I asked them to keep quiet about what had happened in Yulong. But I didn’t really think they were the types to brag about having killed one of the prospective Heavenly Emperors of a foreign nation.
In all honesty I wanted them to join my knight order. They were absolutely strong enough... But I held off on the invitation because I didn’t want to tie them down.
I waved goodbye to the trio and then started wandering off.
“Oh, milord. Taking a lone stroll, today?”
“Ah, milord! Got some tasty apples for sale!”
“Milord! Wanna play spinning tops with us?!” A bunch of different townsfolk from all walks of life greeted me as I strolled along. It wasn’t really possible for me to go around without attracting attention, but I didn’t mind too much.
Everyone had seemed to default to calling me ‘milord,’ though. Felt almost like a weird nickname. They weren’t trying to mock me or anything, so it was fine. They were just finally getting used to my hands-on approach.
The Duchy of Brunhild only had one town. So in a sense, this town was Brunhild. If the town became any bigger, it’d absolutely be Brunhild’s capital city.
I decided to head out east. There were a bunch of rice paddies there, because it was the site of our farming operation. Environmentally speaking, that area of the country was similar to rural Eashen. Honestly the whole place felt like a Japanese farming village. The water wheel I had installed there also added to that aesthetic.
“Things are looking good here.”
“Ah, milord. Visiting little old me?” Lakshy the alraune was taking a little break beneath a tree. She was ostensibly a member of our knight order, but most of her duties these days were agricultural.
She was a demonkin species rooted in plant life, after all. She was the ideal person for the job. It was for this reason that she was allowed to skip out on most regular knightly duties.
Our knight order had around a hundred members, but around forty of those weren’t actually combatants. They were assigned to other areas. Some tended the land like Lakshy, some worked in clerical positions, some worked as covert intelligence, some in construction, and so on.
Still, that didn’t mean they were weak. They were still people who had passed my examination process. They still trained on their own in their spare time, too. It wasn’t like they could farm or paperwork shuffle their way out of a conflict if it came to them.
“We’ll be expecting a heavy haul of rice in the fall.”
“Looking forward to it. Is there anything troublesome going on around here, by the way?”
“Uhm... Lemme think. Oh, I guess I was a little concerned because it hasn’t rained much in the past couple days. But it’s not like you can fix that, milord...”
“Descend, O Water. Blessing of the Heavens: [Heavenly Rain]!” The pitter-patter of water fell down to the ground as the heavens opened up. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but rain fell all the same, localized entirely on the farm. In the past I’d made a mistake in regards to the range, but I’d since honed it to the point of selecting the area.
The farmers in the field seemed a little confused at the sudden rain, and even more confused at the [Shield] spells I’d manifested above their heads. But once they saw me they just shrugged as if they understood it was one of those things, and sat down a bit to relax.
Lakshy looked on in wonder before turning her attention to me once more.
“Goodness me... Is there nothing you can’t do, milord?”
“There’s a lot I can’t do, Lakshy. That’s why I rely on you and everyone else.”
Doing everything myself is no way to live. I’m glad that I can depend on others to build my nation with me. Doing it alone just isn’t right. Old man Naito, Kousaka... Lakshy, and everyone else. You guys are the ones that actually run this country. The best thing I can do is keep you all safe while you keep on moving forwards. I won’t forgive anyone that targets this nation or its people. If anyone wants to start shit for no good reason, like Yulong, I’ll come down on them like a ton of bricks.
The rain finally ended, and I headed away from the farmland.
I decided to visit the recently-built school. There weren’t any students in attendance yet, but Fiana and the two other recently-hired teachers were cleaning up their respective classrooms.
The two new teachers were a female human in her 20s, and a male elf. He looked young, but he was an elf... I later learned he was apparently over two-hundred years old. That still made him younger than Doc Babylon and Leen, though... which felt a little weird.
The woman was named Miette, and the elf guy was called Leisail. Miette had gotten a formal education in the Regulus Empire, and then made her way to Brunhild. Leisail was a mage, and apparently quite the veteran adventurer. He was hired on Relisha’s recommendation.
Yumina used her Mystic Eye to determine whether or not they were good people, just in case. They were both deemed to be pure of heart.
I was heading over to greet them, when I suddenly noticed a clowder of cats in one of the schoolyard corners.
“What in the...”
The cats were surrounding a cardboard box. Stood atop the box, on his hind legs, dictating to the group in some foreign tongue, was none other than Mr. Mittens...
“Meow meow meow. Yeow meow. Meow! Meeeeow!”
...Cat language? What the hell is he saying?
“The hell’s going on here, Mr. Mittens?”
“It’s D’Artagnan! And I’m acquiring pawsitive infurmation from my informeowants here.”
Your informants...? You became king of the strays, now? Well, Kohaku still outclasses you.
“And what are you gonna use that information for, huh?”
“Fur security purrposes, of course! The school’s my territory, so I’m gonna protect my venerable benefactor from harm!”
...Since when was this place your territory? Well, whatever. Using cats to get information on suspicious happenings is actually really smart. If anything happens around here, then a stray cat has a good chance of seeing it. Good job, Mr. Mittens.
