Episode 44 — Saa-chan Is the Group Leader
～ Part 2 ～
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“Uh-huh, in other words, the continent is under the domination of a big country called the Empire, and you guys are that place’s merchants.”
“How should I put it, that place’s, is still a little misleading. The continent is roughly divided into 5 commerce guild, the ones that are treated as the ‘Empire’s merchants’ are only those who belong to the Center Guild.”
“What your caravan belongs to is? The Southern Guild?”
“Continental Southern Commerce Guild. Among the 5 commerce guild, it’s the one that comes and goes between the most number of countries.”
He received a simple lecture about this world from Remy, the young merchant of the maritime caravan. The place was a under the shade of a tree a little away from the beach. Voice of men working to repair the sailing ship mixed with the sound of waves washing ashore reached until here.
It was then that Okama Kaoru finally grasped how grand a scale this world was and around where he was; as well as how far a distance he might have moved in the past two months.
“(I am a relatively good walker…)”
While looking at the map, Kaoru admired himself by himself.
That Kaoru was being fixedly staring at by Remy. Remy was a youthful girl with light brown skin. Kaoru had went around greeting the survivors of the caravan, but she was far younger among them. Saying it better, she was childish? Probably more youthful than their actual age.
Besides, her ears were pointed. This was the same feature as Kogane. Is she also an elf? However, the elven country she had shown him on the map was in the northeastern part of the continent, far, far apart from the southern part of the continent where she was active.
“Say, Kaoru-san.”
“What?
As Remy timidly started speaking, Kaoru smiled sweetly.
“Kaoru-san, are you a man? Are you a woman?”
“Ara, asking such an awkward thing so smoothly, you. You said oniisan at the beginning, didn’t you? It’s fine with that then.”
“But…”
“No but no duck either. I too, really wanted to be a cute girl. But you know my name, right? Okama Kaoru. Reading backward it will be Ruokamakao. Either way is still Okama, isn’t it? No matter , I’m still Okama in the end. Well, even normally I’m still Okama though.”
As the story rattled on and on, Remy nodded every now and then, a little animal-like child.
Well, as the story he had said, no matter how much he dressed up and be pretty, he himself was a man in the end. That, he had no choice but to live while aware of it. Like how it was with Goubayashi Genshuu, Kaoru had also faced down his guise and was able to feel a little more easier as a result.
Goubayashi. Is he safe now? He became a decoy to let me escape from Red Wing’s surprise attack. I think there’s no way that man could die so easily, however, the power of that red winged devil was overwhelming.
“Ohh, Okama-dono, you were over here.”
A mustached old man show himself under the shade where the two were.
He was the leader of the maritime caravan Remy belonged to. Certainly his name was Welkano. Similar to Remy, his skin tanned light brown. Whether it was due to age, his muscles were bad and he looked unreliable, but scars could be seen throughout his body. He must have been an excellent man in his younger years, Kaoru thought.
“Thanks to you, the caravan was protected from the sahagins’ attack somehow. The ship’s repair will be finished in a few days, so how about it? If you don’t mind, with us…”
“Like I said previously. I, am waiting for my companion.”
They said they was going to head toward the Maritime United Nations Albadanba after fixing the ship.
Whether it was Albadanba or Albatross, he didn’t know, but as expected Kaoru didn’t have any obligation to accompany them that far. He had to wait for Goubayashi around here.
What if Goubayashi won’t come? He tried not to think about such things too much. He tried not to think, but supposing that time actually came, he would have no choice but to live care-freely around here with the imps he befriended using the power of «Charm».
Suddenly, Kaoru thought of something and raised her face.
“Welkano-san. There’s something I want to ask, is it okay, I wonder?”
“What is it?”
“Do you know about the devil growing red wings, cladded in black armor? We call him Red Wing but,”
When Kaoru inquired so, Welkano narrowed his eyes slightly.
“We don’t know the full story, but it matches with the devil in the information appearing everywhere in the continent. I hear they call themselves Red Moon.”
