He was so shaken that it took him a moment to properly understand what had happened to him. As he reached for the sword at his belt, though, a voice whispered in his ear.
“...Koe wo dasu na.”
It was low, a man’s voice. It spoke in a foreign language the knight had never heard before, but the meaning was clear enough. He felt a touch of cold metal against his neck—presumably a blade. Make a sound and you die was the obvious message.
The knight grunted softly behind the hand covering his mouth.
If he made a careless move, he would be killed. But was there any guarantee that just going along at this moment would save him?
If not, then he had to resist, even at the cost of his life; he had to let his brethren know of the danger.
As he was having this thought, though, the voice said, “Sugu ni, raku ni shite yaru.”
Then the knight felt the hand on his neck tighten. The blood that should have made it to his brain was cut off, and shortly thereafter he lost consciousness.
The body of the unconscious knight was dragged into the bushes.
And then the forest returned to silence, as if nothing had even happened.
The shimmering sun was high in the southern sky—it was almost midday, and we were all resting under the big sun umbrella.
Everyone had worn themselves out playing during the morning, but they also agreed—especially Myusel and Elvia and the others—that they still hadn’t played enough.
For me and Minori-san, the Japanese here, going to the seashore (okay, the lakeshore—close enough) in summer, putting on swimsuits and playing in the water was just normal, but I guess it wasn’t something they often did in the Eldant Empire. It probably didn’t help that the nation was landlocked.
So although everyone looked a little confused at first, once they caught on to how much fun it could be, they got super into it.
I include Petralka and her female knights in that statement. This lake was officially an imperial retreat, land open only to the empress and her family, but it appeared that their use of the water consisted mainly of going on lazy boat rides; putting on a swimsuit to run and swim was not part of the agenda.
Not to mention, for the empress to clown around with people of lower station like this was practically unheard of. And if it ever had been heard of, I’m sure it hadn’t been welcomed or approved of. That was just the nature of class differences. But now...
“The ‘o-bentou’ you make are indeed delicious, Myusel,” Petralka said as she sampled lunch from our picnic basket.
When you picture an empress eating, you probably imagine a white tablecloth lined with an array of knives and forks—but none of that could be found here. All the games hadn’t just made people tired, but hungry too, and they wanted something they could chow down on quickly.
“This ‘onigiri’ is a food from Ja-pan, is it not?”
“Yes, Majesty. I’ve been learning from Minori-sama.”
Minori-san and I had ended up as the catalysts for an otherwise uncommon meeting of royal and commoner. We were effectively treated as nobles, but what we really were was citizens of a foreign country, not nobility. We weren’t technically commoners, either, but instead had the flexibility to move freely between the two—and that alone naturally helped close the gap.
Even granting that Petralka and Myusel were a special case, Garius and the female knights had started to talk directly to Myusel and Elvia, at least a few words at a time—they must have been tired of constantly having to go through me and Minori-san.
“Hm. At first we found this dark ‘nori’ of yours unpleasant, but in fact the taste is delicious! We understand it is made from an underwater plant?”
“Seaweed, technically,” I said.
“Hrm? Are these different? They are both frequently used in foreign cooking...”
Petralka openly praised Myusel’s culinary skills as she munched on a big riceball.
And she was right: I was Japanese, and even I found Myusel’s cooking delicious. Just the right amount of salt; the consistency not too hard and not too soft.
Some people might dismiss it as just a riceball. But the simpler something is, the more difficult it is to pursue its true essence. It can’t come apart in your hand, but it should melt when you put it in your mouth. I’ll bet even Minori-san didn’t expect Myusel to master making onigiri so thoroughly in such a short time. Maybe this was Myusel’s particular genius. She might even be able to swing sushi, if maybe not at the level of a master with years of training.
I was mulling this over, riceball in hand, when—
“Um... Shinichi-sama? Is it not to your liking?”
Myusel was looking at me, concerned.
“No, it’s delicious.”
“Really? Thank goodness...” Her face softened into a relieved smile.
I was flattered that I could make her so happy with just a few simple words. The true spice to this food is your beautiful smile. Yeah, sure. If I could say that sort of thing with a straight face, maybe I could actually get somewhere with someone, but just thinking about it made my stomach clench.
“Sensei!”
At that moment, I heard a familiar voice. I looked over to see a tall boy and a short girl walking over.
It was the elf, Loek, and the dwarf, Romilda. Both were pupils at my school—in other words, my students.
Elves and dwarves didn’t usually get along, and these two had once been known to fight about every little thing, but I felt like I was seeing them together more and more often. Would it be giving myself too much credit to imagine I was the “catalyst” for this, too...?
“Sorry to crash your party, sensei!” Loek said, looking pleased with himself.
The parents of both of these students possessed a certain standing in the empire. Despite being an elf—a demi-human—Loek’s father had enough stature to stand in the imperial council, and that must have been how Loek got wind of us coming here.
Which was all well and good, but...
