Outbreak Company: Volume 5

by Ichiro Sakaki

  “Oh...”

  I thought back to the audience chamber packed full of important people. So Loek-sama’s father had been among them. He must have gone home and spoken to Loek-sama, who rushed after us in his desperation to help Minori-sama.

  That, however, would have been after we had already left with the Dragon Knights. So it seemed that after some deliberation, Loek-sama went to talk to Romilda-sama. Why had he gone to her instead of to his friends among the elves? For one thing, he claimed they had had plans for some time now to convert the now-unused prop dragon into something that could actually fly. But most importantly, his father was extremely influential among the elves. An unguarded word to one of his friends could easily reach the ears of his friends’ families, and then his father would soon find out about his plan.

  And so we found ourselves here...

  “Minori-sensei!” Loek-sama practically shouted. “Take me with you!”

  “I think you mean ‘Take us with you,’” Romilda-sama said with a frown. “Because I know you can’t manage the simplest thing by yourself.”

  Minori-sama looked at them both—and then shook her head. “No. This isn’t a game.”

  She was right. We were risking our lives on this mission. Considering Minori-sama’s position, it would be unforgivable for her to let Loek-sama or Romilda-sama get involved.

  Still, Loek-sama went on. “I know that! I’m serious!”

  “Serious or not, this is dangerous!” Minori-sama said.

  “I swear we won’t slow you down,” Loek-sama said, showing no sign of being deterred.

  “That’s not the real issue here,” Minori-sama said with a deep sigh.

  I was sure Loek-sama was telling the truth when he said he was serious. Even with Minori-sama sounding her sternest, Loek-sama didn’t seem the least intimidated, but just kept insisting he would come along. Somehow, it made him look almost... heroic.

  “He’s really that devoted to Minori-sama...” I whispered, without meaning to.

  To my surprise, it was Romilda-sama who answered. “That’s not all it is,” she said. “This isn’t all about Minori-sensei.”

  “Then...”

  “You aren’t the only ones... who are worried about Shinichi-sensei.”

  I caught my breath.

  Ahh! To think, there were other people who were this genuinely worried about Shinichi-sama. The thought made happiness well up in my heart.

  “Anyway! I am absolutely not going back! Leave me behind if you want—I’ll just follow you!”

  “Oh, for crying out loud...” Minori-sama was starting to sound thoroughly irritated—and tired out—by Loek-sama’s stubbornness. She put her hands to her head as if she might tear her hair out. She looked as if she just didn’t know what to do.

  Again, given her position, how could she not hesitate to bring Loek-sama and Romilda-sama along? But there was every likelihood that if she turned them down, Loek-sama would simply trail us anyway. Actually, he had a dragon (or whatever it was). That meant he might even arrive at Bahairam before us, and then who knew what might happen?

  “Um, Minori-sama?”

  “What is it, Myusel?” Minori-sama’s voice was unusually sharp, and for once she didn’t bother to look at me as she spoke.

  “I think it may be best to let them both come along.”

  Minori-sama and Elvia-san both turned toward me with shocked expressions. Loek-sama and Romilda-sama, on the other hand, looked thrilled.

  “Not you too, Myusel. You do remember we’re marching straight into enemy territory here, don’t you?”

  I didn’t respond immediately. I noticed Elvia-san, standing next to the dragon-like thing, twitch at Minori-sama’s words. I wasn’t sure if Minori-sama noticed, but she went on in a hard voice, “If they catch us, you know what they’ll do.”

  “Yes, I know, but...” I thought for all I was worth. “But I have to confess that Loek-sama and Romilda-sama seem very set to me, and that nothing we can say will convince them to go home.”

  “That’s—”

  “In fact, I think that even if you leave them here, they’re likely to try to infiltrate Bahairam on their own. That being the case, I have to think it might be safer to have them with us...”

  Minori-sama didn’t say anything.