“Ara, so that’s the case.”
I got a clue more easily than I thought. Kaoru felt anticlimactic.
Red Moon, is it? That bunch obviously know about myself and Goubayashi. That’s not all. Those guys were trying to catch us. This is unmistakably an important clue to know what has happened to our body.
The classmates remaining the base may have noticed their existence as well, they may even started moving already.
In order to ascertain that as well, I want to link up with Goubayashi and the others. As Kaoru was think so, in his ears reached the screams of the caravan’s members.
“The sahagins came–!!”
“Ara ara.”
Narrowing his eyes, Kaoru stood up. Remy and Welkano’s expression tightened by the tension.
“Those fishes-san haven’t learn their lesson. I’ll be going for a bit.”
“Be–Be careful.”
There was nothing that seemed necessary to be careful of though. He had already roughly understood the ability of those sahagins. They weren’t opponents that would be so hard to fight if he commanded the imps and battled. Just that her feelings alone made him happy, so Kaoru, with a smile, left with the words «thank you».
“Ah, that’s right Remy.”
“Ye–yes?”
Just before heading toward the beach, Kaoru looked back.
“Since you’re a merchant, pay a bit more attention to your appearance. Those clothes is a little, out of fashion, yeah?”
“Eh, eehhh!?”
It was something he had always thought of saying since the time they met. Those clothes were completely like a jute bag.
“Fashion check is my hobby. You mustn’t forget that girls always have this feeling of ‘we’re onstage’, don’t you think?”
“Ye–yes…”
“Well then–. Let’s discuss again once I finish cleaning up fishes-san.”
Saying as much as what he wanted to say, Okama Kaoru started running in the direction of the beach.
Around the time when 1 or 2 hours had passed since the start of the search. Quite a distance away from the anchored point of the heavy cruiser branch school, Kyousuke and the others were slowly going northward along the coast. Only, it wasn’t just the beach continued on forever, sometimes there were areas difficult to traverse such as rocky places, etc., so they were surprisingly delayed. However, there wasn’t any appearance of any kind of monsters at all.
Going too far north and they would bump into the country of the so-called fire people who followed Volcanic faith or Dragon King faith. They who had a severe and exclusive nature, seemed to have been prevented from invading to the Empire in the form of being checked by Selena’s homeland, the Knight Kingdom and the Dragon Knight Kingdom situated northeast of it.
“If it’s the Dragon King faith, won’t we manage something if we bring Ryuzaki along?”
While walking along the beach, Kyousuke was making such idle chitchat.
“How about it? I had also read the memo, but,”
Sakuma smile in a little troubled manner.
“Certainly there are many who believe the Dragon King faith of the fire people is connected to dragonewts, so we may be welcomed. But it seems that the dragonewts living in the volcanic belt around there was said to be direct descendants of the Dragon King and had amazingly high pride.”
“Saa-chan is well-informed.”
Still had his reins held by Kyousuke, Hakuba said in admiration.
“Between the Flying Dragon mountain range and Volcanic mountain range was the highest mountain called «Crown of the Supreme Dragon». They say that at its peak are dragonewts who are called the continent strongest, and those guys continued to fist fight days and nights.”
“So fantasy.”
“Ne~. It’s thrilling, isn’t it?”
They were called the continent strongest, so as expected, they should be strong enough so that the present Ryuzaki would powerless against them.
“So what you means is that. Class rep will soon feel the limit of his strength and go there for training or something…. There may be that kind of patterns!”
Saruwatari who was vigilant of the surroundings at the end of the line, heatedly shouted.
“Apprenticing to a dragonewt who was called the continent strongest…. That may happen! Get fire up! It’s youth!”
“Well, the direction we’re heading for after this is the exact opposite from that Crown of the Supreme Dragon though.”
Kyousuke muttered while recalling the map in his head. Saruwatari blatantly made a dispirited face.
