Didn't I Say To Make My Abilities Average In The Next Life?! Vol. 3

by Funa

  “Unlike those goons writhing around there, I was hired officially through the guild. Therefore, if you were all government officials or soldiers—or, if you were under the orders of an employer or the Crown, I wouldn’t do anything. Since that doesn’t seem to be the case, I have no choice but to keep guarding the man I’m contracted to. You’re all hunters, so you understand, don’t you?”

  “I guess it can’t be helped. However, since it’s four against one, would you like to take this opportunity to surrender?”

  “I can’t do that. I’m a B-rank hunter. If I surrendered to a group of four rookies, my reputation would be ruined, and I can’t allow that. In any case, I can’t exactly see myself losing.”

  “I see… Well then, let’s do this.” Reina sighed, moving to brandish her staff.

  Just then, Mile interjected from beside her, “Reina! This is a real match!”

  “Huh???”

  The other three, as usual, were stunned at Mile’s strange words.

  “This isn’t a story tale! No matter how much we fight in the name of justice, bullying a weakling in front of all these people wouldn’t feel right! Plus, it wouldn’t be any fun at all for our spectators to watch!”

  Seeing how the other three nodded silently in agreement, the crowd suddenly understood.

  “Gotcha. Well then…”

  “Wait! Wait wait waaait! What on earth do you mean ‘in the name of justice,’ and ‘bullying a weakling’?! What does that mean? Do you think I’m the problem? Are you saying I’m a ‘weakling’?!”

  “Huh? You aren’t?” Mile asked, clearly perplexed.

  The hunter roared, “Of course I’m not!!! I already told you, didn’t I?! I took this bodyguard job officially through the guild! If you all were working officially, through the appropriate channels, I would just shut up and hand him over. However, all I know is that you’re a bunch of random assailants acting independently on a grudge. So, I have to follow through on the job I was hired to do and defend him! Furthermore, all of my companions are off in other towns on business. I took this job on independently just to kill some time, but I’m actually the leader of a B-rank party. My individual rank is close to an A-rank! Do you understand? I’m not lying, and I’m certainly not a weakling!”

  “No, the way you have to insist on that just makes you seem even weaker…” Mile said suspiciously.

  “I’m NOT!!!” the B-rank hunter screamed, red in the face.

  “Well now, it seems like this crowd is really heating up, so…”

  “You did that on purpose!”

  “Your opponent now shall be Mile, the average magical knight beauty…”

  “Where?”

  “Huh?” Mile, intending to ignore the hunter’s complaints and continue her spiel, let out a small sound of confusion.

  “I’m asking, where is this ‘beauty’ who I’m supposed to be fighting?”

  The hunter looked around theatrically, a faint smirk upon his face.

  You jerk…

  Mile sighed. It was her own fault for getting too into it and slipping that ‘beauty’ comment in there. However, there were plenty of people in this world who would refer to themselves as something like the “beautiful knight” or “brilliant magical beauty”… weren’t there? Even when it came from something like the “Headless Killer-Beauty Incident,” you still got from it that she was a beauty, regardless of the fact that she was headless, right? That was the sort of thing Mile had been going for.

  It was the kind of declaration everyone made! You couldn’t just jump right into battle! Was this his revenge for making fun of him?!

  At the thought, Mile was grinding her teeth internally.

  She would harness this rage, and…

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Huh???”

  “This should be my fight,” Pauline said, taking a step forward, while the other three looked on perplexed.

  “Pauline…?”

  “It’s fine. Despite how I may look, I too am a member of the Crimson Vo—”

  “EH-HEH-HEH-HEM!!!”

  Mile, Reina, and Mavis all let out a loud and rather forced-sounding cough, interrupting Pauline’s words.

  Indeed, they had already decided ahead of time that this job was not one being undertaken by the “Crimson Vow,” but rather by “Pauline and her delightful companions.” They didn’t want word getting around that the Crimson Vow had been involved in an operation that resided in such a grey area. This was not a real job, but rather a member’s individual undertaking.

  Pauline swiftly recalled this and tried to change around her words to cover for her mistake.

  “…I too am thirsty for blood, as a member of the Order of the Crimson Blood…”

  The other three were stunned at the overcorrection.

  The crowd recoiled.

  “J-just what kind of party are you all?”

  The other hunter was taken aback as well.

  “Today has nothing to do with our party. We aren’t here together as party members—they came here of their own accord to aid me in a personal battle. They’re just my friends… no, they’re my best friends!”

  The other girls realized something: Pauline’s words were suddenly much simpler than her usual manner of speech. Someone who had never met her before would scarcely notice, but for her friends, who had known her for so long, it was clear. Furthermore, they understood what this meant.

  “My name is Pauline. I have risked everything to take vengeance upon my father’s foe. And as thanks to the friends who have put their lives and their futures in my hands for the sake of my personal vengeance…”

  Pauline was not speaking to her opponent. She was reciting words that she had rehearsed in advance. As she spoke, all the resources of her brain were focused on a different task.

  “Go!”

  As Pauline raised her staff, the hunter gripped the handle of his sword to draw it.

