Chapter 25: Volume 3 - CH 23

The next morning.

Satoru woke up naturally at the usual time, made a "water ball" as usual, washed his face, charged his cell phone, as usual, waited for his awakening, and asked downstairs to prepare a meal as usual. He went through his usual routine without a hitch.

As he ate his breakfast, he consulted with Leia and decided to head in a northwesterly direction for the time being. As he had heard yesterday at the magic guild, the ancient magic kingdoms, of which there were many called the Great Kingdoms, were located in that direction. He also heard that there are many labyrinths of the class where Yarth lurks.

He gobbled up his breakfast, which he prides himself on its quantity, with his usual gusto and vulgarity - a behavior that, at first glance, did not remind him of what happened last night. But, of course, it was only on the surface.

By nature, Satoru does not drag things out too much. He knows that dragging things out is usually not a good idea, and he would rather put his effort into switching things around than into dragging them out.

But of course, there are limits to that, and Leia could see that there was some drag. However, she will not touch it. She knows it will be a snake.

He tells the owner of the Honeycomb Pavilion that he is leaving and leaves the inn. The owner was businesslike to the end.

Before leaving town, he dropped by the general store to buy a tub, cooking utensils, and dishes and stopped by the temple and the weapon shop to gather information about the labyrinth, but he came up empty.

Of course, what he said to Rico last night about looking for information by force in some cases was just a tactic. There's no point in blowing up the royal castle here, so he's not going to do anything unnecessary.

He had a feeling, but he also knew that Yarth would not be this close. If he was this close, it would mean that Leia had been in the vicinity for a little over 200 years after she manifested into the [Immortal King] without her noticing. Leia indeed has a tendency to be careless in some ways, but she is not that stupid.

Satoru glanced at the information desk, whose door was still closed, and turned toward the castle gate, but stopped in his tracks. He stopped in his tracks because he saw a girl wearing a poncho-like cloak that looked familiar.

「............」

In silence, he took the procedures to leave the country. When Satoru was about to leave the town after receiving a refund of five silver coins, a small body of Rico stood in front of him. She was dressed in her usual attire. It's not the kind of sensationalism that provoked Satoru yesterday.

「....... I told you not to show your face again, didn't I?」

At Satoru's cold voice, Rico subtly averted her gaze.

「...... Sorry.」

She muttered to herself. But there was no sign of getting out of her way.

「Do you want to be killed?」

Rico shook her head from side to side without effort.

「Then what are you doing here?」

Looking at the pebbles at her feet, Rico muttered to herself.

「...... I've been through a lot. I've lost my place.」

Satoru doesn't make a sound but looks squarely at Rico. Rico does not make eye contact with him.

Satoru sensed a strange lack of energy in Rico's eyes. There was not a trace of Riko's boldness in her eyes. Her eyes were dead... Satoru felt a sense of déjà vu when he saw those eyes. I remember seeing similar eyes a long time ago...

Satoru's consciousness was brought back to reality when Rico kicked a stone at her feet that she had been looking at for a long time. She took out a folded piece of parchment from her side and held it out to Satoru.

「I'll give you this first.」

He doesn't have the nerve to ask back. It was probably the information about the labyrinth near here that was supposed to be given to him yesterday. Satoru snatched it from her and put it in the breast pocket of his vest without looking at the contents. It was quite late, but the reward had finally been duly given. There was no need for the rest.

Satoru ignored Rico and continued on his way. Rico hurriedly followed after Satoru.

「I have a favor to ask.」

Satoru didn't stop. He didn't seem to be listening, but Rico tried her best to talk to him.

「Satoru, will you take me with you on your journey?」

「No can do」

Satoru dismisses the idea out of hand. He strolls on. Rico also persisted.

「Why not!? I'm useful, you know? It didn't work on you, but I can run away fast.」

「Rejected.」

「Besides, if you want to get information, the Thieves' Guild can be useful. There's a code between thieves.」

「I don't want it.」

Satoru is cold to the core.

