by Hiro Ainana
“I am truly humbled by the invitation, but it may be in my best interest not to visit Your Excellency’s castle.”
I made a show of glancing toward the galley, where the flames could be seen burning on the kitchen range.
The whole-roasted deer looked quite delicious.
“S-Sir Pendragon, did Marquis Lloyd by chance give you some secret assignment…?”
Baronet Poton widened his eyes and made a clumsy attempt at sounding me out.
Good, he misunderstood me perfectly.
“No, not at all.”
The baronet breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“…However, I cannot imagine he would think kindly of a foreign noble harming innocent citizens. Not everyone is as forgiving as Your Excellency.”
At that, the man froze as suddenly as if he’d rusted over.
If he’d had a tail, it would’ve been between his legs.
I hadn’t been planning to use my connections like this, but I might as well keep pushing now.
“Baronet Poton, I have heard that you are…”
I paused for a moment, looking straight into his eyes.
“…an excellent constable, so I am certain you would never knowingly allow a foreign noble to terrorize your townspeople.”
“B-but of course. Of course not! Please tell Marquis Lloyd that as long as I, Porolo Poton, yet breathe, the town of Puta shall always be secure!”
The baronet was sweating visibly now.
“I expected no less, Your Excellency. As it happens, I intend to write a letter to Marquis Lloyd tomorrow. I hope that I can inform him of Your Excellency’s hard work.”
“I-indeed. I thank you for your consideration, Sir Pendragon.”
Baronet Poton practically tripped over his own two feet as he hurried out of the inn and threw himself into the waiting carriage, which quickly carried him away.
I might have been a bit too blunt, but he seemed to have understood my message: Deal with that pyromaniac noble by tomorrow, and I’ll tell Marquis Lloyd only good things about you in my report.
Hopefully I could expect quick results.
If I had to meddle any further, it would only make Baronet Poton look bad, so this way was better for everyone.
“That was amazing, Mr. Noble! I’ve never seen that stuck-up constable look so scared!”
A boy with one arm, who’d been peering in from the back door, entered the room in high spirits.
It was the mon hunter boy who’d been arguing at the gates before.
“Hey, kid, if you’re looking for alms again, go around back.”
“N-no, not today. I came to return the money I borrowed from Mr. Noble here.”
The boy looked flustered by the innkeeper’s assumption.
“Mr. Noble, thank you again. Here’s your copper back. You really helped me out there.”
I accepted the copper he handed me. It must have cost him another fight to get his reward from those women. There was a cut on his lip and a bruise coming in on his right cheek.
This boy must lead a pretty violent life.
“Hey, innkeep, I got cash today. Gimme some of that tasty-looking deer!”
“Don’t be stupid. That stuff’s not for a greenhorn mon hunter like you.”
“Psh, whatever.”
“Why don’t you get our famous grilled fish with white sauce special?”
“Yeah, that’s fine, I guess.”
The grilled fish meal set was two coppers. Considering what I’d heard about his income earlier, that was probably over budget for him.
“If you spend that much, how will you have enough to get back into the city?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. You never know when you’re gonna die, so you gotta at least make sure you’re eating good food, right?”
Was he being philosophical or just reckless? I was a little worried.
As we were talking, Arisa and the others came back, so we left the main inn building for the separate house where we were staying.
“Looks like you took care of that problem.”
“Yeah, no worries.”
I nodded.
Arisa had the Space Magic spells Clairvoyance and Clairaudience, so she knew the whole story. I explained the situation to everyone else.
“Well, I hope the constable does his job right…”
“It should be fine, don’t you think? He seems very concerned with self-preservation, and he thinks I’m working for Marquis Lloyd.”
“Yeah, but small fries like that can do crazy stuff sometimes. I’d be careful.”
It would probably be best to keep Arisa’s advice in mind.
Just to make sure we didn’t get caught up in any trouble, I decided to do my information gathering tonight so we could leave the next day.
In the end, it wasn’t like I actually had any obligations toward this town.
“Master, I believe dinner is ready.”
A servant had come and informed Lulu that our food was ready, so we all headed to the dining hall.
No one seemed to have a problem with letting the beastfolk girls join us. Maybe it was because of the incident with Baronet Poton earlier.
“Hungry, hungry~.”
“Hungry tummy, sir~.”
Pochi and Tama held my hands on the way to the dining hall and swung them back and forth, singing their “hungry song” complete with musical accompaniment by Mia.
The hungry song’s lyrics seemed to change every time I heard it. I’d lost count of how many variations there were at that point.
“Looks like we’re at this table in the center.”
Arisa pointed at a large table in the middle of the room with eight chairs and food already laid out.
The meal was a simple whole-roasted deer.
From the looks of it, you were meant to shave off some meat, add white sauce from a small bowl, and eat it wrapped in lettuce-like leaves.
There was also a separate plate with steamed vegetables and pilaf that I’d ordered for Mia.
The white sauce turned out to be mayonnaise.
They didn’t seem to have it in the old capital, which I’d assumed was for health reasons, but I was glad to see that it existed.
