Fourth Bath – A Visit to the Ancient Bath

After the ketolts finished tidying up the rest of our spoils from the dragon and I fully regained my energy, we walked for another day and a half, and then finally made it to our destination.

The ledge turned into a sudden and steep cliff that didn’t look possible to traverse on foot. My solution to that was summoning earth spirits to create a foundation for us, then using it to hoist us all the way up the mountain.

The landscape that greeted us when we arrived above the ledge could be described as nothing more than bleak and barren. I didn’t know if the poison gas had caused it, but the trees that surrounded the edge of the cliff were completely withered. Once we crossed the ring of dead trees, we saw sand and rocks, then a building that we could only assume was the demon generals’ hideout beyond it.

I hadn’t been able to tell how large the hideout was from far away, but it was actually fairly small. At least that was my first impression as we stood on the ledge. The cliff itself was big, which made the building look even smaller in turn. Beyond the cozy-looking cabin was another larger building. The two of them combined still didn’t match the size of Pardoe’s mansion.

And then there was all the sand and rock in front of the buildings. This might have been the garden.

“It’s a dried-up zen garden...”

“...Zen garden?” Rium asked, clinging to my waist.

“What’s that?” Clena was also confused as she stood next to me. So the people of this world didn’t understand what a zen garden was.

“It’s a dry garden. The sand is supposed to represent water and imitate a scene in nature.” I gave a brief explanation since I was no expert either.

Rulitora scanned his eyes across the withered garden with a quizzical expression. “...This is a garden? It looks like nothing more than a wasteland to me.”

It was no surprise that Rulitora would think so, considering how he’d grown up in the void. If I were to pick an environment that this garden reminded me of, I’d choose the Torano’o settlement as well. I only realized that this was a zen garden because I was from Japan, but the people of this world would only see it as a dreary garden with rocks randomly strewn about—or not a garden at all.

“Um, Sir Touya? Is this ‘zen garden’ something from your...?”

“Yeah, from my homeland. It’s a traditional Japanese garden.” Roni hesitated in asking her question, but I gave her an assertive reply.

Indeed, this was a type of Japanese garden. It would make sense for the demon lord and the five great demon generals, who were summoned from Japan 500 years ago, to know what this was. I would never have expected to find a zen garden in such a remote place in another world, though.

“So if the sand is water... are the rocks land?”

“I would assume so.”

Rium picked the idea up surprisingly fast. The others slowly showed signs of understanding after they heard Rium’s comment. The three ketolts had their eyes especially wide. They might have been taken aback at the sight of artistry from another world.

Rakti, however, was looking somewhat scared. Rium was already at my left, so she circled around to my right and hugged my waist.

“Um, so does that mean... there’s really a demon general here...?”

“Seems like it. One of the Five Great Demon Generals.”

Rakti looked up at me with fear in her eyes. The Five Great Demon Generals and the demon lord were all summoned by Goldfish, a cleric of the Goddess of Darkness, and were given the blessing of Darkness. The demon lord had yet to rise again, so whoever made this hideout must have been among the Five Great Demon Generals.

Rakti had nothing to do with Goldfish’s past deeds, but she must still have felt related to it as the Goddess of Darkness. Goldfish was definitely the one in the wrong there, not Rakti. She had never given an order to summon anyone. I tried to soothe her by patting her on her head. She could only feel my heavy gauntlets, but still looked a little happier.

We started approaching the two buildings, opting to circle around the withered garden because we’d feel guilty for trampling over it.

Our party neared the first building, but it was still completely silent from within. I checked with Rulitora and Roni, but neither of them detected any presence spying on us. Maybe the demon general was out for now.

I saw lush green trees behind the cabin. There was still some poison gas hovering near the ledge, but it looked like it didn’t reach this far. I told Clena as much, and she ceased casting her water veil.

“That chimney...” Pardoe looked up at the other building behind the cabin, thinking to himself. He was concerned about the chimney sticking out from the roof.

“Pardoe?”

