyousuke! That!? When did you!?”
“You’re not good at board games as usual Akira. So much for your intellectual character.”
It had always been the case since childhood. Akira had liked special effects heroes since old time, and whenever they played make-believe hero squadron in kindergarten, he would want to be Blue or Black. And then Kyousuke would be Red. However, he would get heated in the middle of the battalion make-believe, reaching to the point where his speech and conduct would become like a hot-blooded idiot, that was the boy named Akira.
Because Kyousuke was like this, Akira’s speech and conduct usually made him stood out as a cool and handsome or an intellectual staff officer type, but in actual fact, his thoughts backfired quite a lot. The same was true for the case of Full Cross just recently as well. Well, that seemed to have been mixed with his hobbies a little bit.
“On–once more time. Kyousuke, let’s play again with a rook and bishop handicap.”
“There won’t be such thing.”
When the two people was rearranging the chess pieces, they heard a somewhat loud voice coming from outside the salon. A familiar voice. It was Selena.
The princess of this country. Princess Selenade. Her tone of voice was a little tense. Kyousuke and Akira exchanged glances (though Akira had neither eyes nor faces).
“I–is that true! Yo–you’re not serious!”
“Yes. So please keep this matter as confidential as possible…”
They were wondering how to make their appearance in such a conversation, but it was bad of her to talk so loudly in front of the guests’ salon. Kyousuke and Akira proudly walked out without any fear.
“Hey, Selena-san.”
“Akyaa—“
Princess Selenade jumped and raised a scream that you wouldn’t believe she was a princess.
Together with Selena was the leader of the royal knight that they often saw in the royal palace. He didn’t seem to have gotten used to Kyousuke and the others’ appearance yet and was quite startled.
“I didn’t hear much, but what happened?”
“No–no–nothing! There’s nothing ! There is no such things as a bandit group being escorted to the royal capital stabbed to death the knights on guard and escape!”
“I see…”
“Ah! I’m sorry! Please forget about it!”
Selena shook both of her arms around and cried out, then she put both hands on the wall and dejectedly hung her head.
“Uu…. Please scold careless and incompetent Selena…”
“Well, that’s being the case, please keep this matter a secret.”
The royal knight told Kyousuke group while smiling bitterly. Kyousuke and Akira nodded.
“Understood. We won’t say anything. It would be troublesome otherwise.”
“Yes. It was troublesome that the escape took place not far from the royal capital. This is a story from the ordinary humans though, so it may not be so terrifying to everyone…”
“Because they can calmly kill a human, there’s no reason to say it’s not terrifying.”
They had gotten some general knowledge about monsters of this world from Selena.
From the general perspective, it seemed that there weren’t so many humans who could fight against monsters single-handedly on equal terms. Special training and talents. Whether or not one had the ability to manipulate magic or ki. The difference in these points would create a big gap.
For ordinary citizens without any power and zero training, even a horn rabbit would be a dangerous monster to them. With just Kyousuke walking around town was actually enough to cause great chaos.
It seemed that the bandits of this countries were mostly ruined knight apprentices who failed to become knights. Although they had some proper training, well, even a good one would only be comparable to Kyousuke 1 person.
It’s pitiful that I’m using myself as a unit to measure fighting strength, but well, it’s easy to understand. Probably the fighting strength of the escaped bandits was about 1 Kyousuke each. From the fact that they could kill humans in cold blood, their potential could be more. Maybe around 2 Kyousuke.
“However, since they are around 2 Kyousuke at most. If you gather several knights of this country, it won’t be that difficult to catch them?”
“Akira, you’re also using that unit?”
“I agree. However, although he was careless, the knight who was stabbed had strength of around 3, 4 Kyousuke, so perhaps this will be prolonged.”
“You too, royal knight-san?”
3 or 4 Kyousuke? These are terrible opponents. I want them to be caught soon. It feel strange now that we’re afraid of a human criminal even though we have just fought against the red winged devils not so long ago, then again, there are times when such a close by hidden villain is far more terrifying than the presence of a clear enemy.
“Anyway, Anyway! I have to put out an official notice outside the castle walls.”
“Yes. We must also strengthen security around the royal capital. “
Outside the castle walls surrounding the royal capital spread a wide farmland. In this country the flood control technology had been developed, and it seemed that agricultural industry was very prosperous thanks to the irrigation channel drawn from the mountains in the North. This was not bad at all since they could get lots of fresh vegetables and river fishes.
However, the fact that the farmland was widespread meant that there were a lot of farmers. Most of the time, the kingdom’s citizens were hired to work as farmers, but there were also big landlords owning large farmlands who build their residents outside the royal capital. There was a possibility of these houses being aimed at by the bandits.
“Everyone also, must not leave the royal capital too much.”
“Ah, yes. More or less, I understood … but.”
Kyousuke’s reply was strangely evasive. The royal knight made a suspicious face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ahh no, it’s just maybe but…”
“Uutsuroogi-kuun!”
It was then that Himemizu Rin’s voice came flying in desperately, she was coming along while literally bouncing ∗boyon boyon∗ with momentum.
“I found the location of Totoha-chan and Hana-chan~! That is, they’re at the farming land outside the royal capital after all!”
“I thought it would be like that.”
In place of Kyousuke, Akira expressed his feelings, the royal knight and Selena looked at each other.
“Did you say Kaminari and Hanazono were captured and confined by a heinous criminal!?”