Maybe it was a specialty of this region.
However, this particular mayonnaise…
“Wow, this lettuce-wrap thing is really good!”
“Mayooo?”
“It’s mayo, sir!”
“Yes, the mayonnaise is delicious, but I think the meat is best enjoyed on its own first.”
“Hmm? The mayonnaise does taste good, but…”
After taking a bite of the venison wrap with mayo, Lulu looked to me for confirmation. She was right: The mayonnaise here was extremely heavy.
Maybe they used a different kind of oil, or maybe the proportions of their mixture were off, but I felt like I was going to have heartburn by the time I finished eating.
As I prodded Mia’s cheeks, since she was looking sulky while she ate her vegetable pilaf, I warned everyone not to eat too much mayonnaise.
“Sir, is the white sauce not to your liking?”
“It’s quite tasty, thank you. Is it of your own devising?”
The innkeeper, who’d been watching from the galley, came over.
“No, this was taught to me by a one-armed mon hunter some half a year ago. Got me to pay out the nose for the recipe, too. He was a shrewd one, unlike that little dolt Kon over there.”
“Hey, don’t lump me in with that creepy-looking dude.”
Having thoroughly cleaned the meat off every last bone of his grilled fish, the young mon hunter Kon glowered at the innkeeper.
“…Did you happen to catch that man’s name?”
“Yes, he called himself John Smith.”
John Smith… A common pseudonym back on Earth.
I asked the innkeeper what the man looked like, but all he remembered was that he had black hair, no left arm, and rather flat facial features.
“Come to think of it, he just up and disappeared outta town one day.”
“He was a mon hunter, right? He probably just got killed by a monster.”
“I don’t think that man would’ve gone down so easily.”
Even as he chatted with the innkeeper, Kon’s gaze was locked firmly on the venison.
I felt bad just letting him gnaw on a picked-clean fish bone as he watched the beastfolk girls eat, so I gave him a plate of the lettuce-wrapped venison.
“Are you sure?! Wow, thanks! You’re the best, Mr. Noble!”
The boy accepted it reverently with both hands, savoring it with tiny, careful bites.
After each bite, he mumbled things like “Damn!” and “Tasty!”
Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I set about enjoying my venison as well.
Just then, Nana, who’d been watching the entrance alertly, suddenly stood up.
She carefully hid her forehead and used Body Strengthening on herself, then zipped over to the door faster than the eye could follow.
Then she returned proudly, carrying two ratfolk babies under her arms.
The babies struggled frantically, but with Body Strengthening enhancing her already powerful arms, they didn’t stand a chance against Nana.
“Master, I have taken custody of these larvae. Permission to force-feed?”
Wait, why force-feed?
Well, everyone but the three beastfolk girls was done eating, and there was still food left, so no harm done.
I gave Nana permission to feed the children, and she happily gave each of them a venison lettuce wrap.
They seemed confused at first, but once they realized they were allowed to eat, the babies started gulping the food down like little birds.
As it turned out, they had lived in the orphanage in town until Baronet Poton closed it down, leaving them homeless. Today, at least, I made sure they could eat their fill.
“Mrrr, I won’t lose, sir— Urk!”
“Pochi, waterrr?”
Feeling threatened by the new challengers, Pochi started eating even faster and ended up choking on her food.
Tama quickly handed her a cup of water.
“Mmph.”
“Mrp-mrp.”
The ratfolk children stuffed their cheeks like hamsters, filling up on meat and vegetables alike.
Liza tried to teach the ratfolk to savor their food slowly, and when I saw Kon watching them jealously, I invited him to join us at the table. It made for a pretty hectic dinner, but overall, it was a lively and enjoyable evening.
“…The Black Dragon Mountains?”
I was alone in the bar at night, gathering information.
Fancy noble clothes stood out in this town, so I dressed as a novice merchant instead.
This bar’s claim to fame was a sweet alcohol called trunk liquor. For such a light taste, it had a high alcohol content. It paired perfectly with the salted mystery fish snacks.
“I’ve been to the Farthest Village, and all there is beyond it is an old, overgrown highway, y’know.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a mon hunter who specializes in that area.”
I treated the merchants to some alcohol, committing the information they gave to memory.
“Isn’t there a pioneer village at the foot of those mountains?”
“No, I think that village got wiped out twenty years ago by a huge avalanche of earth urchins.”
Land-based sea urchins, big enough to destroy a village? That sounded…delicious. I could go for a giant helping of that over rice.
Tuna would be nice, too. There were flying whales in this fantasy world, so there ought to be flying fish, right?
Anyway, putting aside such stupid thoughts, that was about all the information I was able to gather about the Black Dragon Mountains.
But I did find out about something else…
“Man, a silver just for participating in some inn siege?”
“That’s crazy. How many goblins is that?”
“One silver is twenty coppers, so…that’s a lot.”
“But that arsonist freak is gathering a buncha followers, right? Are we really gonna get paid?”
“C’mon, think, ya moron. We’ll just steal anything of value when we attack the damn inn!”