「Besides, I'm confident in my eyes. If you made me do that kind of research, you're going to challenge the labyrinth, right? Labyrinths are full of traps, you know.」

「It's useless. Minerva. "Dispel."」

Not far from the town, but not wanting to bother with the further conversation, Satoru lowered Minerva from his shoulders to his wrists and applied the "Dismissal Spell" of "Shrinking. This is the first step in science-based magic, and anyone with enough magic power can break the spell. However, it requires a magic power that exceeds the magic power of the person who cast the spell. In this case, it was Leia who cast the spell, so if you have more soul than Leia, you can lift the spell. It's the first step in the art of "rijutsu", but it's the most useful.

Of course, the operation was successful, and Minerva quickly returned to her original size.

Rico was amazed. The flying dragon on his shoulder wasn't a chick at all. And it was four to five times larger than the usual size.

「Guraaah!」

Minerva, now at her original size, growl loudly and comfortably. Satoru stroked Minerva's ear as she rubbed her head against him, then put on the hami offered by the shadows and fluttered over her neck. Rico was taken aback, but Satoru ignored her and ordered Minerva to surface.

By the time she realized what was happening, it was too late.

「Wait! Wait for me!」

With the crisp sound of her wings, Minerva levitated and flew away with Satoru at her back. He didn't even look at Rico, who was shrinking below him.

This is fine. This is fine. Rico told him that she had lost her place. He didn't see any calculation there, but considering Rico's talent, it would only be a temporary thing. If she did her job right, she would be able to make a place for herself soon.

Originally, Satoru felt bad about making even Leia accompany him on his journey. He doesn't want to come here and surround himself with ordinary girls.

『My Lord ......』

About five minutes after he took off, he heard Leia's caring voice from the shadows.

「You're the one who told me to forget it, Leia.」

Satoru, who, without a word, cuts her off at the source of the word. Needless to say, he was referring to Rico. A confused voice sounded from within the shadows.

『No, that's true, but ...... that little girl is still following us.』

「What?」

For some reason, Leia was looking into at Rico with a "Distance Eye", who was already beyond the reach of the naked eye. Contrary to Satoru's expectation that she would give up easily if he cut her off like that, Rico was desperately trying to follow him.

「She had to push herself pretty hard ....... That's a "contraction".」

「Let her alone. She'll give up eventually.」

Rico is well versed in the physical arts. If he thinks about how agile she was when she was chasing Satoru, she can keep up with him to a certain extent, but if she runs out of magic power, she can't use magic. In that case, she could only rely on her own body. It is obvious that she will be separated from him because he's flying on the back of a flying dragon.

So she'll give up sooner or later. Contrary to Satoru's thoughts, Leia told him the truth rather matter-of-factly, saying that there were many dangers outside the town and that it would be soon anyway.

『...... If she goes on like this, she will enter the territory of the saber tigers. Against a swarm of saber-toothed tigers, that little girl's "contraction" and "light work" will be ineffective. She'll almost certainly die.』

「............」

Satoru is silent. Leia continues her live coverage.

『She's going to crash through their territory. ...... Oh, looks like the saber tigers have noticed her.』

Of course, he can't hear a sound or a voice, so Leia's relay is our only way of knowing what's going on. Leia's play-by-play was mixed with a slight hint of enjoyment.

『Ohhhh, she's doing her best. But it's only a matter of time. She's running out of her magic.」

Leia's voice was full of pleasure. She seemed to be enjoying the fact that Rico was in desperate straits. A small crack appeared in the wall of Satoru's mind.

『How dare you throw away the life saved by my Lord? What a stupid little girl.』

「...... Damn it! Minerva!」

Satoru pulled the reins tightly and turned the dragon's head backward. Minerva, sensing Satoru's intentions and leaning forward, roared and flapped her wings to increase her speed.

『Oya. You are going to help her, my Lord?』

Satoru clicked his tongue at the theatricality of Leia's voice. She sounded as if she knew that if she did that, Satoru would go for help.

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「You have a bad personality.」

『Hmm-hmmm...』

Leia boasted, somewhat happily.

