Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 2

by Ichirou Sakaki

  “Grr. Why should I, of all people...”

  He was of noble heritage. He was a knight. And now he was supposed to accept life as a slave? It was a humiliation he could hardly bear. It made it difficult to forget the sense of fulfillment he’d felt during the fight with the demigod. It had been the one time recently when he’d felt like a knight again.

  On reflection, that was the first time he had ever fought to protect someone. The Civilizing Expedition inevitably found itself battling to subdue angry locals. The statue of the guardian saint had given them the power to overwhelm any opponent in a series of one-sided battles.

  The battle with the demigod had been the complete opposite. Arlen and his companions alone had lacked any chance of victory, and if they had flagged for a moment, they would have been killed before Yukinari could arrive. There had been no place to ask any quarter.

  And yet, even so, it had been truly—

  “Mister...”

  It took a moment for Arlen to realize the voice was addressing him.

  “Mister?”

  He looked up with a frown to find three little girls standing in front of him.

  “You country bumpkins really don’t know anything, do you!” he exclaimed. “I’m still too young to be ‘mister’ anything! You lot are unutterably—”

  “...Um, hmm...”

  The children looked at each other, frightened.

  “You may address me as Lord Lansdowne,” he said.

  “Um... Mister Lord Lansdowne...”

  “Drop the ‘mister’!” he shouted. The girls trembled, but for some reason, they made no move to run.

  “So,” he said more calmly, “what do you want?”

  “Um.” The girl in the middle of the group took a step forward, speaking for all of them. “Thanks.”

  “Thanks?”

  The word jogged his memory: Arlen finally realized that the girls standing in front of him were the ones he had saved when the demigod attacked, by pitching them into the storehouse.

  “Ah... Hm.” He nodded, feeling just a little confused. Now that he thought about it, out of all the places he had been as a missionary, no one had ever thanked him before. Or rather, they had—but it was only out of fear for the immense power of the True Church of Harris. A social nicety. But the heartfelt gratitude of these children was something new.

  “Well, you may thank me to your heart’s content.”

  “Uh huh! Thank you, Mister Lord Lansdowne!”

  “I told you—ahh, forget it,” he said with a sigh. He waved his right hand as if to shoo the girls away. But suddenly, his hand stopped. The girls had reached out their own small hands and taken his.

  “Thank you.”

  They were shaking his hand. Up and down. Arlen didn’t say anything for a moment, but only blinked at them.

  And then they ran off with a “See you!”, and he was left staring dumbfoundedly after them.

  Then he looked down at his hand.

  He didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Disgusting.”

  The judgment came very suddenly.

  “Hrm?” Arlen looked up to find two new people standing in front of him. “Blue Angel...!”

  It was Yukinari, and Dasa was with him.

  It was Dasa who had issued the verdict of “disgusting.” It was an instinctual terror of the Blue Angel that brought Arlen halfway to his feet, but even as he rose he was shouting angrily:

  “Who are you calling disgusting?! I—”

  “Shaking hands with... little girls, and then smirking... at your hand.”

  “...Huh?” Arlen pointed to himself in surprise; it was only when Dasa pointed it out that he realized he’d been smiling.

  “The Harris missionaries prefer kids, huh?” Yukinari said.

  “You watch your tongue!” Arlen growled. But he immediately blanched as he remembered who—or what—he was talking to. The Blue Angel was a homunculus, an artificial human created by the Church. It looked human, but it was a monster that had destroyed erdgods, demigods, and even the guardian statue, allegedly the Church’s most powerful weapon.

  If the angel felt like it, it could kill Arlen with a single touch—no exaggeration, literally just one finger. Make it angry, and your life might instantly be forfeit. That was what it meant to confront a god.

  But then...

  “You’ve got my gratitude, too,” Yukinari said. “Thanks.”

  “What...?”

  “Fiona told me how you protected her, and those kids, and pretty much the entire town. I mean, while I was away.”

  “Well... I was just...”

  It had always been one of the duties of the Missionary Order. It didn’t contradict his creed in any way. It wasn’t some sign that he was turning his back on the Church and cozying up to the Blue Angel. Absolutely not.

  “I’ve got an idea for you.”

  “What’s that?” Arlen frowned. Yukinari gestured in the direction of the town gate.

  “We’ll be opening trade with Rostruch soon. Their erdgod said she would send familiars to help protect the route from demigods and xenobeasts, but I doubt it’s really going to be enough. It would be a load off my mind if the trade delegation were made up of people who actually knew how to fight.”

  “What are you saying...?”

  “I’m saying we’ll give you guys back your weapons, if you agree to make regular trips between Friedland and Rostruch as an armed trading party.”

  Arlen could only stare dumbly at Yukinari. What was this monster trying to say? Agreeing to this would practically make him...