  “And it will save us a lot of time to fly across the border on this dragon marionette rather than to cross the mountains on foot. I know a little bit of wind magic myself. Between us, Loek-sama and I should be able to make it go a little quicker...”

  My magical abilities weren’t as strong as those of a pure-blooded elf like Loek-sama, but I would be able to contribute.

  “And in order to make the creature fly properly, we need Romilda-sama’s magic, too...”

  “That’s absolutely right,” Romilda-sama said, taking up the thought. “We tried to have Loek-sama control it with just his wind magic a few times, but it never worked.”

  Minori-sama was frowning deeply, her arms crossed. She let out a deep, long groan and then, finally, a defeated sigh.

  “Myusel.”

  “Yes?”

  “I think Shinichi-kun’s rubbed off on you.”

  “Er? O-On me?”

  “For better or for worse,” she said with a half-smile. Then she turned back to Loek-sama and Romilda-sama. “Looks like I’m left with no choice. You swear not to slow us down, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” For once in their lives, the eternally arguing pair answered in unison.

  “Once we get into Bahairam, you will follow my orders absolutely, without question. That’s my condition.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” they answered, in unison once more.

  Chapter Three: Elvia and Amatena

  “Whoooooaaaaaaa!”

  Elvia-san was on all fours, clinging to the neck of the Faldra—the name Loek-sama had given to this creation, short for “false dragon.” There was nothing to hold her in place. Elvia-san’s tail was wagging wildly; from excitement, I supposed. For my part, I was very anxious: it looked like she might tumble off at any moment.

  The rest of us were sitting on the Faldra’s back, but we were using leather straps with metal fasteners to secure ourselves. Even so, we were up high enough that looking down at the ground made me distinctly uneasy.

  That ground, though, was amazing to see. The mountains that had seemed so thoroughly intimidating on foot now spread out beneath us as if a child had built them out of sand—as if we could sweep them aside with a motion of an arm. They seemed so impossibly small.

  During our ride with the Dragon Knights, we had been more or less boxed in by cargo, so there hadn’t been much opportunity to take in the scenery. But now, exposed to the gusting wind and rich sun, it truly felt like we were flying.

  Maybe I couldn’t blame Elvia-san for playing around a bit.

  We would soon enter Bahairam territory. Crossing the border had turned out to be almost comically simple.

  The cloth “skin” of the Faldra would make it look, from below, almost like a real dragon from a certain distance. On that note, the wyverns the Dragon Knights rode carried saddles and armor that gave them a very distinctive silhouette; no one in Bahairam would have mistaken what they were looking at. As it happened, there were many types of dragons and lizards native to Bahairam, such that some of the more docile ones were even bred to pull their carriages, or so I had heard.

  “We’ll be heading down soon!” Minori-sama shouted against the wind. “Land it in that forest.” She pointed to a small copse of trees standing smack in the middle of the landscape of sand and rocks below us.

  “Roger that!” Loek-sama said, and then he and I began using our wind magic to decrease our speed and altitude bit by bit. Romilda-sama changed the angle of the wings, helping the Faldra to a nice, gentle landing. The branches of the trees rustled as we came down, some of them snapping off as the huge creature passed by them, but we managed to come down in a relatively open area. We were still going a bit too quick and kick
ed up a lot of grass and dirt as we slid along, but soon the Faldra came safely to rest.

  “Phew...” Minori-sama let out a sigh of relief. She must have been more nervous than she’d let on. “Good work, everyone. I’m sorry to say this, but there’s no time to rest.”

  “Right!” Loek-sama and Romilda-sama nodded.

  “Obviously we can’t go riding this thing into town. Loek, Romilda, you cover the Faldra with leaves and branches so it stays hidden, then wait here with it. We’ll leave about half the luggage, too, so you’ll need to stand guard.”

  “Huh? ’Fraid not,” Loek-sama said, shaking his head. “I’m going with you, Minori-sensei.”

