“So often we see what’s different, and it gives us an excuse to fight someone or keep our distance. But instead, we should be recognizing that even separate species share certain things. Then we might get along with them. I’d like that better.”
What did humans and lizardmen share? Well, for one, Brooke was a father who cared for his offspring. I was sure he wasn’t the only lizardman who felt that way. They didn’t show it quite the way we did, and that caused humans to misunderstand them. Their obviously different appearance didn’t give us many chances to reconcile that misunderstanding, either. It meant there was a deep and seemingly unbridgeable gap between us.
Cerise looked at me with unblinking eyes. Her tongue flitted in and out of her mouth. “Never have I heard a human speak in such a way,” she said wonderingly.
“Er... I guess it helps to be an outworlder,” I said with a shrug. “I get to stand outside of what seems like common sense in the Eldant Empire. But look, I’m not trying to destroy local customs or push my ideas down people’s throats here.”
Cerise didn’t speak.
“I’m the president and salesperson for Amutech. The most I can do is say ‘What about this?’ or ‘Give it a try if you like.’ I’m sorry that means I can’t raise the lizardmen’s status by sheer force.”
Of course, to blindly affirm all the values of modern Japan would be dangerous itself. That was why I offered only suggestions, so as not to become a cultural invader. Maybe it might seem like I was evading responsibility, but in order to avoid forcing anything on anybody, making suggestions like “What if you tried thinking about it this way?” was the most I should—or could—do.
“Having said that, salesmanship does involve a certain amount of promotion.”
“Pro-mo-tion, sir?”
“Meaning you don’t force anything on your listeners, but you try to convince them that you’ve got a good idea.”
“I suppose I don’t... fully understand.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it.” I gave a dry grin. Maybe this world wasn’t quite ready for the niceties of marketing theory, humans and lizardmen alike.
I parted ways with Cerise and headed back, but at the turn in the hallway I ran into Myusel.
“Yikes!” She was the last person I had expected to see standing there.
“Master,” she said. Her eyes were brimming, and she looked... well, she looked overwhelmed with emotion.
“Wh-What? Huh? What’s going on?” I sputtered, totally confused. Honestly, it really hurt me to see Myusel cry.
But she said, “Oh, Master, you took so long to come back, and I—”
She must have gotten worried and come looking for me. True, I had been gone an awfully long time for someone who was ostensibly going to the bathroom.
“S-Sorry,” I said. “I just ran into somebody.”
“Yes, sir,” Myusel said with a firm nod. “Cerise-san, right?” It seemed she had heard me and Cerise talking, much as I had heard Cerise and Brooke talking.
Then Myusel said, “Master... Shinichi-sama. You’re truly, truly...” Her emotions seemed to overcome her again, and she was lost for words.
“Huh? What?”
“You are the strangest—no.” She shook her head. “The most wonderful... the kindest...”
“Gosh, what brought this on?”
I gathered that she was referring to my conversation with Cerise, but I didn’t think I had said anything to warrant a reaction like this.
“Lizardmen... half-elves... You treat us all just like normal humans,” she said.
“Oh...” I said, smiling sheepishly. “It’s nice of you to say that, but it’s really pretty normal back where I come from.”
I didn’t think I would be considered especially kind back on Earth, or especially unusual. It wasn’t some special trait of mine, just a product of where I had been born and raised.
“Do you mean the ‘liberty, equality, and fellowship’ that you spoke of before?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Those are values I was raised with. I’m just sort of, you know, the opposite of people who discriminate against lizardmen or half-elves. I assume the people who discriminate against you mostly do it because they were raised that way.”
Obviously, discrimination existed in my world, too. Humans were not all equal. They were born with different abilities and talents, raised in different environments, and that inevitably led to personal differences. If we were all exactly alike, we might be a lot more like ants or bees—a hive society with few individual distinctions. I found that sort of terrifying.
More than anything else, a society like that couldn’t produce manga, or anime, or light novels, or games. Something else my dad used to say was that being a creator meant trumpeting what made you different from other people.
My point is, this inequality among people caused some to try to make up for feelings of inadequacy by ridiculing those they saw as beneath them. It’s hardly an uncommon behavior, even in our world. Just look at the internet.
I have to think, though, that somewhere inside, people who do that feel guilty about it, that they regret it. I don’t think anyone in our world genuinely sees that sort of ridicule as a good thing. But here in this world, they didn’t see it as a bad one. Even the people being discriminated against considered it perfectly normal. That was why nobody considered changing things. It took someone from an entirely different world to even suggest it.
“So it’s not something admirable about me,” I said. “There are a lot of people in my world who worked hard to achieve those ideals. They’re the ones you should admire. I’m just walking in their footsteps.”
“I... I wonder,” Myusel said. “But Matoba-san and Minori-san don’t say the things you do.”
“Well, they—I mean, not everyone is in a position to speak as freely as I am.”
I could only smile ruefully. Public servants didn’t have the same freedom to express themselves that I did. But trying to explain that to Myusel would probably just make things even more confusing.
