The Rat Princess

“Come again, young master.”

“Yes, I certainly will.”

Standing outside a brothel, I responded diplomatically to the sexy woman’s businesslike words, then stepped back into the nighttime streets.

Once I’d put Arisa and Lulu to bed, I had gone to the west quarter to look for some pain medicine and ran into some merchants I’d apparently saved in the labyrinth; they treated me to some stiff drinks, and in the end I wound up tagging along to their favorite brothel.

One thing led to another, and I ended up gaining the skills “Seduction,” “Pillow Talk,” “Sexual Techniques,” and “Chiropractic Massage.” I acquired some titles, too, but I’ll leave those to the imagination.

The merchants I came here with drank quite a lot, so by now they were probably in heaven with their respective companions.

Well, that was fun and all, but if I went home like this, someone (likely Arisa) was bound to notice the smell of perfume on me.

Leaving the brothel, I headed down an alley toward West Street. There I found a young girl with a short staff who seemed to be a charmer, using Everyday Magic for some ladies of the night, so I got her to use cleaning and drying spells on me, too. The fee at night was a little high, but considering how refreshing it felt to be rid of sweat, it was well worth it.

This area was close to the workers’ district in the north, so I wanted to take a horse-drawn carriage, but unfortunately there were none around at this time of night except a few reserved ones.

Oh well. Guess I’ll just have to walk.

Like Main Street, West Street was lined with wooden streetlights at regular intervals. Rather than using lightbulbs, the streetlights were apparently lit with an Everyday Magic spell called Lamp, cast by charmers hired by the west quarter.

Apparently, these magic lamps were in effect for two hours, so the night was broken up into three “nightspans”—first, second, and last nightspan.

During last nightspan, only every other streetlight was lit.

It was currently second nightspan, so all the streetlights were lit, but they were still very dark compared to Japan’s shopping districts at night. They might as well have been a line of paper lanterns with candles inside.

Under the streetlights, scantily clad prostitutes were looking for customers.

I was relieved that none of them was underage, but a single copper for a whole night seemed cruelly cheap.

I’d already engaged in enough entertainment that night, so I had no desire to accept their offers. Besides, the AR displays above their heads contained the disconcerting message Status Ailment: Disease/Venereal [Latent], so I would definitely have to pass.

A few of them even read Status Ailment: Disease/Venereal [Active].

…Yeah, it was very important to have protection.

On the way back to the inn, I found a pharmacy and bought headache medication for Lulu.

The cost was more than ten times my estimated market price, but when I haggled with the pharmacist, he tried to give me weak medicine that was long past its expiration date; only when I pointed this out did he give me the real thing at a decent price.

As I longed for Japan and its straightforward price tags, I noticed in the log that I’d gained the “Analyze” skill for some reason.

It was the menu’s AR display that did all the analyzing, not me…

But it seemed like it might come in handy, so I allocated a few skill points to it.

Last nightspan must have rolled around while I was walking back, since only half the streetlights were lit now.

Beneath the hustle and bustle of the streets, I thought I heard the flapping of wings, so I looked up into the night sky.

I couldn’t see the creature, but I figured out its identity when a single feather drifted down for me to analyze. According to my new skill, it was a kind of bird called a shadow owl.

No wonder it could fly so late at night.

I held the surprisingly handsome feather up to the light of the streetlamps, then tucked it away into Storage in the shadows of my cloak, planning to give it to Pochi and Tama as a souvenir.

Since it was so late at night, there were less and less people on the road.

I didn’t know if it was because of those circumstances or thanks to my “Keen Hearing” skill, but whatever the reason, I heard the faint noise of metal striking metal.

When I stopped in my tracks and strained my ears, I could hear that someone was fighting on the next street over.

I wasn’t a particularly curious person, but I was sure I would feel miserable if I heard the next day that someone had gotten murdered or something.

If it’s a fight between drunks I’ll just leave it alone, but if it’s a robbery or something like that, I’ll fight off whoever looks like the bad guy.

With that resolution in mind, I stepped into the dark, unlit alley. I was pretty sure this was around the same area where we’d visited the mansion during the day. The basement was the hideout of some kind of crime guild, so maybe some organization members were fighting among themselves?

