“Ga, Ganielson!!”
The sensation on my hand was definite. His nose was definitely broken, and a few front teeth might also have broken off.
Adventurers who had immediately understood the situation and went into spectator mode looked at that sight and exploded with laughter as if truly happy. Few even pointed at them and even doubled over laughing with unfamiliar foreign words. Even though I did set up the scene, that sight raised my goosebumps.
Other people’s fights were naturally the most entertaining to watch, and I did aim for the moronic conclusion of them falling down to the very same method they attempted, but wasn’t laughing that brightly… a bit twisted somewhere in the heart?
Putting aside for a moment my analysis of the fantasy world’s twisted sentiments, I for now ignored the bastard called Ganielson rolling around with tears and nosebleed all over him, and gritted my teeth while walking towards his faltering friend.
“Oi. Oi! Come here you fucker. I said that son of a bitch ruined my shoulder, so where the fuck you looking at?! Is that the attitude a fucker with a shoulder-ruining son of a bitch for a friend should take?! Eh?!”
How high a level could hooligan-level mercenaries or adventurers that took the coins and did as told when instructed to pick on someone crossing a street be?
About what and just how much would the bastards that gave that job to those kinds of idiots tell them in advance, and just how much would they know about me, who didn’t even go around much in the town?
They were just that sort of a level. Adventurers or mercenaries that were amazingly low level enough to wonder just where they had come from. A throwaway hand to literally use as a strength calculator and then throw away.
“Eh?”
“Fucking ‘eh’ with you, you hooligan son of a bitch!!”
When I loaded mana into my feet and kicked over his shins with an adequately controlled strength, the bastard immediately fell down at the unexpected shock and started howling.
“Ueeegh!”
“Fuck with the blatant show, you shit. Did that hurt? Eh?”
Obviously that should fucking hurt. But it was an exaggerated fakery when viewed from the sides. The kicking itself didn’t appear to have been done that strongly, after all.
They probably couldn’t even imagine that I would use body strengthening for merely kicking shins when I’d already made impact with the real men’s punch done only with my muscles. In fact, the nearby adventurers were demonstrating what laughing one’s head off really looked like, and I directly turned around and then hugged Lagnis’s shoulders again and moved. I would’ve even dusted their pockets had this been an alleyway, but that wasn’t something to do on a wide street.
“Fucking dumbasses ruining the mood.”
“E, Eldmia?’
When I scratched my head and then placed a finger over my mouth as I lowered my hand, Lagnis, who had also noticed the situation, followed me without a word. After turning our backs like that to the laughs directed towards the fallen and squirming bastards and then walking on for a long time, Lagnis only then opened her mouth again.
“Then, those people back there were…?”
“It’s not for sure, but I think it’s almost correct. I think they were simply hired for a moment for a few coins. It feels like they intended to check what kind of a brat I was, but… since I acted like a short-fused thug brat the best I could, let’s hope they take me as one.”
“Why did you do that?”
“‘Cause things become easier if they look down on me.”
I’d merely had a sword on my waist, and had made moves that had absolutely no basics behind them. And the two bastards that got hit by that fell and couldn’t even get up. One might be understandable, but the other one might get mistaken for exaggeration. That was the important point.
It was a fact I had found out after testing multiple times with Asileye, but my body strengthening done with magic power, unless strengthened especially a lot, didn’t show any hint even to those who could detect aura.
The way aura users detected aura was also based on aura manipulation techniques, but because I currently used an absolutely dumb method of simply wrapping magic power around myself without any technique or whatnot, it seemed I couldn’t be detected. Even when I strengthened that bloodily fucking hard, she said that it merely looked like I had a magic-induced buff. It was an area that I should’ve learned the techniques for since it was inefficient in multiple ways, but had regrettably neglected since it wasn’t something I could easily learn either.
But right now, that helped out. I unintentionally could cosplay as a weakling.
It was a step I took from not ignoring the possibility of a knight being sent in as Asileye had said. Regardless of however much I was confident in myself, I didn’t think that I could defeat the folks called knights as if they were a piece of cake. Even if a knight whose body strengthening was comparable or even just slightly weaker than what my body could handle came, there was a high chance of me dying from the differences in our swordsmanship.
And if so, then even more so the danger only decreased by at the least making them think I wasn’t anything big and become complacent.
“But thanks to those guys, I think we can be certain of a few things.”
“Like what?”
“That the noble faction guys found out your location faster than we thought, and that they haven’t presumed even a little that there would be someone guarding you.”
That was why they had used those kinds of idiots as test rats. Because a variable that had abruptly appeared had stuck around her for four days.
“They should definitely be watching from somewhere. By now, won’t they think that you’re staying with some town thug brat to survive? I’m not sure how they would interpret me appearing only now, but I don’t think they’ll interpret it disadvantageously for us.”
“… they’ll use some other means, right?”
“Of course. But I think there’s a chance they’ll use those guys just yet. Since I’ve crushed one guy’s face and more or less kicked the other guy, wouldn’t that be a decent excuse for revenge? It is way too obvious, but if they do plan to keep testing the waters with those guys, then within a short time they’ll come swarming with another gang and look for either us or the inn. Obviously with a bit more skilled guys hired on board.”
Whether to check my skills, or to check if there was some unknown backer behind me. They would want to corner us into a situation we normally couldn’t easily win and then check again.