“The chimney on that house over there. It looks a little strange for a kitchen chimney... Purrhaps that building’s a workshop.”

“So they were making something in there?”

This drew Rium’s attention. She mentioned that the building looked small compared to the smithy in Pardoe’s mansion, but it was the perfect size for a crystal mage’s workshop. If that really was a workshop, the next question would be what the demon general was making in there.

We decided to check out the smaller cabin first. If the other building was a workshop, that would imply that this one was their house—in other words, we’d be more likely to find the demon general in here. If the demon general was the type to create a zen garden, I considered the chance that the cabin might be a Japanese-style house... but it was just a building with white walls, similar to the ones in Hephaestusopolis.

“I do not detect any traps, Sir Touya.”

Roni scouted out any possible traps for us. She had apparently become an expert at this after helping Clena sneak out of the house several times when they were young.

“Okay then, make sure you stand to the side when you open the door. I’ll stand in front.”

There were no traps, and the door wasn’t even locked, so I had Roni open the door from a safe angle. Rulitora seemed like he wanted to say something, but I was the most suitable among us to stand in front of the door with my Magic Eater.

“No one’s inside...” I gripped the handle of my Crescent Moon as the door opened, but it was completely deserted within.

Roni inspected the cabin, looking out for any traps, but we found nothing. That wasn’t such a surprise after looking inside, though. The cabin was essentially in ruins. The tables, chairs, furnishings, rugs, and everything else were rotting away.

“Hey, Touya. Look over here.” Clena called for me from a room deeper inside, where we found a single piece of cloth pinned to the wall. The cloth was also in tatters, its colors faded. “I think it’s a flag...”

“The demon general’s?” I asked, and Clena nodded in response.

“Do you know whose it might be?”

“Sorry, I can’t tell by the flag alone...”

“...This is the Flame Devil’s.”

“Huh?” A voice suddenly cut into our conversation, and I looked down to find Rium clinging to my waist. I looked at the flag again, and the drawing on it definitely looked like a flame.

“Do you know this flag, Rium?”

“The Flame Devil fought against Athenapolis before... I saw a painting of angels fighting against demons, and this flag was on there...”

Angels, huh. Considering what Haruno had told us in her letter, those must have been the winged demi-humans, the glaupis, and not angels. So if this flag was here, that meant this hideout belonged to the Fire Devil.

Roni looked inside a basket in the kitchen, then grimaced. Rium, Rakti, and I followed suit to find a massive clump of dried-out mold. I couldn’t even guess what that used to be. Though considering how he was living in this environment, maybe he ate mold itself. The one thing I could say for sure was that no one was living here right now.

“Oh, let’s go check out the other building too. Purrhaps they’re living in the workshop...”

“Yes, maybe they shut themselves in their workshop for a month because they’re too absorbed in their work...”

“Both of you are speaking from expurrience...”

Pardoe and Shakova spoke with their eyes averted, but Mark gave them both an accusing stare. So both of them had locked themselves in their workshops before.

This looked like far more than a month’s worth of decay, but who knows, maybe demons could shut themselves off for a longer period of time. We all braced ourselves again and approached the supposed workshop.

“Sir Touya, Sir Touya! There’s another building over there.”

“What?”

Rakti pulled my hand when we circled around to the back of the cabin. I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a silhouette of something that looked manmade behind the trees. It didn’t look very big, so we decided to investigate this first.

“Meow? These rocks...”

“Have you noticed, Mark?

These stones are lining up to form a path.”

“The road is blending together with nature...”

The ketolts stared in curiosity at the flat stones that formed a path away from the cabin. It was a common feature of Japanese gardens. I believed they were called stepping stones. This would also have been a strange sight in this world.

“Mew... It’s kind of plain, but stylish in its own way.” Shakova, who was always on the lookout for designs, admired the way the path blended into the natural scenery.

We stepped on the stones toward the other building, only to find that it was in an even worse state than the cabin. The inside of the cabin was decaying, but this building itself had rotted away. It looked like this one had been made of mud.

