Outbreak Company: Volume 5

by Ichiro Sakaki

  But then again...

  For a king, this seems...

  ...surprisingly sparsely attended.

  I know it might sound strange to refer to a crowd that I said might top a thousand people as small, but we were talking about the king, here. Admittedly, I didn’t know what the population density of Bahairam was, let alone this specific part of the country, but wouldn’t you expect tens of thousands to turn out to get a glimpse of the royal visage? Heck, we get tens of thousands just for Comiket. Compared to that, this was a little underwhelming. Although to be fair, people come from all over the country for Comiket.

  “What...?”

  My thoughts were interrupted by a piece of paper Amatena suddenly thrust out in front of me.

  Her face showed no expression; she just stood there with the paper outstretched, not saying anything. The sheet was folded over—was she telling me to open it and take a look?

  I took the paper hesitantly and unfolded it.

  “Huh?”

  On it, I saw something very unexpected: Petralka.

  It was the Empress of the Holy Eldant Empire, looking extra moe in her adorable magical-girl outfit, striking a pose and smiling straight at the viewer.

  It was her, or rather, a picture of her. What was this, some kind of publicity photo?

  No, when I looked closer, I realized that although it was photo-quality, this was an illustration.

  I suspected it was a colored woodblock print. True, the school had a color copier and color printer, but the students couldn’t use them without permission. It was similar with photos. I couldn’t imagine someone had been making and selling something like that without me hearing about it. More likely, someone in the capital had taken it upon themselves to produce this image.

  Not long before, we’d made a movie featuring Petralka as a magical girl. It had actually started as a cover-up for a flub on the part of the Japanese government, but we got so into it that we ended up completing the film (however crude it was) and then showing it both at Eldant Castle and at several sites around the city.

  And boy, did it take off with the populace.

  We never expected Her Majesty’s popularity to shoot up the way it did. Petralka herself was profoundly embarrassed by the film, but it resulted in her subjects adoring her as a person as well as an empress.

  “We demand that you do something just like this,” Amatena said.

  “Like this?” I asked, frowning.

  Was Bahairam ordering me to produce a movie? Or just portrait pictures like this one? It didn’t really matter, because I didn’t have the equipment to make a movie, and the technology for producing prints like this had been around since long before I had.

  Either way, kidnapping me wasn’t looking very useful.

  “Here,” Amatena said, thrusting another piece of paper at me. This one depicted a bearded man in fancy clothes.

  It took me a second, but the beard clued me in: it was the King of Bahairam. They had prettied him up so much in this picture that I almost didn’t recognize him, but I thought this was intended to be a portrait of the nation’s ruler. This, too, looked like a colored woodblock print; like the one of Petralka, it was extremely realistic, but if you looked closely, you could see it wasn’t a photograph.

  I stared silently at one picture, then the other.

  So Amatena was saying...

  “You want me to turn this guy into a magical girl?”

  An image passed through my mind of the “father-ruler” in a frilly miniskirt and knee-high socks, holding a stick and winking as he exclaimed, “That was a big meowstake!☆” Not forgetting the flirty pose, of course.

  ..................

  ..................

  Urgh.

  “No.” Amatena shook her head as I battled a wave of nausea.

  “Thank goodness. Obviously, I guess. Why would you need something like that?”

  Granted, there was probably a deeper question than one of necessity.

  But wait... Could it work as a gag?!

  Around and around went my irreverent thoughts.

  “Kanou Shinichi,” Amatena said, staring me full in the face, “you did something that caused Petralka an Eldant III’s popularity in the Eldant Empire to increase dramatically.”

  “Huh? Er, yeah, I guess.”

  I guess that was me, wasn’t it? Yeah, okay, it was. I think it’s a good thing for an administrator to be popular with the people.

  “You will do the same thing for our country.”

  “I’m sorry...?”

  “You will use your abilities to make the children many times more loyal to the father-ruler. They will work harder for him, fight harder for him, and be more overjoyed to do so.”