But this meant that they’d been continuously spying on us for at least four days, though… Were they also waiting for something? It wasn’t like there was a guard at the inn, so it should be difficult for us to give chase if they came in at night and kidnapped her, though?
I couldn’t think up anything plausible, so I told Lagnis and began buying and eating this and that again while we contemplated together. We had to act nonchalant and natural, after all. And when we had bought ice creams made through some unknown nature of alchemical triumph and were licking them side by side, Lagnis spoke up.
“Even if they kidnap me here, they have to go at least to Lahelia to ride a drake, right?”
“Right.”
Because drake rental was something only in big cities with big names. Besides Lahelia that was closest by, there wasn’t another way around here.
“Maybe… could they be thinking of not riding a horse all the way there, but simply riding a drake here and going?”
“Eh?”
“I think there’s also the way of secretly carrying a drake here, kidnapping me using the drake… and then using the carriage used for the transport as a smokescreen. We thought that ‘they’ll obviously ride a horse to Lahelia’ until just now. So using that as a blind spot.”
Was this the difference between a commoner and a noble? Certainly, I didn’t think of that.
From the start, the reason the thing called drakes were only in big cities was that their maintenance required expert laborers and that they were that much of an expensive transport. They were things that had the same status as 1~2 person private jets in this age. Actually bringing that in, hiding it somewhere, and then flying away on it? Certainly, it was an idea those with money could create. It also had enough value for them to try since, if really done, chasing them became impossible simultaneously with them escaping outside the city.
“That sounds doable for someone really rich, so it sounds overwhelmingly possible! Assuming what you said is right, would the reason they’re this sluggish be that the drake hasn’t arrived yet? Since it’s more convenient to kidnap right on schedule rather than have you at their side and get questioned?”
“I don’t know exactly how long it takes from Lahelia to Ogwen either, but… I think that may be the most likely. Or perhaps that that side’s plan also got off-tracked somehow and the transportation of the drake is getting delayed.”
Right, there was no rule that only I get to have my plans twisted around and overcomplicated in this world. Those guys were people, too. From now on, I should work my head harder so that I can account for even the bullshittery that bastards overflowing with money would do.
But then… wouldn’t that burn up an incredible amount of money?
Was there really that incredible a value vested in Lagnis right now to do that much? Was I missing something? I couldn’t easily grasp it with my head that, in the end, merely had my last life’s age added on top.
Since her fief had been razed to the ground, rebuilding it should be impossible. This was a time when everyone was busy just fortifying what was already there, let alone building up something new at a fief that had been destroyed once. Unless there was a seriously incredible resource there, I thought that there was a high chance of it simply being erased from the maps just like how my village had disappeared.
But the first time Lagnis explained her situation, she definitely talked as if there were still remaining fortunes. That the noble faction treated her dying as a given in order to absorb her fortunes and rights and even obtain a pretext.
I thought that the fortunes meant that there was remaining money in places like banks or similar, and that the rights were about the fief to be rebuilt after the war. I thought that the thing called pretext was also just a part of the faction fight, but… I couldn’t erase the feeling that I’d judged something naively.
“Lagnis.”
“Hm?”
“When you first told me your story… you said that the nobles were aiming for your house’s fortunes and rights and a pretext, right?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“However much I think, I can’t understand very well with my commoner eyes why the two factions are fighting over you like this. I can somehow accept them simply ordering someone to take you away, but… I keep wondering if this is an incredible enough event to attempt transporting a drake.”
Because there was a certainty that her survival would cause a big change in the balance of the two factions that had been maintained until now. Because it was worth enough to take on the demerit that would cost an unimaginable number of gold coins, the demerit of transporting a drake. That should be why it came to be like this.
“Do you perhaps have a specific guess why?”
“Hhmn. So even if you’re smart, as expected those kinds of points can’t be helped due to perspective, huh.”
Lagnis stared at me as if fascinated by something, then abruptly smiled as if she had won something and explained.
“It’s because the fief alone isn’t my house’s fortune. From the money in the bank to stakes in various businesses. There are still a lot of things owned under my father’s name. That’s the fortune. Honestly, I can laugh at something like a drake with just that alone.”
The fortunes were as expected.
“The rights should mean all the rights as a marquis. Since, from the noble faction’s perspective, they shouldn’t be able to help but thirst at not only the private soldiers but even the military discretion the title of marquis can have. I think it’s more than enough to enrapture the capital-side nobles, who are only permitted 10, 20 private soldiers.”
… wait. Marquis?
“The pretext isn’t different from what Eldmia more or less predicted the first time. Something that is divided along the lines of ‘the daughter of the Lien House, who inherits the will of the Marquis who gave even his own life to save the kingdom and its subjects, has returned after years to succeed him and pledge her fealty to the king once more,’ or ‘they fought for the kingdom’s subjects and its king, but failed to escape annihilation due to the king’s incompetence, and the Lien House’s last survivor, who has barely clung to her life, has been found at the end of the noble faction’s care and utmost efforts. The king did not even try to find his most loyal vessel’s last blood’… probably that kind of a feel.”
Not different? It’s bloody different from what I’d expected, though?
Translator: CSV
TL note: Here’s ch.17. If things go about as good as this chapter, then ch.18 will be up in about a week from now.
CSVtranslation 