“Should we really be attacking a nobleman, though?”
“Eh, we’ll let the arsonist take the fall for that.”
…A very concerning rumor.
From what I gathered, a man from a criminal guild was hiring up a bunch of the town thugs.
There were two inns in this town, but the only noble staying at an inn was me.
I thought I had talked Baronet Poton into dealing with the pyro noble, but either he failed to persuade or arrest him or he got talked into siding with him instead.
Still, I didn’t think I’d done anything to make the pyro noble angry with me directly…
The gossip at the bar soon cleared that up, though.
“But what’s the arson guy got against the noble at the inn?”
“I heard he’s hiding the beastfolk the fire freak is looking for. They’re with him at the inn.”
“That makes sense. I heard he bought a ton of food supplies.”
I must have purchased a little too much food at the trading post.
So the purpose of hiring the thugs was probably to surround the inn and prevent the white tigerfolk from escaping.
I left the tavern, ducked into an alley, and used Telephone to explain the situation to Arisa.
“Hmm. What a pain. Think that constable’s got anything to do with it?”
I wasn’t sure, so I did a map search.
Most of the guards who weren’t on duty seemed to be in their homes, so it was unlikely that the constable, Baronet Poton, was involved in this incident.
“Then how about instead of preventing it, we let them pull off the siege and catch that stupid noble in the act? If it gets out that he gathered a bunch of thugs and attacked a sleeping noble, he’ll never be able to talk his way out of it.”
I contemplated Arisa’s proposal.
It would be easy to crush them before the attack began, but that might prompt him to send an assassin or poison my food or something instead.
As long as things like poison and snipers weren’t a factor, my party could easily handle the pyro noble and his thugs. Perhaps it would be best to set a trap and round them all up at once.
“Good point. Let’s deal with this pyromaniac once and for all.”
“Okey-dokey! We’ll get ready, then. The great Arisa will demonstrate how much she learned about sieges from reading tons of Warring States manga!”
I was a little concerned about how gleeful Arisa sounded, but I agreed to leave her in charge of the inn while I headed to the tavern where the mon hunters gathered.
I was going to pay a visit to the mon hunter who specialized in the area of the Farthest Village.
“Come on—wait a minute!”
“Outta the way, Kon.”
As I approached the mon hunters’ tavern, I heard the boy Kon outside arguing with the leader of the mon hunter women.
“That noble is a really good person! He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“That doesn’t matter one bit.”
“She’s right. We get a silver each just for surrounding an inn!”
“Yeah, do you have any idea how many goblins that is?”
“Even a good-for-nothing like you could get in on this, you know! You’d have to be a fool to let this chance go by.”
The man from the criminal guild seemed to be gathering forces here, too.
Unlike the thugs at the other bar, the mon hunters had real weapons and were pretty high-level, so that was a bit of a problem.
Checking my markers, I saw that around two dozen thugs and hunters were gathering in an empty lot ne
ar the constable’s castle. As of now, the common thugs outnumbered the mon hunters.
The only people in the vacant lot were the criminal guild’s crew; the pyro nobleman and his friends were all still in the castle.
I activated Clairvoyance and looked inside the tavern.
“Hey, Ordo, put the drink down and get them to stop!”
“Why? Let those ladies do what they want.”
“C’mon, Ordo!”
Inside the tavern were eight mon hunters, including Kon, the women, and a group of assorted beastfolk.
This “Ordo” fellow was a one-eyed rabbitfolk man, and his group ranged from levels 7 to 9, high even for mon hunters. The rest of the bunch inside wasn’t much different from the mon hunters at the vacant lot.
The beastfolk group was staying neutral, refusing to help Kon.
“You better back off, or it’ll be more than just a punch this time.”
“C’mon, miss, please.”
Kena, the leader of the female mon hunter group, raised a fist, but then Ordo called out to her. “Kena, I’d think on that a minute.”
“What do you want, Ordo? It’s not like you to stick your nose in other mon hunters’ business.”
“Just a piece of advice, lass. We’re siding with the noble in the inn. He saved Borsch’s sister’s life, and besides, we got a request from the beastfolk alliance to protect him.”
Oh? Maybe this was their way of thanking me for earlier.
I wasn’t sure who Borsch’s sister was, but she must have been one of the burn victims I healed.
If I hadn’t overheard this, I might’ve just assumed that their group was with the pyro noble and taken them out from a distance.
“Are you serious, Ordo? I know you guys are strong, but there’s more than just a couple dozen mon hunters here. The constable’s guards are coming, too, y’know.”
All right, standing outside listening wasn’t going to do me much good.
I pushed open the well-worn door and cut in on the pair’s conversation.
“I wouldn’t worry about that. The guards aren’t going to show up.”
“Says who? Your mother? Just stay out of it!” Kena snapped at me without even turning to look.
She must have mistaken me for a fellow mon hunter.
“I used some connections in the old capital to put Baronet Poton in his place. Unless he’s self-destructive or an even bigger moron than I thought, he won’t send any guards.”