Chapter 2: The Beauty Pageant

Chapter 2:
The Beauty Pageant

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

BEFORE I KNEW IT, the competition had begun. Apparently, Amelia, Latticenail, and the girls from the hero’s party were among the last entrants to register; as such, they’d be among the last to appear on stage. With Latticenail chattering excitedly by my side, I watched the event play out from the venue floor. So far, all of the contestants had been either human or beastfolk, and there were certainly some good-looking entrants among them, but since I got to spend every day with an unmatched beauty like Amelia, none of them really made a huge impression on me. Based on facial features alone, something told me Amelia would have no problem wiping the floor with any of these girls…though there was one contestant whose face I hadn’t seen yet, come to think of it.

“So hey, are you gonna take that hood off eventually, or what?” I asked, and Latticenail (who’d been watching the contestants with rapt attention) quickly turned to face me, squinting devilishly with her purple eyes.

“What, and ruin the surprise? If I took it off now, everyone would know I was bound to win the grand prize from the get-go, and where’s the fun in that? Besides, haven’t you ever heard of showmanship? I wanna make the crowd go wild!”

It sounded like she was awfully confident in her looks. Considering she’d already met Amelia and therefore knew what she was up against, she either had to be the most beautiful girl in all of Morrigan, or she was just blowing smoke. Given her personality, I could see it being the latter, but on the off chance that it was the former, I was very interested to see her beauty for myself.

“Whassa matter, big guy? Has little ol’ Latty caught your eye? Better be careful, or you might just wanna dump that elf princess for me!” she snickered, and I promptly flicked her on the forehead. Even if she was more beautiful than Amelia, for the sake of argument, it wasn’t like I loved Amelia for her looks alone, and I could say with 100 percent confidence I could never fall for someone with a personality like Latticenail’s. “God, you two really are obnoxiously head over heels for each other, huh? I’m surprised Night hasn’t gone off the deep end from having to watch your PDAs yet.”

I let out an awkward laugh. Little does she know.

 

POV: ASAHINA KYOUSUKE

 

ONE BY ONE, the contestants strode across the stage, and I had to admit, I was starting to feel increasingly anxious about this whole endeavor. Our plan to protect Princess Amelia while also exposing Gram’s villainy was starting to feel impossible, and the sudden appearance of a demon girl wasn’t helping matters. The original plan was to have myself and our female classmates close at hand so we could rush to Princess Amelia’s aid if Gram tried anything funny after she won the competition, and to have Waki, Tsuda, and Nanase standing by at the men’s competition for the same purpose if Satou won. It may have been an oversight to not have our entire force gathered around Princess Amelia, but at least Akira and Night were around and would help if need be.

Still, the main thing we needed to watch out for was Guildmaster Gram and his henchmen. According to Tsuda’s intel, his henchmen would be adorned with the national crest of Uruk somewhere on their persons—a circle with three claws above it. But as I was scanning the crowd for any sign of this symbol, a demon by the name of Latticenail showed up to throw a wrench in our plans.

Assuming the rumors about Gram having made a deal with the demons were true, we had yet another potentially dangerous enemy to watch out for. It was all starting to give me quite the migraine, especially since Akira didn’t seem to think she was a threat. He did warn us not to lie or use discriminatory language around her, but he appeared to trust this demon girl.

According to Night, while we were all twiddling our thumbs waiting for our boat to arrive in the beastfolk domain, Princess Amelia was kidnapped by the demons, and Akira risked life and limb to save her. He would have lost that gamble had it not been for a timely rescue by Crow. I couldn’t believe Akira would so easily trust a member of the same race that nearly killed him mere days ago; it was too foolhardy to fathom. And try as I might to warn him, the demon in question was staying frustratingly close by his side, giving me no opportunity to speak with him in private.

“Y’all really think it’s wise to trust that demon gal?” I overheard Ueno saying.

“Tsuda was saying most of the buyers who purchased the organs on the black market were demons too. I have to wonder if that’s the real reason she came here,” said Hosoyama. It seemed the two of them shared my primary concerns.

“So you two agree, then,” I said in a low voice so Akira wouldn’t overhear. The two girls nodded.

“I mean, the timing’s just too dang fishy, y’know what I mean?”

“Asahina, why don’t you leave Amelia to us and go keep a close eye on her and Oda?”

I nodded, having arrived at the same conclusion myself. It helped that Akira and I were friends, so it wouldn’t be overly suspicious for me to want to hang out near him.

 

As I approached the pair, they were chatting rather amicably, but they quickly looked up to greet me.

“Oh, hey, Kyousuke. Looks like it’s almost, uh…the girls’ turns, yeah?”

I nodded. Ueno, Hosoyama, and Princess Amelia had already headed off toward the stage. I’d assumed it would take time for them to get through the line, but they were moving through it rather quickly. Apparently, a lot of the other contestants in their group had walked out after seeing Amelia’s face. Which made sense—if there were any who could hope to match her beauty, I would have liked to see them. Speaking of which, I turned to address the hooded demon girl.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way as well?” I asked.

The girl gasped as though she’d totally forgotten, then quickly scurried off toward the stage. After all, if Princess Amelia’s turn was coming up, then hers would surely be soon to follow. I let out a halfhearted chuckle and moved to Akira’s side, looking up at the stage along with him.

“I take it you forgot Hosoyama’s and Ueno’s names again, Akira?” I remarked, and he shuddered.

“Can’t hide anything from you, can I?” He then offered a sheepish laugh.

“Of course not. You may not remember, but we’ve known each other for quite a long time, you and I.” I had known him and Satou for well over ten years. To my surprise, Akira stopped laughing and looked at me with deadly seriousness in his eyes. A chill ran down my spine.

“Yeah, well. You can’t hide anything from me either, big guy,” he said. “And while it’s true I don’t usually pay much attention to other people, I have come to learn how to read your poker face a little bit… So tell me, Kyousuke—what exactly are you trying to pull here?”

“What are you talking about?”

These were not the eyes of a friend. I’d never seen Akira look at me like that back in Japan. I twisted my neck anxiously in an attempt to play it off, but his gaze only grew all the more suspicious.

“If you were trying to pull the wool over my eyes, you should’ve had the chick with the Kansai accent and the animal trainer guy go off somewhere I couldn’t see. That girl’s been fidgeting anxiously ever since the pageant began,” he replied. He was right that Ueno and Waki were terrible at playing it cool, but having them go off on their own somewhere else would have only roused a different kind of suspicion. “And then there’s you. You’ve been flustered ever since Latticenail arrived. I’ll only ask you one more time: what are you planning? Or more specifically, what’s about to happen here?”

I couldn’t help but gasp—to think one of my best friends had the makings of a professional detective. Perhaps he was hypervigilant out of wariness after having nearly died not long ago. I slumped my shoulders and turned to look at Ueno, who was waving down at us from up on stage.