  “Plus, we’re planning on expanding the amount of farmland around here,” Yukinari went on. “And that means people are going to be at more risk of getting attacked by demigods or xenobeasts. When you guys aren’t conducting trade, it would be a big help if you could patrol the fields and help keep everyone safe. That was pretty much what you were planning to do after you killed the erdgod anyway, right?”

  “Ahem...”

  It was, strictly speaking, true.

  “Are... Are you asking me to become one of your believers?! Me, a knight of the glorious True Church of Harris?! And are you suggesting that I should follow you—the one who murdered his Holiness, the former Dominus Doctrinae?!”

  “No,” Yukinari said flatly. “You don’t have to worship me to do any of this.” He went on, “I hate religion, anyway. Even if I did somehow wind up literally playing god. I don’t want to worship, and I don’t want to be worshipped. You can believe in whatever you want, worship whoever you feel like. And if it happened to motivate you to help watch out for this town, that would be great.”

  Arlen had no answer.

  “Well, think about it.”

  With a wave, Yukinari and Dasa turned around and started walking away.

  Arlen found himself stretching out his hand, as if to say, Wait.

  But he didn’t speak.

  He glanced at his hand. He almost thought he could still feel the girls’ small fingers around it. Arlen let out a quiet sigh.

  ●

  Trade between Friedland and Rostruch commenced several days later. A variety of goods from each town had been sent to the other as a sort of test, a chance to evaluate what was available, and now both sides were preparing lists of what they would be willing to trade for.

  That was what Fiona was currently working on. Finding out what the townspeople wanted was truly a job for the deputy mayor. Yukinari couldn’t do this work using his “angel” powers, and if he tried to help, he would only have slowed her down.

  That first trade mission had been carried out by Arlen and three other knights. They brought the huge wagon that had originally carried the statue of the guardian saint, and each of them had been fully armed and armored for the round trip between Friedland and Rostruch. For now, at least, there hadn’t been any problems.

  And Yukinari...

  “So far it seems to be pretty much working, I guess.”

  In a c
orner of his “sanctuary,” he let out a breath.

  Dasa was there. Berta was there. So far as that went, everything was normal. But...

  “Why are you here?” Dasa demanded.

  “Am I not allowed to be here?” The puzzled response came from... Ulrike.

  “Fine by me,” Yukinari said, but then as his gaze drifted to Dasa he added, “Uh, I mean, I think...” The little sister of the alchemist to whom Yukinari was so indebted was glaring steadily at him from behind her glasses. She didn’t have to say anything to make her displeasure obvious. Nor the reason for it.

  “You are Yggdra’s familiar, though,” Yukinari said. “You sure it’s okay for you to be here?”

  “It is you who said I should stay, Yukinari.” She almost sounded a touch exasperated that this was coming up only now.

  “Me?”

  “You suggested a chain of familiars stretching from here to Rostruch.”

  “Well, I mean, I guess I did say that, yeah...”

  “And this is a good place. Easy to connect with the intervening familiars.” Ulrike touched the horns—no, the branches—growing from her head. They seemed to work like antennas. Or maybe...

  “Those’re basically cell phones, huh?”

  “Cell... phones...?”

  “Nothing. Forget I said anything.” Yukinari shook his head.

  “What’s more, this is a sign of my thoughtfulness,” Ulrike went on. “I’m allowing Ulrike’s personality to remain predominant, in accord with your preferences. You have some objection?”

  “My preferences? What are you—?” He could feel Dasa’s stare growing more and more intense. He let out a sigh.

  “Um, Lord Yukinari, do you really prefer such young children...?” Berta asked anxiously.

  “Nobody said anything like that! I sure didn’t. Yggdra is just leaving Ulrike front and center, because otherwise the two of us talk past each other sometimes. Right?” He looked to Dasa for confirmation.

  “Yuki...”

  But she continued to look at him with undisguised contempt.

  “Yes? What is it, Dasa?”

  “Womanizer.”

  “What? She’s not a woman, she’s a kid—hell, she’s a plant! There’s no way I’d ever...”

  Dasa said nothing.

  “Ahh, fine, I’m sorry,” Yukinari said with a hint of desperation. “For whatever it is. Call me a womanizer, I don’t care.”

  “Hm? Yukinari. Is this true? Have you developed romantic feelings for my familiar?” Ulrike said with a quizzical look.

  “No! Absolutely not!”

  “We prepare for the next generation largely in isolation, but I hear that among animals, this is not the case. They must mate with a member of the opposite sex. Truly a fascinating phenomenon. If you indeed have a romantic interest in Ulrike, I would be most curious to—”

  “Why would a plant be interested in animal biology?!” Yukinari cried.

  The erdgod Yggdra had a plant “core,” which had absorbed the collective knowledge of the people sacrificed to her, and was now allowing Ulrike’s personality to stay front and center—and somewhere along the line, the point of the conversation had gotten mangled.