Maybe this hideout has been abandoned for a long time now... I thought, and began inspecting the building. I could look inside the building through its windows—or rather, the holes in its walls—but couldn’t find any sign of the door.

“Where’s the door on this thing?”

“Right over here.”

“...That’s tiny.”

The door we found was so small that even the ketolts would have to stoop down to enter it. I doubted I could get in wearing my Magic Eater even crouching down on all fours, to say nothing of Rulitora. I had a feeling I knew what this building was.

In any case, there seemed to be no traps here either, so I had Roni scout it out. Pardoe and Shakova followed her inside, wagging their tails with keen curiosity. Mark only looked at them, sighing. He had it tough, too. Though I had to admit I was curious too, so I also peeked my head inside.

“Oh, Sir Touya. Look at the floor in here.”

“Just like I thought...” I was not surprised at all by what I saw.

“This is tatami, right...?”

Yes, tatami mats covered the floor inside the small house. Though I could barely recognize them as tatami mats in the condition they were in.

“Is there anything else in there?”

“Not even a hairball!”

“The floor sort of dips down in the middle, but there’s nothing in it.”

That was within expectations, too. I had a good guess as to what this building was. We stepped out of the building and made our way toward the workshop next.

“It’s a pottery workshop, I knew it!!” I unintentionally raised my voice as soon as we stepped inside.

Yep. A kiln loomed in the back of the abandoned workshop. Several pieces of what looked like broken bowls were scattered around it.

“P-pottery? They were making tableware here?” Clena asked, looking like she didn’t believe a word I just said.

I couldn’t blame her, though. We crossed a sea of poison gas, defeated a dragon, and finally arrived at the hideout where a demon general was supposedly lurking, only to find this snug little pottery workshop. Pardoe suggested that they may have conducted metalworking here, too. He recognized a few traces of cast metal in the room.

I could guess that the pottery was for tea cups and the metalworking was for tea kettles. The small building was most likely a tea house. I hadn’t gone to a tea ceremony myself before, but I remembered seeing buildings where you needed to crouch to enter on TV before.

This Fire Devil was mostly likely a tea ceremony master who had been summoned from the Sengoku period. He had built a tea house, as well as this workshop to create tea utensils so that he could enjoy the ceremonies in this world as well. He must have forged the tea kettles himself after not being able to find anyone else who could, making him quite the hobbyist.

In any case, I knew for sure now. Though this was a hideout, it hadn’t been meant for plotting something against Hephaestusopolis. It was just a personal hideout. And judging by the state of decay, it had been abandoned for a long time now. I didn’t know what to think anymore, knowing that Hephaestusopolis had kept such a concerned eye on this personal hideout that had been abandoned for who knows how many years now.

He had built this hideout knowing it was visible, yet unreachable from Hephaestusopolis, then abandoned it fully aware that they were still keeping watch. Assuming that was really the case, he must have had an awful personality. What kind of person was this Flame Devil, anyway?

We did a thorough sweep of the workshop and found a single notebook. It looked like a historical document you might see on TV, its pages thin and decayed. The text was in Japanese, but an old form of the language that I normally wouldn’t be able to read. However, the Goddess of Light’s blessing allowed me to understand any language present in this world, so I could decipher what was written in the notebook.

I made my way through portions of the text I wasn’t able to read before, finding that the Flame Devil had recorded details on all the tea ware and kettles he had created in a diary format. It seemed like he had gone through many years of trial and error to construct his tea ware and kettles.

“Whoa, what?!”

“Wh-what’s wrong?!”

I couldn’t believe it. I eventually came across an entry that might have explained why the Flame Devil left this hideout, but I was shocked at what it said. I read the entry aloud with everyone else’s eyes glued to me.

The following was what it said: The dragon that I had brought along as a guard dog has withered the trees away with its gas, and the scenery is no longer to my taste, so I shall depart to another location.