「Besides, you didn't want me to hold another woman, did you?」

If she wants her to accompany him on his journey, he will have the opportunity to embrace Rico as well as Leia. He's not going to let her come with him if she refuses to do so, of course, but he doesn't think she's going to refuse to put her body on top of him now that she's risked death to come with him.

In any case, from the beginning, Satoru had no intention of welcoming another woman as a companion. He had said that he might have other women when they left the labyrinth, but that was just a nail in Leia's coffin and he didn't really mean it. It's not that he doesn't want to, but now he's thinking about Leia, who has shown him such uncompromising loyalty.

『If that is what my Lord wants, I have no choice. In truth, if it's for my Lord's good.』

「...... You changed your mind?」

Satoru's sigh was mixed with a hint of self-mockery in Leia's voice.

『Well, maybe so. I knew the look in the little girl's eyes when she told me she had no place to stay, and I knew it in my memory.』

He could hear her giggling in his mind.

『It's despair』

Satoru gasped.

At that moment, Rico's eyes were like those of a dead fish. At Leia's suggestion, Satoru finally remembered what the deja vu was.

It was his own eyes in the mirror when he was told that his mother had died suddenly and his father had committed suicide after becoming increasingly emaciated.

His eyes were also dying when he realized that he was 17 years old and had lost all the people he could rely on, leaving behind his newborn sister... I see, those eyes, huh.

「My Lord was her only hope. That's why she risked her life... Ohhh, her arm's been torn off. We may not make it in time.」

Satoru ordered, not hiding his annoyance at Leia's somewhat stilted voice.

「Shit ...... Leia! You can go there, can't you! Then go and help her!」

『Is that an order?』

Leia's voice was laced with a cold-hearted color.

If it's an order, I'll go to help, but if it's not, I won't. - Satoru sensed Leia's intentions in her voice, which was transparent through the shadows.

If you're going to send me to help her, you should be prepared to accept Rico as one of your own, or else abandon her. That's what Leia is implicitly saying.

Satoru's answer to that question was clear.

「Yeah, that's an order. Go and save that idiot!」

A chuckle escaped from within the shadows at Satoru's high-handed order.

「A messenger........No, in this case, it should be called the rough use of the [Immortal King]. Then, I'll go ahead...."Transferrence".」

＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊

A girl's heart is filled with despair.

When she was very young, she (Rico) and her infant brother (Kai) were left behind in the cold. She doesn't remember what happened to her parents. Maybe they couldn't raise them anymore and abandoned them, or maybe they killed them... She doesn't remember.

The only thing she does remember is that in the middle of a harsh winter with snow flying around, a young sister and brother were thrown out into the streets. The girl, who could no longer bear the cold and hunger, was caught by the authorities stealing to survive and had her fingers cut off without any consideration.

When she was released by the authorities, they were picked up by Threnody, the previous master of the thieves' guild.

Threnody gave the girl and boy a place to stay and food to eat. He taught them various jobs in order to survive. Srenody's son, a young man named Jim, who was a little older than the girl, also treated the siblings as kindly as if they were his own siblings. The Thieves' Guild was an unusual group, but it was where she belonged. It was okay to be alive, she thought.

She spent more than ten years in the guild.

That has changed since Threnody's sudden death a year ago.

Zareth, who had been an adventurer and whose only advantage was his strength of arms, cut down all those who opposed him and forcibly took the position of the guild master. Then, on the night of the inauguration ceremony, Zareth announced that Kai, whom he had been eyeing for a long time, would be his consort, and raped the boy on the spot.

With her brother crying and screaming, the girl ran away - she ran away.

The girl's heart was devastated. Threnody treated her like his own daughter and taught her about prostitution as a job, but she was able to live her life as a virgin because she had been told not to go down that path by mistake, but to live her life with the person she loved. Of course, her brother did the same.

And yet, Zareth had managed to twist Kai around by force.

Zareth, who began to reign as the guild master with his power, ordered the girl to become a pickpocket. Not as a profitable prostitute, but as a pickpocket. And if you don't like it? You don't care what happens to your brother? She had no choice but to obey.

