Chapter 5: Arrival in Marsche

I, snake charmer Fio, formerly Serephione Granzeus, am now fifteen years old! My good pal Miyu is always curled up on my shoulder, giving me extra prestige!

I chopped my hair off all messy up to my ears, ’cause when I gather it at the nape of my neck, it makes me look just like my big bro when he was younger!

Hmm... I guess I don’t have to think like a guy too, do I?

We crossed the ocean from Regan Island into the continent of Marsche, and after about three months of travel, fulfilling commissions from various guilds along the way, we made it to what used to be the Kingdom of Marsche.

There had been a revolution, and the entire royal family had been imprisoned, starting with Tomoe. Now they were governed by a group headed by the prime minister. Between the people’s hopes for change, the dissatisfaction with supply shortages, and the disruption of public order, tension was high, for better or for worse.

In the midst of this situation, I took shelter in a restaurant-slash-inn in what used to be the capital city of Marsche, Tohkun.

A lady named Yoko, who seemed to be about fifty, ran the inn. I was able to reserve a small room on the second floor by paying monthly rent in advance—including a recovery potion thrown in for good measure. Apparently, it worked well for Yoko’s back pain. I figured if not for that, she probably wouldn’t let a snake charmer of unknown origin and his snake live in her inn.

As soon as I had a place to stay, I went to a clothing store and bought a set of plain, Marsche-style matching clothes so that I wouldn’t stand out from the crowd.

I was now about 155 centimeters tall. I wasn’t done growing! My growth spurt was on its way! But since I was still waiting for it, my clothes were all child-sized...

At least my chest was too big to comfortably wear clothes made for young boys...or so I wished I could say. I secretly cried over it. However, I could cover what little chest I had with my cloak when I went out, and everyone’s eyes immediately went to Miyu on my shoulder, so it wasn’t an issue.

Everyone in Marsche had black hair in the first place. I blended in so well it almost made me sad! I hadn’t seen anyone with black eyes yet, though. The clothes and cuisine resembled those of Japan so well, it made me nostalgic.

On a sunny autumn day soon after we arrived in Tohkun, there was a Liberation Day parade. I was watching it from the window of my room on the second floor of my lodging house, and I saw a familiar face marching.

I debated whether I should, but I decided to make contact. I shot a magic needle at Sakaki’s neck, like my papa would. He instantly turned his head, looking for the person who shot it, and met eyes with me. I gave him a small wave, and he opened his eyes wide in shock.

That night, Sakaki and Yamada came to my inn.

“Lady Serephione! Why do you look like that? It is cute, though...”

“Lady Serephione, why did you come to Marsche? And your hair...”

“I had something to ask you. Come on in.”

“Ah, well, our leader has asked us to extend a polite invitation to you.”

“Your leader...is that the prime minister?”

They both nodded.

“Are you going to capture me?”

“We have no men in this nation capable of capturing the Twilight Lady of Destruction. However, if you ever cause harm to the prime minister, we will take you out at any cost.”

I followed them to a castle that had burnt spots here and there, and they took me to a small lounge.

“It’s been a while, Lady Serephione.”

The man who stood up from the head of the table was wearing expensive-looking Marschean clothing.

It was the coachman...Tabuchi.

“That’s how it is?!” I was shocked.

“What’s how it is?” asked Miyu.

I sat at a round table with Tabuchi, Sakaki, and Yamada.

“Why did you come to Marsche, Lady Serephione?”

“Well, the royal family of Judore wanted to use my power. I’m on the run from them. I figured I’d stay in Marsche until the situation calms down.”

I was telling the truth.

“Is that why you have a spirit with you right now instead of the Holy Beast of the West?” Tabuchi asked.

My eyes went wide. “You could see him?! You didn’t seem at all fazed at the time.”

That meant he was a powerful magic user—powerful enough to hide that fact.

“That’s not the case. Rather, when I met you, I was prepared to die. I knew I had deceived his contractor and attempted to kill her.”

That’s to be expected from a prime minister.

