Episode 77 — Utilitarian Two
～ Part 1 ～
Read at
“So the negotiation with Utsurogi party is tomorrow.”
The leader of the adventurer party, Rezbon Balruk said before the 3 other members.
By 3, it meant Filhana Grandburner, Rein and Wombat. Rein, who had suffered a serious wound in the battle with the lesser demon, had recovered somewhat, she would be able to present at tomorrow negotiation.
Their sub-leader, Wogan had been captured by Utsurogi party, it had been a few days since they heard that. It was the result of Wombat arbitrary action, but Rezbon didn’t have enough energy to flare up at him. Furthermore, the following day, Utsurogi and the slime Rin visited them on the unicorn’s back, offering a talk of negotiation — something they had no right to reject.
When thinking about which side was at fault, Rezbon and the others were at a considerable disadvantage. Although it was Wombat’s arbitrary decision, they had still been the one who broke the promise. Maybe they should think they had it good that Wogan hadn’t been killed. They had no qualifications to curse that a negotiation by utilizing Wogan’s life was despicable.
“Their demand is probably ferry to the Old Continent.”
Gazing at the flame of the campfire, Filhana muttered.
“Well, there’s no doubt about that.”
Rezbon also nodded. Those guys wanted to return to the Old Continent in order to join up with their comrades. They demanded ferry for that, but Rezbon refused, saying he wanted some time to think. Only, the other party had now obtain a negotiation card for that.
That much could be assumed, there was few demerits for them so it was still fine.
“The problem is the case they demand more than that?”
It was the words of Rein who had just taken off her bandages. Rezbon nodded.
He didn’t really want to think this way, but the fault lay with them, and the opponent could use Wogan’s life as a shield and could make somewhat unreasonable demands. He had appraised Utsurogi’s disposition so he thought that guy wouldn’t do something so heinous, but optimism was taboo.
“It’ll be a little troublesome if they told us to assist them in battle when our fighting strength is all exhausted like this. But well, I feel we can’t help but agree to that if it comes to it though…”
“For now, I have gathered information concerning monsters who are likely to be Utsurogi-san’s comrades on the telepath-net.”
Filhana took out a folder composing of clippings of gossip news articles.
The other day, she received these news with facsimile, looking back, one could see several articles that seemed to be Utsurogi’s comrades. This information was one of the effective cards for them.
“Umm…. This? Monster Colosseum of Zelga Gladiatorial Principality.”
That article detailed a puny team that had registered in the Monster Colosseum, continuously slew powerful veterans and advanced till the final. There was no uniformity among the monsters — starting with ogre and dullahan — but the cooperation that knew no defeat made one feel the height of their intelligence.
At one point before they advanced till the final, the dullahan and the hanuman didn’t participate in battle with poor physical condition as their reason, but once returned, they distinguished themselves with strength beyond their previous self, so some people surmised that the monsters was actually having a 1-on-1 secret training.
Rein also peeked at the article in Rezbon’s hands from the side.
“Hou. Gladiatorial Principality, Isn’t ‘Nameless’ visiting that place right now?”
“Ah, that guy is irrelevant to us now.” (Filhana)
Nameless was one of the strongest platinum rank who received the adventurer guild’s acknowledgement — one of the ‘Divine Five Stars’, a swordsman known by the name of ‘Nameless the Echo Wolf’.
“There are rumors that one of the Imperial Dial Knights has also infiltrated, the Gladiatorial Principality is a really hot location right now.”
“That’s about the 2nd seat, ‘Dark Beast Hero’. It’s false (rumor?) though.” (Filhana)
Rezbon turned the pages. There were still other interesting articles.
The next article was about monsters opening a hot-spring inn in a remote land of Werneus Kingdom.
This one was also a senseless article, but apparently, it wasn’t just demagogic either. Originally, it was a neighborhood near a wetland that was suffering headache due to atrocious monsters, but it seemed a cooperation with an adventurer who also opened a hot-spring inn in the area were helping them regaining the security.
This adventurer was also rumored to be one of the Divine Five Stars, ‘Roaring Lion’ It was a famous story that Roaring Lion was managing an inn in Werneus, but this was a little hard to believe so suddenly.
“Other curious stories are the steel merchant ship that entered Arkarg and the coup d’état occurred in the southern kingdom.”
“There’s not much information regarding those two, you know.”
Certainly, even if he flipped the pages, there wasn’t any noticeable information. Since these two were regions under strong influence of the empire, the information regulation of the telepath-net might be strict.
Her Highness the Princess of Granderio Knight Kingdom departed incognito to the east, the Dragon King fragment of which whereabouts had long remained unknown, was discovered and transferred to the imperial capital, etc,. There were truck full of noteworthy information, but it wasn’t something that seemed usable in the negotiation with Utsurogi.
While the 3 people had been talking, a certain person had thoroughly remained silent: it was Wombat.
He was impatient for success, as a result, his comrade was dropped into a dilemma. His uneasiness wouldn’t be ordinary, precisely because Rezbon understood that Rezbon didn’t say anything uncouth. Only, Rezbon probably would have to sincerely apologize to Utsurogi and the others together with him.
In addition, if they were to wish for Wombat to be handed over or to be lynched, he would have to firmly obstruct that. Because mistake did he make, he was still a party member.
“Rezbon. What should I do?”
“You don’t need to appear at the negotiation. I’ll have you apologize if necessary, but perhaps, there won’t be a need for it since we’ll be negotiating only. We’ll be on the same ship on the way back so you’ll have to meet them sooner or later though.”
If one did something bad, it would be natural as a human to apologize, but this the place to say that.
“……”
In the end, Wombat had only said that one sentence. His gaze alone restlessly moved about.