Whatever the case, it's better than being a prostitute, she thought. She was disgusted with her brother, who had become Zareth's exclusive male concubine, but still, he was her brother, and it would be uncool to abandon him... So for a year, she continued to work quietly and cheaply.

The turning point came when she made her first mistake as a pickpocket.

A large, warrior-looking man with a big sword on his back easily caught her out. She managed to escape but was caught by the "Immortal King" who called the man her master.

──It was supposed to be over. This is the second time she has been caught stealing. According to the law of this country, the second time someone stole, they would fall into slavery. The girl, still young, was supposed to be sent to the army and held as a comfort woman for the rest of her life.

As it turned out, the man not only let the girl go but even said he would finish off Zareth.

She thought it was going to be a big speech, but he really did clear out Zareth and his cronies. She wanted to make that big man her friend, and she tried to offer him her only and greatest weapon.

But he rejected her, and in a very angry way. She returned to the guild, devastated at the worst possible outcome, and was told that her place was no longer in this town. In the form of rejection.

There was nothing left for the girl - no, all that was left was her body.

When she realized that she had completely lost her place, she saw Satoru's face in her mind. For the past year, she had been living in despair, drifting along with nothing but a small sense of pride, but he had given her a hand.

There's nothing left, none left. Leave this town alone and live...?

Impossible.

The girl only has skills as a thief. If she goes to another country, she might still have a chance, but she's too weak to live on her own - she has to rely on someone else. If that's the case, the only person she can cling to is Satoru. If not, she'll just die in a heap. Since she decided to throw away her virginity for him, she should also bet her life.

The girl made up her mind.

She was lucky to have found Satoru at the gate of the castle as he left the town. However, she was not taken seriously at all. Still, she chased and chased hard. She knew it was the territory of a herd of saber-toothed tigers, but if she avoided it, she would never be able to catch up with them, no matter how hard she tried.

But it was still no use. The Sabertooth Tigers' wild instincts easily spotted a girl with excellent "hide and seek" skills, and they attacked her in groups.

She fought hard to avoid them. Her breath hitched. She thinks she's running out of magic. If she couldn't use her "light work" anymore, there was no way for her to fight the saber tigers.

As she continued to dodge and turn her feet in the direction of where Satoru would be, her knees buckled.

At the same moment, the fang blade of one of the saber tigers that had been tossed around so far sliced off the girl's right arm, bone by bone. The children of the saber tigers immediately took a bite out of her right arm that was sent flying. A group of five or six adult saber tigers surrounded the foolish human who stepped into their territory and lost their means of attack.

Fresh blood spattered from the cut surface of her right arm, and the girl, who had lost her magic power, became distantly conscious.

「So you're my death. ......」

――Tsk. I'm going to die a virgin after all.

The saber tiger is slowly shrinking its enclosure. In any case, it won't hurt if she loses consciousness after her magic power runs out... A roar of gurgling echoed in her ears at the same time as a voice spinning a spell, different from the roar of the beast in her distant consciousness.

「"Fire Shot!"」

Another girl appeared unexpectedly in front of the girl. Fifteen fireballs the size of small tubs floated around the pale-skinned girl, and the fireballs immediately struck the pack of saber tigers. The flock of saber tigers screamed and ran for cover.

「――!!」

A familiar black cloak fluttered in the girl's eyes. The girl's skin, visible through the edges of the cloak, is pale.

「I did not care about you. My Lord had ordered me to go help you, so I had no choice.」

In her fading consciousness, she heard the pale-skinned girl whispering that. The flock of saber tigers readjusted their formation in response to the appearance of a new enemy. A roar of intimidation was released. The number of saber tigers was no less than thirty. In the middle of this grassland, there were two weak-looking girls, and one of them was dying. Normally, they would be easy prey for saber tigers - normally.

The girl in the black cloak glared at the area without losing her relaxed expression and narrowed her eyes.

They're just a beast, huh - she sees herself standing in front of her as a girl who can do a little magic.

「A saber-tooth tiger. You're trying to defy this [Immortal King] Leia!!」

Something similar to a miasma rose up. An overwhelming amount of magic power was released - and the girl fainted.

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