“Well, I suppose I wasn’t worth the consideration, even though I should have seemed suspicious to both you and the holy beast.” Tabuchi chuckled.

“But isn’t it bad to stick your head out into a whole other country?”

“No. That was the most important moment, the turning point, when the royal family abandoned their people and fled the country.”

Well, it was certainly the cause of their downfall, when they were abandoned by all guilds.

“Huh? What are you talking about? I’m not following.” Yamada’s eyes were darting around, but the rest of us ignored him.

“So, the holy beast decided it wasn’t worth using his divine powers over one nation’s internal affairs... That makes sense.”

No, it wasn’t for a noble reason like that... I just got my butt kicked by Schneider, and Asu launched me here...but I’ll leave it at that.

“So, why did you contact me?” Sakaki brought the topic back around.

“You told me you would repay your debt to me when we last parted, right? I figured I’d take that repayment now.”

The three, starting with Sakaki, put their guards up.

“What do you mean?”

“Firstly, I want to be informed as much as possible about Judore. Any information you get, I want it sent my way. Secondly, I’d like you to put me in contact with a shrine maiden. I need one to conduct a ritual on Regan Island in the north.”

“A shrine maiden...? There aren’t any around here.”

“Regular services are stopped right now, and the guilds won’t do business with us either, so we don’t get much information at all. We have our hands full with our own problems too.” Yamada shrugged his shoulders.

“As a kind of repayment, I’ll take on any commissions you would usually ask a guild for. I’ll ask for the normal payment, though, and it would be unlicensed activity, so I’ll need you to keep it a secret. How does that sound?”

I felt a bit responsible for crushing Marsche’s guild relationships! It was just because the princess had been stupid, not the people’s fault, after all.

“Hm... I would be very glad to have a Trundle gold-ranker working for us. I accept your offer.”

“Oh, and I can’t take on any suspicious jobs that have to do with the revolution.”

“Of course. I will only give you work the holy beast would consider respectable.” Tabuchi dipped his head to the absent Lou.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Fio, where are you putting on your snake show today?” Mrs. Yoko asked me.

“I’m planning to start in front of the marketplace today.”

“I see. Be careful not to get heatstroke. Good luck to you and your snake!”

“Thank you!” replied Miyu.

“See you later!” we both called out as we left.

“What a precious, angelic kid...” Mrs. Yoko said to herself. “They help with the cooking and carry heavy things for me. Her silver snake doesn’t even creep me out. It’s mystical if anything... I wonder what lovely place they ran away from. I’d better let the police know their route so nobody snatches them up.”

“I heard Torino from the third district had her cat go missing,” I said to Miyu.

“Got it! I’ll look around on the roads there,” she replied.

Miyu had gone through a lot in her year away from Judore, and she had grown into quite the mature young lady. I was happy to have her trying to protect me, but...I missed being her mama...

“Good job, Miyu! Let’s go pick sleepygrass in the forest next!”

“Okay, Miss Sere!”

“I’m back!”

“Come in, Fio!”

“Let’s eat together, Fio!”

“Sit next to me, Fio! Come here!”

Yoko’s restaurant was always busy around dinnertime. The customers were friendly; they remembered my name, and they would say hello to me and pat my head. They would even pay for my food sometimes, so it helped me out financially! It reminded me a bit of the bar in Trundle Guild...

“Fio!”

“Oh, Yamada!”

“Welcome back. Are you tired?”

“No, I’m good! Come on in!”

Hm? Why are you giving everyone in the restaurant the stink eye, Yamada? Are you hungry?

I went back to my room and reported the results of my commissions to Yamada. I was glad that he’d come at a good time.

“So I finished all eight commissions.”

“Whoa! That was fast. You don’t have to rush... Here’s your next commission. It’s not urgent. Also, here’s the pay for the completed ones.”

“Thanks.”

I got out a matcha cake, which I’d borrowed the kitchen to make last night, and served it with tea. The availability of Japanese ingredients was one of the reasons I’d picked Marsche to hide in!

“You’re so good at cooking despite being a noble... God, you’re too cute! But I did attempt to murder you...” Yamada sighed. “I keep getting more rivals by the day...”