The moonlight cast stark shadows over the alley.

Squinting, I saw a short child surrounded by some threatening figures in the darkness.

This reminded me that I’d gained the “Night Vision” skill before, so I put some skill points into it and activated it right away.

As if I’d turned up the brightness setting of the dark alleyway, outlines of people and objects came sharply into view.

It was sort of like using that night-vision device called a Starlight scope.

There were no other people around. I knocked down a piece of lumber that was leaning against the wall, making a loud noise.

It would have been great if this was enough to make them run away, but instead two of the figures surrounding the kid started to glide toward me.

They were…shadows.

The things drawing closer to me could only be described as shadows in the shape of a person. An AR floated above their heads to give me more information.

They were called shadow stalkers. Level 11 monsters. Just as their appearance suggested, physical attacks wouldn’t work on them.

I didn’t know whether they got through the barrier around the city or came out of the labyrinth, but since I didn’t need to hold back against monsters, beating them should be no problem.

I took my Magic Gun out of Storage, pointed it at one of the shadows, and pulled the trigger.

I fired several times, assuming that the enemy would dodge, but it either had slow reflexes or was overconfident in its special traits, because it made no effort to dodge a direct hit from my bullets. The shadow dissipated at once, and a red core fell to the ground.

But while I was defeating the first shadow creature, the second one had gotten too close.

It swung a black blade down toward me. It seemed to be all shadow, too, because I could barely see it from the front.

I shifted sideways, dodging in accordance with the instincts my “Evasion” skill gave me.

I heard the blade slice through the piece of wood behind me.

We ended up switching places in the process, which allowed me to notice the sharp cross section of the scrap wood that had been cut in my place.

I would’ve rather not gotten cut like that, if possible. Minor wounds would probably heal on their own thanks to my “Self-Healing” skill, but I’d rather not find out how effective it was if I had a limb cut off.

I readied my gun, aiming to defeat the thing before it could change its stance.

…What?!

The shadow moved in a way that would be impossible for any human, bending its arm backward to strike at me again with its blade.

I was just barely able to avoid it.

As I fell to the ground in the process, I aimed my Magic Gun and disposed of the shadow with three rapid-fire shots.

Whew! I’d forgotten for a minute that my opponent wasn’t human…

I slapped myself on both cheeks, trying to pull myself together.

If I didn’t hurry up and help this kid, the shadows were going to kill him.

I saw the occasional red flash of a hatchet-like weapon in his hands, so it seemed like he was holding off the three remaining monsters from getting too close for now.

The kid seemed pretty skilled with the weapon, but he couldn’t move very well because he was protecting something behind him.

It looked like he had a few injuries from the shadows’ blades, which occasionally warped and bent like whips.

I took aim with my Magic Gun to snipe the two that weren’t directly in front of the kid. This time, I put the gun on full power, so it took only one shot to defeat the first shadow.

However, with the power on maximum, it took a little longer between each shot.

As a result, my plan to take care of everything from a distance didn’t quite work out.

The other shadow noticed me and started to approach. I tried to shoot it down anyway, but as it came toward me, it split into several shadowy arrows and streaked toward me.

There was no room to avoid it in this narrow alley.

At least, not horizontally.

I kicked off the wall and escaped into the air above.

The arrows changed trajectory and chased after me, but I continued avoiding them by jumping back and forth between the walls.

It was a dizzying move, but with the help of my “Spatial Mobility” skill, I was able to pull it off without upsetting my inner ear.

Once the shadowy arrows re-formed into the shape of a person, I took that opportunity to land a shot with my gun.

A heavy thud resounded through the alley.

…Damn.

The blood loss must have slowed the kid down too much to dodge the shadows’ attacks completely, because he had collapsed against the stone wall.

I quickly checked his HP… Good. He’s still alive.

It looked like the shadow had turned into a black ball and attacked the kid. He’d been able to dodge the whip attacks, so it must have changed to something more direct.

There was a crack in the center of the sphere. I could see the handle of the kid’s hatchet sticking out of it. But I thought physical attacks wouldn’t work— Ohh, it must be a magic weapon.