Well, anyway, even if we pass through the country of fire people, we can’t proceed any further. Once passing through the country of fire people, there were the Dragon Knight Kingdom and Southern Kingdom in the coastlands, these two were countries where the influence of the Empire were especially strong. Furthermore, they had to cross over the canal to advance further to the east from the Southern Kingdom. If they tried to bypass the canal, they would tread upon the Empire territory. Land route was impossible.
“But still, well, I miss human.”
Was it because Kyousuke said so without any particular reason. Hakuba stopped his legs and looked at Kyousuke riding on the saddle.
“Wh–what, Hakuba…”
“No…. I think it’s unusual for you to say such a thing…. Well, I certainly do miss human.”
In the life on the heavy cruiser branch school Ryuzaki directed, they were behaving quite human-like. But saying that they were advancing while purposely avoiding human living area in this way, was a little lonely. In fact, you could say that they had feelings such as wanting to experience various cultures of various countries in this world.
“There’s no helping it. We are humans, yet we are monsters.”
“Well–, that’s right. Saa-chan. Well, the Knight Country was good as expected…. Selena-san is cute…”
Hakuba ecstatically let his eyes swim in the air. ∗Pechi pechi∗, Kyousuke was patting his forehead but he didn’t really return.
“Perhaps, we may meet humans surprisingly quick debu.”
Okumura who was walking in the lead, broke his silence so far and said that.
“What do you mean? Okumura.”
“I see an anchored sailing ship in a place some distance ahead debu.”
Saying so, Okumura peered into the telescope. It was the telescope he previously found when exploring the heavy cruiser that was crumbling away in the wasteland. The lens had cracks in it, but Okumura was pleased and frequently used it.
Hearing that, Hakuba and Saruwatari hopped up and down.
“Is it true, Okumura!?”
“It’s cultural exchange again! I’m looking forward to it!”
On the other hand, Sakuma was making a grim expression. Kyousuke as well, he couldn’t make any expression but he was similarly pondering.
According to the map, this area was slightly out of the human living are. Possibly, it was a ship that met a disaster in the middle of a voyage and was washed ashore to this neighborhood. Since the fire people didn’t have navigation technology, they would be humans of the Empire, or else humans of the Maritime United Nations.
As if to support this speculation, Okumura said:
“The mast is broken debu. Other than that … well, the ship is considerably damaged. What do we do debu?”
The question at the end was intended for Sakuma the group leader.
“You better hurry up debu. There’s this ‘being attacked by monster’-ish atmosphere debu.”
Taken aback by those words, Sakuma raised her face.
Humans are being attack by monsters. Then we have to help them. What instantly floated in Sakuma’s mind was probably this simple. Not that Kyousuke could say this and that about people, but he didn’t particularly think it was excessive sense of justice. At least this side had way higher combat ability than human.
The reason for her hesitation was that they couldn’t grasp those humans’ origin at all. If those guys were humans of the Empire, it might get rather complicated. Could they make this decision on the spot in that case? Sakuma was wavering because of such a reason.
“Sakuma.”
Kyousuke called out.
“I want to go help. However, the group leader is Sakuma, so you decide, Sakuma.”
“Utsurogi-kun…”
Sakuma raised her face and looked at Kyousuke, then Hakuba, Saruwatari, and finally moved her gaze toward Okumura.
“If you need a just cause, then you can just talk about things such as demanding gratitude and have them help with the voyage.”
“Yeah…. You’re right.”
Even assuming the other party was humans of the Empire, if they were actually shipwrecked, then they would be in an isolated and helpless situation. There was no need to think so hard. Of course, Sakuma wasn’t suited to negotiation, so when it actually came to demanding gratitude, she would have to bring along Ryuzaki or someone else later though.
Anyway, said Sakuma.
“We’re going to help the crews of the sailing ship after this.”
Ooohh, Kyousuke and the others raised their voice.
Next Episode: Okama and the Maritime Caravan
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