“Yamada?”

“Oh, sorry, I was talking to myself. I don’t have any big news about Judore today. There’s just one thing: all Trundle soldiers have apparently left the military. They can’t be convinced to return, and they’ve scattered across the kingdom as adventurers. Since they were all highly skilled, the military has lost a lot of strength. Judore has the magician’s association, though, so they have a good amount of strength regardless.”

Grandmother, you’ve spotted General Avenger and started driving him into a corner... My condolences.

“What about the Granzeuses?”

“I don’t have any news about your father.”

“Oh... I see...”

According to the information Prime Minister Tabuchi had collected, there wasn’t any fuss around my escape. Nobody knew about my life-or-death battle. Maybe the prince had decided that it would be a bad idea to make enemies of the Granzeus and Trundle families at this stage? Or maybe he had some other plan... It gave me a bad feeling.

“Father...”

I wonder if he’s enjoying a glass of whiskey in the glass I made for him right now...

◇ ◇ ◇

Some time had passed since I came to Marsche. The days had grown longer, and it was now cicada season. I began another day as Fio.

The locals had seen me catching lost pets and collecting supplies lately, so they’d taken to calling me “Fio, the snake charmer who does anything.” Occasionally, I would receive direct commissions, but my usual system was to have the reliable Mrs. Yoko write down the client, details, and payment in a notebook, which my soldier friend and older brother figure Yamada would check. I would accept the ones which he approved. It ended up wasting time if people didn’t take me seriously as a young boy, after all, and it would be a pain to act as my own receptionist.

“Both you and your snake, be safe!”

“See you later, Mrs. Yoko!” I replied.

“See you later!” Miyu echoed, waving her body side-to-side to say goodbye.

“Fio is working so hard... How sweet! She even went as far as to disguise herself as a boy...” Mrs. Yoko was always muttering something I couldn’t hear when she saw me off.

“What are our plans for today, Miss Sere?” asked Miyu.

“We’re going to fight a junk bear and catch an elephant louse. After that, I want to test Marschean mushrooms as ingredients in a healing potion.”

Elephant lice were like pill bugs, but they were about fifty centimeters long. I had Miyu add some nener grass extract to her poison mist to put one to sleep so I could catch it. Apparently, it was used as an ingredient in what I would have called Chinese medicine in my past life. I decided not to think too hard about the details. It sounded kind of gross.

“Miss Sere, I figured it out! I can spit sleeping mist now!”

Miyu just keeps leveling up...

While we were out, three devilboars charged us.

“Hah!” I used an upward punch, a chest punch, and then a roundhouse kick to its weak point. Then I snapped my fingers to freeze it.

“Good job! That attack flowed so well, even though it was a surprise! But why did you freeze it?” asked Miyu.

“The butcher said it would be easier to accept things that are frozen. This is a small enough amount of magic that it should be okay, right?” I said as I stored it in my Magic Room (Freezer).

I followed my map to my biggest target of the day, the junk bear, picking Marschean mushrooms along the way.

The bear I fought with Nick was bigger... I clutched the little stone in my pocket.

As I absentmindedly looked at the junk bear, it noticed our presence. After we glared at each other for a moment, it began to growl and run straight at me.

I waited until it approached me, then I swung my right foot up to kick it in the chin. I sidestepped the taken-aback bear’s hind legs, then I landed a kick into its left cheek with my right leg.

Thwump! The bear collapsed backwards.

“Are you going to finish it off, Miss Sere?”

“Hmm, the commission just said to do something about this junk bear, so it doesn’t sound like it’s caused much damage in particular. Could you try talking to it?” Lou would hate to kill an animal for no good reason...

Miyu spit water on its face to wake it up, then she seemed to enter a deep conversation with it. “Miss Sere, this bear says she’s about to give birth, so she came to the edge of the forest to gather food.”

Its belly did look big, now that Miyu mentioned it. I’d been about to kill an innocent pregnant bear who would soon give birth...