I launched myself forward fast enough to gouge a hole in the ground, skimming over and closing the gap in seconds like a character in a fighting game.

I arrived in front of the shadow in just three steps and planted a firm kick on the end of the hatchet, driving it deeper into the shadow’s core.

I felt the light sensation of something breaking beneath my foot, and the shadow dissipated, the shattered fragments of its core falling to the ground. Ignoring the pieces as they rolled away into the darkness, I retrieved only the magic hatchet.

The most important thing now was to check the child’s condition.

He was slumped against the wall, limp as a puppet with snapped strings.

…No, according to the AR display, he wasn’t a child at all.

I rushed over to his side, pulling off his hood to check his face—and if I hadn’t known what to expect beforehand, I probably would have screamed.

Covered by a red helmet was none other than the gray-fur-covered face of a rat. Despite his animal nature, his visage seemed to suggest he was the aloof type.

He was a gray-ratman cavalryman. His internal organs must have been damaged, because he was coughing up dark-red liquid. Because of his Serious Injury [Internal Organ Damage] status, his HP was steadily declining.

“…Who’re yew?”

The ratman opened his eyes slightly and interrogated me in a raspy, hard-to-understand voice.

“Grrr, yew one o’ his minyins, tew?”

“I’m not with them.”

I didn’t know who he was talking about but immediately denied it anyway. He probably meant whoever had sent those shadows.

My radar informed me that there was another being in the bundle of cloth he was protecting. Whatever creature was in there must have been unconscious, because it didn’t even twitch.

As I spoke with the ratman, I read the information on the AR screen that appeared. I was a little surprised by its contents.

“Well…’m done for. T-take care o’ da brinsiss.”

“All right. I will.”

Apparently relieved at my rashly made promise, the ratman quickly lost consciousness.

Of course, there was a reason I’d made such a promise. I had a good hunch about the one he called the princess—or “brinsiss,” as his pronunciation made it sound.

Now, time to take action. His HP was still slowly draining away.

I pulled out a cloth from Storage to stop the bleeding from his external wounds.

I obtained a skill as conveniently as ever, so I quickly allocated some skill points into it and activated it, then redid the first aid.

The smell of blood and the ratman’s odor made me wrinkle my nose as I worked.

Okay, looked like his HP had stopped decreasing.

From Storage, I took out a black, hooded overcoat that would blend into the darkness and put it on.

Pulling the hood down low over my eyes, I wrapped a long towel around my mouth like a scarf. Just to be safe, I changed the name field in my social networking tab, leaving it blank.

Now my identity was completely hidden.

I thought the silver mask would be too noticeably reflective in the moonlight, so I didn’t wear it this time.

I lifted the ratman and the princess and held them to my chest, then kicked off the stone wall to jump on top of the roof. Then, leaping from roof to roof like a phantom thief, I made my way to the general store.

I knocked loudly on the back door.

Unfortunately, checking the map, I saw that both the manager and Nadi currently had the Sleeping status condition.

It looked like both of them lived on the second floor but in separate rooms. So I guess they’re not a couple.

I didn’t want to make a lot of noise and draw the attention of the gatekeepers or something, so I used a wire from Storage to unlock the door. My “Treasure Box Unlocking” skill seemed to be enough to do the trick.

I went inside and laid the two down on the slightly hard sofa in the reception area.

The ratman’s helmet knocked against the wooden frame of the sofa, making a dry clunking sound.

Oh, looked like the store manager had noticed.

His status display had changed from Sleeping to None. He started to move quietly, probably to wake Nadi.

“B-boss? …Are you here to ravish me?”

“No.”

My “Keen Hearing” skill let me listen in on the situation upstairs. Oddly enough, Nadi sounded rather hopeful.

With Nadi following behind him, the manager headed down the stairs.

I didn’t want him to mistake me for a suspicious intruder and attack me, so I spoke up first.

“Good evening. Sorry to bother you. Nadi, it’s me, Satou.”

“What? Mr. Satou?! What could you possibly need at this hour?”

Nadi’s voice sounded suspicious. I guess I can’t blame her.