“Look, all I’m saying is that I’m not this great person or anything. I wouldn’t want you guys to make more of me than I am. But... it does make me happy to hear such kind words from you. Thank you.”
“Oh... Not at all...” Myusel blushed and looked at the ground.
Gaah! Every time she does that, it’s so innocent and cute!
“Ah, Shinichi-sama... I mean, Master,” she quickly corrected herself. “We mustn’t take too long...”
“Oh, you’re right. Petralka’s gonna be ticked.” I smiled again, then Myusel and I set off walking down the hallway back toward the viewing box.
“Hey, Myusel,” I said, stopping in my tracks. “I just thought of something. Do you think you could help me?”
“You want... my help?” She looked surprised, but then she said, “If it’s within my power, I’ll do anything. Just tell me... Shinichi-sama.” Then she smiled.
The games seemed to be going smoothly—or at least, what passed for smoothly. This being a tournament, obviously, the losing teams left, while the winning teams continued to play. One surprise was that both the elf and dwarf teams, despite their extensive use of magic, dropped out early, and even the mixed team with Elvia and her friends was eventually defeated.
Elves and dwarves being hereditary enemies as they were, the two teams had used every ounce of their strength in their game against each other, and when the next round came, they were too tired to put up a fight.
As for the mixed team, Elvia and the other beast people were really more interested in the ball itself than they were in doing much of anything with it. It actually didn’t turn out to be much of a game, and ended with a critical self-inflicted wound by Elvia—specifically, when she kicked the ball into her own team’s goal.
I had to admit, Elvia had never seemed entirely clear on the concept of soccer—or tournaments, for that matter. It probably didn’t help that enough time had passed that her “phase of the moon” ha
d come around again.
There wasn’t much we could do about any of that now. If we ever did this again, maybe we could make some improvements.
We had come down to the final round, and I wasn’t sure whether or not to be surprised by the two teams remaining. On the one hand, we had the First Knights. Humans, as basically the rulers of this world, had the best balance when it came to “fighting” in a group like this. I guess that was the same as saying humans were the best at making war, and I didn’t know whether that was something to be proud of. But anyway...
The other team—and this really was a surprise—was the lizardmen. The main reason they had done so well seemed to be related to their custom of moving their eggs with their feet, as Cerise had explained. They had a long tradition of manipulating round objects with their feet...
When a bunch of kids who don’t know much about the game play soccer, it’s usually quick to devolve into something where everyone is making their most powerful kicks all the time, or shooting from absurdly long distances. I remembered doing that myself. And that was how the knights and the other teams had mostly played.
To be fair, the manga and stuff that had served as their examples definitely favored dramatic, last-ditch long shots and final-move-style craziness. Even the shots that weren’t actually so long tended to be depicted in a way that made them seem to fly for miles before they landed in the goal.
The knights, though, had magic on their side; magical support was something they were used to. It allowed them to get away with an otherwise childish strategy like taking lots of long shots.
By comparison, the lizardman team seemed practically gifted. They never made long passes, they tried to keep the ball as close to their feet as possible, and they used their inborn physical strength and athletic ability to move down the field and score. Some of their moves and tactics could have been taken for pro stuff.
“Most unexpected,” Petralka said as she watched the final match begin. “Who would have imagined that the lizardmen would win through?”
“Very true, Your Majesty,” Garius said, subtly but unmistakably surprised. “And here I had dismissed them as mere savages. I confess a certain nervousness watching this match.”
“Yes. This may not be a proper battle, but the First Knights’ reputation will not be bolstered if they lose to a group of lizardmen.”
I sighed internally. So that’s what it’s come to...
No matter how much I urged them to forget about status and just enjoy the game, as long as there were winners and losers it would be impossible to completely ignore relations off the field. Privately, I had been rooting for the lizardmen, but I admit I never thought they would make it this far. And I definitely hadn’t thought about the ramifications if they happened to be in a game against the knights—let alone if they won. If the knights had been knocked out in the first round, they might have been able to say, “Well, it’s just a game.” But each time they won, that possibility got more and more remote.
“Master...” Myusel tugged on my sleeve anxiously.
“I know,” I muttered. “This is tense.”
I was in a tough spot: I could hardly tell the lizardmen to throw the game. But if they won, the knights, as well as the humans in the audience—probably half the crowd—would be very, very angry. And if they obviously took it easy—if it was clear by comparison with their earlier performances that they were holding back—that would probably upset people, too.
Like I said, tough.
What to do, what to do? Well, one thing was certain: worrying about it now wouldn’t help.
“No choice but to let this play out,” I said.
“Right...” Myusel nodded.
“Hm? What are you two whispering about?” The annoyingly sharp-eared Petralka said, looking over at us.
“Secret,” I said with a grin.
“Is it, now? What secrets could you have from your empress?”
“Hey, don’t worry, I promise we weren’t privately making fun of you or anything.”
“Ahem... That is not what we were concerned about,” she said, frowning. “We simply don’t like to be left out of the discussion.”