Everyone else opened their mouths agape, speechless. That was the expected reaction. I felt the same, too. So the dragon had just been abandoned here.

There was a chance this journal had been left here as a little prank on whoever managed to find this place. If that were the case, he did well. I turned the page and found one last sentence written just before he left.

“It says I have yet to recreate the Hiragumo...” I see, Hiragumo was that famous tea kettle. He must have been forging tea ware here with that as his goal.

I still didn’t know who the Fire Devil was, but he was definitely quite the hobbyist. We finished investigating the hideout of one of the Five Great Demon Generals, the Fire Devil, and returned to Hephaestusopolis about one week later. We were mentally drained, so the hike back ended up being more taxing on us than the initial trip.

Another week passed since we returned to Pardoe’s mansion. We took the time to not only rest ourselves up, but start preparing for our next journey. I thought back on the past two weeks as I washed Rium’s hair in the Unlimited Bath. We had searched every nook and cranny of the hideout, but found no signs of any underground tunnels or hidden rooms. The tattered flag and journal were our only spoils. I thought it over and could only conclude that the Fire Devil had left them behind on purpose. It made the most sense, as they would provide all the answers for anyone who came across the hideout after he left.

The flag was a big clue as to who the hideout’s owner was. It would at least confirm that it was one of the Five Great Demon Generals who had survived the battle between the first sacred king and the demon lord. That was the first blow. The second blow was the journal, which revealed that he left because he didn’t like the look of his garden anymore. It was a two-pronged attack.

My theory was that the Fire Devil had left us those items as a couple of pranks. It was very likely a trap aimed at someone related to the sacred family—especially a hero, since the Goddess of Light’s blessing allowed you to decipher any language. The hideout was within sight of Hephaestusopolis, but just out of reach. A hero would have no choice but to investigate it if he found out about its existence. We crossed a volcano and poison gas, escaped a dragon, and avoided death by a hair, only to find a few buildings that were long deserted. And then that diary entry. If anyone wanted to know how great the mental damage was, they needed to look no further than us.

I contacted Haruno to get her opinion as well, but she couldn’t think of any other reason why the Fire Devil would have left the journal behind, either. If he wanted to prove his identity, the flag would have been enough.

Either way, we couldn’t do anything about it. I tried to get my spirits up by telling myself that we at least protected the peace in Hephaestusopolis.

After returning to the city, we presented the Fire Devil’s flag and journal to Hephaestus XIV and told him everything honestly. The shock of finding out that the hideout they had been so vigilant of had actually been abandoned for about 100 years was so great that the king collapsed on the spot. However, he made a quick recovery as a king should and immediately set out to discuss our next steps.

The reward I was supposed to receive in exchange for the sword and shield with the royal crest would now include our accomplishments during this trip as well. The dragon I defeated apparently was an achievement worthy of a medal, so they would be splurging on my rewards. They needed some time to prepare an extravagant ceremony in the royal palace, so we took care of other things in the meantime.

First, we needed to organize our loot. Though we hadn’t managed to reap anything too worthwhile this time around. The hideout was barren besides the flag and notebook, so the only things we could consider loot were the dragon-hippo’s parts. We had managed to recover plenty from the dragon itself, but it was still a little disappointing compared to the weapons and treasures we brought back from Hadesopolis.

Though Clena talked some sense into me, saying that our spoils from Hadesopolis were plain abnormal. She was completely right about the amount we had looted from the demon lord’s castle. We couldn’t even put a monetary value on it. I understood why people in my former world loved hunting for buried treasure so much now.

We discussed what to do with the dragon parts. The bones would go toward making a new set of armor for Rulitora, while the jade scales would be used to tailor a set of scale armor for Clena. Scale armor normally referred to armor reinforced with scale-shaped pieces of metal, but the added defensive power usually wasn’t worth the extra weight. A few advantages it had over chainmail, which involved meticulously chaining together metallic rings, were its attractive design and comparatively cheap and easy tailoring process.