“I brought an acquaintance of the manager’s. He’s severely injured, so I was hoping that you could treat him right away…”

“Acquaintance?”

Hearing that an acquaintance of his was injured, the manager and Nadi emerged from the shadows of the stairs.

“ Mana Light Matou!”

The manager waved his long staff and cast a spell. It lit up like an LED.

“A ratman? Judging by that helmet, this must be that famous red-helmeted rat cavalryman who has a bounty on his head…”

“Dunno him.”

Nadi recognized the ratman’s gear while the store manager spoke up doubtfully. I corrected his mistake.

“Mr. Manager, your acquaintance is the one wrapped in this cloth here. The one with the red helmet called her ‘princess.’”

“A ratman princess? As far as I know, the only honorific titles among ratman tribes are Chief and Warrior…”

So the ratmen are a warrior tribe? Nadi is surprisingly knowledgeable, I thought.

I unwrapped the cloth to show them what was inside.

“…Mia.”

Just as I had suspected, the “princess” the ratman had been protecting was an acquaintance of the store manager’s after all.

Nadi gave a yelp of surprise after peering into the cloth. I understood how she felt.

Because the “princess” inside the cloth was a little girl with white skin, long hair that was a light blue-green, and pointed ears.

“Isn’t that an elf?!” Nadi exclaimed.

She was right—and it was precisely because she was an elf that I had brought her to see the store manager, the only other elf in the city.

They even shared the same family name: Bolenan.

Nadi’s cry seemed to have awoken Princess Mia, who opened her eyes slightly. She gazed around slowly, taking in her surroundings.

She stared in my direction for a while with unfocused gray eyes, mumbled the word Pretty… and drifted back into unconsciousness.

What exactly was she referring to as pretty? I was a little intrigued, but it was probably more important to focus on the quickly dying ratman.

“So, what should we do about this guy in the red helmet? Bring him to the gatekeepers?”

“Protector.”

“Hmm… Since he’s Princess Mia’s protector, the boss doesn’t want to turn him in.”

“Not ‘princess.’”

“And apparently, Ms. Mia is not a princess.”

Nadi elaborated on the overly concise words of the manager.

Behind us, I heard the sound of a heavy cough.

“More importantly, I think he’ll die if we don’t treat him soon.”

“Hm.”

Nadi hurriedly jumped into action. “This looks bad. I’ll call on Horn, the back-alley ex-priest. He usually treats anyone, regardless of their circumstances. It looks like you’ve at least stopped the bleeding, so please free up his respiratory tract with magic, boss. We should probably take off that distinctive red helmet and hide it somewhere, too.”

Grabbing a cloak that was hanging on the wall and throwing it on over her pajamas, Nadi headed outside.

“It’s dangerous to go out alone at night. I’ll come with you.”

After the store manager began his spell, I set out after Nadi.

The next morning, Arisa was once again giving me a hard time.

“Honestly! Why would you go to a brothel when you have me?! I don’t see what’s not to like about having a beautiful girl like me ready to serve you at any time!”

“Calm down.”

I wasn’t about to start seeing an elementary school–age girl as an object of sexual desire.

Arisa was enthusiastically tearing off her pajamas as she approached, so I grabbed my cloak from the bed and covered her with it.

“Ooh, smells like boy…”

This damn pervert…

Arisa started to take a deep whiff of the smell of my cloak but suddenly cried out, “This smells like an animal!” and tossed it away. “Don’t tell me you like them hairy?” she asked accusingly.

What was that supposed to mean?

I had an idea of what she was getting at, but there was a limit to how much rudeness I could take.

“I helped a dying beastfolk person last night on my way home from buying Lulu’s medicine.”

I emphasized “Lulu’s medicine” in order to divert her rage.

“Oh? Was it a woman?”

“No. It was an old guy who seemed kinda detached.”

“So it was boys’ love, then? I get it now! It’s like that scene in Dora x Hebi when the muscular tiger-eared older man suddenly pushes down the young boy with rabbit ears! I can’t stand it!”

“Quit yelling stupid things and put on some clothes. That’s an order.”

I definitely wasn’t interested in turning this into a boys’ love story.