“Well, alright then. If anything weird happens, let Sakura know.”
“You got it, meow.” I hadn’t summoned him, so he didn’t have a telepathic bond with me. He still had a link with Sakura though, so if he informed her, she could phone me right away.
As I pondered the effectiveness of a cat spy network, my phone began to ring. Huh. A call? I took my phone out of my pocket and saw that the caller was none other than Doctor Babylon. I have a bad feeling about this...
“’Sup...”
“Touya, Touya! I think the next one should have a transformative function that allows it to shift from humanoid form to a more battle-oriented form...!”
“Master, Master, sir! The next one should be a supercarrier battleship that can transport all the Frame Gears at once, yessir it should!”
“There should be A-Parts that slot into B-Parts...!”
“If Ma’am Sakura’s Frame Gear uses singing to create oscillation attacks, then...!”
Shut up! The moment I picked up the call, I received a flood of screaming from Rosetta and Regina both. I instinctively pulled the phone away from my ear. I really shouldn’t have shown you guys any anime... You’re just making whatever the hell you want! God damn it.
Well, I’m a dude, so I can understand their excitement... It’s honestly a little bit jarring when I see girls get so fired up about giant robots. Maybe I’ve been thinking about this from the wrong angle the whole time. The two of them started blabbing and asking more details about some mecha shows they’d seen.
I didn’t want to go into too much detail, since some of the giant robots they asked about worked on nuclear fission, and I absolutely didn’t want that kind of technology getting introduced into this world. I knew Babylon would up and make something like that if I was too detailed.
In the end, I sighed in defeat and moved the phone far from my ear, but I could still hear their chatte
ring voices...
Chapter IV: L’Etranger from Another World
Much to my surprise, Mr. Mittens’s cat patrols proved to be effective.
If they spotted trouble, they immediately informed the nearest guard checkpoint and called over the peacekeepers. If they saw something suspicious, they tailed them and kept an eye on their actions. They also got the attention of adults when their kids were doing dangerous stuff.
They managed a lot, all without the ability to speak. The townspeople ended up being so thankful for the cats that nobody minded them being all over the danged place.
Usually a large increase in the amount of cats would mean fish might get stolen, or stray fighting would break out... But I never heard anything about that. Apparently Mr. Mittens was quite the skilled leader... When it came to cats, at least.
There were occasional incidents where traveling adventurers would try to treat the cats poorly, but they’d always end up being found in back alleys with their clothes shredded to pieces. Their bodies were found covered in scratches, as well. The number of injuries implied they’d been attacked by a considerably sized group, too. The amount of adventurers that tormented animals for fun sharply declined after a few of these incidents. Cats were animals, but they were still capable of retaliation. It seemed like most of the adventurers who fell victim to these attacks ended up being so afraid of cats afterward that they packed up and left town shortly after.
Thus, the cats had earned their rightful place in Brunhild.
“What’s suspicious about this person, anyway?”
“Well...” Mr. Mittens and I were lurking in the shadows, watching someone sitting in the guild bar. Fiana was with Sakura at the castle, so Mr. Mittens was off guard-duty for the day.
This alleged suspicious person was slowly drinking sake at the edge of the bar. I couldn’t see their face, because they were wearing a dirty, hooded robe, but I definitely considered them female instead of male. That was just my gut instinct talking, though.
Her hands and legs jutted from the robe, and I could see they were clad in armored gloves and greaves. That led me to believe she was a knight.
I guess if the cats found her suspicious, then there was cause for concern... but I didn’t think we needed to be so guarded. I didn’t want to intrude on her personal circumstances. She might have had her own reasons for her disguise.
“She’s plenty suspicious, but the purrcise thing about her that bothers me is that... She doesn’t smell of anything.”
“No scent? Huh...”
“Everyone smells of something. At the very least, there’s sweat and body odor. Purrfume is often used to cover that up, but having no smell at all is pawsitively unusual.”
That made sense enough to me. Cats might not have had a sense of smell as acute as a dogs’, but they could still smell better than humans. From what I heard, cats used scent to judge the quality of their meals, and also to mark their human owners with their own smells by rubbing against their legs.
In other words, if the cats found her smell suspicious, then it was probably suspicious.
“There are three purrfectly valid possibilities here.” Mr. Mittens suddenly raised three of his ‘fingers’ into the air. He was surprisingly dexterous for a cat.
“Firstly, the scent is being masked with magic. Like maybe with an artifact or something, meow. Secondly, she’s undead. But then she’d smell like death at least, so that’s not likely. She could be a spirit though, that would still count... And then there’s the third option! She could be a Golem or a magic construct. But I’ve never seen a Golem her size before. That’s why I think option one is most likely.”
There were Golems known as Flesh Golems that were made of bodies, kind of like Frankenstein’s Monster... But they still counted as undead creatures. They’d surely emanate the stink of death.
If her scent was being erased by magic, I couldn’t even begin to think why she’d do that. I didn’t even know a spell like that existed, but there were definitely Null spells with all kinds of uses. One would use a deodorant-style magic if they stunk really badly, but this town was equipped with public bathhouses... If she could afford to drink sake in a bar, she could definitely afford to take a bath.
