The Men of the Kingdom Part II

by Kugane Maruyama

  To their denunciations, Momon had replied, “I’m an adventurer who took on a job and performed it, that’s all. It doesn’t warrant a reward from the king, and if he was going to reward me, I’d like to ask him to thank all the adventurers who participated in the operation,” which quieted them down.

  But that didn’t mean the smoldering fire was extinguished. They just realized that insulting Momon any further would only injure their own reputations.

  Evileye remembered the explanation Lakyus had given her.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine that without Momon, the disturbance wouldn’t have been resolved, and more damage would have resulted. The reason only the Blue Roses and Marquis Raeven were seeing off such a hero was because of the difficult position he was in.

  After this operation, people’s opinions of adventurers, the king, the second prince, and Marquis Raeven had improved, and their opinions of the nobles worsened.

  Of course, the nobles had an argument. The royal capital was the king’s territory, so from their point of view, as leaders of their own domains, they had no obligation to use their soldiers to protect the city, even if they felt like they should. In light of the possibility that the demons might attack their mansions, it was only natural to prioritize their own defense.

  After the disturbance, the nobles’ faction started taking the firm stance that any man who didn’t protect his own domain couldn’t be called king. In the king’s faction, they pushed the fact that rather than go into hiding, their monarch had dared to lead the army. And so the power struggle between the two sides intensified.

  The ordinary residents of the city, who had nothing to do with the power struggle, harbored seeds of discontent for a different reason. Why did these self-important nobles protect only their own houses and not ours?

  Thus the ones who had desperately fought were so lauded. And that bothered the nobles. This vicious cycle eventually led them to turn their discontent on the adventurers—they only fought so hard because they were getting paid.

  According to them, Momon, the adventurer now considered strongest in the kingdom, surpassing even the other adamantites, was the epitome of this. There was no way any of them would come to see him off. Even the handful of nobles who liked him were in a difficult spot that made it hard to say so after the faction war heated up.

  The reason Marquis Raeven had been able to attend was because of his position flitting between the factions.

  “A letter of thanks jointly signed by the king, the second prince, and the princess has arrived. There is also a plaque that exempts you from all tolls within domains under direct royal jurisdiction and a dagger from the king.”

  Evileye could clearly hear Lakyus’s sigh of admiration as a noble. A dagger given by the king was like a medal for a noble or knight who distinguished themselves in battle. If the nobles found out about this amid the intensifying power struggle, there would be trouble. The king’s decision to award Momon’s efforts with one despite that risk could only be called magnificent.

  I thought he was just an old guy who did nothing but breed conflict, but I guess I have to reevaluate him.

  Momon casually took the dagger and other items and handed them behind him to Nabe.

  “Well, the nobles might just consider this a decent enough reward and not say anything…,” Evileye said abruptly.

  The nobles would probably not be terribly amused, in any sense of the word, if someone with both popularity and power was promoted to a noble rank. And it would be problematic for them if a warrior even stronger than Gazef were to join the king’s faction. So if the idea of the king bestowing a rank on Momon came up, they would erupt in opposition, and their basis for the argument would be the dagger. He’d already given him a reward, so wasn’t that enough?

  Maybe they’ll just tolerate this with no problem, thought Evileye, but the people next to her disagreed.

  “…That’s naive, Evileye.”

  “Sweetie, the king is a step ahead.”

  “Huh?”

  “That dagger is given to knights and nobles.”

  “That means that later, when the king appoints Mr. Momon and the nobles complain, he can bring up the dagger. He doesn’t give those to ordinary citizens! You guys knew, right? Supposedly he’s already been given a rank along with the dagger. He’s managed to bulldoze through some tricky logic.”

  “I see… I can’t believe you figured all that out.”

  “Eh-heh. And proud of it.”

  “Don’t underestimate a former assas—a ninja.”

  “Well, I’m going to get going soon. Marquis Raeven, thank you for everything.”

  “Not at all. I hope we can continue our good relationship going forward.”

  “I hope the same. And Blue Roses, as fellow adamantite-rank adventurers, I think we’ll be speaking often. See you again sometime.”

  “Yes, Mr. Momon. Now that we’ve seen your power, we feel a bit sheepish to hold the same rank as you, but we’ll work hard to approach your greatness. Looking forward to teaming up with you again.”

  Lakyus and Momon exchanged slight bows.

  Then Evileye felt Momon’s gaze turn to her. It was definitely not her imagination. The proof was that he seemed about to say something.

  Evileye felt her unbeating heart give a thump.

  If he had asked her to join his team, she wouldn’t have been able to refuse. That would essentially mean betraying the friends she’d been through thick and thin with so far, but she couldn’t lie to herself about her feelings.

  After a few hesitant stops and starts, he sighed and turned away. As he did, his crimson cape waved dramatically.