  “............Huh?”

  This request was sort of kitty-corner from what I’d been imagining, and all I could respond with was a vacant grunt. It was drowned out by the shouting and cheering, though, and I wasn’t sure Amatena even heard me.

  Chapter Two: The Country Called Bahairam

  I was all too aware that my hands were trembling.

  “Please, don’t move...”

  The object I was holding was unquestionably a weapon.

  Of course, this wasn’t the first time I had held a weapon. In order to gain citizenship, I had spent some time in the imperial army of the Holy Eldant Empire, where I had learned how to use the sword and the spear, in addition to offensive magic.

  But the lump of metal in my hands at that moment was something else entirely.

  This was a weapon from the country of Ja-pan. I believed I had heard Minori-sama refer to it as a “nine milli-meter hand-gun.”

  “Myu... Myusel?” Elvia-san watched me dimly. Her usual cheerful smile was gone. Instead, I saw her face harden as the situation dawned on her. Her tail stood straight up against her back, motionless, perhaps from alarm.

  She understood that a careless move could get her killed.

  Living under the same roof had given us ample opportunity to see Minori-sama’s various tools in action. I was sure the nature of this weapon wasn’t lost on Elvia-san.

  I had purposely taken Minori-sama’s nine milli-meter hand-gun because without it, I had no leverage against a werewolf. Elvia-san was stronger and faster than me; I would never have been able to defeat her with a bladed weapon. I could have tried magic, but chanting and targeting would have given away what I was doing, and my spell would have been simple enough to evade. Moreover, Elvia-san would have been just as aware of this as I was, and she wouldn’t have been intimidated by my threats.

  So as bad as I felt about it, I had snuck into Minori-sama’s room and borrowed her nine milli-meter hand-gun. In addition to the one she normally carried on her person, she had a spare that I knew she kept in her room.

  “Q-Quit it already,” Elvia-san said, frowning. “Th-That’s Minori-sama’s, innit? Wont’cha get in trouble for taking it?”

  Trouble. Yes, that seemed likely. There was every chance this wouldn’t end with a simple scolding.

  At that moment, however, it was my only choice... My only hope.

  “I’m begging you, Elvia-san.” My voice shook as violently as my hands.

  Yes, I had been in the military, but I had no experience of actual combat. I had never personally confronted anyone with weapon in hand.

  On top of that, a nine milli-meter hand-gun was different from a sword. According to what I had heard, there was no need to swing this weapon. In fact, all you had to do was move your finger a little bit, and it would push your opponent with a force vastly quicker and more powerful than a blade. If it impacted any vital point—the head or the throat, or even the heart—its killing power was much greater than a sword. With this weapon, it wasn’t possible to hold back or to temper one’s attack.

  “This is... This is the only way...”

  “Myusel!”

  I heard someone call my name from the door of the room. I didn’t have to look back to know it was Minori-sama. No—I he
ard two sets of footsteps, so it was likely that Matoba-sama was with her. Brooke-san or Cerise-san would have sounded different.

  I could hear both Minori-sama and Matoba-sama drawing in their breath. I have good hearing—my long elven ears aren’t just for show.

  “Stop this right now! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Minori-sama! Matoba-sama! Stay back!” In an attempt to force them to keep their distance, I stretched out my arm so that the nine milli-meter hand-gun was just inches from Elvia-san’s nose.

  “Eeeep!”

  “If you come any closer, I’ll... I’ll...”

  “St-Stoppit!” Elvia-san yelped.

  The footsteps ceased. Minori-sama and Matoba-sama must have frozen in place.

  “Elvia-san, I’m begging you,” I said again. “Take me to Bahairam!”

  I could practically feel the shock from Minori-sama.

  “T-To Bahairam?” Elvia-san asked, wide-eyed.