“She hasn’t done anything, right? All she’s done is... lack a smell.”
“You’re too optimistic, meowlord. If you wait until she does something, then it’s already too late, right? We need to act before then, don’t you know that?”
Really...? She’s just sitting there drinking sake, it’s not like... Oh...? Two drunk adventurers suddenly walked over toward the hooded woman. It looked like they were trying to pick a fight. She definitely stood out, so it wasn’t too surprising that she’d be confronted at some point...
I briefly wondered whether or not interfering was the right thing to do.
Just as I was about to make a move, one of the adventurers harassing the woman was blasted away in the blink of an eye. I was taken aback. He ended up being flung out of the bar completely, crashing headfirst into the ground. The hooded women had barely made a move.
The man was pretty damned big and tall, so the woman must have been packing serious strength to fling him so far.
I poked my head inside again, and almost got hit by the second adventurer, who was hurtling out the door in much the same fashion. Whoa! I pulled back and watched in awe as the man crumbled to the ground near his friend. Then, I looked back into the bar and saw the hooded woman had returned to her glass of sake, seemingly unfazed by what had just happened. The woman had serious balls, it seemed.
“Hey, you piece of shit!”
“Who do you think you are, huh?!” The two men stumbled to their feet, drew their weapons, and tried to get back into the bar. They were completely drunk. It was time for me to step in.
“That’s enough. Take it any further and there’ll be trouble. A bar fight I can understand, but the moment weapons come out I can’t accept it. Put your weapons away.”
“What’s that, brat?! You a friend of the hooded idiot?”
“Get the hell outta my way! You wanna get messed up?!” They were seriously treating me like a child. I wasn’t a seventeen-year-old anymore, but physically I hadn’t really aged in the last year or so, so sometimes people treated me like I was still a kid. It added further credibility to the idea that my Divinity had somehow halted my aging. I might have even become an immortal, but I wasn’t in a hurry to test that out.
“What’s going on here?”
“There’s some adventurers causing a fuss.”
“Wait, that’s the grand duke!” A crowd had gathered without me even realizing it. There were some kids waving to me, even.
“Go get them, milord!”
“You can do it!”
“Go beat them up, milord!”
Wait, no... That’s not what this situation is!
I sighed slightly and gave a dismissive wave towards the kids, they seemed a little disappointed by my pacifistic intentions, but then one of the drunks tried to slash me.
“Grargh!” I dodged him, but his attack would’ve missed anyway. His whole posture was bad and his feet were unsteady; he was steaming drunk.
Either way, he was a risk.
Paralyzing him with a bullet would do the job, but I didn’t want the crowd to think I’d just murdered someone. I decided to take him out conventionally.
I dodged his next attack and touched him with a spot of [Paralysis]. The other man saw his comrade go down like a puppet with its strings cut. He charged at me with his blade, but I used [Power Rise] to catch it between my fingers and snap it off. It was a cheap weapon, evidently.
“What the...?!”
Then, I used [Paralysis] to take the second guy out.
“Hmph...” Just after I took them out, Guildmaster Relisha came out to see the commotion.
“Your Highness? What’s going on out here?”
“Ah... I just took down two violent drunks. They’re adventurers, so give t
hem a formal warning, if you could.”
The guild couldn’t oversee everyone who decided to become an adventurer, but they still had the power to punish them if they did something that harmed the guild’s general image. Such punishments could range from taking treasure away, all the way to revoking a guild card. I’d even heard rumors of a secret guild assassin squad, but those weren’t proven.
“Got it. I’ll give them a stern warning. If they do it again, we’ll treat them more harshly. That being said, trying to attack a monarch is a grave offense, and would usually warrant the death penalty.”
“Well, I’ll let them go this time.” Some members of the guild came out and dragged the two fallen men inside. They were paralyzed, but they could still see and hear everything around them. Which probably meant they knew who I was, now. Their faces had gone completely pale. They looked a lot more sober than they had a few moments ago.
“I have a question.”
“Whuh?!” I let out a startled cry at the mysterious and unexpected voice from behind me. The source of the voice was the girl who had been drinking at the bar. ...I didn’t notice her at all, what the hell? Her voice is definitely female, but even so...
“You were referred to as Your Highness and the like. That makes you this country’s sovereign, does it not?”
“Er... Sovereign’s a weird way to put it, but yes, I’m the grand duke.”
“Then that means you are Morcheezooki Towya. Am I right?” I nodded awkwardly at the woman’s words. Even if her pronunciation was a little stilted.
What the hell is this? Is she another foreign assassin? But she doesn’t look like she’s from Yulong...
“We must talk. Privately. I won’t take much of your time.”
“...Alright.” I was a little reluctant in following someone this suspicious, but I didn’t feel any hostility from her. I was also curious in exactly what it was she wanted to tell me.
It felt strange walking behind the hooded woman, but I was finding it hard to put into words. It was like following a robot. There was no feeling in the way she moved.
In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 10 Page 15