“I would be happy to tell you all about it, were it a plan I came up with on my lonesome, but I’m afraid this was the product of the entire party’s brainstorming. I’m not at liberty to tell you any more than that,” I answered. I hated having to lie to Akira, even if I knew it was for his own good. All I could do was hang my head and try my best to reassure him. “Something is going to happen here, and we’re certain that it will draw Gram out of hiding…so be careful, Akira. And keep an eye on Princess Amelia.”

“…All right.”

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

I TOOK KYOUSUKE’S WARNING to heart and kept my eyes locked on Amelia to the best of my ability. Obviously, I couldn’t keep an eye on her at all times, which was why I’d sent Night to keep tabs on her in the first place. Hearing Kyousuke say Gram’s name made me very concerned about the degree to which Gram might be involved in this festival, but there was little I could do about it now, so I decided to try my best to enjoy the pageant.

“May I have your attention for entrant number 291! The one, the only…Princess Amelia!”

Right after the girl with the Kansai accent and the girl with the curvy bod came Amelia’s turn. The venue immediately filled with noise; apparently, she was more well-known by the outside world than I’d thought. I could feel the anticipation building in the crowd before she even stepped out on the stage.

All eyes were on her when she finally revealed herself, garbed in a beautiful bright-green dress. Her silvery hair flowed in the air behind her as the spotlight illuminated her brilliant crimson eyes. With simple earrings adorning her pointy elven ears, her trademark features were on display. As every male jaw in the audience dropped one by one, I was among her admirers.

“You’re gorgeous, Amelia,” I whispered. I had to admit, I’d come to take her beauty ever so slightly for granted, just because I got to spend every day with her, but seeing her all dolled up made it a little hard to believe she was truly my girlfriend. I’d heard she had to borrow her dress since she was one of the final entrants to register. Our eyes met as she stood there up on the stage, and we smiled at each other. When she saw me looking on in amazement with all the other people in the audience, she gave me a coquettish little wink.

“WHOAAAAA!” the men in the audience cried.

Amelia walked to the end of the runway, did an about-face, then trotted back the way she came. The uproarious cheering continued until she vanished backstage.

“Ha ha… Guess it’s true what they say about women being able to turn it on with the flip of a switch.” I swooned, pressing my hands against my cheeks. To think she had been stuffing her face like a competitor in a hot dog-eating contest only a couple of hours ago, and now this? I could feel myself falling in love all over again. All of the women in the immediate vicinity were gushing excitedly about Amelia’s beauty, while the men were still standing awestruck, looking up at the stage as though Amelia were still there. I wasn’t sensing any fishy activity just yet.

“Looks like this pageant’s really heating up, folks! Next up, entrant number 292! Give it up for Latty!”

Before the crowd had a chance to calm down, I looked up to see a still-hooded Latticenail walking out onto the stage, wearing a very confident smirk. A hush fell over the crowd. Everyone was watching with rapt attention, just waiting for the moment in which she’d unveil her true colors—myself included. I was very interested in seeing what the Demon Lord’s daughter looked like. After reaching center stage, she slowly brought her hands up to her cowl, and I heard an audible gulp ring out across the crowd. Then with a light thud, the cloak fell to the ground.

“Huh?” I uttered in disbelief.

“WHOAAAAA!” cried the audience.

Her eyes were like two beautiful amethysts, and while her layered outfit looked like something a female military officer might wear, her sublime proportions still shined through, her voluptuous thighs peeking enticingly out from beneath her skirt. Her face wasn’t quite as stunning as Amelia’s, but it was perfectly fine in its own right, and her loosely curled lavender hair was by far the most beautiful of any contestant—though perhaps it only made such an impression because she’d kept it hidden under a very plain frock.

If Amelia was a sculptor’s vision of what the perfect elegant woman would be, Latticenail had the body of a voluptuous temptress that seemed far more realistic and human than an artist’s ideal. If the question was which one was more likely to make the average guy drool, Latticenail took the cake, no question. And with all due respect to the other contestants, it was very clear the competition had just become a one-on-one battle between Amelia’s pretty face and Latticenail’s luscious curves. There hadn’t been a single contestant yet who could hold a candle to either of them, and I didn’t foresee any other last-minute contenders for the crown. If there was an even greater beauty waiting in the wings, I’d almost worry a large proportion of the crowd would die from frothing at the mouth.

“And that concludes the runway portion of this year’s beauty pageant, folks! We’ll now move onto the judging portion! If you’re watching from one of our official viewing locations, please enter the number of your favorite contestant into one of our many voting panels! Remember, all you need to do is channel a tiny bit of mana into the panel, then write their number with your finger!”

As I listened to the announcer’s instructions, I found the panel nearest me and began tapping away at it. Obviously, Amelia was getting my vote. After seeing the “vote received” confirmation message on the panel, I went to find Amelia backstage.

“Akira!”

“Hey, Amelia.”

I found her in the waiting room backstage, where she and the nearly three hundred other female contestants were hanging out while they waited for the results to come in. Amelia was the only one who seemed to give off a radiant glow, even just by turning her head. By her side was Latticenail, with whom she’d been chatting amicably. I also noticed the two girls from the hero’s party sitting nearby.

“Hey, mister! How’d I do?” asked Latticenail, running over to greet me with a friendly smile. She looked so excited, it almost felt like I could see a dog tail wagging behind her, though I had to be seeing things. “Seemed like you were preeetty curious about what I was hiding under my cloak. Any impressions you’d like to share?”

“Yeah, I was pretty impressed, I’ve gotta admit. Though you’re still no match for Amelia,” I clarified as I ruffled my girlfriend’s hair. Amelia closed her eyes and purred contentedly. If Latticenail was secretly a dog, then Amelia could easily pass for a cat, and I was a diehard cat person.

Latticenail, unsatisfied with my response, placed her hands on her hips and puffed out her cheeks. “Well, yeah, no duh! Of course no one’s gonna be better than Amelia! There’s not another girl alive with a face like hers! But I mean, like… Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I know a lotta boys who’d kill for a chance with me!”

“Oh, Latty.” Amelia chuckled. “You’d be perfectly cute if you just learned how to keep your mouth shut sometimes.”

“Hey! Are you sayin’ I’m a pretty girl with an ugly personality?!”

As I desperately fought the urge to nod my head, I marveled at how friendly the two of them had become in such a short period of time.

“Hey, that reminds me,” said Latticenail, “I never did learn your name, did I, mister? I can’t just keep callin’ you ‘mister’ forever!”

Right, I guess I never did introduce myself, did I? I only knew her name thanks to Night and from her stat page. “Right, well then. Sorry for the belated introduction, but I’m Oda Akira. Or ‘Akira Oda’ in this world, I guess. Anyway, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Akira, huh? Okie-dokie! I’ll be sure to remember that, mister!”

“She says, before immediately calling me ‘mister’ again…” I laughed halfheartedly. I decided it might be a good idea to learn what I could from her, especially since it seemed like it would be a while before the pageant results were announced. “So your full name’s Latticenail, right? How come you registered as Latty, then? Is that just a nickname, or…?”

“Yup, I came up with it myself! Latticenail’s just so long and unwieldy, y’know? I did consider just going by Lattice, but Latty’s way cuter, don’tcha think?!”