  He walked away, and Gagaran said teasingly, “Got rejected, huh?”

  “No, that’s just the kind of man he is.”

  Evileye didn’t once take her eyes off him as the Floating Board from Marquis Raeven’s casters slowly floated into the air with him and Nabe on top.

  “I’m sure we’ll meet him again.”

  “I hope it won’t be a huge incident like this but something a little easier to handle.”

  “Might be tricky.”

  “No kidding.”

  The Blue Roses chatted.

  Probably the only time adamantite-rank adventurers would meet under work circumstances was during a huge incident.

  “Then we’ll just have to go visit sometime. Evileye can teleport. It wouldn’t be bad to have somewhere we can pop over to inside E-Rantel. In fact, if you went together now, you’d hit two birds with one stone. No safer way to travel than under Momon’s protection!”

  Evileye stared at Gagaran, speechless. Of course, she was wearing a mask, but her shock came through loud and clear in her posture.

  “Whoa, whoa, you didn’t know we knew? Anyhow, don’t you guys know that long-distance relationships never work? Well, I guess you’re not technically goin’ out yet…”

  Gagaran looked up at the sky, and Evileye couldn’t help but follow her gaze.

  Momon was getting smaller and smaller.

  “Waaaaaaaaaaagh!”

  A scream went up, one that sounded like Evileye when she was mad, and the Blue Roses laughed.

  10 Late Fire Moon (September) 6:45 PM

  The Eight Fingers’ emergency meeting was off to a rough start. Not all the members were present. One of those missing was Coccodor, but since everyone knew he was being held at the guardhouse, he wasn’t the acute problem this time. The issue was the other missing member—Zero.

  They knew he wouldn’t betray them. That was what made it an even bigger problem.

  According to the intelligence they’d gathered, Zero’s death was a confirmed fact. Acting on Zero’s proposal to torture to death the one who’d insulted them, they’d sent some of their own men, and it seemed they’d all been killed.

  It was a huge blow. The underlings weren’t irreplaceable, but the death of the strongest man in the Eight Fingers, the chief of the security division, was an unimaginable loss.

&nbs
p; The division chiefs gathered here were rivals, but they were also part of the same organization. This loss would affect them all without a doubt.

  The debate raged.

  What to do about the hole left by Zero? What to do about Coccodor?

  Normally they would have wanted to install their own men, but there was one reason they couldn’t at the moment—the demon attack on the royal capital.

  The losses the Eight Fingers had suffered in that attack were no joke. Their bases had been raided on the same day, but the damage done couldn’t even be compared. The chief of the smuggling division was in particular trouble.

  Almost all their warehouses had been emptied, their contents stolen, and the ones that hadn’t been looted had undergone inspection. As a result, they’d lost nearly half the goods they’d been smuggling into the capital.

  “All we can do is cooperate with one another until we get back on our feet.”

  “Pretty sure we always cooperate…”

  “Don’t be snarky. We need to cooperate for real this time. I think it might be better to operate away from the capital for a while, but what do you all think?”

  “Nah, on the contrary, now’s probably the time to be in the capital. We gotta grease the palm of the new captain of the guards. If we fled the capital now, we’d be giving up on all the profits to be had here.”

  “Hrm, that is a possibility, but don’t you think it’s dangerous to operate in the capital when our security division—our military force—is crippled?”

  Five of the chiefs racked their brains. Then they asked the one who hadn’t spoken yet, “Hilma, what do you think?”

  She jumped.

  Her reaction was completely different from their last meeting.

  She looked almost like a corpse, with dark circles under her eyes that even her makeup couldn’t conceal.

  “What’s the matter? I heard your house got raided, too. You were the only one who was able to escape, right? Through the secret passageway? Was it that traumatizing?”

  The other chiefs had their usual escorts standing by behind them, but there was no one behind Hilma.

  “…”

  “What’s wrong?”

  The moment she opened her mouth, the door to the meeting room opened.

  “Okayyyy, stop right there!” The one who entered the room with a cheerful shout was a single dark elf boy. A girl of the same race meekly followed behind him.

  Everyone present was so stunned they couldn’t react.

  Perhaps their handling of the situation would have changed in the case of adult dark elves, but these were children—a total mismatch for the current atmosphere. Before assuming they were enemies, everyone wondered if someone had brought them here intentionally.

  “So, uh, starting now, you’re all going to be minions of our master!” It was silent enough to hear a pin drop. He must have assumed they didn’t understand what he’d said, because he rephrased it. “The ever sacred Supreme One has judged that he would gain more influence by conquering you than the leaders of this country. So all your crimes will be pardoned, and you’ll become our minions…slaves? Puppets? Well, whatever. Anyhow, congratulations!”