“Sensei! When I heard you and the other teachers were coming here to escape the heat—well, I just couldn’t sit still!” Loek said.
“And I came along to keep an eye on this dumb-elf...”
“What are you two doing here?!” a swimsuit-clad female knight demanded.
“Uh...” The sudden shouting set both newcomers back on their heels.
The knights advanced with their hands on their swords. It was Minori-san who stopped them.
“These kids are okay. They’re our students.”
“Hrm. Is... Is that so...” The knights didn’t look prepared to accept this immediately, but they let go of their weapons—and Loek and Romilda.
“But as for you,” Minori-san said, narrowing her eyes at our visitors, “how did you get here? No one but us is supposed to be allowed in right now. Didn’t any of the patrols stop you?”
At the moment, the area was being diligently patrolled to prevent anyone unauthorized from getting close. From what I had heard, something like thirty knights were on the job. There was no way a couple of laypeople like Loek and Romilda could have just waltzed in here.
And yet here they were.
“We... didn’t see anyone,” Loek replied, surprised.
He had no reason to lie, so it must have been true that they hadn’t run into any guards.
“Hmm. What are Reydas and the others doing?” Garius, an uncharacteristic cloud on his face, pulled out a magic crystal, maybe something he used to communicate with his knights. “What’s the point of having patrols if they’re just going to let a couple of kids—”
Here were Loek and Romilda, who had reached us without being delayed by a single knight.
Could that be just luck? Were the knights being lazy?
Or else...
“No way...” I remembered the flash I had seen earlier. Hadn’t Minori-san said that it could be a sniper rifle?
“I think something might have happened!” I said to Garius in a panic. “We’d better investigat
e!”
“I agree, Minister Cordobal,” Minori-san said. “I think it might be best to get your knights together and do a head count.”
I had been told that Garius’s subordinates were true elites, even among the ranks of Eldant’s knights. They had to be skilled in every kind of combat, of course, but they also had to have good personalities and above-par mental fortitude. I couldn’t imagine them abandoning their duty.
And that meant there had to be something else going on. Like, say, that they had somehow been rendered unable to patrol.
“Minori-san is right,” I said. “Something may have happened to them. We really need to go make sure that—”
But Garius shook his head, interrupting me. “No,” he said. “Calm yourself, Shinichi, and you, Minori. I know my knights better than anyone. I doubt there’s any cause for concern. I think a bout of significant luck may account for these children.”
“But...”
“There’s no need to worry.” His expression softened a little. “I’ll send one of the female knights to make contact. And in the unlikely event that someone did breach our perimeter, we have the female knights here with us. Were this boy and girl not stopped by that very line?”
He was right; Loek and Romilda had found themselves confronted by the royal contingent. But still...
“You must have more faith in us,” Garius said firmly, and there was nothing more I could say.
The water was still and calm. It was clear, but the light could only reach down so far, and this particular spot was as opaque as if ink had been spilled into the water. The wind caused occasional little ripples, along with quiet splashes, but otherwise there was no sign of movement.
The water, and everything about it, was quiet.
Then, with no warning, a greenish shadow began to surface. It was almost as if the water itself was bubbling up—and then breaking. Out of the receding water appeared a strange but unmistakably human face. A carbon-Kevlar helmet, along with black-and-green face paint, made it hard to immediately recognize the figure as human because of the color and shape. The figure emerged up to its nose, causing only the slightest of ripples.
It never made a sound.
Maybe the first figure was scouting out the situation, because others soon appeared from the water in the same way. They breathed quietly through their noses, looking left and right—and then they disappeared beneath the water again.
A short while later, the alien figures reappeared in a spot a short distance away, looked around again, and then once again submerged.
They repeated this process several times. The men changed their position just a little each time, coming closer.
Closer to what?
Of course, it was...
None of the men spoke a single word. They didn’t need to.
The silhouette leading them glanced back at the shapes behind him. They all returned his gaze, silent. They could give and receive signals with just a look, and they were advancing inexorably on their target.
Slowly but surely, unnoticed.
After we’d had lunch and rested for a bit, we set about playing again.
I was still worried about the flash and the knights, but Garius insisted everything was fine, so I couldn’t really press the matter. Plus, I didn’t want to make Myusel and the others any more nervous than I had to, so we decided to go on with our plans.
And thus...
“K-Keep a good hold! Absolutely do not let go!” Petralka said with what could have been taken for desperation.
She said she had never been swimming, so I had gone into the lake with her to teach her. As I’d expected, in a landlocked country like Eldant, the majority of people who had never served the army and therefore hadn’t received aquatic training didn’t know how to swim. Garius, as a knight, could handle himself in the water, but for Petralka this was all new. It sounded like she had never even put her face underwater. Swimming was nothing like washing your face; she knew you couldn’t breathe and that it was all too easy to suck in water and suffocate, so she seemed to have a healthy fear of drowning.