It was true; “Lattice” sounded a bit too straight-laced for a spunky girl like her.

“Yeah, I like Latty better too,” Amelia chimed in. “She and I have been talking this whole time, Akira. You wouldn’t believe how funny this girl is!”

Amelia’s expression softened, and I nodded in agreement. I could totally see how Latticenail’s laid-back personality and way of speaking could help anyone feel more relaxed and at ease. There was a certain charisma about her that just drew people in.

 

“The results are in, folks! It’s time for the moment you’ve all been waiting for—we’re about to crown this year’s champions!”

Everyone in the waiting room perked up as the announcement came in. I’d gotten so involved in my conversation with Latticenail that I’d forgotten the pageant wasn’t actually over yet. She and Amelia turned to each other and smiled.

“Whoever wins, no hard feelings, okay?”

“Yup! Of course!”

According to the announcer, the top five contestants would be called back on stage. As all the other hopefuls in the waiting room clasped their hands in prayer, Amelia and Latticenail simply waited patiently for the results to be called out. While most entrants were probably just hoping for a spot in the top five, these two didn’t care about anything but first place (though in Amelia’s case, that was purely because she wanted the grand prize).

“So without further ado, it’s time to announce our winners! In fifth place…entrant number 108, Natalia!”

A girl in a dark orange dress suddenly burst out in tears before heading directly for the stage, all the while muttering to herself, either out of happiness or disbelief.

“Next up, our fourth-place winner…entrant number 25, Aldylla!”

A crowlike beastgirl in a blue dress stood up with a huff and stomped over to the stage. Apparently unhappy with where she’d placed, she shot Amelia and Latticenail a dirty look on her way out. To be fair, were it not for them, she may have stood a real chance of taking home the grand prize. She did have a nice face, if you could look past her stuck-up personality.

“And in third place tonight… Give it up for entrant number 2! Sonora!”

A timid girl in a white dress stood up and looked around awkwardly before heading out. Maybe she’d won people over with her skittish, klutzy persona. With her departure, the vast majority of women left in the waiting area lowered their heads in defeat. Everyone with half a brain knew Amelia and Latticenail were bound to take the top two spots—it was just a question of who would come out on top.

“And now, let’s hear it for this year’s first-prize winners!”

“Huh?!” they both gasped.

“Oh, I see. So that’s how it’s gonna be,” I said, realizing what it meant for second place to have been skipped entirely. Amelia and Latticenail shared a look that said they’d realized too.

“This is a historic moment, folks! For the first time in pageant history, we have a tie for first place! Give it up for entrants number 291 and 292, Princess Amelia and Latty!”

They’d both received the same number of votes, as unlikely as that seemed. As the announcer called out their names and the audience cheered, Amelia and Latticenail joined hands and headed back out to the stage.

“Now it’s time to present our two winners with their awards and prizes!”

I exited the waiting room and took my place in front of the stage; I wanted to see the look on Amelia’s face when they crowned her, and I couldn’t do that from backstage. She was already up on the glimmering stage, waving down at me with a smile. I gave her a little smile back, though a lot of the men in my vicinity seemed to think she’d been waving at them and started hooting and hollering. Judging by the fact that the scene hadn’t turned into an “all-out brawl” like Night described, I assumed most people in the audience were happy with the winners.

“W-well, let’s welcome to the stage our grand-prize winners in the 256th annual beauty pageant, Princess Amelia and Latty. The two of you have earned our most auspicious award, and we will now honor you as such. My name is Lapin, and I’m chairman of the pageant committee.”

The spotlight shined down on the two winners as they received their certificates from the very nervous-looking beastfolk representative who we had dealt with during registration—Lapin.

“Erm, as for the grand prize… I’m afraid it took a bit longer than expected to arrive, but you should be able to pick it up tomorrow. Is that all right with you both?”

Amelia nodded her head several times, her eyes aglimmer as she imagined what wondrous food items might be in store. We were going to stay in town for the night, then. I wondered if there were any vacant rooms left in the city.

Mali didn’t really have the infrastructure for the kind of tourist surge that came with the pageant. I could only assume all of the rooms in town were already taken by human contestants who’d traveled from Kantinen, so unless we got very lucky, we’d probably be sleeping on the streets. Amelia, Night, and I were used to roughing it, of course, and I was sure Gilles and Crow would manage, but I worried about whether my classmates would be able to deal with that.

“Yup, works for me too!” Latticenail smiled, agreeing with Amelia. My theory was there wasn’t actually a delay in the prize’s arrival, but that they’d only prepared enough for one winner as they hadn’t foreseen a tie. The bunnyman let out a heavy sigh of relief, but I couldn’t shake the feeling there was a deeper reason for his unease.

Ever since we’d arrived on this continent, I’d felt plagued by a palpable sense of foreboding, and it always turned out to be warranted. First we got accosted by ruffians, then Amelia got kidnapped, then the monsters came flooding out of the labyrinth, then I almost died fighting the demons, then the hero’s party showed up out of nowhere and convinced us to participate in this pageant, where we just so happened to meet the Demon Lord’s daughter… It felt like we were hitting snags at every turn. At this point, I was confident that we got ourselves involved in more dangerous affairs on a daily basis than anyone else would in their lifetime. What had I done to be cursed with such awful luck?

“That about wraps it up, folks! Thank you all so much for coming out to this year’s beauty pageant! We’ll see you all next year back in Kantinen, in the beautiful Kingdom of Retice!”

I couldn’t help but scoff. Retice was the country into which we’d originally been summoned, the one that had framed me for murder, and the one where more than half our classmates still remained. It was the largest of all human nations, so it made sense as a host country for the pageant. It also had a lot of beautiful greenery and pretty lakes, come to think of it. It was a very lovely place, in retrospect, though I could never see myself growing to love it while its current king and his daughter were still in power.

Suddenly, I felt the presence of someone standing in front of me, and I raised my head. I had a bad habit of getting lost in thought and losing sight of my surroundings. Thankfully, it was only Crow and Gilles.

“Hey, we need to talk. Come with us.”

“Whoa, wait a sec!” I sputtered as the two men grabbed my hands and dragged me off into a dark alleyway. It was a rather seedy part of town, far removed from the gaudiness of the pageant. As soon as we made it far enough that we couldn’t see the festival lights anymore, they unhanded me.

“What the hell did you drag me out here for?” I demanded in a huff, and the two of them looked at each other before answering.

“Truth is, we figured we’d end up having to stay the night in town, so we went out looking for inns preemptively,” said Crow.

“And as we were doing so, we heard some rather unsettling rumors we thought you should be made aware of,” added Gilles.

This gave me pause. What kinds of rumors? The use of the word unsettling led me to believe it was the kind of intel best discussed behind closed doors—the kind of intel that assassins and information brokers made their livings on. The kind of intel you had to stay abreast of if you wanted to make it in the underground sectors of society. Generally, such rumors were not to be taken lightly, even though new ones came out every day. One day, I’d need to learn the proper channels for keeping up to date on this sort of thing, but for now, I couldn’t really call myself much of an assassin.

