by Fuse
I’d told them to try their best not to be aggressive against human beings, and I guess that put them at a big disadvantage. It took time for Benimaru, Geld, and the rest to tackle the threat in earnest. “We should have made them give up their weapons before entering town,” Benimaru commented—but there’s no way these guys would do something like that of their own volition and without an order from me.
I figured they would contact me via Thought Communication about anything like that, and I paid dearly for that error. In the end, the cause all goes back to me.
One of the Farmus knights left a message before leaving. It went like this:
“This town is contaminated by the presence of monsters! As protectors of the law of humanity and as faithful followers of the One God Luminus, we refuse to acknowledge the existence of a monster nation! We have therefore signed an official pact with the Western Holy Church to consider how to deal with this country! We will return one week from today, commanded by our leader himself, the wise and noble King Edmaris. If you surrender and agree to fall under our rule, then by the name of our god, we will guarantee your continued existence. Give up your pointless resistance and surrender at once. If you do not, then in the name of Luminus, we will eradicate all of you from the face of the Earth!”
It was clear they didn’t care at all about what we would do. Soei had already reported that the country was preparing for a military operation. All that stuff about “investigating” our nation was a big lie. Maybe they were doing that, but they had already decided that wiping us off the planet was the only option.
“What a charade.”
“It certainly is.” Rigurd nodded.
I recalled what Hinata had said: “Your town, you know… It’s a bother to us. So we’ve decided to crush it.” Farmus and the Western Holy Church must have been conspiring against us from the start. Instead of one taking advantage of the other, I imagined they teamed up because they shared a common interest.
So I told everyone about my battle with Hinata and the words we exchanged.
“…The head of the paladins?”
“Wow, boss. Nice job surviving that.”
Benimaru and Rigurd seemed unfamiliar with the woman, but Kaijin and the dwarven brothers were fully aware of her, and my story gave them a shock. Considering the dealings they’ve sustained with monsters, the Dwarven Kingdom and the Western Holy Church weren’t really on good terms—not bad enough that they were off to war tomorrow but more like each pretending that the other didn’t exist. They did keep some tabs on each other, though, as any nations would.
“Really,” Kaijin said, “even with the full might of the Dwargon military, it’d be a bad idea to make the Western Holy Church your enemy. But the Dwarven Kingdom is built kind of like a natural fortress, and they carefully check everyone who goes in and out of it. It’s that kind of protection that makes it hard for the Church to declare them an ‘enemy of god’ or whatnot. They both have a lot of history, though, and they’ve had hostilities in the past.”
I figured the Western Holy Church had it in for us because it saw monsters as these horrid things that could never be abided. But what about Farmus?
“Sir Rimuru,” a tentative voice said, “about that…”
This was Gard Mjöllmile, the merchant I met when he helped with our first large-scale potion sale; he had listened in silence up to now, seated alongside a few other merchants and adventurers. I had called in several people from the kingdom of Blumund so I could get a second opinion on all this; I just wanted to learn the truth, so I decided having them listen in wasn’t a big deal. It seemed to pay off, as nobody in the hall suspected us of being anything besides the victims here.
The rest of our visitors currently in town were being cared for in the guesthouse. The fact that none of them was hurt was the only silver lining, really. Rigurd suggested it, figuring that the ornateness of the place would calm their frayed nerves. I love how much I can count on him. It’s a far cry from his goblin days, definitely.
“Ah, Mjöllmile. Go ahead.”
I tried to address him as informally as possible. All of our other leaders—Benimaru, Rigurd, Geld—were still seething with anger, so the atmosphere in the hall was rather taut. I was pretty emotionally spent myself, making it hard to be my usual open-minded self. I knew it was a bad thing, but I couldn’t shake out of that cycle. It was no doubt rubbing off on Mjöllmile, making him oddly silent.
“I know this is heartbreaking for all of you, but with the situation being what it is, I felt the need to speak up.”
I appreciated the thought.
“At this point, we have a brand-new trade route that runs through Tempest. It has already begun to change the way merchants distribute their goods. It is still not broadly known about outside of Blumund and its neighboring nations, but once word begins to spread, it will become known across the Western Nations in the blink of an eye. As a result…”
“As a result?”
“…Well, I imagine it wouldn’t be out of the question for someone to think about conquering this nation before word gets out.”
As Mjöllmile put it, any perceptive leader wouldn’t fail to understand the importance of this trade route. The income from tariffs alone would be a likely fortune. That, and Farmus—the gateway to the Western Nations, as it were—was prospering in no small part thanks to just that kind of income. If a new trade route opened here, Farmus stood to lose the most from it.
To them, no doubt, they didn’t want any of this to exist; they’d have no effective way to stop people from coming here instead of there. You’d figure the best way to tackle that was to shore up their own infrastructure and make travel easier, but that required a vast amount of money. Building roads from scratch took time as well. There was no ready response they could take.
I didn’t intend to be the kind of leader who pursued only what was best for Tempest, ignoring how other countries profited or lost from it. If we were seeking to coexist with the rest of the world, I figured, I wanted everyone to profit from us. But I was still such an amateur at this. There’s no way I could perfectly understand how this world was connected, and I must have stepped on the tails of one too many tigers here.