  “Owwwwwww!!!”

  The hunter screamed, pulling his hand from the handle. His palm was dripping, red with blood. When he looked down to the still-sheathed sword, he saw that the handle was suddenly covered in thorns.

  “Wh-wha…?”

  He reeled for a moment, but anyone who could truly be caught off guard by such a simple thing could never be called a B-rank hunter.

  “Damn it! You’re a shadow-caster?! And you cast a high-level spell silently in your head, while still speaking normally?!”

  As he spoke, he quickly glanced to his backup shortsword, glad to see that nothing was sprouting from that one. He swiftly gripped the handle of the shortsword and drew it.

  “Hooooooooot!!!”

  And with as much force as he had drawn it, he flung the shortsword forward.

  “Secret technique, ‘Heat Blade!’”

  Pauline shouted the name of her technique (read: spell) with a satisfied look.

  Indeed, as the hunter had guessed, this was shadow-casting: a high-level technique by which one secretly cast a spell without an incantation while talking about something else and pretending not to be doing anything magical. Naturally, this was difficult to achieve while speaking to one’s opponent normally, so Pauline could only do it while mechanically reciting words that she had prepared ahead of time. Even so, it was an impressive feat.

  Incidentally, the “Heat Blade” spell was a reference to the weapon used by a giant golem in one of Mile’s bedtime stories, though she had it a bit backwards as to which part got hot—the blade or the handle. As Mile heard the name that Pauline gave it, she thought to herself, Shouldn’t she be calling this “Heat Grip” instead?

  “D-damn it! Well, at least I can still use my fists.”

  As he spoke, the hunter tried to throw a punch Pauline’s way, but just then, he fell to his knees on the ground.

  “Uh… huh? What? Why am… I…?”

  And just like that, he collapsed on the ground.

  “I never said that the handle of your sword was the only thing I had raised the
temperature of. By slowly raising the temperature of your body bit by bit, it seems you’ve fallen right to pieces as well…”

  “Gaaaaaah! Water! Someone, please dump some water on his head! He’s gonna diiie!”

  At Mile’s desperate cry, several of the nearby spectators rushed over to draw water from the emergency reservoirs in front of the shop and douse the man with buckets. If she had thought about it, this would have been much quicker for Mile to do with magic, but she was too aghast for this to occur to her. When, after a short while, the thought did cross her mind, she hurriedly used some cooling and healing magic on him.

  Yet it was unclear whether healing magic could restore one’s mind and memories to normal after something so traumatic, so she was rather concerned. This hunter was just trying to perform the duty he had been hired to do, after all. He wasn’t a particularly bad guy.

  In other words, they were the ones, in this case, who would be the villains in the eyes of the law.

  “Wh-what…?”

  As his final lifeline was severed, the president fell into despair.

  However, fate smiled on him once more.

  “Clear the road!”

  Several riders on horseback and a single carriage approached, with several dozen foot soldiers proceeding some distance behind them.

  “Bwahaha, you idiots! I can’t believe you fell for all that stalling! The lord and his soldiers are here. It’s the end for you! You better get ready!”

  Reina, Mavis, and Pauline were floored.

  Huh? they thought. Really? What’s going to happen now? Will we be all right?

  Mile, meanwhile, looked completely unconcerned.

  It’s all going according to plan…

  “What is the meaning of this? Explain yourselves!”

  “…And you are?” Mile asked of the man who had just stepped down from the carriage.

  One of the soldiers, climbing down from his horse, answered in the man’s stead.

  “Insolent child! This man is the lord of these lands, his Excellency, Viscount Boardman!”

  The president leapt in. “Your Excellency, these scoundrels have falsely accused and attacked me!”

  “What? False accusations, you say?”

  Mile, of course, chimed in to answer this. “Ah, yes! This man hired thieves to murder the owner of this shop, then took control of it using forged documents! Whoever approved these obviously fake papers must have been an accomplice of his as well, so we’d like to see them brought in together and executed! I wonder who around here would do such a wicked thing? Their superiors clearly must be investigated as well!”

  As Mile spoke in a booming voice, everyone in the crowd grimaced.

  “Wh-what are you shouting about?!” The lord tried to silence Mile in a panic, but she had already finished all that she had set out to say.

  “Yes, we beg you, your Excellency—please apprehend this criminal!” This time Reina jumped in, shouting just as loudly.

  “Sh-shut up, shut up, shut up! You wretches are causing a public unrest in my city! You’re the ones who should be arrested!” The lord shouted back at them, conscious of the crowd around him.

  “Oh? Now isn’t this strange? How could you decide which of us is in the wrong without conducting a proper investigation? It’s almost like something an official who would approve falsified documents would do, passing a judgment without an investigation, in spite of public protests. How very peculiar… Wait—could it be…?”

  This time it was Pauline, whose ponderings grew bolder and bolder.

  “D-didn’t I tell you all to shut up?! You lot, seize them immediately!”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  From out of the crowd, a woman stepped forward.

  “Who are you?!”

  “My name is Theresa. I’m a representative of the capital branch of the hunters’ guild.”

  “How is this the business of some little girl from the guild?!”