Crow nodded to indicate that he knew what I was thinking, then went on, “We stumbled across this information by pure chance, but apparently, a lot of people claim the winners of the competition each year turn up missing. And the average person has no clue this happens. It’s apparently the main reason they have such a large number of contestants—so that, hopefully, no one will notice one or two going missing. But doesn’t that still seem a little strange to you?”

“More than just a little,” I said. “And it’s not like people from society’s dark underbelly don’t interact with regular people, so if there’s even a kernel of truth to these rumors, why haven’t they spread like wildfire?”

“That, and it doesn’t make sense that even someone like me hasn’t heard of this before,” said Crow. “Obviously, I’ve been retired for a long time, but I’ve always tried to keep my ear to the ground, and I have some pretty good sources… Which tells me this is something only a very small portion of underground societies might be privy to. Groups that work very hard to ensure information doesn’t get leaked. And when it comes to shady dealings even I don’t know about, there’s only one big thing that comes to mind.”

“And what’s that?” I asked hesitantly.

He grimaced. “Human trafficking.”

Human trafficking. It was among the worst crimes out there, even here in a brutal world like this. Back in Retice, when I’d had access to the castle archives, I’d read that long ago, the beastfolk used to sell the humans who came to their land in search of work into slavery, but the third hero to get summoned from my world put a stop to that.

There had only been four hero summonings before us, yet those four heroes had all left their mark on each of Morrigan’s continents. Their stories were told in epic texts describing the heroic deeds of the first and second heroes and their work with the elves and demons long, long ago, as well as the work of the third and fourth heroes in more recent times that focused more on the humans and beastfolk.

The third hero was particularly famous for his work in martial arts, swordsmanship, and the abolishment of slavery. He taught the beastfolk, who were far more predisposed to physical combat than magic, the way of the sword and martial arts, and put a stop to the slave trade they’d been involved in. The hero himself, though human, was said to have been a giant bear of a man, with a bighearted personality that appealed to the beastfolk. He was said to be the most charismatic of all past heroes, and he was still a popular folk hero to this very day. Beastfolk mothers and fathers would use his example to teach their young that their powers should only ever be used to protect the weak, never to oppress them.

I looked over at Crow, only to see he was bearing his fangs and his fur was bristling up; he, like most beastfolk, despised even the idea of human trafficking. I recognized that Crow was genuinely unaware of this despicable part of beastfolk society, whether through willful avoidance of the topic or unintentionally. It was the sort of thing no one wanted to believe might still be happening right under their noses.

“And there’s more to the rumors than that, actually. Some people think the whole thing about winners disappearing is just a sick joke someone’s been spreading around to get their kicks, while other people think the contestants are being chopped up and spirited away, if you catch my drift. It’s hard to find any concrete evidence of either theory, though, unfortunately.”

I could only assume that by “chopped up,” he was trying to imply that their organs were being sold on the black market. I would have assumed these beautiful people were being sold alive as sex slaves or something, had I not already heard about the organ harvesting.

“Anyway, I just wanted you to be aware of what we heard. Especially since we’re now well within you-know-who’s territory, both physically and figuratively,” Crow added, his eyes gloomy. He could only be referring to his sister’s killer, the man known as Gram. Mali wasn’t far from the city of Uruk, after which the country was named. If there really was human and organ trafficking going on here, there must have surely been someone working behind the scenes to keep the truth from leaking out. And with Gram’s experience as ex-prime minister, that sort of secrecy seemed right up his alley. It was starting to seem more and more likely that he was involved.

“I’m trusting you to take care of what we talked about, Akira,” Crow said, his dark eyes staring daggers right through me. It was the same look he’d had in his eyes that night in his workshop. It was enough to make my mouth immediately feel parched, and I recoiled a bit.

He was referring to what he’d requested of me back when I asked if he would come with us to the festival—the thing he said was the only reason he’d saved us from the demons. But I still hadn’t given him a definitive answer, and it seemed he was getting a little impatient. For one thing, he almost never addressed me by name, so the fact that he was doing so now was probably an indicator of his seriousness. But it still wasn’t the sort of thing I could decide on a whim, and I had no intention of letting him rush me to an answer. Crow realized I was indeed thinking it over and walked out of the alley, seemingly satisfied for now.

Gilles stayed back and looked down at me, his brow furrowed with concern. “Well, whatever it is, I can tell it’s probably not the sort of thing I could offer any advice on. Just don’t overexert yourself, and try not to pull your hair out over it, okay?”

Apparently, Crow hadn’t told Gilles anything.

“Oh, right. Says the biggest workaholic and worrywart in all of Retice.” I grinned. He seemed like a totally different person since leaving the castle, and I assumed the commander’s death had a lot to do with that. But he’d still come all this way to track us down, and I could only assume he had a hand in helping the hero’s party escape as well. It was almost like, despite his nervous temperament, he actively sought out and got himself wrapped up in as many precarious situations as he could find.

“I suppose you’ve got a point there,” he said, wearing the most serious expression I’d ever seen.

When we left the alley, we ran into Amelia, Latticenail, and the hero’s party, all gathered together in one big group. Amelia and Latticenail were chatting it up while the hero’s party made a circle around them, watching from a distance.

“Oh! Akira, Crow wanted me to tell you he decided to head back to the inn,” said Amelia.

Right, he did mention that they’d been out looking for a room, didn’t he? I guess I got so caught up in the more repulsive topics we discussed that I forgot all about that part.

“Where were you planning to stay tonight, Latticenail?” I asked, since she was the outsider in the group.

She simply shook her head and rolled her eyes, casting a sidelong glance over at the hero’s party. “Eh, I’ll prolly just find somewhere to camp out around here. Somethin’ tells me your friends won’t be able to sleep very soundly with little ol’ me around!”

With that, Latticenail took her leave, and Amelia, who’d taken quite a shine to the little demon girl, began sulking.

“You really didn’t want her to have to leave, did you?” I asked.

“I don’t know what it is about her, but she reminds me of Kilika in a way. Makes me feel like I need to keep a close eye on her, y’know? Though if Kilika heard me saying that, she’d probably kill me.”

I cocked my head quizzically. Her and Kilika? I had to admit, I couldn’t really see the resemblance, but in fairness, I’d only interacted with the latter very briefly during a tense situation in the elven domain. I trusted that Amelia would know better than me, what with her being family and all.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll run into her again tomorrow,” I said, trying to reassure her.

If the rumors were true, then Latticenail was in the same amount of danger as Amelia, but judging by her stats, she was probably more prepared to handle an ambush than we were. Having her stay in the same inn as us would only make things easier for the criminals if they were to strike, and it’s not like our group could offer Latticenail added protection, especially since there wasn’t a lot of trust between her and my other classmates.

 

When we got to the inn, I was surprised to find it was a rather clean and fancy place. Beastfolk buildings had a reputation for the interiors not matching the exterior, so a nice-looking building would often end up being quite the pigsty inside, but the minimalistic monochrome interior of the inn was like that of a high-class hotel back in my world.