  When the dark elf boy clapped his hands, the timid girl followed suit, holding her staff under her arm. “C-congra—”

  “The fuck is this?!”

  The division chiefs had hesitated precisely because they didn’t know who these elves were, whether they were friend or foe. Once they’d judged them to be enemies, the rest happened very quickly. Their underworld lifestyles meant they had already switched gears, and the first order of business was to find a way to keep themselves safe and survive. Killing their opponent would be put off till later.

  It wasn’t clear if the dark elves were the main force or not, but if they could barge right through the door into this Eight Fingers’ executive meeting, they had to have control over quite a bit of this place. That meant that even with the elite escorts the chief of each division had brought, they probably couldn’t win a fight. Unless their opponents were total idiots, they would have eliminated any chance of their losing in advance. That was precisely why everyone’s top priority was escaping.

  No one hesitated to use their escorts as shields. Everyone thought of the same thing at the same time and leaped into action.

  But it was far too late.

  One of the chiefs tried to stand up, and he was the first to realize he couldn’t move.

  “Ah. Ahhh, ahhh?! Ahhhhh!” He couldn’t move. His tongue was paralyzed and couldn’t form words. Drool just dribbled out of his mouth.

  “Phoo,” the dark elf boy exhaled. Then he smiled broadly. “So, for starters, you’re all invited to a fun place! See?”

  “O-oh. H-here’s the invitation.”

  Hilma jumped with a start.

  “W-wait a minute! I’m good, right? I cooperated, didn’t I?”

  Realizing who had betrayed them, the men moved only their eyes to glare at the woman who was still mobile.

  “P-please! I can’t take any more! I don’t want to go back there!”

  “Hmm. What did you do to her?” the boy asked.

  “I took her to the Prince of Fear’s room and had them eat her from the inside out.”

  The boy grimaced with a “Yikes!”

  Hilma must have remembered. Hugging herself, nails dug into her arms, she trembled violently. She had one hand over her mouth. Her face was sickly pale, and tears poured out of her eyes.

  “A-and—”

  “That’s enough. So you healed her up with magic, huh? That’s enough to make anyone obey you. But it’s so rare for us not to kill someone.”

  “Y-yeah. I guess ’cause we have plenty of corpses and ’cause we could use her to manage this organization…”

  “I seeeee. Well, lady, do your best. If you betray us, we’ll put you back in that room for even longer.”

  “Eek!”

  Hilma nodded over and over. Any urge to rebel had completely disappeared; she would definitely be loyal to them and carry out her orders as given.

  “First, I want you to buy us some time until these people learn to obey. Can you do that?”

  “O-of course! Leave it to me! I’m sure I’ll be useful to you!”

  Seeing how frantically eager she was to please, the men realized they were about to get a taste of whatever had made her so fearful, and their faces went pale.

  “Well, we’re going to leave you with a few subordinates we brought along, so make good use of them! And there are a few people you absolutely cannot kill or oppose; I’ll explain about them later.”

  The dark elf boy flashed a grin.

  “Okay! Half this country is conquered! Demiurge was saying something about sowing the seeds of a nation… Hmm. Ah well, it’s probably fine. I guess we’ll go to a different country next?”

  Afterword

  Okay, so this was volume six, a story that got more and more horrible, in many senses of the word, the more you read. How did you like it?

  As the author, Maruyama, I think it was very Overlord. I’d be happy if you all agreed. Plus, it’s a parade of things a normal light novel protagonist would never do.

  Since I set up foreshadowing a few volumes back, now I can get a smug look on my face and say, “I was thinking about this way back then!” It makes me want to brag. It’s hard, though… If you make it too conspicuous, people will see through it right away. I think the hardest to figure out is the journal. I believe there’s a scene in Volume 2 where there was a discussion of her things being disturbed. Considering the motive of the attacker, there was no real reason to go through her stuff. But that attacker always did things in a showy way, so it wouldn’t have been strange if everything was really ripped apart. But the things weren’t so out of place—almost as if someone who knew where things were did the searching… So sneaky…

  So there are other things like that where if you go back and read all the other volumes after reading this one, you might make some
discoveries.

  As for the characters, the MVP of both Volumes 5 and 6 is clearly Evileye, but my personal fave is the thief whose name you finally learn at the very end. If you’re the kind of person who finds yourself murmuring things like, “It’s good to be young,” then you probably understand.

  With that, thank you, everyone, for reading this two-part story. I’m extremely interested in hearing your impressions. Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay for the stamp, but I’d be happy if you sent in a reader postcard.

  From here on out, I’d like to give some thanks. To so-bin, F——ta, Osako, Code Design Studio, and everyone who helps create Overlord, thank you. And Honey, thanks for so many things.

  Finally, to the people who bought the book, I truly thank you!

  KUGANE MARUYAMA

  January 2014

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.

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