by Dojyomaru
“You punks are gonna pay for what you did to our people!” Kuu spun his cudgel around like a windmill, then weaved nimbly through his opponent’s onrushing arms to accurately whack the ogre’s forehead, solar plexus, and other vital points. “Too slow! Here, you can eat this, too!”
Most likely, that cudgel was strengthened with an enchantment. Every time the cudgel struck flesh, there was thumping sound. The ogre held the place where it had been struck and winced in pain.
Compared to Kuu’s style of infighting, Hal was working at medium range.
He wreathed his right hand spear in flames, and threw it at the ogre. When the ogre evaded it, the spear stuck in the tree behind it. That moment, the flames burst. There was a loud roar and the tree exploded into pieces.
The ogre closed in on Hal, unintimidated, and raised up its huge arms.
“Oh, crap!” Hal cried.
Before it could swing down, Hal pulled on his remaining spear.
That pulled on the chain connecting the spears at their base, and the other spear smoothly returned to his hand. Hal crossed the two spears and blocked the ogre’s downwards blow.
“Urgh... Yeah, I’m not doing so hot, taking it into battle without any practice,” he groaned.
While he slid his crossed spears and redirected the ogre’s arms to the right, Hal spun his body, and landed a flaming backwards roundhouse kick on the ogre’s flank. The ogre’s body, which was easily over two meters tall, was thrown back about five meters.
Hal cracked his neck, and looked at the ogre. “Sheesh... I’ll have to train to be able to use it quickly.”
Hal grinned, then threw his left spear at the ogre this time.
The ogre tried to dodge it again, but Hal used the remaining spear and chain to change its course. The ogre was unable to avoid it, and it struck its right shoulder.
“Blow up!” Hal shouted.
The flame-wreathed spear blew away the ogre’s right arm.
While Kuu and Hal seemed to be holding the advantage in their battles, Aisha was fighting two ogres alone. Despite that, there was no sign whatsoever that Aisha was in trouble.
Warding off all of the ogres’ heavy blows with her greatsword, she followed that up by slashing them. As time passed, the number of gashes carved into the two ogres’ bodies increased.
“So inexperienced. This isn’t even a warm up,” Aisha said as she cut off one ogre’s fat arm at the shoulder.
All three of them were doing an amazing job fighting.
Incidentally... for my part, I was watching them from a distance.
That was so I could keep a watch on the seven that were being delayed, as well as keep an eye out for any signs of further enemy activity in the surrounding area.
While I would occasionally see an opening and have my Little Musashibo (Small) with Bowgun Equipped take a shot, the ogres’ thick muscles kept getting in the way, so my supporting fire wasn’t doing much more than harassing them.
“Everyone so strong,” I murmured to myself.
“Of course,” Juna said. She was standing beside me as my bodyguard. “Aisha and Sir Halbert are among the best warriors in our country. Sir Kuu is strong, too, I might add. I’m not sure I could beat him.”
“Oh, yeah. Now that you mention it, you were one of them, huh...”
The commander of the marines in the former navy. She was someone who had a strength she could compare against others.
“I know I can rely on you,” I added.
“Hee hee.” She seemed pleased. “But... don’t let your guard down, okay?”
Juna suddenly pulled out a number of knives and threw them forward.
The water-wreathed knives left a trail as they flew forward, then stabbed into a large boulder that had flown our way at some point, and in the next instant, the boulder was pulverized. It seemed one of Aisha’s ogres had gotten cornered and started throwing around anything that came to hand in desperation. One of those things must have ended up coming our way.
“Because the thing to truly be afraid of at a time like this is the stray arrow that comes at you without killing intent,” she finished.
“Oh! Okay...”
As she brushed her hair back and said that, I felt myself falling for Juna all over again.
When there was only one ogre left, we learned there had been movement from the other seven.
“Ah! The seven are coming this way! Kaede and Leporina are coming, too!”
I reported that to everyone, then prepared myself for battle again.
Leporina and Kaede rushed in from over there. They were moving as planned, but for some reason, Leporina looked flustered. She rushed straight over to me.
“Wh-What is it?” I asked.
“Hah, hah... K-Kazuma! In addition to the seven, another group is coming in from eight o’clock! There are five of them!”
A group?! Reinforcements, now?!
But I’d received no report from the Black Cats. Whatever the case might be, I sent a wooden mouse in the direction Leporina indicated. Then, when I confirmed the group... I was shocked.
Huh?! What are they doing here?!
I was so surprised, I was at a loss for words. When I came to my senses, I hid my Little Musashibo doll in the bushes. It’d be bad if those guys saw it.
“Wh-What is it?! Is it something bad?!”
Leporina had a worried look on her face, so I hurriedly shook my head.
“Oh... It’s fine. They’re not our enemy.”
And then they came out from the other side of the bushes.
You could tell at a glance that they were five adventurers. The handsome swordsman, the green-haired, boyish female thief, the muscly martial artist man, the mild-mannered priest with the gentle face, and the quiet beauty who was a mage. I... knew these people well.