“Pretty nice place, I have to admit. But can we really afford it?” I asked Gilles quietly. Given we were a group made up mostly of hungry teenage boys, and Amelia had a bigger appetite than all of us combined, I was afraid we might not even be able to afford the room service bill—let alone the nightly fees—with just the money we had on hand. But Gilles simply smiled and told me not to worry about it, which puzzled me. Before I had time to think much more about it, though, a kind-looking beastfolk came out to greet us from the back room.

“Welcome to the Hotel Raven, everyone. My name is Corvo, and I’m the owner of this establishment. Please feel free to relax and make yourselves at home.”

If the avian innkeeper of The Coop back in Ur had been a pigeon, then this fellow was a crow—though I didn’t know enough about birds to say for sure. I was judging purely by the jet-black wings jutting out from his back. As he guided us to our room, Corvo attempted to make friendly conversation with us.

“I was an adventurer myself, you know, once upon a time. Your friend Crow actually saved my life back then, believe it or not. When I heard he and some friends of his were struggling to find accommodations for the evening, I sought him out and invited him to bring his party and stay here.”

Ah, so that’s how this panned out. There seemed to be an awful lot of people out there who owed Crow a favor or two, I’d noticed. The owner assured us there was no need to worry about the bill, and he guided us to one of the nicest rooms in the hotel—one that surely would have cost a fortune.

“Mr. Crow? Your friends have arrived,” said Corvo, knocking on the door. Soon, Crow came to the door and opened it, letting us all see inside.

“Whoaaa!”

“Holy crap!”

My classmates oohed and aahed, and I simply stood there, dumbfounded.

“This is incredible!”

“Yeah, no kidding…”

The room was, like the rest of the hotel, monochrome in color, but the entire back wall was just one big window peering out over the festivities and the modest nightscape. Guess we must be on the top floor, which explains why we had to climb all those stairs to get here. What amazed me more than anything, though, was that the window didn’t seem to be made of glass—it was clearly a sturdy wall just like the others, and yet we could see straight through it.

“That wall is made from translucent monster scales so our customers can enjoy the outside scenery to their hearts’ content. Now then, please do let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you all,” Corvo said before taking his leave.

The room was all black and white, with the only hint of color being that of Crow, who was lounging on the black sofa and swirling a glass of wine in one hand, watching as the hero’s party members filed in and marveled at the cityscape.

“Pretty nice room,” I told him.

“Yeah, I honestly wasn’t expecting to get something this nice for free… But Corvo ain’t got ties to any shady underground dealings, and none of his employees are suspicious either. I think we can safely kick back and relax here.” Apparently, Crow had done some digging on Corvo after hearing the unsavory rumors. He gulped down the contents of his glass, then made eye contact with me for the first time since we’d entered the room. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry too much about those rumors if I were you.”

This was not the statement I had expected. Perhaps Crow was a more considerate person than I had originally thought, if he was trying to reassure me like this.

“Even though Amelia’s the most likely target?”

“You’re the type of guy who can jump into action from a state of relaxation in no time flat. You’d be better served to just treat things like business as usual than to get overly hung up on it. It’s in her best interest too, trust me,” Crow said as he gazed out the window once more.

I sighed, amused, before sitting down on the adjacent sofa. “Y’know, you almost sounded like a caring mentor just then.”

“Didn’t you hear? I used to take on apprentices, way back when… Though they always ended up getting sent to the hospital.”

Amelia had mentioned this. Apparently, he’d been trying to pass on the secret technique taught to him by the Hero of Legend, but the process broke every pupil mentally and physically—that was the main reason he refused to teach Amelia.

“Y’know, I’m really curious—what is the secret technique, anyhow?” I asked.

Amelia hadn’t told me what it actually did. I would have thought, given that Crow’s class was blacksmith, any skill he could have possibly learned wouldn’t be too hard for anyone else to pick up with a little motivation, but perhaps it had something to do with the ability he’d used to cancel out Mahiro’s magic circles down in the labyrinth (not to mention the Shadow Magic controlling me) instantaneously.

Crow thought carefully for a while before answering. “To put it simply, it’s an Extra Skill that can negate any and all types of magic. It’s called Inversion. All you have to do is encounter a type of magic; then you’ll be able to create an ‘antimagic’ that acts like a serum designed to perfectly counteract and negate that magic.”

I was amazed. To think such a skill existed. No wonder Mahiro pulled back; without his magic circles, he was dead meat.

“But there are drawbacks to it. In order to use it, you need to learn the ancient tongue, and that’s no mean feat when each and every rune is tinged with enough mana to make anyone go insane. If you fall in too deep while trying to learn it, you can and will lose your mind.”

I assumed he was referring to the ancient runes lining the circumference of magic circles. I could see why they would be extremely difficult to learn, especially without the Understand Language Extra Skill, since they looked more like patterns than traditional characters.

“And even after you learn to read them, you still have to learn the vocabulary, which is a whole ’nother level of difficult… Took me nearly a hundred years to get it down.”

Hang on. Didn’t I hear that the average beastfolk lifespan was like, a hundred years and change? If it took him a hundred years to learn the ancient tongue, and that was before he and the hero’s party went and failed to slay the Demon Lord, which was already a hundred years ago… The math just doesn’t add up.

“How old are you anyway, Crow?” I asked.

“Who knows? It’s not customary for beastfolk to ask one another’s ages.” He laughed, looking up and away from me. “I honestly couldn’t tell you my exact age because I’ve forgotten it myself, but I’ve definitely been kicking around for at least two hundred years now.”

I gawked. And nearly half that time was spent learning the ancient tongue? I couldn’t imagine the kind of devotion and studiousness that would take. I could never stick to something for that long. Though I had to wonder: Why was he still alive?

“Well, actually, I remember the aging process started for me about fifty years after my sister was killed, so maybe I’m closer to two hundred and fifty or three hundred years old? Anyway, you can thank my whack job mother for the fact that I’m still around,” he went on.

I had a hard time imagining anyone describing their mother as a “whack job,” especially when Crow was quite the eccentric himself. Maybe it was hereditary?

“I mean, what kind of lunatic drinks an immortality potion by accident? That’s the only reason my mother is still alive and kicking, and it’s her fault I’ve lived at least twice as long as your average beastman,” he complained, before collapsing back into the sofa. Was he drunk? He seemed far more talkative and forthcoming than usual, and his current state reminded me of how the older guys I’d worked construction with had been when they got drunk.

“So you think her drinking an immortality potion is what gave you such a long life?” I asked, and he nodded, his eyes vacant.

“Yeah. That old crone drank the potion right before I was born, so it had a residual effect on me in the womb. It’s all her damn fault.”

I was pretty taken aback by his tone. It sounded like he resented her for something most people would be grateful to have. I could only conclude he longed for death, or at the very least he’d grown exhausted of living with only the search for revenge to keep him going. Japanese people had a longer average lifespan than people from other countries, but even among us, there weren’t many who made it beyond a hundred years. Since I’d only been alive for a tenth as long as Crow, I couldn’t even imagine what living so long would feel like. Maybe I could ask Amelia.