However, the armor we were making for Clena was different. The dragon scales were lighter, sturdier, and more beautiful than metallic scales. We named it the dragon scale armor. It would be more expensive to make, but considering we were purchasing better safety, it was worth the cost.

“Huh? We should take it to a human blacksmith?”

“Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I wouldn’t be tampurring with metal for this job, anyway.”

We had a human blacksmith help us forge the dragon scale armor at Pardoe’s recommendation. Of course, he introduced us to someone skilled. Apparently humans were better at dealing with leather armor too, so I also ordered a set of red lizard skin armor for Roni.

Rulitora’s bone armor required shaving away and molding hard bone, so this was better for ketolt blacksmiths to handle. Pardoe introduced us to the best blacksmith who could handle bones out of the twelve blacksmith families. We thought about calling this “dragon bone armor.”

Once Hephaestus XIV heard our plans, he decided to make the award ceremony double as an unveiling for our completed sets of dragon armor. We had made the right choice by ordering from both human and ketolt blacksmiths. The two races lived in harmony in this kingdom, but they must have had their fair share of hardships as well.

I also tried to use one of the dragon’s tusks to make something I wanted to call Dragon Killer, but it didn’t quite work out. While that dragon-hippo had molars tough enough to chew giant enoki mushrooms, it didn’t have the fangs needed for biting into meat. The teeth weren’t the right length to make any swords. I had imagined a sword when I thought up the name “Dragon Killer,” so I was a bit disappointed. I knew how sturdy it was, though, so I picked the biggest molar to make a mace out of. Of course we didn’t use the tooth as-is, but shaved it down and shaped it. Shakova was good at carving things, so I left the job to him.

As for the rest of the teeth, Clena and I decided to gift them to the ketolts as thanks for helping us on our journey. Mark wanted to create a war hammer from one of them. He happily hoisted up a dragon tooth about the size of his head with his chest held high.

Soon after we finished sorting out our loot, I was asked an unexpected question.

“Huh? Come with us?”

“Yes, meow.”

“What about Crissa?”

“She’ll come too, of course.”

Amew—I mean, amazingly, Pardoe requested that he join us in our travels. He even wanted to bring Crissa along.

“Are you fine with that, Crissa?”

“Yes. I cannot fight, but I can assist with chores like a labor raver would. Also, I’m worried about my father going off on his own...”

I checked with Crissa, but she was more worried about Pardoe getting into trouble outside of her control than the journey itself. She said that she knew basic self-defense. In that case, I had no particular objections. Rather, I’d be less worried about her than I was about Rakti. Especially since we slept inside the Unlimited Bath at night. Compared to normal travelers, we had very little to worry about when setting up camp for the night.

“Then I’m going too, meow!”

“Me too!”

Then Shakova and Mark joined the fray. Mark was acting especially insistent about it. He must have overheard Crissa’s situation.

Crissa herself simply giggled and said “my, my” as she looked at Mark acting all tough. She really did only see him as a little brother.

“May I ask the reason?” Rulitora hadn’t seen the request coming either, so he asked them about it with a confused expression.

“There’s something I got curious about after we found the demon general’s hideout. Sir Touya’s Unlimited Bath is very similar to that hideout.”

“...Well, it does have a tatami room, and the atmosphere feels similar.”

The Flame Devil’s hideout wasn’t exactly a Japanese house, but he had built it to resemble one with a Japanese flair. He probably didn’t have the right skills to recreate one exactly.

The tub in my Unlimited Bath was a Japanese cedar tub, and I had gotten a tatami-floored room from the Goddess of Darkness’ blessing, so my Bath had a Japanese flair as well.

“I want to know more about these techniques I’ve never seen before!”

“A beauty that melds with nature! It’s a whole mew world!”

Pardoe and Shakova leaned forward in excitement. It looked like Japanese culture caught their interest.

Pardoe further explained that he still wanted to study the fire altar, but Shakova was simply keen on “Japanese beauty.” According to Pardoe, it was the first time both of them had agreed that something looked beautiful. No wonder they were both so enthusiastic.