I quickly cast healing magic on the junk bear, then I used supersonic waves to make sure the unborn babies were okay. There were two heartbeats—she was having twins. I petted her stomach, praying for them to get along well, unlike Alma and Cecil. This was my first time petting a furry creature in a while. She was much firmer than Lou...

“It’s dangerous here, mama bear. If a human finds you, they’re likely to kill you without asking questions. You should go back deep into the forest. You can have one of these freshly-killed frozen devilboars to eat, okay?”

The mama bear dipped her head to me gratefully, then she vanished back into the forest, carrying the devilboar under her arm.

“She says she’ll return the favor someday!”

A favor from a bear? What form will that take? I’m excited to see!

We were walking back to town, picking Miyu’s favorite snakeberries along the way, when a shower of small fireballs fell from above. I instinctively used water magic to extinguish them. Miyu filled the surrounding area with mist to prevent forest fires.

“How could you use fire magic in the forest?!” Miyu yelled.

They’ve ticked off the responsible snake! I checked the attackers’ position on my map. There were three of them hiding in the forest shadows about two kilometers away. They’d probably combined their magical power to send that attack long distance.

I leapt up above the trees, took aim, and threw shurikens with both my hands. As I’d expected, they made contact. My concentration and accuracy had been finely honed in the Marschean woods. I’d also gained skill from my battle with Prince Schneider, or at least I liked to think I had. I was one hundred percent accurate within three kilometers. It wouldn’t have been a good idea to damage the forest with magic, and I had no obligation to show off what I could do with magic, either, so poisoned shurikens would do.

I touched down to the ground, collected Miyu, and went over to the attackers. They had all fainted, each having two shurikens coated in a paralyzing poison stuck in them.

“Black ninja outfits... I guess they don’t want the Trundles to know who they are.”

“Miss Sere, watch out!”

One of them suddenly got up as I peered at them and slashed at me with a knife. Just as pain shot through my cheek, I knocked the knife away with my left hand and squeezed his carotid artery with my right, knocking him out for good this time. Apparently, he was the only one with a resistance to this poison. I figured I should use more complex poisons in the future.

Miyu searched their pockets. “I can’t find anything identifying, but based on that fire magic, do you think they’re Judoran magicians?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t confess anything last time we interrogated them. They’re most likely underlings of the prince, but I could have made enemies in any number of places. They could even be from the Marschean royal family. I know Tomoe has a grudge against me, and I’m definitely on the side of the prime minister.” Since Tabuchi actually pays his commissions!

“Are you going to finish them off?”

“No. There’s nerve poison mixed in, so they won’t be able to come back and try to assassinate me.”

“You have blood on your cheek, Miss Sere.”

“Oh.” I wiped it off with my fist. It wasn’t a lot of blood...not compared to that one time.

“Miss Sere...can you wait for me by the lake that we rested at this morning?” Miyu asked. “I want to pick more of the snakeberries around here.”

“Okay, I’ll do some knife maintenance at the lake while I wait!”

Miyu is such a big eater.

◇ ◇ ◇

After Serephione had left, Miyu glared at the three men with a glint in her eye. A black fog poured out over them. The men began to sweat and writhe in pain, still unconscious.

“You thought you could hurt my master and go home alive?” Miyu softly sighed. “Miss Sere is too kind... I do love that about her, but still...” She looked down at the men without a trace of warmth in her eyes. “Miss Sere would be sad if I killed you, so instead, I will put you into a nightmare you’ll never awake from. I think you would be better off dead, though.”

She smiled, showing her fangs...then looked up at the sky.

“Please come back soon, Lou... Your dear child is overworking herself and constantly crying in her heart...”

◇ ◇ ◇

“Welcome back, Fio! You have a guest!” Mrs. Yoko called out to me as I came back from the forest. I looked in the restaurant to see Sakaki.

“Good evening. What brings you here?”

“Well...I have something to ask of you,” he replied.

“A commission?”

“Yep, a commission... Hey, what happened to your cheek?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing much. I cut it on a blade of grass.”

“That’s a knife wound! Somebody attacked you!”