  “No, you’re not. We’re dealing with genuine covert activities from here on out. One wrong move and you could get stabbed in the back. I won’t be able to look after everyone at once. The fewer people we have with us, the better, and anyway, we need someone to look after the Faldra and the cargo.”

  “B-But couldn’t you have Romilda do that?”

  “Stop trying to delegate, branch brain,” Romilda-sama said, frowning angrily.

  “No,” Minori-sama said. “You both promised to follow my orders, right? Stay here and keep watch—together. There’s always a limit to what one person can do alone.”

  Loek-sama looked ever more distraught. Minori-sama spared him a dry smile and said, “And if we need you to rescue us, I’ll call you with this.” She gave him a long, rectangular object that looked like a cross between a box and a stick. If I recalled correctly, it was called a communications dee-vyce, a way for people who were far apart to talk to each other. Ja-pan’s equivalent of a magical item.

  “What’s this?”

  “I’ll show you how to use it later. If we happen to need to make an emergency escape, we’ll need you to come get us on the Faldra. Can I trust you to do that?”

  “Y-You sure can. Leave it to me!” Loek-sama said, putting a hand to his chest.

  Minori-sama nodded at Loek-sama and Romilda-sama, then turned to Elvia-san. “All right, Elvia, get the luggage. The leather pouch. The hemp pouch we can leave. Sorry, but can I ask you to handle half the cargo?”

  “...Yeah, sure,” Elvia-san said, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. I assumed this was about more than having to carry bags. She had to be upset that when she finally came back to her home country, it was essentially as a traitor.

  “Myusel and I will handle the rest of the luggage.”

  “Sure.”

  “Loek, Romilda, you get on hiding the Faldra. Elvia, Myusel, put the bags on your backs. And then let’s blow this scene!”

  “Right!” we all (except Elvia-san) answered eagerly.

  I was in my room, sitting vacantly in my chair. Clara had been with me until just a little while ago, as she always was... but then, for some reason, she left. Maybe she had something to do. So now I was alone, and I promptly lost myself in thought.

  It had been two days since I attended the wedding, and in that time I hadn’t been able to figure out what I would do from here.

  In this country they called the king their “father” and proclaimed that all the nation’s citizens were equal as family. That wasn’t necessarily a bad system as far as it went. The sense of unease I was experiencing might simply have been because I was an outsider. Amatena and the others didn’t see anything especially unusual about the arrangement.

  And yet...

  “I can’t help thinking I smell something fishy...”

  They claimed all the people in the nation were equal, but by definition, the existence of a state system implies some measure of difference. The closer you are to the seat of power, the better life is likely to be for you. In our world, even communism, which is probably the most aggressive political philosophy as far as promoting the equality of all people, tends to end up like that.

  The whole notion of complete equality is an ideal, not a reality. Brains. Brawn. Sensitivity. Beauty.

  These represent differences between people, who naturally have more of some and less of others. People aren’t even born equal. In fact, they can hardly be more different. You have people who turn out to be geniuses in a specific field, and on the other hand, you have people like me, whose only talent is for weird otaku stuff.

  So if you had a state that tried to eliminate such differences in ability by force... Well, it would essentially be repression towards people of exceptional talents, a kind of discrimination all its own.

  “I guess if the system worked as advertised, they wouldn’t be coming to me to beef up the father-ruler’s charisma.”

  Amatena had told me to create some work that would strengthen the father-ruler’s grip on the people and make the Bahairamanians even more loyal to him.

  In other words, propaganda.

  Obviously, though, Bahairam didn’t have the equipment to make a movie, so we wouldn’t be able to do the same thing I had done in the Holy Eldant Empire. They were effectively asking me to make up a story that would cause the people to respect the father-ruler unquestioningly.

  Considering the state of magic around here, even if a movie wasn’t feasible, it might have been possible to create a shadow play or something. In a world that seemed to have few entertainments, even that might be enough to get a pretty big reaction out of the populace. Think about the Arabian Nights in our world: long before movies or even the printing press, stories had the power to move ruler and subject alike. And there are lots of similar examples.