  “Yes, well, that merchant is a criminal who ordered the murder of these young hunters, who are citizens of the capital, so I’ve come here to follow up on that incident. Those girls there are the wronged party, and as recently as a few minutes ago, that man once again ordered them to be killed by those men rolling on the ground there. I cannot allow someone who appears to be in cahoots with these men, such as you, your Excellency, to take custody of these girls.”

  “Wha…?”

  Theresa ignored the lord, and turned to the president.

  “Outside of individuals caught in the act and other wanted criminals, the hunters’ guild does not have the authority to apprehend those who are not members of the guild. However, you directed your underlings to kill a group of guild members. The guild therefore recognizes that act as a clear attack on the guild itself. Following this, it has been officially deemed that, from here on out, no requests to the guild shall be accepted from your company, your business partners, or anyone else who may associate with you. This shall be the case in any branch, in any country. No bodyguards, no caravan escorts, and no orders of materials.

  “Furthermore, your involvement in the attempted murder of our guild members has already been reported to the city guard in the capital. What you’ve done is an offense against citizens of the capital, and thereby an offense against His Majesty himself, and so, regardless of your status as the constituent of another lord, the capital city guard has the authority to apprehend you. I believe the guards charged with that duty have already departed the capital, so they should be arriving very soon.

  “Thus concludes my statement from the hunters’ guild, capital branch.”

  “Wh…?”

  The president and the lord were both stunned into silence.

  The president had, just earlier, heard from Pauline about these guards from the capital, but he had yet to think anything of them. He had simply planned to shut the girls up, choose an appropriate merchant as a scapegoat, and assert, “He faked his identity to try and sully my name!” As always, he would wait for the lord’s underlings to capture the man, torture him, then claim that he had confessed everything before killing himself. For the president, it would all be just as it had been so many times before…

  Furthermore, even if the capital guards were able to collect the appropriate evidence and witnesses, he presumed that they would not be able to lay a finger on him, the citizen of another lord’s lands—no matter if they were from the king’s jurisdiction. No matter if they had evidence, witnesses, or testimony from criminals. The lord could attest to his innocence, after all.

  Yet the guild was a problem.

  The guild was not bound to the orders of any noble, nor even the Crown.

  Furthermore, the guild chose whether or not to accept jobs purely at its own discretion, and beyond that, the guild was not even duty-bound to produce proof of wrongdoings in order to refuse an enemy service. The guild merely had to declare, “This person is our enemy,” and a hunter would never work for them again. It was as simple as that, and no one was granted the right to protest it.

  On top of this, it would not only be his shop affected by this ban, but also anyone who did business with his shop. This would mean the end for him.

  Escorts for their caravans. Orders of supplies and goods. Hunters would refuse to have anything to do with anyone who associated with him. For a merchant, such a wound could prove fatal.

  For his business partners, the means to avoid such a fate would be simple: They would merely need to cut all ties with the Beckett Company. And so, who in their right mind would possibly continue to do business with him after that?

  Besides, he wouldn’t be able to send out wagons with goods from his shop, nor order any new materials gathered.

  He was ruined.

  “Y-your Excellency,” the president pleaded desperately. “You must apprehend these fiends and execute them! There’s no way such a young girl could be a representative of the guild! They’re trying to deceive us!”

  If the girl from the
guild was dealt with, the president would have time to select a scapegoat to throw the soldiers from the capital off his trail and avoid punishment from the guild.

  The lord had the same thought. It certainly was peculiar that such an important task would be left up to some fifteen or sixteen-year-old rookie. Furthermore, it would be a problem to allow this commotion to go on any longer. They had to hurry and apprehend everyone, select some thug to take the fall, and prepare the scapegoat to be handed over to the capital guards.

  If they did not, the president of the Beckett Company would be seized and hauled away by those same guards, and if he began to flap his gums while being questioned, then the lord would be put in a sticky position, too. To date, he had granted the Beckett Company a number of “advantages,” which in turn saw a number of returns come his way. Put simply, all it would take was a single breath for his entire house of cards to crumble.

  Moreover, this group of young ladies made quite an attractive set. Their bodies were… well, they were still somewhat lacking for his tastes, but they would do.

  As the lord pondered this, his foot soldiers finally arrived, and he issued his command with a smirk:

  “Seize those girls! But don’t hurt them too much.”

  Even if they were hunters, they were still a group of young girls between ten and seventeen or eighteen years of age. There was nothing that they could possibly do against a group of over sixty soldiers.

  And so the soldiers drew their swords and began to advance on the girls, menacingly.

  Ka-blam!

  The lid was blown off.

  “There you have it, they’re approaching with their swords drawn: a clear declaration of attack. We’ve just been granted the grounds for some justified self-defense!”

  “Huh????”

  The lord, as well as the crowd around him, raised their voices in confusion. They had never heard of such a term as “grounds for justified self-defense.”

  In any case, this granted the Crimson Vow the right to launch a counterattack on anyone who showed even the slightest hint of trying to harm them. They could look further into the circumstances once their opponents were felled. If they did not do so, then they would never survive, no matter how many lives they had.