“It was my own fault for not looking out. And gold rankers don’t go gossiping about people they’ve defeated.” I brushed it off nonchalantly. If anything, this scar would be perfect if I was going to live as a man.

“That’s terrible...”

“I can’t take your commission if you’re just going to sit around grumbling, Sakaki.”

“I need you to!”

“All right, so, what is it?”

“You made Yamada a matcha cake the other day, right? Please make me one!”

“Huh?”

“Yamada’s been bragging about it in the barracks. He says it was the perfect amount of sweetness for a man’s palate. Everyone is jealous. Sweets are hard to come by nowadays, right? I even brought the ingredients!”

All I could do was sigh...

I asked Mrs. Yoko to use the kitchen so I could make the matcha cake. Marsche even happened to have azuki beans, so I took some of the sweet bean paste—which had been made in bulk as preserved food—and mixed an ample amount into the batter.

“You’re good at this.” Sakaki was watching me work as he drank a cup of tea.

The cake isn’t going to run away if you don’t keep watch! “You think so? Someone important to me really likes cake, so I’ve made a lot of these.” I hadn’t fed him a matcha cake yet, though.

“Do you mean...your boyfriend?”

“Ha ha ha! Far from a boyfriend!” He was my very own fluffball...strong, cool, and much more work than a boyfriend.

“These ingredients are normal, though... I wonder what makes your cakes especially good.” Mrs. Yoko, who was always the first to taste my baking, tilted her head.

“He he, it’s probably because I say magic words over them at the end.”

“Magic words?”

“Yeah! I tell it to be tasty, pretty please! Okay, it’s done! Oven time!”

“You do the most adorable things, Fio!” Mrs. Yoko ruffled my hair.

The cake came out perfectly. Maybe I should quit being an adventurer and start a cake shop?

Sakaki wrapped up the green cake like a precious object and took it home. Is he really that grateful to have something sweet?

I’d used a direct-heat oven, so my body felt hot. When I went out into the inn courtyard to cool myself down, I heard a rustling sound and saw something that looked like bamboo leaves hanging up.

“Is that...?”

“Oh, this is a custom called the Wishing Tree. It’s said that if you write a wish on a piece of paper and tie it to a branch on that tree on a starry night, your wish will come true.”

It was Tanabata. I looked up to the sky to see countless stars twinkling.

There must have been someone reincarnated in this town in Marsche long ago. Mrs. Yoko had written her wishes on the papers, such as “increased business,” “safety for my household,” and “financial luck.”

“Here.” Mrs. Yoko handed me some pieces of paper in various colors and a pen. I dipped my head and took them.

Oh yeah! For my first one, I wrote “I wish to find a shrine maiden who will send off the god at Regan Island.” That should wrap the situation up nicely.

I had plenty of paper left. Next, I simply wrote down “I wish to see everyone again soon.” But the loved ones who I wanted to see all had their own commitments, I realized. If I wished to see them with my cheat code abilities, it would come true, and maybe not for the better.

I ripped up the paper and burned it in the palm of my hand. Asu said to wait for the right time. I just have to wait.

“Miss Sere...”

“Aw, were you watching?”

I was embarrassed that Miyu had seen that. Time to redo it... Hmm...

“I wish for my father, brother, and grandmother to live healthy lives.”

They don’t need any more strength, though...

“I wish for Alma and Nick to be well and make their dreams come true.”

Ah, that’s such a meddling-auntie thing of me to write...

“I wish for Gillain to find a companion who will stay by his side and not betray him or leave him lonely.”

I ended up not being able to do anything for him in the end.

“I wish for Asu to stay as noble as he is and to stay my friend.”

Is it strange to pray to the gods for a holy beast?

“I wish for Lou to stay exactly who he is.”

I wrote that on a light blue paper.

“Aren’t you going to write anything for yourself, Miss Sere?”

I hadn’t thought about it yet.

“You could wish for your boobs to get bigger!” Miyu suggested, to my chagrin.

I wrote “I wish to get stronger so I can put everyone’s minds at ease. - Fio”

The moon twinkled.