  But if the father-ruler already had a pretty good hold on this country, there was probably no need for those sorts of tales. In order to “reeducate,” or at least further educate, the people, we would need a myth that imputed even more authority to the father-ruler. Or looking at it the other way around, if we failed to tell such a story, resentment against the father-ruler might boil up among the people.

  “Hmmm...”

  No matter how I looked at it, all I could see was a bald grab for despotic power.

  They said the majority of the country’s population were farmers. That made me think of that poster child of evil, Pol Pot. Not that I’m implying there’s a direct comparison between Cambodia under Pol Pot, with all the attendant international circumstances, and the nation of Bahairam. Nor did I think Bahairam was in the process of killing off an entire intelligence operation that had turned against the government.

  But anyway, that’s beside my point.

  In the end, I resisted the idea that I—or rather, my knowledge and experiences as an otaku—should be used as a tool to control people. Maybe that sounds questionable, coming from someone who had already allowed himself to be an accomplice to cultural invasion once, but I just didn’t think culture should be a political tool. Obviously there was no way to completely separate culture and politics, and I knew that. But still...

  “Kanou Shinichi.”

  As I sat in thought, there was a knock at the door—the door that led outside. Before I could answer, the door opened, and Amatena came marching in.

  “Have you come to any conclusions yet?”

  “Conclusions?”

  “Clara reports that you appear to have been thinking about something. We decided to give you some time alone.”

  “Oh...”

  So that was why Clara had disappeared.

  That also meant she was keeping an eye on me, after all. Which wasn’t all that surprising, really.

  “Have you been able to formulate any ideas for the creation of myths about the father-ruler?”

  “..................Myths?”

  It wouldn’t do to laugh at that moment, despite the idea that a pack of lies some random otaku came up with might become a genuine legend. Then again, it was surprising how often myths started like this. Told and retold over the course of hundreds or thousands of years, it might dry up, gather dust, and actually become pretty mythic.

  Think about how many myths were sexy, and/or involved harems or even supernatural powers. Heck, just set one at a school and you pretty
much had a light nov—

  You know what? Forget about it.

  “Hey, Amatena,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s one thing I want to be sure about,” I said, measuring my words. “Exactly what kind of ‘myths’ do you have in mind?”

  There was a question in her eyes; it didn’t seem like she had expected me to ask that. She frowned in thought for a moment before replying, “For example, we have a story about the first king of our nation. Our people had no way to resist when an enemy country invaded, but the first king invoked the words ‘Victory be to our people,’ whereupon a whirlwind sprang up and swept away the cruel enemy soldiers.”

  “Ahh... I get it.”

  So I was right: this was about asserting authority. Coherence wasn’t a big concern. The story didn’t offer a scientific explanation for why the king could do such a thing, and it didn’t matter. “Lord Whoever could do that because he was great and just. Long live Lord Whoever!” That was all the explanation a story like that needed.

  But...

  “Uh, I just had a thought.”

  “What?”

  “This country seems to have a lot of... differences. Odd inconsistencies, if you know what I mean. Like the clothes you’re wearing versus everyone else. And the ceremony at that building. I feel like it all lacks a certain unity.”

  Amatena only frowned.

  “Could it be... and this is just a guess on my part, but... however many generations the current king represents... did things in Bahairam change drastically under him?”

  The desolate look of the city.

  The simple, plain clothing of the people.

  The weirdly traditional-culture-esque buildings.

  The wedding ceremony, with its seemingly deep roots in popular custom.

  Everything I had seen so far somehow seemed to represent different extremes. Too different.

  Did it suggest that the current king, coming after however many of his ancestors, had chosen to take his country in a very different direction? Maybe even do a 180-degree shift in policy?

  To take examples from our own world, after the Cultural Revolution, things in China were... well, I won’t say completely different, but very, very different. And changes in the Japanese government after the country’s defeat in World War II, brought about mostly at American insistence, were said to have had a significant effect on the culture.