He was young, youngest in the party. His origin was the slum quarter, his hurry for success was understandable. But, breaking a promise was a taboo for adventurers. The thing Rezbon most anxious about was Wombat doing something unnecessary in order to recover from this failure, Rezbon hope that wouldn’t be happing though.
“Wombat, don’t fret too much.”
“No…. Ah, I understand.”
With his heart appearing to be somewhere far away, Wombat answered.
The other classmates returned to the base where Kyousuke was. Rin’s food gathering squad brought back a lot as usual, Karasuma and Hakuba’s patrol squad reported no abnormality.
The sun was already setting. It was time to prepare for dinner. The person in charge of cooking today was Yukinoshita, she was using a knife to chop up the vegetables Azuki had carefully washed. Rin and Kabeno also helped out, but Inugami lay on the field, yawning as usual. She sometime meaningfully looked up at the western sky, but that’s all she did.
Right at the time, Kyousuke received the simple report of the patrol from Hakuba.
“Utsurogi, can I have a minute?”
Since Hakuba suddenly said so, Kyousuke lightly bursted out laughing.
“What’s so funny!”
“No, I just thought, you spoke like Ryuzaki…”
When the class rep Ryuzaki Kunihiro called Kyousuke, this first words were mostly the same as Hakuba’s words just now. When they arrived at Albadanba, he had stopped doing so, but before then, he often called Kyousuke for consultation when something happened. It wasn’t really a bother for Kyousuke who was happy to be relied on though.
Hakuba’s long face made an amazed expression. His eyes were on both side of his head so no wrinkle did make its way to his brows.
“Let me say this first, you’re much more Ryuzaki-like than me.”
“Really. Well, I’m more or less aware of it, but still,”
“You do? Well, no matter. And then, it’s about Karasuma.”
Being told so, Kyousuke’s gaze glanced behind him. In that direction was the little jail holding the magician prisoner, Wogan.
“About Karasuma?”
Wogan had pointed out the matter of Karasuma to him just now. Kyousuke ruminated what he said in his head.
“Right, that guy Karasuma seem a little mentally unstable. I was wondering if he’s okay.”
“I see.”
Wogan had said something similar. The type impatient with utility.
How should I interpret those words? Kyousuke didn’t understand well. He didn’t quite get the emotions of human who more only for utility. Only, he guessed that leaving it alone will cause a problem like Kogane.
He had to care for it. With pure good will, Kyousuke thought to get on the consultation about Karasuma. Because he wanted to say no thanks to the same thing as Kogane happing again.
Good will not necessarily bring in good will, but Kyousuke’s learning in that area was still insufficient.
“Understood. What did Karasuma say?”
“Nnn–, have you ever thought «Why was the one there not me?» or something a long those line.”
“The one there…?”
Kyousuke tilted his head.
Does that mean he’s dissatisfied with his position? Only this has to be asked or I wouldn’t know. I probably should consult with Ozashiki who was close with Karasuma first. And with Rin too.
He had keenly realized this in the case with Yukinoshita, perhaps, he was very unskillful at persuading others.
Suddenly, he met eyes with Yukinoshita who was in the middle of cooking. No, Kyousuke had no eyes, but their gaze met.
Expressionlessly, firmly grasping her fist, Yukinoshita raised a thumb up. But she immediately brought her thumb before her neck and showed a hot-blooded smile … together with a neck-slitting gesture. As usual, it seemed he was strangely being hated by her.
Even after joining up, Yukinoshita Suzuka had been keeping up a strange character that one couldn’t tell whether she was pessimistic or optimistic. «I’m actually not hot-blooded.» She confessed and made Kabeno and Karasuma really surprised, but her superficial heated speech and conduct remained the same.
That time with Yukinoshita as well, the act of persuading her itself ended in failure. Concerning the results, he urged Yukinoshita’s awakening and led to her growth, but if you pay attention to Kyousuke’s action only, you had to admit that was a crushing failure.
So would Kyousuke’s words get through Karasuma Yoshitsune?
No, let’s leave thinking about difficult stuffs for later. I can only do what I can.
And now was the time he had to properly discuss it with him. He didn’t really want to leave alone a problem that arose at this timing. After that, Kyousuke had tried consulting with Ozashiki and Rin as well, But he couldn’t obtain a clear answer as to what that something Karasuma was carrying was.
Only, the faceless Rin — although having no expression for sure — had muttered this in a serious tone:
«Kyousuke-kun, I feel it’s not something you should hurry too much.»
Rin’s intuition was sharp. If she said it, it might be so.
«In first year, Karasuma-kun has joined the track-and-field club for a short time»
Did he cause some problem? He asked, and Rin denied it.
«Nothing happened. I mean, Karasuma can run quite fast as well, so many people had expectation for him.»
But, he immediately transferred to the gymnastic club, said Rin.
It seemed his motor nerves were good by nature, to the point that it was quite unbelievable that he belonged to the newspaper club in middle school. May be he had the ability to handle anything flawlessly. It’s the so-called Jack of all trades and master of none.
But, Karasuma changed club.
Why? As Kyousuke was thinking, Rin said:
«Kyousuke-kun, did you know? I am the fastest sprinter in the prefecture.”
Of course, I know. What’s the matter with that?
«Because when we’re human, I was faster than Karasuma.»
A faint attachment to «speed» filled Rin’s words. Kyousuke could perceive that emotion of her, but he never spoke of it. Because he thought Rin didn’t want him to.
But, what does that fact have anything to do with this? To Kyousuke who was tilting his head, Rin’s voice was closed to strained laughter.
«Karasuma-kun, you know, may be a person who can’t settle down unless he’s number one in the place.»
To be continued…
Comments
Post a Comment