I noticed Crow had sunk down into the sofa cushions and fallen asleep. He looked very peaceful; it was not the expression of one who longed for death.

“I think it’s probably best you let him sleep,” said a voice from behind me.

I turned around to see Gilles standing there, a large comforter in his hands. I’d sensed him nearby a moment ago, and it was good to know my senses were still working properly. “How do you know Crow, anyway?” I asked as he covered Crow with the comforter.

He gave an awkward smile before sitting down on the white sofa across from me. “Well, you know he used to mentor pupils, correct?” he asked, and I nodded. We’d just been discussing that very subject. “One of those pupils was my mother. Though she’s no longer with us, rest her soul.”

My eyes widened a bit. Apparently, after Crow withdrew from the public eye, every country in Morrigan wanted to get their hands on the skill he’d acquired from the Hero of Legend, and they each sent representatives to try to learn it from him. Humans were no exception, and Crow did not refuse any apprentice at first; his desire for revenge was beginning to fade, and he was growing quite bored in his old age. Gilles’s mother ended up losing her mind in pursuit of the skill, just like all the other apprentices.

“My father was an adventurer, and he died when I was still quite young, so my mother had to raise me all by her lonesome,” Gilles went on. This reminded me of my mother, who was single, though she was too sickly to do much raising by the time my father left. “After her mental break, it was Crow who raised me. He was also the one who got me my position as a knight in the first place, and when he heard I’d left the force, he offered to take me in as a blacksmith’s assistant while I searched for other work.”

Gilles let out a wistful sigh as he looked lovingly down at the man sleeping on the couch. It was the same affectionate gaze one might expect a son to give their father, and a beautiful sight to behold.

“He’s both a savior and a father figure to me. I don’t hold what happened to my mother against him in the slightest. He’s a bit of an oaf, I’ll admit, but he’s certainly not malicious.”

“Yeah, so I’ve learned in the little time I’ve known him,” I replied. “Anyway, what is it you’re asking me to do with this information?”

I already knew Crow was a softie at heart who helped people in need. I wouldn’t exactly call him a people person, but I could tell he was a good egg just from the way the owner of this hotel gushed about him. But why was Gilles regaling me with all these old stories?

“I was hoping you’d be willing to do what the old man asked of you. As you can probably surmise, he doesn’t have much time left,” said Gilles.

“I’d really prefer not to get myself mixed up in all of that.”

I wasn’t a charity worker, nor did I see myself as some champion of morality and righteousness. I did owe Crow my life, and I owed Gilles an awful lot for helping me escape the castle, but I still had my own main objective to fulfill. I needed to get home, and I knew the key to achieving that had to be somewhere in either the Demon Lord’s castle or the castle of Retice. We’d been summoned here to slay the Demon Lord, but I’d noticed the magic circle they’d used to bring us here was almost identical to the ones the demon’s second-in-command had used against us.

“Yes, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate as it is and that you’re already anxious enough to head over to the Demon Lord’s castle,” said Gilles.

“Then would you please stop trying to—”

“It wouldn’t even be much of a detour, I promise. Especially since you already swore to rescue and bring home the elves being held captive by his trafficking ring—or did you forget?”

I could have punched my past self in the face for that promise; I hadn’t expected it to come back and bite me in the ass.

“Besides,” Gilles continued, “you’re going to need Crow to make it to the Demon Lord’s castle anyway. I’ve never been there myself, but I’ve heard it’s extremely easy to get lost along the way. And you certainly can’t trust that demon girl to be your guide.”

He had a point; having someone with experience traversing the hellscape of Volcano along for the journey would be a good idea. It wasn’t as if we could just go out and buy a map of the continent, after all. We needed someone who was familiar with the lay of the land, so earning a favor from Crow might not be such a bad idea.

“You make a good point,” I said. “But it’s not such an easy thing for me to agree to, you understand.”

I mean, what Crow asked me to do is something I’m morally opposed to on every level, I thought to myself as Gilles stood up and laid his hands on my shoulders.

“I’ve said my piece. The rest is up to you to decide. Though I would ask that you come to a decision quickly, because there’s no telling how much time he has left.”

After Gilles left the room, I simply sat there on the sofa, listening to Crow softly snoring as I gazed out upon the nightscape of the town glowing beautifully in spite of the moral quandary I was now being forced to confront.

 

“Have you been getting enough sleep lately, Akira?” Amelia asked me the next morning. She’d woken up before the others and seemed concerned upon discovering I’d already been up for quite some time, sipping my coffee-like beverage. The honest answer was no, I hadn’t been sleeping much at all, and I knew exactly why. It was because of Crow’s heavy request, and my conversation with Gilles the night before.

“No, not really, but it won’t affect my combat ability, so don’t worry. Besides, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten a full night’s sleep in this world without literally fainting beforehand,” I joked, raising a hand to cover part of my face. I probably looked like hell, and I should try to do something about it before the others woke up.

This only made Amelia more suspicious, however, and she moved my hand aside to get a good look at me, then cupped my face in both her hands. “You have a bad habit of trying to keep things to yourself, you know. Would it really kill you to rely on me a little bit more?” she asked.

“N-no, trust me, it’s nothing you need to worry about…” I sputtered, but I couldn’t escape her discerning crimson eyes—especially not when she was holding my head in place. For the first time ever, I was afraid of those eyes.

“I understand you’re probably only keeping quiet to protect us or someone else…but if that’s how it’s gonna be, then you leave me no choice but to take matters into my own hands. Because someone’s got to look out for you,” she said. I felt mana gathering around her, and my body became enveloped in a pale blue light. “Sorry to have to do this, Akira. Spellcraft… Forced Sleep!”

“Ame…lia…”

The last thing I saw before my consciousness faded was Amelia’s face, looking down at me as though it pained her deeply to have to do this. It was then that I felt despair for having worried the one I loved enough that she felt she had no other choice but to force me asleep.

 

POV: AMELIA ROSEQUARTZ

 

AFTER DRAPING A BLANKET over Akira’s limp body, I took a moment to examine his unconscious face. I traced my fingers along the dark circles beneath his eyes. They’d gotten a lot deeper, even since yesterday.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side, Princess,” I heard a sleepy voice say. I looked up to see Crow staring at me from the sofa with a wide grin on his face.

I glared at him. “What did you say to Akira to make him like this?” I demanded, and Crow looked away before stretching his body like a cat. I simply stood there, shielding Akira without taking my eyes off of Crow.

“Hey, don’t furrow those brows so much. You’ll just get wrinkles prematurely. Besides, all I asked him for was a little reasonable compensation for saving his life.”

I gasped as an image of him running to our rescue in the Great Labyrinth of Brute flashed through my mind. “Is that the only reason you came and saved us down there? Answer me,” I demanded, glaring at him even harder.

At this suggestion, Crow grimaced ever so slightly. “Well, I dunno about that. I saved your sorry asses purely out of the goodness of my heart… It was only after the fact that I started thinking maybe I deserved a little thanks in exchange for my services. But I can see why you’d think that’s lousy of me.”