All this noise seemed to have woken up Lulu. She still looked a little pale.

“How are you feeling?”

“Much better than yesterday, thank you.”

“I bought some medicine for you to take when the pain gets too bad.”

I handed Lulu the package of painkillers I’d bought yesterday and repeated the usage warnings I’d been given at the pharmacy. Oddly enough for this kind of medicine, it was apparently best taken before or between meals.

“Oh, right. Arisa.”

“What is it?”

As I opened the medicine for Lulu and put it in a glass with some water, I relayed the information about the labyrinth that I’d forgotten to mention yesterday.

“Aww, so ordinary civilians can’t enter the labyrinth in Seiryuu City?”

“Yeah, it seems like it’ll be impossible for now.”

I made a vague attempt to comfort Arisa as she sat glumly on the bed.

“Master, are you going to settle down in this city?”

“No, once I’m done sightseeing here, I’m thinking of heading south toward the old capital.”

“Sightseeing?!”

I was already just about done touring Seiryuu City, but I still had to keep my promise to go with Zena to the restaurant on the other side of the inner wall.

After that, I planned to head toward the old capital and the Labyrinth City Celivera, where the beastfolk girls should be able to live normal lives.

The reason I’d decided on the old capital as my current destination was that it was apparently famous for its beautiful river and nighttime scenery.

“Oh, oh, in that case…”

Arisa drew closer excitedly.

“After the old capital, I want to go to Labyrinth City!”

“Yeah, I’d like to see it, too.”

“Really?! Then it’s a promise!”

Arisa stuck out her little finger, so I made a pinkie promise with her. She giggled as she looked at our linked fingers.

With Arisa in tow, I headed toward the stable to meet the beastfolk girls for breakfast.

I’d have to talk to them about the old capital and Labyrinth City, too.

After I had everyone eat breakfast, I headed out alone to the general store.

“Good morning. How are they?”

“Both of them are still sleeping.”

Nadi looked tired as she reported back to me.

The ex-priest Horn had treated the red-helmeted ratman’s wounds, but since he could use only low-grade Holy Magic, it seemed the ratman hadn’t fully recovered.

The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but apparently, his damaged internal organs could be fully healed only by intermediate Holy Magic or better.

Huh? Wait, I thought the store manager had “Foundation Magic” and “Forest Magic”—can’t he use one of those for healing?

Curious, I asked Nadi about it.

“The boss’s magic isn’t fit for medical treatment. He told me that the most it can do is disinfect wounds and stop bleeding.”

I guess if the manager were able to use healing, we wouldn’t have needed to go call on the ex-priest Horn in the first place.

“You can’t use a magic potion or anything?”

“An intermediate magic potion would work, but those are way too expensive for us to get our hands on.”

I’d given away all the magic potions I got in the labyrinth to help the wounded, so I had none on me.

I wouldn’t mind lending them the money to buy some, but I got the feeling that would be too meddlesome of me.

Nadi seemed to misunderstand my silence.

“Don’t worry about the medicine,” she said, trying to reassure me. “The boss made an arrangement with an acquaintance. As long as we gather the ingredients, he’ll make it for us on the cheap.”

Apparently, the store manager had left early in the morning to head for a somewhat distant mountain forest to gather those ingredients.

It seemed like the manager would take care of the ratman, so next I asked about Mia.

“The princess didn’t seem to have any external wounds. She still hasn’t regained consciousness?”

“Little Mia’s not injured, but she seems to be severely fatigued. The boss said she has all the symptoms of someone who’s been short on magic for a long period of time.”

Magic deficiency… I wished I could transfer some of my own excessive MP to her. Still, what could have weakened her so much?

“It should be easy to cure her symptoms with the boss’s Foundation Magic spell Mana Transfer or the Forest Magic spell Stamina Charge, but…”

Nadi explained that even if they used magic to restore her MP or stamina, it simply drained away as if they’d poured water into a pot full of holes. Despite the manager’s long years of experience and Nadi’s extensive knowledge, neither of them could figure out why.

I used my map to look at Mia’s status.