“We’ve come to support you in response to a request from the adventurers’ guild!” the handsome swordsman known as Dece shouted. “Is there someone in charge here?”
Whenever I had Little Musashibo go out and play adventurer, this was the party he often teamed up with.
The swordsman’s name was Dece.
The female thief was Juno.
The mild-mannered guy in the priest’s uniform was Febral.
The female mage’s name was Julia.
The muscle man’s name was... Who was he again? He hadn’t been there the first time I’d teamed up with the party... Oh! Augus. It was Augus.
“Hm?”
Then Juno came over to me, and...
“Hey, you. Haven’t we met somewhere?” she asked while staring me in the face.
◇ ◇ ◇
This is just a reminder, but adventurers were people who made their living clearing the dungeons that existed all over this continent, slaying the dangerous creatures that sometimes spilled out of them, and performing tasks like defending merchants and subjugating bandits.
An group of adventurers’ final goal was to clear a dungeon and earn wealth and glory by destroying and bringing back its dungeon core.
Among themselves, they had job names based on the roles they played.
If they specialized in close combat, they were a “swordsman” or “brawler.” If they specialized in long-range combat, they were an “archer.” And if they focused on magic, they were a “mage.” In addition, there was the scouting and commando role played by the “thief” and the healer role played by the “priest,” but these were only job titles, and that didn’t mean they were actual thieves or priests.
They were like Jacks and Jills of all trades whose bodies were their primary assets, which meant their position in society was not particularly high, but if they managed to recover something useful from a dungeon, they could possibly strike it rich, so it was a reasonably popular and romanticized profession.
Furthermore, due to the nature of their trade, they often worked across borders, so registering with the adventurers’ guild also had the benefit of simplified checks when entering or leaving a country.
>
You might think that would make them easy to use as spies, but it also meant that it was easy for them to draw attention. If an adventurer carelessly got too close to important secrets, they would surely be put down without question.
Still, it was true that it was a convenient way of getting someone into another country undercover, and that was why the Gran Chaos Empire’s Little Sister General, Jeanne, had used it to make contact with Souma in past.
Now, returning to the story. We turn back to about half a day earlier.
On this day, the swordsman Dece, the thief Juno, the priest Febral, the mage Julia, and the martial artist Augus left their usual area of operations in Friedonia in order to visit the Republic of Turgis.
They were here to buy equipment. They needed to procure new arms and armor to replace the ones they had used up in their adventuring business, and they all agreed that, if they had to buy them anyway, they should get Turgish equipment, which was noted for its high quality.
Being contractors who took jobs from others, not only was function important, but appearance, too.
Because imports were relatively expensive, they had decided to go to the place where they were made as a means of conserving money.
Dece and the others were all smiling after buying their new equipment, but then the adventurers’ guild issued an emergency quest.
Apparently, there had been a dungeon discovered near a mountain village, and ogres had crawled out of it to attack that small settlement. The quest was to “cooperate in subjugating the ogres.”
These sorts of emergency quests were issued in the name of both the guild and the country, and adventurers in the affected area were half-forced to accept them. They could refuse, but in the event they did, they would face harsh measures such as being stripped of their status as an adventurer.
“Well, if it’s an emergency quest, we can’t exactly refuse,” Dece commented. “Let’s go, everyone.”
“Urgh... I just got this new equipment, and I need to get it dirty already?” Juno complained.
Their shoulders slumped, as they realized they were getting dragged into some real trouble.
Even so, they couldn’t ignore an emergency quest.
There nothing else they could do, so Dece and the others hurried into the mountains to join up with the group that was already on location and dealing with the issue.
◇ ◇ ◇
“...Hey, you,” Juno said. “Haven’t we met somewhere?”
The female thief had distinctive green hair and was seventeen, maybe eighteen years of age. Her defiant eyes seemed a poor fit for her childish face stared hard at me.
Within her party, she specialized in scouting and ambushing, so she dressed lightly, with hot pants and a tank top with a breastplate over it. But because of this country’s cold climate, she was now wearing a cape over top of that.
“Your face...” she went on. “I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before?”
“Erm...” I said.
I wasn’t sure exactly which face she meant. Was it my face on the Jewel Voice Broadcast as the King of Friedonia, or my face from when we’d encountered each other in the former slums, or the face of the person inside the adventurer Little Musashibo...? Oh, wait, I had been controlling that Little Musashibo remotely. Well, no matter which of my alternate identities it was, it would be troublesome to explain.
Judging from the wrinkles on Juno’s brow, it seemed Juno herself couldn’t recall where she had seen me. In that case, my solution was decided.
I offered my right hand to Juno. “Nice to meet you. Would you people happen to be the adventurers coming to support us?”
“Huh? Uh... Yeah, but...”
“Whew, it’s a good thing you’re here.” I took Juno’s right hand and shook it hard.
My plan was to move things along before she figured anything out. While I was still holding Juno’s right hand, I pointed to the last of the five ogres which the others were working on defeating.
“We also came here to slay ogres and answer the request for aid that Sir Kuu issued.”
