by Dojyomaru
Monster parts came in complicated and weird shapes, so up until now, we had only had whatever happened to come into our possession, which tended to make those items valuable because of their rarity. However, if we knew the applications of each part, the rate at which those parts would be collected after defeating a monster would go up.
If adventurers like Juno and her party raised the rate at which they collected parts they would previously have left in the dead bodies of monsters killed in a dungeon, the supply to the market would rise, and the price would fall.
It would be good to spread this knowledge to the adventurers’ guild and the merchants’ guild. Up until now, they had only collected parts whose value was obvious, but if there were prices on everything, that would help fill the adventurers’ wallets, too. That would in turn enable them make the decision to avoid hitting rare parts with their attacks.
Basically, these pictures Ichiha had drawn secretly harbored the potential to influence many things in this world, including public order, food culture, science and technology, and the economy.
Seriously, this is an incredible find...
It was frightening just to imagine how valuable these categorized drawings might be.
There was more to it than that, too. The one who had drawn these pictures, and who had found a sort of order in the chaotic mess of monsters, was merely a ten-year-old boy.
That was terrifying.
If I left him in Hakuya’s care, what kind of monster would he grow into?
He was the unicorn of the Union of Eastern Nations. I could only sigh in admiration.
I want this kid for our country. I’d welcome him with favorable conditions if he’d just volunteer.
My instinct for quality human resources was screaming at me to buy in early and recruit him before he fully ripened.
“They say every one of Duke Chima’s children is excellent... and it’s true,” I said. “Ichiha, you’re probably the top, by far.”
“N-Not at all! I don’t get counted as one of the talented children!” Ichiha seemed flustered and waved his arms about wildly.
“You don’t? Then you’re not included in the reward?”
“Yeah. Because I’m weak, and they say I’m an oddball...”
“Seriously?” I said incredulously. “How can they be so blind?”
If I could’ve had Ichiha based on my contributions to the war, I would’ve shoved that Fuuga guy aside and gone for the glory of first place.
If that hadn’t been recognized, I might have resorted to wielding my privilege as a great power.
No, wait. If he wasn’t part of the reward, didn’t that leave all the room in the world for negotiations? Oh! I wasn’t so sure about suddenly pulling such a young kid away from his family, but... still...
“Sire,” Aisha put in. “You’re frowning incredibly hard. Is something the matter?”
My grunting and agonizing over the question had ended up making Aisha worry again.
“Ohh, no,” I said quickly. “I’m fine. Just fine.”
Well, worrying about it here wasn’t going to do any good.
First, I had to sound them out and see if there was room for negotiation.
“Ichiha, I’d like to ask you some more about the details,” I said. “Would that be all right?”
“Huh...? Uh, sure... If you think it’s worth talking to me...”
“Oh, I know! Let’s talk about it at length over the fried sweets that Poncho gave us as we were leaving!” I gleefully led Ichiha out of the room.
Aisha and Tomoe looked at one another, not sure what to make of me acting so strangely because I was excited by this unexpected discovery.
“His Majesty always seems most animated when he meets an interesting person, doesn’t he?” Aisha said. “This reminds of the time he first discovered Sir Poncho.”
“Hee hee. It looks like I was right when I thought something might happen if I brought Big Brother and Ichiha together.”
“You aren’t His Majesty’s little sister and Sir Hakuya’s number one apprentice for nothing, huh?” Aisha gave her a pat on the head.
“Tee hee hee!” Tomoe giggled bashfully.
“Now then, shall we get going?” Aisha asked. “They’re leaving us behind.”
“Right!”
With wry smiles, the two of them chased after us.
It happened as I was leading Ichiha back to the room that had been prepared for us.
I saw a small figure walking in our direction from down the hall. As we approached, I realized it was a girl of about Tomoe’s age, maybe a little older.
When the girl noticed us she went, “Ah!” and rushed over. “A black-haired young man with a female dark elf warrior as his bodyguard. Just like the information said.”
She was about the same height as Tomoe, so did that make her twelve, maybe thirteen?
Wearing light blue clothing in the nomadic style, her deep blue hair tied in twintails, she gave off the impression of a strong girl with eyes full of vital energy. If I were to compare her to someone I knew, she was maybe the same type as Liscia or Naden. She would grow up to be a different sort of beauty than Tomoe in the future.
The other distinctive thing about her was the wings I could see over her shoulders.
“Would you happen to be the Sir Souma Kazuya that my brother was talking about?” the twintailed girl asked me, eyes full of fire. They were like the eyes of a hunter that had found her prey.
The staring made me feel awkward, and I scratched my cheek as I responded. “Well, yes, but... Wait, brother?”
That was when it hit me. Those wings, that hair color, could it be...?
“Are you Fuuga’s little sister, maybe?” I asked.
“My name is Yuriga Haan. I see... You must be the Great King of Friedonia.”
Great King, huh? It’d been a while since I’d been called that. The colossal squid and giant isopod both had Great King in their Japanese names, so it reminded me of gross-looking creatures, and I didn’t much like it.
Yuriga started staring at me again.
“You look weak for a ‘great king.’ My brother is much stronger,” she said bluntly.