Mark, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in Japanese culture. Crissa, who would be coming along to look after her zealous father, was most important to him.

As for me, I wasn’t exactly used to looking at Japanese-style scenery anymore, but it was so matter of fact to me that I didn’t quite follow what they meant by melding with nature. I could understand them saying how it wasn’t too flashy, though. That must have been why Pardoe had also seen the beauty in it. Their reactions reminded me of foreigners being amazed at Japanese culture.

“What was it called again... wabi-sabi?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the term for what you guys are feeling right now.”

I didn’t know the exact definition, but I figured this was close. It was the term for appreciating the aesthetics in Japanese culture such as tea ceremonies... or something like that. The words by themselves meant the beauty that came with “imperfection” and “time”... I think.

“Uh-huh, wasabi...”

No, it’s wabi-sabi.

Anyway, now I knew what their reasons were. They wanted access to the wealth of untapped knowledge pertaining to a culture from another world that came with me and the Unlimited Bath. If they were to join my party, I’d be their leader, so they wouldn’t mind me ordering them around like I did Rulitora. That was just in the context of the party, though.

I already knew that they weren’t just blacksmiths holed up in their workshops all day—they could fight monsters, too. Though here in Hephaestus, it was “just” the blacksmiths who would venture out to gather materials amid dangerous monsters. We would also need Crissa’s help if our party grew in number.

“What will you do about your houses?” Clena asked the next question. As the daughter of a noble family, a worry like that was second nature to her.

“We’ve asked the other ten families to look after them.”

“We’ve already got purrmission to travel!”

Pardoe and Shakova answered promptly. Not a surprising reaction from the ketolts who have given up the throne to focus on their smithing work.

They already had everything taken care of on their side, and I had no objections of my own. They had plenty of potential to contribute to the party, and we had already worked out the kinks in living together while they were tailoring my Magic Eater. I looked over at Rulitora and the others, but none of them gave any particular reaction. Besides being a little startled, at least.

“Got it. Pardoe, Shakova, Mark, Crissa—welcome to the party!” I decided to take them up on their request. I addressed the four of them as the party leader, then shook each of their hands.

“......”

“Meow? What is it?”

“No, it’s nothing. We’re planning to set off soon after the ceremony is over, so let’s keep preparing until then,” I stated in as calm of a voice as possible, but my mind was elsewhere. Their little paws were so soft and squishy.

A few events happened over the next two weeks. The blacksmiths we had ordered our armor from knew the award ceremony couldn’t be conducted until the armor was completed, so they rushed to get the orders done. Now we had everything we’d requested, and the ceremony would be held this afternoon. Right now, we were getting ready for it by bathing ourselves.

“There, all finished.”

I slowly poured water over Rium to wash the suds off her, and she shook her head and splashed beads of water all around. She really did manage to soothe my nerves.

It wasn’t quite the same with Roni or Clena. Roni was slim, but still had a shapely and feminine figure, so I got a bit embarrassed whenever I washed her hair. Clena, on the other hand, made my breathing go wild. Frankly, her figure was several steps above any of the other girls’.

In contrast, Rium and Rakti soothed me. I wanted to pet them on their heads forever.

“Let’s get in the bath now.”

Rium nodded softly, then took my hand and headed to the cedar bathtub where Clena, Roni, and Rakti were waiting.

A few hours after we cleaned ourselves, we changed into our formal wear and gained an audience with the Hephaestus royal palace. Though my “formal wear” was simply my Magic Eater armor while I held the helmet under my armpit, an extravagant ceremonial mantle, and a sash across my chest. I didn’t bring any weapons, of course.

I wondered if this was okay since I could still use magic, but the king himself had commanded it, so we didn’t need to question it any further. He was as broad-minded of a fellow as always.

A large crowd had gathered to take a look at the ceremony, and they greeted us with a thunderous applause as soon as we stepped into view. I was getting stage fright. I took one step at a time, making sure to not fall over or swing my arms in tune with the wrong leg.