“Oh yeah? But I think it’s going to be more fun if you don’t know what we just said.”
“What?”
“Remember earlier, how happy I was to be surprised by those onigiri Myusel made? Not knowing ahead of time made me that much happier to find out.”
“Er... Yes, we see your logic,” Petralka muttered. “Well, all right. But we shall learn of this surprise in the course of this match, shall we not?”
“Yeah... you will,” I said. I gave her my most confident nod, but inside I was sweating bullets.
The competition between the knights and the lizardmen went... more or less as expected, I suppose. The knights had a huge advantage, and they used it.
For starters, they had magic on their side, which some might justifiably call cheating. The lizardmen couldn’t use magic and didn’t have any sympathetic wizards to back them up. And because everyone in the stadium knew that the knights’ reputation was on the line, the lizardmen seemed to be holding themselves back. They seemed to have realized that they must not win this game.
But just as I had predicted, the crowd didn’t react well to the lizardmen pulling their punches.
“Hrm. This is terribly boring,” Petralka said, a fair assessment of the one-sided contest. At the moment, the lizardmen were down ten to nothing. A knightly win seemed almost inevitable.
“Your knights seem rather savage,” Petralka commented.
“I suppose because it would be no laughing matter if they were simply handed victory,” said Garius, the division’s leader. He didn’t look terribly pleased.
He was right: the lizardmen’s reticence could all too easily be seen as them throwing the game. That might not be what the lizardmen intended, but the difficulty of understanding their gestures and expressions left people to read things into what they could see. The lizard squad was visibly slower and weaker than they had been; even an amateur could tell they weren’t playing at their full strength.
“It is all too clear that the spectators are losing interest,” Petralka said. “We understand that a lizardman victory might tarnish the dignity of the First Knights, but winning a game the other side isn’t playing simply makes them look ridiculous.”
The lizardmen were caught in a paradox: they couldn’t hold back, but they weren’t allowed to win. As a group, they didn’t seem delicate enough to walk a tightrope like that.
It looks like I’ve got no choice but to intervene.
I didn’t set up this tournament because I was desperate to see some soccer here in the Eldant Empire. Soccer fans might be upset to hear this, but I didn’t particularly care about the game one way or the other. I was just trying to lay the foundation for people to understand what made sports so much fun, and maybe take the edge off interracial relations while I did it. So while I wasn’t going to fix a match, maybe I could be forgiven for trying to encourage one team or another.
I couldn’t forget what my goal was.
Silently, I met Myusel’s gaze. She gave a little nod, and together we slipped out of the viewing box.
What follows is essentially an account Brooke gave me later of what happened. So although I’m relating it in first person, the viewpoint is really his.
Without further ado...
Brooke was on the lizardman team’s bench.
Cerise, along with Brooke’s other friends, had urged him repeatedly to be there, and even I had asked him to be part of the squad, and that explained why he was sitting there. He, however, had no desire whatsoever to be out on the field; as far as he was concerned, he was only there in case anyone else couldn’t play and they needed a replacement.
So when the voices of Matoba-san (and his interpreter) and Prime Minister Zahar came over the speakers the JSDF had installed, announcing, “The lizardman team looks like they’re going to switch out a player
!” Brooke didn’t imagine for a moment it had anything to do with him. For him, the commentary was hardly distinguishable from the general roar of the stadium.
Until he heard...
“The lizardman team is making a substitution! In place of Gayle Drood, Brooke Darwin will be taking the field!”
Brooke gave a start at the sound of his name. When he looked up, Gayle was already back at the bench, patting Brooke on the shoulder. As it happened, Gayle was someone Brooke had known since his military days—in effect, an old war buddy.
“What is this, Gayle?”
“Orders from the Tribal Council’s representative. Hit the field.”
“Whose representative?” That meant the command came from the person acting on behalf of the Tribal Council. In this case... Cerise.
“You’re Brooke the Hero. When you were of a mind, you could lead us toe-to-toe against a division of knights. If you go out there as if we’re gonna slaughter them... we will.” Gayle’s tongue slipped in and out of his mouth. “Do us a favor. Don’t forget what you mean to us.”
Brooke stood silently and made for the field. He knew, of course, what they called him. Hero. He understood that his presence would dramatically raise the morale of his teammates.
And to him, that knowledge was a huge burden.
He had failed to protect even his own eggs. What kind of hero was he?
Yes, there was meaning in bringing glory to his people, advancing their station. Or there had been. But to Brooke, it was cold comfort. There were certain things that were all too clear to him, exactly because he was a “hero,” a hardened soldier. He knew, for instance, that no soldier could go on forever. Every man of arms would one day grow old, weaken, and die. Hence, to ensure his existence was not in vain, he sought to leave children behind him, a link to the next generation. Wasn’t that what all living creatures wanted?
But in this, the most basic task of life, he had failed. He had let the word hero carry him away, off to the front lines... And as a result, he had been unable to defend his wife and clutch. The simplest of things.
Outbreak Company: Volume 3 Page 16