With this, his expression suddenly turned vulnerable, and I was a little disconcerted by it. I hadn’t developed the same rapport with him as Akira had, so I still didn’t understand what made the man tick. All I knew was that I’d rebuked him for acting like he’d given up on avenging his sister, then realized afterward he and I probably had a lot more in common than I’d initially thought. Now I wasn’t sure if it was really fair for me to criticize him when I probably would have done the exact same thing.

“I used to look up to you an awful lot, y’know,” he said, and I was about to scream at him for trying to change the subject when I realized what he’d just said, and my words caught in my throat. He looked at me, my mouth hanging open, and let out a chuckle. “I mean, you were the princess who saved the entire elven race in their hour of need, right? The little girl who used Resurrection Magic and Gravity Magic to save her people—almost sounds like something out of an epic poem or some legend. You were the type of person I always wanted to grow up to be…though my perceptions obviously changed once I actually met you and realized you’re just as fallible as any other person.”

“I hate people who put me on a pedestal like that,” I replied. Especially since it’s usually followed by them looking down on Kilika like some sort of villain just because she was the one who accidentally caused that whole disaster.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Crow said with a bitter smirk. “That’s just the type of person you are… Anyway, did your boyfriend tell you I’m the one who made Lia’s staff?” I shook my head. Akira and I hadn’t had much time to sit down and talk lately, so there was probably a lot of information we had yet to exchange. “Well, it was the staff that let me know you guys were in peril. Speaking of Lia, did you notice her name is the last three letters of yours?”

“Are you implying that she was named after me?”

“That’s right. I gave her that name because I wanted her to grow up to be a strong woman like you,” he said.

I was genuinely a little surprised by this, though I quickly collected myself and squinted suspiciously at him. “And what exactly are you telling me this for?” I asked, unsure what Lia, a princess of Uruk, could possibly have to do with what we were talking about.

Crow scratched the back of his head and looked outside as the sun slowly rose over the city. “Not sure, really. I wanted to test this boy named Akira Oda you seem to admire so much and see if he’s truly worthy to stand by your side, is all. When I named Lia after you, I thought there’d never be another person worthy of fighting alongside you, and I still feel that way.”

My blood began to boil. “Do you have any idea how much unnecessary stress your selfish desires have piled on Akira?!” I snapped, and Crow froze. I couldn’t see his expression amid the rising sun’s glare through the window, but it felt like he was more vulnerable now than ever.

“I wasn’t expecting him to stress about it so much. Though when I explained to him that the compensation I had in mind would also be in your best interest, he seemed conflicted. The boy loves you an awful lot, that’s for sure, but not so much that he’d throw away his humanity for you.”

Love could indeed make people blind. I’d lived far, far longer than Akira had, so I knew that much to be true. If Akira ever became too blind to tell right from wrong because of me, I would have no choice but to exit his life.

“He’s every bit the man I thought he was.” I smiled gently.

“So it would seem,” said Crow, shrugging his shoulders and gazing into the sunrise. “But the fact he’s conflicted at all means there’s still a part of him that feels like he owes me. Something tells me all it would take for him to cast aside his humanity would be one last push… Like, say, if you were to be put in harm’s way again.”

In other words, be careful.

On that note, Crow shot a quick glance at Akira and then left the room. I never did get him to tell me what exactly he’d said to Akira, but what he did tell me was perhaps more astonishing.

“You…wouldn’t throw away your humanity for me, would you, Akira?” I asked, knowing full well I wouldn’t receive a reply.

 

POV: ASAHINA KYOUSUKE

 

WHEN I WOKE UP the next morning, I discovered Akira asleep on the couch and Princess Amelia sitting next to him, running her fingers through his hair. It had been quite a while since I’d last seen him asleep.

“It’s quite rare to see him sleeping so vulnerably,” I said, and Princess Amelia’s shoulders shook a bit as she looked up at me. There was sadness in those eyes; something must have happened while I was asleep. But before I had the chance to ask, we were interrupted by Ueno, who had just woken up.

“What in the… Amelia, yer already awake?! Dang, I thought for sure I’d be the first!”

“Yeah. I couldn’t sleep, really,” said Amelia, still cradling Akira’s head in her lap. The look in her eyes shifted closer to affection than melancholy.

“Hot dang! I ain’t never seen Oda lookin’ all defenseless like that… Well, nah, I guess I have, but it’s sure been a hot minute!”

I nodded in agreement. Akira had a bit of a reputation for being the class’s “sleeping beauty.” He would stay awake for classes taught by teachers he was afraid of or who he knew would wake him up, but aside from that, he slept through the school day. It was a wonder he managed to avoid failing his exams, though I was probably the only person who knew that. If our other classmates caught wind of his grades, they probably would have accused him of cheating. Even I had been suspicious of him before I learned he often studied during spare moments at his many part-time jobs.

“Sounds like you know something about Akira I don’t. Consider me curious,” said Princess Amelia, and she and Ueno began chatting away, prompting me to take my leave ASAP.

“I’ll be in the next room. Call me when you’re ready to leave,” I said.

“What the—?! Were you here the whole dang time, Asahina?!” shouted Ueno. Apparently, she genuinely hadn’t noticed me. I thought she was simply ignoring me.

“Yes, I’ve been here all along,” I said, before promptly exiting the room.

We were planning to go pick up the prizes for Princess Amelia, Latticenail, and Satou (who’d easily won the men’s competition) later this afternoon. Apparently, the majority of entrants in the men’s competition were big, bodybuilder types, so everyone who preferred simpler pretty-boys rallied their votes around Satou. Entering him in the men’s pageant was always part of our plan, but we certainly hadn’t expected him to actually win anything, so I did a double take when I heard he’d taken first prize.

We’d been doing a lot of thinking and digging over the past few days based on the intel Tsuda originally provided. The deeper we looked into it, the more likely it seemed our original suspect, the Uruk guildmaster, Gram, was involved in all of this. There was now little doubt he’d had a hand in the disappearances of the previous pageant winners, and he certainly wasn’t doing much to hide it. Even without the use of a professional informant or investigator, we’d managed to gather all this information from regular adventurers like ourselves. In fact, it seemed that Crow and Gilles, who had been using private investigators, hadn’t found enough pieces to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that Gram was involved. Now the question was whether we should tell Akira’s group about our findings.

Upon exiting the room, I found Satou waiting for me, leaning against the wall. “Did you find the answer you were looking for?” he asked, and I nodded.

The dark circles under Akira’s eyes were growing deeper with each passing day, which was why I’d fought back when Satou and the others insisted we should tell Akira everything we knew. Obviously, the safest thing to do would be to tell everyone to tighten security around Princess Amelia and Satou in anticipation of an ambush. But after seeing Akira just now, I’d only grown more steadfast in my resolve.

“I still don’t think we can tell Akira… Though knowing him, he’s begun doing some investigating of his own by now,” I said.

“Such as?”

“Haven’t you noticed? Night’s been missing ever since yesterday evening. Whether he’s standing guard somewhere to protect Princess Amelia or out gathering intel on his own, I couldn’t tell you, but the fact that he’s Akira’s familiar means that he can communicate and act on Akira’s orders even from afar.”