  Yukinari felt it was a good thing he had managed to become friends with her—her being a pronoun he used for convenience when referring to the erdgod—but being the subject of sexual advances from a plant was not on the list of things he had ever expected would happen to him in his life.

  “Well, I guess anything can happen with erdgods...”

  Relations between totally different types of beings were not unusual in mythology. That was how it had been in Yukinari’s previous world, and it was probably the same here, where gods literally walked the earth.

  “Be that as it may. I am told the people of Friedland will build a shrine to me just nearby, and most likely, Ulrike will move there. Until then, your life here shall become somewhat crowded. I hope you will all get along.”

  “...Is that right?”

  “I knew you were a... womanizer, Yuki.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He couldn’t escape Dasa’s judgment. “I guess I’m one of those womanizing gods... Sheesh!”

  So, for the time being, this land had a god—something which, in this world, was apparently altogether unremarkable.

  Afterword

  Hello, hello. Your humble author, Sakaki, here.

  Presenting Bluesteel Blasphemer, Volume 2!

  Happily, a certain number of readers bought Volume 1, and I was able to go on to do this continuation. So the first people I want to thank are my returning readers from the first outing.

  Now then. About Volume 2.

  Initially, the concept of Bluesteel Blasphemer was “other-world cheat harem with guns.” This was really more at the instigation of my dear editor than it was my own idea. I’m a gun nut, and that was pretty much precisely the reason we started in the rather odd direction of including guns in the story; there was a certain sense—call it self-preservation, maybe—that had more or less prevented me from suggesting any “gun action” plots myself.

  Nonetheless, my editor, K-shi, was in favor of an “other-world cheat harem + gun action” story. Here, a problem arose.

  “Look, but if it’s the gun that makes this guy special—well, any character with the same weapon could be just as special as him. That’s not much of a cheat, is it? It wouldn’t be the main character who was strong, it would be the gun. Plus, guns break a lot, and then you need the parts to repair them. Having just one gun wouldn’t do you much good in this ‘other world.’”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t consider some other angle for the main character’s cheat?”

  “Hmm. You know what there’s not many of? Other-world Kamen R*ders.”

  “Oh, there aren’t?”

  “You don’t see it too often—a series were the main character is transported to another world and then ‘altered.’”

  “Being altered kind of defeats the point of being transported to another world in the first place.”

  “You may be right.”

  This went on for a while. But the point is, eventually we decided to just give the Kamen R*der thing a whirl, so Yukinari would be altered (or rather, his body would be re-created, so I guess that makes him more of a Cassh*rn?), and then fight against the people who made him that way.

  “So, what with the Kamen Rid*r connection, in Volume 2 I decided to have a motorcycle [even though it actually has four wheels].”

  “...That’s going to be rough on Akai-san [because motorcycles are notoriously difficult to design and draw].”

  “True... I suppose it will.”

  “...We’ll just have to ask him to grin and bear it.”

  “I guess we will.”

  And boy, did he ever bear it.

  Incidentally, there is an actual vehicle that has four wheels but is motorcycle-ish. It looks nothing like what Akai-san ended up drawing for us, though. It’s a concept vehicle called the Yamaha Tesseract.

  However!

  Concerning the additional heroine we gain in this volume.

  I’m not sure how to say this, but I didn’t exactly think super hard about the outline of this volume before I started writing. I just had these vague ideas that “the winner would become humanity’s greatest enemy” and “Yasuko Sawaguchi’s face will appear in the sky.” You know, the kinds of things an obsessive fan of tokusatsu shows would think.

  “Sakaki-san. The designs from Akai-san are in.”

  “Ooh. Let me see... A young girl, huh?”

  “Uh-huh, a young girl.”

  “And in a very Japanese style, huh?”

  “Uh-huh, practically a shrine maiden.”

  “Suppose that’s okay?”

  “I suppose that’s okay.”

  “...Well, there you have it.”

  “...Okay. Sure.”

  As a result of these detailed discussions with my editor, K-shi,
I revised my draft of the book to reflect an inhuman young girl who talks like an old person and is otherwise kind of the lolicon type, but also has a certain sense of justice. So, all my readers, what did you think? I hope you enjoyed the book.

  2015/8/5

  .........But [looking at the cover illustration], considering the design of the covers for Volumes 1 and 2, does this mean I’ll have to introduce a new heroine in every volume? [Spoken as if there were anyone to answer that question but me.]

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  Copyright

  Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 2

  by Ichirou Sakaki

  Translated by Kevin Steinbach

  Edited by Sasha McGlynn

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Ichirou Sakaki

  Illustrations Copyright © 2015 Tera Akai

  Cover illustration by Tera Akai

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2015 by Hobby Japan

  This English edition is published by arrangement with Hobby Japan, Tokyo

  English translation © 2017 J-Novel Club LLC

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

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