She was 130 years old. Female. Level 7. She had two skills—“Water Magic” and “Archery”—and a gift, Spirit Vision. Her titles were Cradle Master and Child of Bolenan Forest.

Judging by the words child and cradle in her titles, it seemed 130 years old was still very young for an elf. Her appearance, that of an elementary or middle schooler, belied her true age.

Mia appeared to be a nickname, her real name being Misanaria Bolenan.

I would have expected a nickname like Misa or Ria, but I guess Mia was more in line with elf custom.

She didn’t have any status afflictions such as a curse or disease, and there didn’t seem to be anything strange in her titles. Maybe the Cradle Master title meant she was bedridden, but I doubted it.

As far as I could see, she hadn’t even recovered 10 percent of her stamina, but it seemed like her magic gauge was filling up slowly but surely.

Maybe the store manager’s treatment had worked this time?

I wanted to convey this information to Nadi, but I couldn’t explain how I knew it. Maybe I’ll try bringing up the subject and guiding her to notice it herself.

“Is there anything that would help besides healing magic?”

“A mana potion would certainly heal Mia, but once again, they’re too expensive,” she added drily. “Everybody’s poor here.” Her smile was strained. “I’m sure bringing her to a mana source or an underground vein would help her recover, too, but the only sources around here are in the count’s castle or the Valley of Dragons.”

I see… A “source”?

I wanted to ask her more about the term but had to postpone my questioning when I heard a noise upstairs.

It was coming from the room Mia was sleeping in, so I checked my map and saw that her status had changed from Fainted to None.

Nadi didn’t seem to have heard it, so I tried to hint at her.

“I think I heard something upstairs. Maybe she’s awake?”

“Wow, Mr. Satou. Your ears are as sharp as any elf or rabbitfolk.”

Rabbitfolk? Like…bunny girls?

There didn’t appear to be any in Seiryuu City, but that was something I’d like to see.

Nadi and I went upstairs to visit the room Mia slept in.

I waited outside the door for Nadi to give me the go-ahead to come inside.

“Mia, are you awake?”

“Who?”

“I’m Nadi, the clerk of this shop. My boss—the manager—is Yusaratoya.”

“Yuya’s…?”

Mia’s voice sounded as youthful as her appearance suggested. It was a little husky, probably since she’d just woken up.

“Who’s out there?”

Mia seemed to have noticed me waiting outside.

Was it just strong intuition? No, maybe she just noticed that there were two sets of footsteps coming up the stairs.

“That’s the person who rescued you and your red-helmeted friend.”

“Mize?”

Mia murmured as Nadi spoke.

Between her and the store manager, I had to wonder whether speaking so little was a racial characteristic.

“Is Mize the ratman with the red helmet? He’s asleep now that he’s been healed.”

“Mm.”

It would have been more accurate to say we’d “finished his emergency first aid,” but to say so honestly would probably just fan the flames of Mia’s anxiety.

After this interruption, Nadi finished introducing me.

“So, the person outside the door is called Mr. Satou.”

“…Satou.”

“Is it okay if he comes in?”

“Mm.”

Nadi called to me, and I entered the room.

My guess was that it was Nadi’s bedroom; it was refined and tasteful but somehow quite feminine at the same time.

I felt like there were a few too many decorative plants, though.

“Satou?”

I nodded and introduced myself. “Nice to meet you. I’m Satou, a peddler.”

With her silver eyes and lovely face, she almost looked like a doll.

“Spiritualist?”

I tilted my head uncertainly at Mia’s sudden question.

I could use a little Fire Magic, but from what I understood of my introductory magic books, spirits had nothing to do with it.

Of course, if there were any sexy water spirits like undines or voluptuous forest spirits like dryads, I’d be happy to meet them.

“No, I’ve sadly never met any spirits.”

“Can’t see them?”

Mia’s expression looked mystified.

I asked Nadi if they were really something I should be able to see. “Only people with the gift of Spirit Vision can see them,” she informed me.

Mia did have the Spirit Vision gift. But the store manager didn’t have it, so I guess not all elves could see spirits.

I helped Nadi give Mia a drink of water.

“Do you think you can eat something?”

“Mm.”