It was a fact, so I shrugged it off. “Sure, if you’re going to compare me to Fuuga...”
“Hold on—Yuriga, was it? Don’t you think you’re being rude to His Majesty?” Aisha said, standing in front of her with a forced smile.
Oh, she was smiling, but, yeah, she was pretty pissed. She probably realized it would be immature to get seriously upset at a child, but her smile was getting stiffer.
Under pressure from our country’s strongest warrior’s smile (of rage), Yuriga faltered. “Ah...! Um... Er...”
Where had her spunk gone? Yuriga now looked completely terrified. She tensed up like a deer in the headlights and was unable to say another word.
This was kind of bad, wasn’t it? If we made her cry, it was likely to cause problems.
“Aisha, she’s just a kid... okay?” I said, trying to mollify Aisha.
I wasn’t fussed about what she’d said, and I didn’t want to start a fight with one of Fuuga’s relatives out of concern for how I looked as king...
Fuuga suddenly appeared and brought a fist down on Yuriga’s head. “You brat!”
Bop!
“Owwwww!”
The man was a warrior whom Aisha had described as stronger than her, so he must have been holding back, but it had still apparently hurt, because Yuriga was crouching and holding her head with tears in her eyes.
“You were told to stay put in our room!” Fuuga scolded. “You’re always running off.”
“Oww... But staying in the room is boring!”
“You’re the one who decided to tag along! What were you thinking, just deciding to contact the king of another country on your own?! We aren’t on the steppe here!”
Then Fuuga moved to stand in front of me, bowing his head and making his sister bow her head, too.
“Sorry for my sister
. She’s a troublesome little tomboy. If she did anything to offend you, I apologize. Go on, you too, Yuriga.”
“Ah... I’m sorry...”
“Uh, no, you can raise your heads,” I said uncomfortably. “She wasn’t that rude, and she’s just a kid. My own little sister was just up to the same sort of mischief anyway.”
“It helps to hear you say that,” Fuuga said, raising his head with a smile. Noticing Tomoe behind me, he added, “Is that the little sister you meant?”
“I-I’m Tomoe.” Tomoe bobbed her head.
Seeing that adorable gesture, Fuuga grinned. “I see she knows her manners, unlike our cheeky little girl. Ah! I know! Hey, Souma. Since I’m already imposing on you, I’ve got a favor to ask...”
“A favor? Of me?”
“Yeah. If only for a little while, could you watch Yuriga for me?” He thrust his younger sister toward us.
Indignant at being treated like a cat or something, Yuriga loudly protested. “Wait, Big Brother?!”
However, Fuuga laughed, not seeming to care in the slightest. “Duke Chima’s asked me to go around to all the camps on the battlefield, letting them know that reinforcements from the Kingdom of Friedonia will be arriving. It’ll raise morale.”
“I see...” I murmured.
“So, that being the case, I’d like you to look after Yuriga while I do that. It looks like you’ve got someone around her age with you, so it’ll be less boring for Yuriga than staying in the room by herself.”
“I don’t mind, but... don’t you want to leave a bodyguard with your sister?” I asked.
Fuuga patted Yuriga on the head. “She’s the type who’ll shake her bodyguards so she can do as she pleases. Seeing as she’s my sister and all, everyone spoils her, so I figure she’ll be better behaved if she’s with outsiders. Besides, Souma, you don’t look like the type to mistreat a child someone’s entrusted to you.”
“It doesn’t feel bad to be so trusted, but... You’re a king yourself, aren’t you, Fuuga? That makes Young Miss Yuriga a member of the royal family. I don’t know about suddenly taking responsibility for some other country’s royalty...”
“Don’t be so stiff about it,” Fuuga said. “I’m just asking you to baby-sit. Or, what, are you the type that lusts after children?”
“Hell no!”
“Ha ha ha! Well, that’s a relief. It’s just for a little while. Okay, I’m counting on you.”
Giving us no time to respond, Fuuga took off running down the hall.
He shows up out of nowhere, pushes his little sister off on us, then leaves... He really is like a passing rain shower.
No, given how heated he could get, was he a sudden torrential downpour?
I glanced over at Yuriga. “He’s always in a hurry, huh?”
“You can’t blame him. That’s just how my brother is.” She was probably used to this kind of treatment, because Yuriga just shrugged.
Well, now that the guy who left her with us had run off, there wasn’t much point standing around in the corridor forever.
“Should we head back to the room?” I asked.
In the guest room allotted to us, which seemed to be a little more nicely furnished than the rest, Aisha, Juna, Naden, and I were munching on the ginger snaps Poncho had given us as we listened to Ichiha’s story.
“Oh, that happened...?” (Munch, munch.)
“Yes. That’s right.” (Munch, munch.)
The House of Chima was a nine-person family consisting of one father and eight children, their mother having passed away when they were young. The other brothers and sisters were gifted in martial arts, strategy, and magic, but compared to their fame, Ichiha with his weak body had felt out of place.
He wasn’t on particularly bad terms with his siblings, but he had a complex from being compared to them. He was also considered strange for drawing pictures of monsters.