That was why I decided to start by taking her out to where the water was no deeper than her ankles so she could get used to it. Then we would work on actually getting into the water, and finally on the basics of swimming—a bog standard pool training regimen.
“If you take your hands away, we shall die!”
“Uh-huh. Don’t worry, Your Majesty, I know. I won’t let you go, so go ahead and kick.”
Petralka really must have been afraid of putting her face in the water, because she executed her flutter kicks with her head held as high as she could.
Unfortunately, a person has to put their head down in order to float. Otherwise, the lower body just progressively sinks. The head is the heaviest single part of the human body, so with it sticking up in the air, it’s impossible to float. It only makes sense.
Understanding a physical principal like that, though, and getting your body to act on it are two different things.
“Shinichi! Do you think your teaching method may be flawed? We are kicking just as you said, yet we continue to sink!”
“I told you, you have to put your face in the water if you want this to work!”
“B—But!”
“Come on, just try it.”
“We do not wish to! You, teach us to float without putting our face in the water!”
“It just doesn’t work that way...”
And there you had it. Kanou Shinichi’s Swim Lessons, gone for naught thanks to the stubbornness of their only pupil.
Myusel, watching from nearby, said, “Er, ahem, Your Majesty? I learned to swim in the military. If you wish, perhaps I could teach—”
“Leave us be, Myusel! We are happy like this!”
“Er...?” It seemed like this surprised me more than it did Myusel.
What did she mean, she was happy? Practically since we’d started, it had been a constant stream of “You are a terrible teacher” and “Are you sure you know how to swim?”
Or did she really mean that she liked teasing me more than learning anything about being in the water? That would be one sadistic empress...!
“But Petralka, instead of having me bumble through this, I bet it would be a lot faster to have someone who learned to swim here help you—”
“Silence, knave! We shall learn how to swim in the Ja-panese style, from you, Shinichi!”
“Uh... Sure...”
“And Myusel, you must be more sensitive!”
“Yes? I—I’m very sorry!” She blinked as if to say she wasn’t quite sure what she was apologizing for, but nonetheless bowed her head and withdrew.
“Now, let us resume our lesson! Shinichi, make sure you’re holding our hands!” She re-tightened her grip on me. The loli(-ish) empress returned to kicking her legs, holding my hands—and still keeping her face out of the water.
“Look, you’ve got to get your face down.”
“We shall not! This way is more fun!”
“Fun?”
“Er... What we mean is, you should not complain, but do as your empress commands!”
“As you wish, Your Majesty...”
I half-sighed, but clasped her hands as instructed.
I knew how much Petralka had to put up with by virtue of being empress. When I thought of all that, I figured there was no harm in indulging her a little bit. A lot of people saw her as the empress before they saw her as just a young woman, so she always had to watch what she was saying. Maybe that had built up until it expressed itself this way.
“Shinichi-kun!”
I heard my name from the shore just about the time Petralka was finally beginning to lower her face as she kicked.
Still holding the empress’s hands, I looked over my shoulder. The first thing I saw was an ample bosom wrapped in a black bikini, bouncing as it approached me at high speed.
Ohhh! What volume! What bounciness!
It was pretty stimulating for a healt
hy young man of my age.
“Ohhh...”
The assault of the bouncing boobs upon my instincts caused me to completely forget what I was currently doing.
Which is to say, I let go of the hands I was holding.
“Hrfp! Hack! Coughgh!”
Ack! C-Crap! The sight of that bouncing bust had caused me to totally forget about Petralka for an instant...!
“Wh-What are you doing?!” Petralka exclaimed, somehow managing to grab onto my body and try to pull herself up.
“S-Sorry about that...!”
“And after we instructed you so many times not to let go of us—”
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry!”
And I did feel guilty. But boobs—those boobs were calling to me! They jiggled up and down, calling my name as they got ever nearer! What young man wouldn’t find his mind full of them? Innocent on account of boobies, right?!
A great deal of basically meaningless self-defense was rushing through my brain at that moment.
“Shinichi-kun, Your Majesty! It’s terrible!” the boobs—I mean, Minori-san—said as she came up to us, not trying to hide the panic on her face. “Your Majesty, we can’t account for the full number of knights assigned to patrol duty!”
“What’s this?” Petralka asked, frowning. She was still hanging off me in roughly the same way as a koala bear, so between us we looked pretty silly, but forget about that for a moment. “Tell us more, Minori!”
“Right...”
Minori-san said that the female knight Garius had sent to check on the patrols never came back, so he dispatched a further pair of knights. They discovered that of the thirty male knights on patrol, over half—twenty individuals—were missing. They were on a triple shift with ten people resting at a time, with each knight assigned to a specific area. But allegedly, the twenty men who had been out patrolling never came to switch shifts.
“And what’s the meaning of this?” Petralka asked, going pale. “Have twenty of Garius’s picked men disappeared without the other ten even noticing?”
“What Minori says is true, Your Majesty.”
One more person approached us—the bare butler himself, Garius.
Outbreak Company: Volume 7 Page 4
