by Takehaya
“Everyone feeling better is all thanks to Clan-chan working through the night. You have a great servant, Layous-sama.”
“Hahaha, I’ll let her know that Fauna-san praised her later.”
Fauna called Clan “Clan-chan.” Clan didn’t seem to like it and would frequently complain to Koutarou about it.
“Layous-sama.”
“What is it, Your Highness?”
“After what has happened, there’s something that I have decided.”
While she was showing a faint smile, Alaia’s eyes indicated she was quite solemn.
“I will continue my journey to the Pardomshiha territory and fight against Maxfern.”
“So you’ve made your choice?”
I see, so that’s why the look in her eyes is so serious...
Upon hearing Alaia’s words, Koutarou understood the meaning behind her expression.
“Yes. Maxfern indiscriminately poisoned an entire village in order to capture me. I can’t imagine that someone like that would build a good government.”
Alaia stared right into Koutarou’s eyes and clearly stated her decision.
“So I will defeat Maxfern and carry out my duty as a princess of this country.”
“That’s a marvelous resolution.”
A few days ago, Alaia was ready to leave the country to Maxfern as long as he could create a good government. What she wanted to protect first and foremost was not the law or her pride, but the citizens. However, after Maxfern had ordered such a terrible attack on innocent citizens, Alaia knew she couldn’t trust him. And so in order to truly protect the people, she now knew she had to fight.
“Please allow me to lend you my strength.”
“Thank you, Layous-sama. I feel like I’ve gained the support of a million men.”
“What are you chatting with just my sister about, Blue Knight?! Let me in on it too!”
“Ah, you can’t go out looking like that, Charl-sama!”
Unable to stand being left out any longer, Charl jumped out from behind the screen wearing only her underwear.
“Excuse me, Layous-sama!”
“Wh-What?!”
“Sister, let’s appoint Blue Knight to be our personal bodyguard!”
However, in order to keep Koutarou from seeing anything indecent, Mary quickly covered his eyes with her hands. He never even got to see Charl’s bright smile.
Hearing loud cheering coming from outside, Clan looked up from the device she was using.
“What could that be?”
“Let me see...”
Hearing the same thing, Lidith, who had been acting as Clan’s assistant over the past few days, opened the window and took a look at what was going on outside.
“Ah, it looks like Alaia-sama and the others went out.”
“I see.”
Pausing her work, Clan walked up to the window and began looking outside together with Lidith. As their room was on the third floor, they had a commanding view of the area. Outside the inn was a large crowd surrounding Alaia, Koutarou, and the others who had gone out with them to enjoy the festival.
“Alaia-sama!”
“Blue Knight-sama! Thank you for saving my daughter!”
“Please retake this country from Maxfern!”
The crowd was shouting words of gratitude and encouragement. The villagers all looked healthy, and there was no sign of the sickness that had ravaged the town just days ago.
“Jeez, they’re completely unaware of my hard work...”
Clan smiled as she watched Koutarou interact with the crowd, Charl on his shoulders and everything. That gentle smile on her lips was a sign her feelings for Koutarou were changing even more.
In order to treat the virus, Clan had rewritten the villagers’ genes. She realized that Koutarou hadn’t developed any symptoms after coming into contact with the virus, and she herself had only come down with a mild fever. So by comparing the genetic differences between the patients, Koutarou, and herself, she was able to identify a gene that was resistant to the virus.
Clan incorporated that gene into a virus and removed its virulence, thereby creating a modified virus. By injecting that into a patient showing symptoms, the resistant gene was quickly written into the patient’s own DNA thanks to how rapidly and prolifically the virus spread. Their bodies could then start to defend against the virus on their own.
All that was left after that was to remove the modified virus from one patient and inject it into the next. That way, one by one, the townspeople were all treated. And by the time the harvest festival started up again, almost everyone had made a full recovery.
Despite the success they’d had, however, the treatment had been a big gamble. The first problem was time. Treating all the villagers wasn’t a quick task. If Maxfern’s soldiers had attacked during that time, everything would have been over.
And there was no guarantee that the modified virus was going to have the desired effect. There was a chance that results would differ from person to person, so there was no way of knowing the rate of success until they actually tried it. Moreover, it was common for viruses to suddenly mutate. Several generations were created as the virus spread, meaning that there was a chance for it to mutate before it had the desired effect in a patient. In the worst case scenario, the treatment could have failed and created an entirely new virus, which would have been the start of another nightmare.
That was why Clan had been so reluctant to try it, and she’d truly held out on it as a last resort. Everything would have been much easier if Dextro had actually had an antidote for them to steal. But in the end, they had been fortunate, and none of Clan’s fears had come to pass.
Maxfern’s soldiers hadn’t attacked the village. They were all waiting for the poison to run its course and for Alaia to die before doing anything else. While that had given Koutarou and Clan enough time to treat the virus, they couldn’t really celebrate. The army was most likely using that time to prepare, and they would probably be waiting for them down the road.
The modified virus had been compatible with all the patients and was able to manipulate their genetic information. There were still a few extreme cases where patients succumbed, but overall it was a great success. There had been no sudden mutations either. That was what Clan had feared the most. So much so that once the treatment was successfully complete, Clan was totally weak in the knees. Rather than rejoicing at the outcome, she simply never wanted to have to make such a dangerous gamble again. Nervously working in fear for so long had completely exhausted Clan mentally.
Overall, the turnaround in the sick patients had been incredible. But since explaining the treatment method to the villagers would be hard, they were simply told that Koutarou had stolen the medicine from Dextro. It was far easier to tell them the medicine was actually real after all rather than explaining that they’d created some using strange technology.