Rulitora was wearing his dragon bone armor. Its most impressive feature was the exaggerated shape of its left arm, made from the long jaw of the dragon’s skull. He didn’t have the spikes from the giant scorpion armor anymore, but he looked even more menacing now. He had a dignified look with his head held high, but I could still see a hint of nervousness in his expression, probably because he wasn’t used to this either.

Clena’s dragon scale armor was beautiful enough to be mistaken for jewelry. But those were dragon’s scales—the armor wasn’t just for show. It had been signed and certified by Pardoe and Shakova.

Roni’s brand new red lizard skin armor might have been commonplace in Hephaestusopolis, but we had gotten a skilled craftsman to tailor it, so it was an impressive piece as well. The leather armor that adorned her chest was neither too plain nor too gaudy, and was top-notch in terms of defensive abilities as well. Both Clena and Roni stood composed, maybe because they were used to this sort of situation.

Rium and Rakti didn’t wear armor on a regular basis, so we prepared adorable dresses for them for the occasion. They both looked splendid. The dresses would just become luggage after this since we’d rarely come across the opportunity to take them out, but they’d be fine inside the Unlimited Bath. They couldn’t wear them right now, but of course we picked out dresses as gifts for Clena and Roni as well. Roni had gotten incredibly flustered, but accepted the gift as a token of my appreciation.

Rium was acting coolly, entirely unaffected by the scene, but Rakti looked anxious and kept glancing around her. She was the most inexperienced of all of us with these situations.

Following us were Pardoe, Shakova, and Mark, who had all helped us during the expedition. The three of them were wrapped in what looked like togas from ancient Rome. Pardoe and Shakova were unsurprisingly acting no different from usual.

Crissa was waving at them from the audience. She was being a little more audacious than usual since it was her little brother’s big moment.

Mark was covering his face shyly. He wasn’t nervous, but rather embarrassed about Crissa’s behavior.

We walked forward until we were in front of Hephaestus XIV. He didn’t look stiff at all with his usual beaming smile. The butterflies in my stomach flew away after I saw him. In fact, I felt silly about being nervous in the first place. I was thankful for his personality at that moment.

“Hero Touya! We thank you for your courageous deeds on this occasion!”

We had already gone over the order of events in the ceremony, so the king proceeded to present me the medals without delay.

I would be awarded three medals today. The medals were simply an easy way to recognize certain achievements, so they weren’t my reward by themselves. Though I’d heard these medals were worth quite a bit on their own.

The actual reward consisted of various treasures and a lump sum of cash, but I would just be handed a certificate for now. The audience wouldn’t get too excited about the money—or rather, they’d just get envious instead.

Back on topic, the first was the Volcano Warrior medal. The medal depicted a relief of a ketolt holding a sword, and was granted to those who achieved many merits within Hephaestus. Apparently the ketolt in the relief was the first king of the old Hephaestus royal family.

They were recognizing us for the expedition that uncovered the demon general’s hideout, which had troubled the kingdom for many years. The medal was given not just to me, but to everyone who had participated in the expedition.

The second was the Slayer medal. This was awarded to anyone who successfully defeated a powerful monster, and depicted two dragons wrapped around a sword. The design on the medal changed depending on the type of monster you defeated. I suppose this one could be called the Dragon Slayer medal.

Third was the Golden Cat Ears medal. This one was a cute medal in the shape of a cat’s head. It was granted to anyone the old royal family, or the twelve families, deemed worthy. It was proof that the twelve families accepted you and a pledge that they would offer assistance in times of need. It was probably thanks to this medal that Pardoe and Shakova could join our journey.

I took my award certificate, had the three medals pinned to my sash, and turned around to the audience, who offered loud cheers. It almost felt like the entire room was rumbling. I wondered if Haruno had gone through something similar when she received her medal.

Maybe I had caught up to Haruno now. I felt a little proud thinking that. I kept my chest held high and walked into the sea of cheers with a confident expression.