“Indeed,” stated a merchant whose name I didn’t know, “the king of Farmus is notorious for his greediness. Even if he didn’t take a military solution, I could see him looking at the profits being made here and reaching out for a slice.”
“That’s a good point,” I replied. “I’m not a genius at this, but even I think this approach is a little strange.”
“It is. Taking action like this, without going through the Council…”
“As an adventurer, I can’t say how Blumund’s gonna respond to this, but this move on Farmus’s part makes no sense to me. Pulling such an obvious trick and attacking women and children, even…”
“Yeah. We like this place, you know? And if they’re gonna attack in a week, I’m willing to help if you’re fighting back.”
“But the Church called you all enemies of their god…? That’s not exactly good news.”
Mjöllmile’s observation opened the floodgates for more feedback from the merchants and adventurers. I appreciated all the helpful advice. It really felt like they were looking out for us—in other words, unlike the Farmus knights who dismissed us as monsters, these people really saw us as their friends. The fact that some of them were even willing to take up arms for us surprised me quite a bit. I thanked them for the sentiment but turned them down. The reason was simple: I didn’t want to get them caught up in this.
“I appreciate how all of you feel,” Rigurd said, “but this is a problem that we need to wrap up by ourselves. What I want you to do instead is return to your native lands and spread the word about this as quickly as possible.”
“Oh? We could just send out a wagon.”
“Staying here might not be a good idea for all of you, though…”
“How do you mean?”
I explained
it to them. Maybe I was overthinking matters, but the worst-case scenario in my head seemed all too believable. The way I saw it, Farmus and the Western Holy Church no doubt wanted to declare to everyone in the Western Nations that Tempest was a den of evil. If and when they did, having our local residents advocating for us would be a hindrance to the propaganda effort.
If Blumund wasn’t siding with them, would Farmus consider residents like these just a hindrance? Because if they did spread the word, Farmus’s act would become notorious nationwide. The Council might even pursue the matter. How would Farmus prevent that? Well, they were the type of nation to make militaristic threats from the get-go instead of negotiating. To them, the hundred-ish Blumundian residents here meant nothing. They’d kill them, make sure they could never talk, and maybe even blame it on us. It’d help further the impression that we were a ferocious threat, and it’d provide the Holy Church just what it wanted. Two birds with one stone.
That’s why I wanted them all back in their native nations and pleading our case for us. They were the best character witnesses we could ask for.
“I see. So we’re lower than dogs in their eyes, eh…?”
“Killing us and pinning the blame on Tempest…”
“It does sound possible, yes.”
“Especially if it’s a human’s word against a monster’s, if you’ll pardon my rudeness.”
“But in that case,” Rigurd replied, “I’m not sure how we would transport everyone out of here. I would like to lend you guards, but in essence, we’re pinned to within our own borders for now.”
It was a valid question, and I already had an answer for it.
“That’s no problem. I’d like all of you to go back to your quarters and prepare to leave for now. I promise safe passage to the outskirts of Blumund.”
Then I began my own preparations. The Blumundians were confused, I’m sure, but they followed my request without further questions and filed back to the guesthouse.
So. Time to switch gears. Rigurd and Benimaru briefed me on the attack; our Blumundian guests explained their position and opinions. Now it was time to speak to the woman herself: Mjurran, who had sat silently and watched up to now.
“All right,” I began. “Can you explain in detail, please, about the events that led to your meddling with our nation?”
She explained in a calm voice. “I am one of the ‘five fingers,’ the closest servants of the demon lord Clayman. As his nickname ‘Marionette Master’ hints, he uses his subordinates like puppets, making them do exactly what he wants. I am one of those puppets. He assigned me to spy on this nation, and I used Yohm to gain entry into it.”
She went on in detail. It sounded like the cold, hard truth to me, no lying or excuses mixed in. Clayman, it seemed, was the kind of boss who used and abused the crap out of those under him. Mjurran was the so-called “ring finger” of the group. She used to enjoy a position of favor, providing essential information to Clayman on a variety of subjects, but now he saw her as used up and not particularly worthy of attention, although he claimed he would free her upon completing this mission.
Milim told me that Clayman loved scheming behind the scenes, attempting to outwit his opponents. It sounded about right. I was sure nothing Clayman did would ever bother Milim very much, but to the magic-born who served him, every day must have been a life-and-death tightrope walk.
Magic-born like Mjurran served Clayman for a number of reasons, but most of them were either threatened by or magically bound to him. Her own mission in life was to complete her research and peer into the deepest depths of magic, and she had taken Clayman’s offer for immortality and an eternally young body. In exchange, she had lost herself, living purely to follow Clayman’s orders.
“I know it was stupid of me,” she added with a regretful look on her face, “but my heart was taken from me with a secret skill known as Marionette Heart. I no longer have control over my own destiny, and carrying out his bidding is the only thing I can do.”