  Was my request really that surprising? Didn’t everyone realize that this was the only way left to rescue Shinichi-sama? Neither Ja-pan nor the Eldant Empire was going to do anything for him. Minori-sama and Her Majesty both found their hands tied in respect of their positions. If anyone was going to volunteer to rescue Shinichi-sama, it would have to be me.

  It had to be Shinichi-sama.

  It couldn’t be some replacement for him.

  Otaku culture had spread as successfully as it had because of Shinichi-sama. He was the one who had built the school, taught us soccer, and helped us make a moo-vee.

  Shinichi-sama was the reason all of us were able to live and work together: Her Majesty; Elvia-san, the former spy from Bahairam; Minori-sama; Brooke-san and Cerise-san; all the people from the Jay Ess Dee Eff; everyone at the school; and even me.

  “You must know how to get into the country, Elvia-san.”

  After all, that was where she had come from, wasn’t it? As a spy? That meant she had to have crossed the border between the Kingdom of Bahairam and the Eldant Empire without being caught by the border patrols. She must know about a secret path, a hidden route, something. And of course, she would have to be acquainted with the geography of Bahairam.

  The past several days, Elvia-san had looked noticeably different from before. She kept sighing during meal times and was visibly upset. When she didn’t have anything else to do, she shut herself up in her room and wouldn’t come out.

  I assumed this was because it was Bahairam that had kidnapped Shinichi-sama. Elvia-san was a spy from that nation, but she was also Shinichi-sama’s artist-in-residence. Shinichi-sama had saved her life. Now the country of her birth had kidnapped the person she owed her life to. It had to be an uncomfortable position.

  But it was no guarantee that she would work with me.

  What if I asked and she refused?

  Helping me when she knew I was going to go rescue Shinichi-sama would be tantamount to betraying her own country. And although I was sure she felt a debt to Shinichi-sama, did it run deep enough to cause her to set aside her national loyalties? I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure.

  And that was why...

  “Er... I...”

  “You must know by now that they say it was Bahairam that captured Shinichi-sama.” I looked Elvia-san straight in the eye. “And there’s no one left to help him except me!” Anxiety made my voice crack.

  I sounded awful, and I was sure I didn’t look any better. It was about more than how my face looked with a mask of anxiety on it. I was standing there threatening a friend who lived in my own home with a weapon.

  But I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Ja-pan won’t help Shinichi-sama, and neither will the Holy Eldant Empire! If no one at all is going to rescue him, then this is the only way...!”

  “Myusel...”

  It wasn’t just fear on Elvia-san’s face. There was concern there, too. Part of me felt guilty. What was I doing?

  And yet...

  “Myusel.” Minori-sama’s voice was more sure. “Let me ask you something. Did you pull the slyde and put the first bullette into the chaymber?”

  “What...?” I hardly understood half the words she had said.

  She pressed further: “A nine-millimeter doesn’t have a hand-operated sayfety, so as long as there’s a round in the chaymber, it’ll fire with a pull of the trigger. But it doesn’t look to me like you’ve got the hanmer cocked. You have to pull the slyde and chamber the bullette, or you can pull the trigger all day and never shoot a thing. I really doubt you’ve used the decocker, right? So if you don’t have the hanmer down, there’s a pretty good chance you don’t have the slyde in place, either.”

  “I... What...?”

  What in the world was she talking about?

  “For that matter, Myusel, did you even put bullettes in it? I’m pretty sure I left the magazeen in the spare empty.”

  “Er... Yes?”

  I was completely flummoxed.

  Almost before I knew what was happening, Minori-sama had closed distance with me and plucked the weapon out of my hand.

  “Oh...!”

  “Eep!” Elvia-san flopped to the ground.

  Minori-sama flipped the nine milli-meter hand-gun around in her hand and said in exasperation, “I knew it. Look. It doesn’t even have a magazyne in it!”

  “Er... Um...”

  “Myusel.” Matoba-sama, who had been silent until that moment, spoke. “I suppose you overheard us talking the other day.”

  I didn’t react.

  “How careless of me. I forgot you could understand some Japanese.” He sighed. “How much did you hear?”