It seemed Mutsumi alone had tried to encourage Ichiha, but even she had apparently been unable to understand his gift.
“I dunno, it just seems like such a waste,” I said disappointedly.
“This area is thick with schemers, so only those with martial ability or strategic thinking are respected,” Ichiha explained. “Warriors who can achieve results on the battlefield, or strategists who can obtain an advantage in negotiations. I didn’t have anything like that.”
“Well... values change depending on where you live,” I admitted.
That was why no one had noticed this boy’s talent, huh? Not even his own family.
I felt bad for Ichiha, but when I thought that Tomoe had been the first to recognize his gift, I felt proud of her. It made me want to brag to everyone about how great my little sister was.
Of course, from the perspective of information secrecy, I was going to have to keep my mouth shut about it.
“Stop smirking,” Naden said. “It’s dead obvious what you’re thinking, okay?”
I slapped my cheeks. Had it been that easy to tell?
Looking over at Aisha and Juna... they blatantly averted their eyes.
...Apparently it had been. Well, that was no good.
Then I heard a bold voice. “And, honestly, that’s why my brother is just amazing, isn’t he?”
“O-Oh, yeah... I see...”
Next to us, Yuriga was regaling Tomoe with tales of her brother.
“So, after my brother took to the field and slew the enemy tribe’s brave warrior in an instant, the enemy’s warriors were terrified,” Yuriga went on. “They immediately broke ranks and fled. The temsbock cavalry ran them down, of course, so the enemy commanders all lost their heads.”
“U-Uhh... Wow...” Tomoe seemed a little put off, and she was listening with a polite-but-forced smile.
If someone was going to brag on and on about their family to her, yeah, that was probably the face she’d end up making.
Still, Yuriga didn’t seem to notice, so she went on telling the tale with glee.
“The flying tiger my brother rides is called Durga. I hear my brother met him when he went into the Demon Lord’s Domain alone. When he saw him fighting pack of monsters alone, my brother went to help. They became fast friends, and they’ve been together ever since.”
Fuuga had been into the Demon Lord’s Domain alone, with no bodyguards?!
No matter how far off the charts his strength was, that had to be reckless. That went beyond having guts and passed right into stupidity.
Also, that white tiger he rode was called a flying tiger?
“Hold on, it was a creature from the Demon Lord’s Domain?” I murmured, looking at Ichiha. “Could it be a monster?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen a creature like that before, either. Even if it was a monster, it would be a very unusual type. It’s the first time I’ve seen a creature that can fly without wings.”
“Really?” I glanced over at Naden. “There’s one closer to you than you might think, you know?”
She turned away peevishly, as if to say, Don’t look at me when you say that.
At first, I thought she was sulking because I’d treated her like an unusual creature, but then she added, looking mad, “Don’t lump me together with some tiger that can’t even assume human form!”
Was she feeling a sense of hostility toward Durga?
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Yuriga pinching Tomoe’s cheek. “Geez, you’ve just been smiling and nodding this whole time, Tomoe. Are you even listening?”
“Ahm lishning, ahm lishning!”
From the look on Tomoe’s face, it didn’t hurt. I was glad they weren’t fighting.
When Yuriga let go of Tomoe, she crossed her arms in front of her and puffed out her chest. “Well, I suppose you’re still too young to understand my brother’s greatness.”
“Murgh... How old are you, Yuriga?”
“Thirteen.”
“You’re only two years older than me.”
“It’s a huge difference. In another yea
r I’ll be (just barely) able to marry.”
“Mugh...”
It seemed marriageable age was low in this world.
Though, even by the standards of this world, fourteen would be considered early. Yuriga was mostly talking out of vanity, I’d assume. Besides, if they were competing over age, that made both of them children.
I looked over to the women in the room. “Is being old enough to marry something girls compete over?”
“...You’re asking us that?” Naden asked incredulously.
“Thirteen is still an infant,” Aisha replied. “We dark elves can’t marry until we’re thirty.”
Well, they were from long-lived races, after all.
And both of them were stubborn about not telling me, so I didn’t know either of their real ages.
“Marriage is a major event in a woman’s life, after all,” Juna said with a smile.
In conclusion, in this world with its wide range of lifespans, there was little point in comparing age, but maybe girls were still concerned about it.
Whatever the case, in just one day, Tomoe had made two friends (?) she could talk casually with. As her big brother figure, I had to be happy for her.
“He rides a tiger!” Yuriga exclaimed. “A tiger! My brother really is special, you know!”
“B-Big Brother rides a ryuu!”
“What, are you trying compete with me?!”
“Yes, I am!”
Perhaps they were getting mad, because I could swear there were fireworks going off where their eyes met.
...Maybe I needed to have a talk with Tomoe about choosing her friends more carefully.
It was a hard call.
Chapter 4: Finale
Evening. The monster attacks relented, and when we heard Fuuga had returned from the battlefield, we brought Yuriga to the courtyard, where he was bound to have landed.
When we arrived there...
“Ha ha ha! Good! Give me more!” Fuuga called.
“Don’t underestimate meeee!” Hal yelled back.
Hal and Fuuga were engaged in an intense exchange of blows.
Kaede and Ruby were there, too, so...