So she was just following orders. Apparently, she learned from Gruecith that Milim had declared war on the Beast Kingdom of Eurazania, and she surmised that Clayman sent her here to keep us from interfering. Now, though, she realized that a mission like that could be carried out simply by blocking magical communication; there wasn’t any need for this massive (and non-hidable) magic barrier.
He had said that doing this would guarantee her freedom, but she knew the chances of pulling the job off successfully were slim. She had to do it anyway, though, or else Clayman threatened to strike at Yohm and his team. So she decided to take him at his word, that this was his last command. She didn’t really have any intention of surviving, as she put it; her death would ensure that Yohm and friends wouldn’t have to face any consequences.
“Things are starting to grow interesting,” Clayman reportedly said to her in his last message. “There’s going to be an enormous war! Certain unexpected events have led to developments I did not anticipate, but who can say how it will turn out?”
Mjurran had thought—erroneously, as it happened—that he meant a war between the demon lords Milim and Carillon. Now it looked like he was talking about this conflict, the one between Tempest and Farmus. Which sounded right to me. Clayman’s part in this was to work alongside Farmus’s moves and block any outside contact from Tempest. It certainly would be difficult to avoid war that way—and Mjurran’s great magic pulled one hell of a job on us. This wasn’t just plain old jamming magic. It was position-based, and since it was meant to block all contact, it couldn’t be easily undone.
Killing Mjurran at this point wouldn’t release the magic. It took time to disappear—nearly a week. Even if we wanted help from other countries, magical communication didn’t work. It would take time to make contact with Blumund or the Dwarven Kingdom without magic. There was just too little time to address Farmus, which already had their boots on the ground.
We were behind the eight ball here, for sure. But ah well. I can get out from under the barrier, and there’s a communication crystal waiting for me in the cave. That’s where Clayman’s plan begins to fall apart.
All the same, I didn’t want to get Dwargon or Blumund involved in this. I just wanted people there to be on our side, so to speak. Really, if it wasn’t for the Western Holy Church’s involvement, I would’ve had both countries conduct some large-scale battle exercises or something to keep Farmus in check. With the Church backing them up now, I couldn’t get those nations involved for no reason.
In a war, each side has certain advantages and disadvantages, but each battle is also a test to see how long each side can hold out. If Farmus didn’t fall back under threat and continued with their military activity, it’d involve Dwargon, Blumund, and the Western Holy Church, turning the whole thing irreversibly into a major war. If the Church declared our allies and us to be their enemies and spread the word across the entire world, I couldn’t deny that it’d be a world war for all of us. That’s exactly what Clayman would want; he’d naturally use the chaos to carry out some nefarious secret plan of his.
Even if it was Milim against Carillon, I had no way of stopping it. If only my own nation wasn’t in so much trouble… Although, that’s thanks to Clayman, too. Throwing me into confusion, mixing things up… I suppose I’ll just have to trust in Milim and put my own priorities first.
It all made me realize, for the first time, that between what Milim and Mjurran told me, this demon lord Clayman was one dangerous enemy. It was a hunch, but it seemed to be a correct one. Mjurran told me that Gelmud was one of Clayman’s other agents, too—unlike what Milim said, she claimed that he was being fully controlled by the demon lord. Any of the other demon lords who worked with Clayman on that endeavor were being tricked. He had a knack for moving his pawns to the right place at the right time and never leaving any evidence behind. I couldn’t say how strong he actually was, but he was definitely a master at maneuvering under cover.
Mjurran also suspected that Clayman was be
hind the battle between Milim and Carillon…but I didn’t have any evidence of that. Someone as, um, straightforward-thinking as Milim could be easily goaded into something like that, it’s true…but between his misleading words, the careful way he never revealed his true intentions, and the slyness it took to break promises without a second thought, all signs showed that Clayman was a demon lord who could never be trusted.
And if you go even further down this rabbit hole—the Great Sage suggested that Clayman might have planned to leave that communication crystal in the cave the whole time. You know, just to make me think I outfoxed him and call for reinforcements from my allies. It wasn’t an unthinkable scenario, so I filed it away in my mind.
With Mjurran’s story all told, I now knew how we all wound up where we were. Her heart wasn’t given back, of course; she was seen entirely as a throwaway piece—a mere pawn.
Whether I would forgive her or not was another question.
“Look,” Yohm said, “I know you’re angry and everything, but I really hope you can let Mjurran off the hook for this!”
“I have the same request,” Gruecith added, eyes pleading with me. “There’s just no way she could defy Clayman, that’s all!”
Turning them down would make me look a bit like a villain, wouldn’t it? Now what do I do?
“I’ll think about your fate once all this is over. For now, I just want you to stay in your room. Don’t think about escaping.”
“All right—”
“Rimuru…”
“Sorry, Yohm. My mind’s all mixed up right now, too. If you’re worried, you can always stay with your men in their rooms.”
So I saved the question for later and ordered Yohm and his band to remain in their own quarters, asking Rigurd to appoint guards to watch them. I doubted they were going to betray me at this point, but you could never be too careful. I was doing this in part because, if they did try something funny, that would seal Mjurran’s fate for good. Yohm, realizing this, agreed to the order and returned to his quarters.