“Y-You did?” Juno looked at me blankly.
Whew... It looked like I’d managed to play it off well enough.
“...Darling?” Juna, who had been standing beside me, was looking at me with a smile.
Even though she hadn’t said a word, I could tell what she was thinking...
“Oh, my, just how long do you plan to hold her hand for?”
“Just what sort of relationship do you have with her...?”
I felt like I was being interrogated. I was like a frog, paralyzed by being glared at by a snake. No, not just any snake, a giant sea snake. It was times like this when I could really sense that Juna was Excel the sea serpent’s granddaughter.
I let go of Juno’s hand, then turned the conversation over to the party leader Dece, who had a look on his face like he was wondering what we had been talking about.
“We’ve finished slaying these five, but another seven ogres are coming this way,” I said. “I’d like your assistance in subjugating them.”
“S-Sure,” he said. “Got it. Let’s go, everyone!”
“Yeah!” said Augus.
““Yes, sir!”” Febral and Julia shouted.
Juno continued staring at my face, but thanks to Juna subtly inserting herself between us, we were able to break her line of sight.
Juno took on an irritated expression at someone getting between us.
Juna didn’t let her smile break even as the other woman glared at her dubiously.
Sparks flew between them.
...Why was it? I felt a pain in my stomach.
Well, that aside.
Not long afterward, the seven ogres appeared, but with our original group of seven being bolstered by the five adventurers, there were now twelve of us.
Even excluding me, because I was unable to use my Little Musashibo doll in front of Juno and her party, which meant I had been reduced to a scouting role with Juna guarding me, we still had enough people to overwhelm them.
While Dece and Juno were way below Aisha or Hal in terms of ability, Dece and Augus kept the ogres under control on the front line, Febral healed their wounds, Juno disrupted the ogres and cut them with twin poison-coated swords, and Julia finished them with magic.
They used that sort of party-like teamwork to take out two ogres. They were defeating enemies they couldn’t beat alone with the power of teamwork.
It was a style that differed from soldiers on the battlefield, and it suited them as adventurers.
Little Musashibo has been part of that...
The Little Musashibo I was making act as an adventurer had often formed a temporary party with them. His role was the sort of front-line fighting that Dece and Augus were doing. Even if it was temporary, he had joined them a number of times, so I was confident he could work in concert with them.
He had been asked to formally join the party, too, but I couldn’t afford to let one of my consciousnesses be constantly devoted to adventuring, so I’d politely declined.
To think I’d encounter them in this country... I pondered. Was this mean to be...?
“Fate is a fickle mistress, and misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows...” I murmured.
“Hm? Did you say something?” Juna asked.
“Nope, not a thing.” I shook my head.
What had at some point become the last ogre took Hal’s flaming spear in its flank, which created a big hole when it exploded.
Now we’d exterminated all the ones in this area.
There was no report of more enemies from the Black Cats watching the entrance to the dungeon, so this was mission accomplished.
“You all did great,” Kuu said. “Kazuma and company, and you adventures, too. I thank you on behalf of the people of this country.”
Kuu and Leporina both bowed their heads. He was speaking formally, no doubt because he was the quest issuer.
Then Kuu raised his head and smi
led at Dece and the others with a laugh. “You really saved us. We’ll tell the guild the quest’s complete. And about your part in it, too, of course. Go to them for your reward.”
“R-Right,” said Dece. “Understood. We’ll be going, then.”
Dece and the others bowed and turned back down the road they came.
When they were almost out of sight, Juno seemed to panic about something and raced back over on her own.
Oh, crap! Had she figured something out?
She stood in front of me, and thrust a finger in my direction. “I remember now! You—you were the guy in Parnam’s refugee camp!”
Oh, that’s the one she remembers, huh...
It seemed she recognized me not as a king, or as the one inside Little Musashibo, but as the guy she’d happened to encounter in the refugee camp. I wondered how I was going to dodge the issue, but I had a feeling that trying to lie while she was staring at me so hard would backfire.
I put my hand on top of my head and bowed slightly. “Ohh... Thank you for that time...”
“I knew it! I’ve wanted to ask you all this time! Back then, I never gave my name, but you called me Juno! How’d you know my name?!”
“That’s...”
What was the best way to answer that? I couldn’t say it was because I was Little Musashibo and I had often worked with her party... right?
But, huh? Was there a need to keep that secret? It would be problematic if they learned I was the king right now, but if they found out I was connected to Little Musashibo... that wouldn’t really be a problem, right?
“Well... The truth is—”
“Hey, Juno! We’re leaving you behind!” Dece was calling her from off in the distance.
Juno ground her back teeth, then thrust her index finger towards me again. “Next time we meet, I’m getting answers out of you!”
Leaving those words behind, Juno ran over to the rest of her group.
“Next time we meet... huh.”
I was fine with telling her, but I’d ended up keeping the secret, after all.
To be fair, I was always in the center of Parnam, and I didn’t go out to the castle town that often, so was I ever actually going to meet Juno in the flesh ever again?