“Just how much did I struggle during these past few days...?”
Clan rested her elbows on the window frame and stared out over the village. Based on the smile on her lips, she didn’t consider her struggle to be as bad as she made it sound. She knew that Maxfern’s men were waiting up ahead, but even Clan was ready to relish their victory today.
“It’s fine, isn’t it, Clan-san? If Lord Veltlion becomes famous, you’ll benefit as his servant.”
“Servant... Yes, his servant...”
Clan disliked being called a servant even more than the thought of what Maxfern might have in store for them.
“If it wasn’t for me, this would have been a tragedy. I can’t just act like all I did was play a supporting role...”
“Now, now, Clan-san...”
Lidith understood how Clan felt, so she offered her a gentle smile. They’d gotten to know each other better while working together.
“Let’s have a toast together later. To me, you were the star, Clan-san.”
Lidith tried to cheer Clan up, but at that point she wasn’t listening. Her comp
lexion was pale and her mouth was agape.
Wait! If it wasn’t for me...?!
Clan was aghast at her own words. They were certainly true. She had treated a virus that couldn’t be cured by the medicine or magic of this age. If the real Blue Knight had showed up, what would he have even been able to do about it?
What’s more, Clan had some resistance to the disease herself. Logically speaking, wouldn’t she—being a Forthorthian from the future—have modified genes from this very incident in the past? The Blue Knight famously spoke of being from an endless time and an immeasurable distance away, and in the right context, it all made sense.
“I see, so that’s what it was! No wonder I couldn’t find him no matter how hard I looked!”
Clan slammed her hands into the window frame and pushed herself up. All the questions she had been carrying around suddenly fit together like pieces of a puzzle, and they pointed to a single answer.
If I hadn’t been here, the disease couldn’t have been cured! If I hadn’t treated the virus the way I did, there’s no reason I should be resistant to it! I had to have been part of the legend of the Blue Knight! There’s no other way! And it’s certainly true that that man’s an endless time and immeasurable distance away from home, which means...
“Veltlion is the real Blue Knight!”
The true identity of Forthorthe’s legendary hero, Layous Fatra Veltlion, was a slightly dim looking boy from Earth.
Afterword
Long time no see, everyone. It’s the author, Takehaya. I have much more space for the afterword than last time and can therefore take a slower start.
Only three months have passed since the last volume, which is a comparatively fast publication, and I’m sure you can understand the reason why based on the contents. That’s right, the invaders don’t appear in this volume. Because this is more of a side story, the publishing department and I agreed that we should get things out as soon as possible.
This volume covers what Koutarou and Clan were doing when they disappeared in the previous volume. However, I couldn’t fit it all into a single volume, so this side story will get a sequel. What follows will be revealed in volume 8.5.
With some more room in the afterword this time around, I wanted to talk about some of the hardships I had while writing this volume.
The first problem was the timing. I can only write about this now, but I’ve been wondering when I should release the contents of this volume since the very first volume. If a story without most of the established characters was released before you could get used to the story and characters, it would cause a lot of confusion. That said, there was no guarantee that the series would make it this far. In the end I decided to go with what felt natural to the story, and here we are. Fortunately, thanks to the support of all you readers, the series is sailing smoothly and this risky volume was able to be safely published. So while relieved, I am also grateful for all of the support. I will continue working hard, so please continue to support me in the future.
The second problem was how to treat the time slip to the past. Is there only one true history, or does it branch off like a tournament board? If it branches off, what are the conditions for that? It was necessary to figure these things out for the sake of the story.
There is actually something that I’ve been wondering about for a while myself, and that is if it’s possible to return to the same time and place you came from once you time slip into the past. The reason I wonder is that if a person was sent back in time in a time slip, the moment that person appeared in the past, the mass of the universe would increase by a single person. The change in gravity from that would slightly alter the universe. Returning from that would then mean returning to a slightly different future. Of course, the change might be so minute that the time traveler wouldn’t ever notice it. But the point is that no matter how minute, a change is a change, and while everything might look the same, all of their friends and family would actually be different people. And if parallel universes existed, things would get even more complicated since the time traveler would still be absent from the world they came from originally. These questions can make story composition a little tricky.
So after a long amount of deliberation, I decided that parallel universes do exist, but that they can rejoin. That way as long as the change made is minor enough, history would return to normal right away. As a result, the history of the universe doesn’t look like a tournament board, but rather like knitting. In that structure, if a time traveler changed history, they could return to their own world if they tried hard enough. They would be able to see their friends and family again.
I reached this conclusion just before my head was about to explode. Thanks to that, I was able to sort this story out, but I believe I’ll come across similar philosophical problems in future works. I’m both scared and excited for that. I keep thinking about it, but story writing really is hard.
I’ve run out of room now. I felt like I had more space, but I immediately used it all up, so it’s time to bid farewell again. I’d like to thank everyone at the editorial department for their hard work; Poco-san, my illustrator; my friends that give me their advice on my ideas; and all the readers who bought this book.
Finally, I pray for all the people affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami.
March, 2011
Takehaya
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Copyright
Invaders of the Rokujouma!? Volume 7.5
by Takehaya
Translated by Warnis
Edited by Morgan Dreher
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 Takehaya
Illustrations Copyright © 2011 Poco
Cover illustration by Poco
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2011 by Hobby Japan
This English edition is published by arrangement with Hobby Japan, Tokyo
English translation © 2017 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: October 2017