  “You said it was Ja-pan’s fault that Shinichi-sama was kidnapped. That somebody new was going to come to replace him...”

  “What?” Elvia-san said with surprise.

  Of course she was surprised. She knew that Bahairam had kidnapped Shinichi-sama, but even Her Majesty didn’t know that Ja-pan was behind it.

  “So you said Shinichi-sama was going to be abandoned... And that means the only choice left is for me to go.” This was the conclusion I had come to after three days of agonized thinking. “I’m... I’m the only one who can, aren’t I?!”

  I was surprised to find myself shouting, but Minori-sama remained calm to the end as she asked, “And you planned to make Elvia be your guide?”

  “...Yes.”

  At this point, I saw nothing to do but be honest.

  “I’m truly sorry,” I said, looking at Elvia-san, Minori-sama, and Matoba-sama in turn. “I won’t... I won’t trouble you any further.”

  “What...?” Minori-sama looked taken aback by this.

  “I’ll go alone.”

  “Huh? Hold on— Myusel!”

  “It’s been an honor serving all of you...”

  I bowed my head, then made to walk out of the room.

  Eldant and Bahairam shared a land border with each other. True, that border was ringed with treacherous mountains, but if I made sure to have plenty of food and equipment ready, I had faith that I could make it across them. I would need a weapon, too, in case soldiers from one nation or the other found me. In my head, I already had a list of everything I would need...

  “Myusel, I demand that you wait,” Minori-sama said, grasping my shoulder.

  “Please, don’t stop me.”

  “All I’m saying is wait!” Minori-sama sighed, then said, “Because I’m going, too.”

  “What...?” I turned to her, shocked.

  Minori-sama was wearing a thin smile. “I’m... part of the reason Shinichi-kun was captured.”

  “Minori-sama? But you—”

  “I was supposed to be his bodyguard.”

  “But... But that’s...”

  It was the job the nation of Ja-pan had charged her with. And now that nation wanted Shinichi-sama forgotten. Minori-sama had no more business protecting him.

  “Listen. I haven’t been given any orders yet relieving me of my duties as his bodyguard.” Minori-sama shrug
ged. “Right, Matoba-san?”

  “I suppose so. It makes a nice pretext, anyway.” The old man was smirking.

  And that meant...

  “Minori-sama...”

  “Yeah.” She gave me a firm nod. “Let’s go get him. Together.”

  Ahh...! I felt myself shake with happiness. Minori-sama was on Shinichi-sama’s side. She would go to Bahairam with me. That made me feel ten times, a hundred times braver.

  “But...” Still smiling, Minori-sama pulled out the hand-gun. Not the one she had taken from me, but the one she always kept at her hip. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she leveled it at Elvia-san, who was still sitting on the ground.

  “Guh?!” Elvia-san said, trembling.

  “You’re right. We’re going to need a guide.”

  Elvia-san made a choked sound, her tail standing on end.

  “I think you had the right idea, coming to Elvia. Given the rumor that Shinichi-kun was kidnapped by Bahairam, she was the first person I thought of, too.”

  “I—I swear I didn’t have anything to do with this!”

  “Sure, I know that.”

  Elvia-san tried to back up, but found the wall immediately behind her, cutting her off. Minori-sama crouched down in front of her. There was a click, and she stuck the hand-gun squarely in Elvia-san’s face.

  “Help us, Elvia. I’m begging you.”

  “B-Begging, nothing!”

  She didn’t look convinced. Maybe she was hung up on the fact that helping us would mean betraying her country.

  “Myusel and I don’t know anything about Bahairam’s geography. You came here as a spy—that has to mean there’s a way to sneak in and out, right? A way to cross the border without too much fuss?”

  “W-Well, that’s—”

  “Are you saying you don’t want to help us?”

  “I’m telling you, it’s—”

  “You don’t want to help Shinichi-kun?”

  “It’s... It’s...” Her eyes were swimming by this point.