A female knight with nothing from her neck up burst into the guardroom and said so, the knights in the guardroom all fell over.
This was the guardroom set up in the outer walls of the royal capital. Receiving the news that the group of bandits being escorted stabbed to dead the guarding knight and escaped, the royal palace was suddenly in a state of high tension. It appeared that as a result of the council of Her Majesty the Queen and the royal court, permission had been granted to kill instead of capture in case of an unavoidable circumstance.
There were 4 people who weren’t knights there.
Kyousuke, Rin, Akira and finally Selena.
Adding Kensaki Megumi who opened the door just know made it 5 people.
“Where did the verbal message game take place and it became like that…”
“Tsurugin, that’s wrong~. Totoha-chan and Hana-chan are outside. And then, it seems that these bandits are also prowling outside.”
Kyousuke and Rin talked at the same time, Kensaki nodded 『Mu, is that so』, and put her own head on the table. Screams were raised in the surroundings.
Dullahan seems to be on a completely different level compared to skeleton, wisp, etc. It seemed that many of the knights in the guardroom had seen it for the first time, and gazes filled with curiosity and fear were being directed at her.
“In any case, I cannot overlook this as a member of the public moral committee. Let me also cooperate in the search. I’ve also called Okumura and Gofunkawahara.”
“Orc, dullahan and goblin…. It is a little overboard to go against a group of bandits…”
The old knight captain muttered with a somewhat confused expression.
“Speaking of which, even Hanazono and the others are an alraune and a thunderbird after all, it seems that they would be lively even if the bandits were to attack.”
“Well, that’s right. Although that’s no reason not to go help, but in the first place, what kind of bandits would attack a place where a thunderbird is resting.”
Of course, there were many ordinary humans living outside the royal capital. Originally, Kyousuke and the others’ purpose for going out was Hanazono’s group, but if there’s a scoundrel prowling out there, they also intended to help out with the capture.
The knights of the royal capital had already begun forming patrol platoons. Moreover, it seemed an official notice had been put out to the big landlords and the farmers to return and take shelter in their home without going outside.
However, immediately after looking through a report sent to the guard room, Selena made a difficult face.
“…Perhaps, this is going to become a little more troublesome than just a bandit disturbance.”
“Princess Royal Highness, did something happen?”
When the knight captain asked, Selena nodded and handed over the report. The knight captain’s face clouded in an instant.
“This is…”
“It said that the body of the knight who was stabbed to dead had turned into a ghoul.”
A commotion immediately spread in the guardroom. Kyousuke group exchanged glances among themselves.
Ghoul. It was an undead monster that they had seen more than enough in the battle at the fortress line just a few days ago. Speaking about ghoul, it was often thought of as the type transformed from human corpses but they didn’t expect to hear that story here.
“Selena-chan, what kind of monsters the ghouls are in the first place?”
“The undead monsters are generally split into two types.”
Princess Selenade, who completely became Dr. Monster, put up two fingers.
“First is the type like skeleton and dullahan, they establish themselves as an «original» species. And the other one are things like ghoul which was forcibly made into undead monsters by outside factors.”
“Fun fun.”
“There are also the kind that are resurrected by magic spells, but ghouls increase their comrades by means of infection. It’s the same as vampires.”
Vampires, hearing that, Kyousuke recalled Akai from last night. Blood. Phase 3. The problem that I have.
Various related words came to his mind and he forcibly shook his head to drown them out.
According to Selena’s explanation, if someone was to be killed by a ghoul or something which carried the ghoul-factor, then that person would become a ghoul. But other than that, everything was unknown. In the first place, ghoul was a relatively new kind of monster that was discovered about ten years ago, so it seemed that the research on it hadn’t progressed very far yet. At any rate, their characteristic was the high infection rate, it was said that a small village in the Empire was led to destruction because of it.
If they failed to handle it properly, something similar might very well happened in the vicinity of the royal capital. The tension of the knights rose in one gulp.
“I see, they’re no mere bandits. If they were monsters, there’s no need to hold back.”
∗Gan,∗ hitting her fist on her palm, Kensaki said. Akira also nodded.
“That’s right. I, Kensaki and Kyousuke are already undead so it seems unlikely for us to get infected.”
“The question is, why did the bandits turn to ghouls all of a sudden. Were they already infected by the time the knight order capture them…”
Selena was pondering with a serious face.
Hearing that, numerous imagination crossed Kyousuke’s mind. A new species of undead monsters who increased their number by infection, then a large number of them accompanied the Blood of Red Moon. And then, how ghoul increased their number was similar to vampire.
Vampire and Red Moon. The figure of Akai Asuka who exchanged words with him last night. Are these matching signs simply a coincident? To connect everything together, there was still one piece of the puzzle missing.
“…Utsurogi-kun.”
“Ahh, no, it’s nothing.”
As Rin gave a worried voice, Kyousuke raised his face.
“Knight captain-san, we’re going to search for our classmates. It would be fine if it’s just common bandits but I’m worry about the ghouls…”
“Understood. Take care.”
“Kensaki, once Okumura and Gofunkawahara came, please cooperate with the knights in ghouls exterminations.”
“All right. I will search for the students if there’s free time.”
The head on top of the table nodded. Kyousuke, Akira and Rin as well nodded at each other and immediately left the guard room.
Can they persuade Kaminari and Hanazono properly! Is there any relationship between the ghouls and Red Moon?
Next Episode: Hollow
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