Though opting not to share our intel with Akira would require that we come up with some sort of excuse as to why we hadn’t told him sooner.

But it seemed Satou was convinced, as he nodded. “Well, you know Akira better than the rest of us. So I say we should trust your judgment on this.”

I smiled weakly. Satou had known Akira just as long as I had. How sad it was that our relationships with him were so different. “Let’s let Ueno keep Amelia preoccupied while the rest of us go over the plan one last time. Gram’s sure to go after the pageant winners before long, but it’s possible we can use me as a decoy, since I’m technically a winner too. C’mon, the others are waiting back in the bedroom.”

I voiced my agreement and followed him back to our private quarters. I hadn’t seen Akira sleeping as soundly as he had been in quite some time. The past several days, he’d been going to sleep after us and waking up before us. I wasn’t sure if he was getting less sleep than he normally would or if he wasn’t able to sleep at all, but it was clear just from looking at him that his health was taking a hit as a result. Maybe having Princess Amelia next to him was what allowed him to sleep peacefully again. Regardless of why, it was good to see him getting sufficient rest while he could. I’d noticed Akira seemed to have become a more laid-back person since he met Amelia. Though I was worried that if anything ever happened to her, he’d turn into a killing machine in an instant.

 

POV: AMELIA ROSEQUARTZ

 

“HEY, YOU SURE it was a good idea to leave him snoozin’ in there?” Crow asked me once we were on our way to collect the prizes at the location they’d given us yesterday. Akira had still been asleep by the time we were heading out, so we just left him lying on the sofa. Crow had already returned to his normal, brusque manner of speaking, despite talking more softly and politely with me earlier this morning. He’d even made it sound like he knew all about me and Kilika.

The news about monsters from the Great Forest Labyrinth flooding out and massacring the elves was big news at the time, and it quickly reached the shores of the other continents; sharing information regarding demon and monster attacks was also required by law in order to prepare for any potential demon invasions. It was commonly known by people at the time that Kilika had caused the incident by placing too much bait at the labyrinth’s entrance because that was what the official reports had stated. However, no reports of the incident remained after my father had all documents destroyed, so the only feasible way one could know the specific details (especially about Kilika) would be if they were alive at the time. Based on the beastfolk lifespan, there was no way Crow had been alive that long. I wanted to ask him about it, but if by some chance I’d misinterpreted his reaction and I ended up revealing Kilika’s secret after everyone worked so hard to sweep it under the rug, I’d feel terrible, so I refrained from broaching the subject.

“Akira’s been overexerting himself a lot lately, so he needs his rest. Besides, we’re just going to pick up the prizes and then head straight back to the inn. It’ll be fine,” I said. Once we had our prizes, we had no need to stay in Mali any longer. We could head out as soon as Akira woke up—he might even be awake by the time we got back.

“Gotcha… Well, here’s hoping we all make it out of here alive, I guess,” Crow mumbled, though I wasn’t able to catch the last few words he said.

“Welp, this is the place… Er, ain’t it?” asked the Ueno girl, whose confidence faded upon seeing the dingy, dilapidated building in front of us. It was an old hotel—certainly not the sort of place one would expect to pick up any grand prizes. All at once, the mood of the entire group tensed up. We’d been on high alert today from the start, but I didn’t think anyone could have foreseen this turn of events.

“Wha… Who’s there?!” shouted Crow. I whirled around to see a single man, dressed in black, standing behind us. The others quickly turned their gazes on him as well.

“You’re…that committee representative, right? Lapin, was it?” the Hosoyama girl asked, her eyes wide. She was right; at first, I thought it might have just been long white hair, but they were definitely the floppy bunny ears of the man we’d met yesterday. Only this time, he didn’t seem at all meek and cowardly, but instead stood before us fully confident, almost foreboding.

“Looks like it’s you they’re after, princess,” said Crow.

I snapped back to my senses and saw that several other men, also dressed in black, had begun to surround us. They seemed rather unintimidated by the fact that we had both the current hero’s party and a member of the previous one with us, not to mention my own combat prowess. There were about twelve of them in all, and they quickly closed in on us, leaving no room to escape.

“You’re the real Princess Amelia, I take it?” said one of the men.

Immediately, the hero’s party members formed a circle around me to protect me from their advance. They reacted so quickly, it was almost as if they’d been expecting an ambush. But now wasn’t really the time to be concerned about that.

“Yes, and what business is it of yours?” I said, narrowing my eyes. The men in black looked at each other and nodded. Even without a skill like Detect Danger, I could tell these men weren’t looking for a simple chat.

“Lord Gram would like to speak with you. You’ll be coming with us now.”

I felt Crow go into ferocious mode beside me. Gram was, after all, the name of his sister’s killer.

“And why, pray tell, should the princess of the elves deign to answer the summons of a mere guildmaster?”

It was supposed to be the royals who did the summoning, not the other way around. The disregard for common etiquette was disrespectful to say the least. Yet my words were lost on the men in black, as they simply stepped closer. They were determined to take me by force if they had to. Behind them, I could hear Lapin cackling maniacally.

“Oh, Princess. What were you thinking, coming to a place like this with only a bunch of kids and an old man past his prime to protect you? Why, you didn’t even bring that boy who’s always following you around,” the bunnyman taunted.

Apparently, it had been Akira they were most worried about… Perhaps they didn’t know these were members of the hero’s party. They needed to take a page out of Akira’s book and do their research beforehand. I let out a heavy sigh, then held one hand out in front of me.

“Gravity!”

Immediately, the men in black all fell to their knees under the sheer weight of my magic. I used to have a hard time controlling it so that it only affected my enemies and not my allies, but I’d learned how to better direct it during my time with Akira down in the labyrinth. I was feeling a little weary since I’d just created a new spell with Spellcraft, which drained a fair bit of my MP, but I still had more than enough to deal with these ruffians.

“And where exactly was it you were planning to take me, hm?” I asked, looking down at the men now trembling on all fours. I probably looked quite cold and terrifying in that moment; it wasn’t a side of me I ever wanted Akira to see, but if I had to resort to torture to get an answer out of them, I was absolutely prepared to do that. I wasn’t raised like your average pampered princess, after all. The high elf nobility had ruled over the Sacred Forest for hundreds and hundreds of years, and our people had been forced to do many unsavory things to protect that rule. I was not the sweet, beautiful woman Akira thought I was. I might have acted like a carefree, absentminded fool around him, but you could be sure I would not sit idly by whenever some terrible villain made an attempt on my life.

“If you don’t feel like answering the question, I’ll be happy to squash you all like bugs,” I said, lowering my hand just a bit. Even this was enough added force to make their bones audibly crack, and they all collapsed down on the ground.

 

POV: SATOU TSUKASA

 

IT ALL HAPPENED so fast. One minute, we were suddenly surrounded by a bunch of strange men in black clothes, and the next, they’d all been brought to their knees. All we did to help was stand around and watch. We might as well have not been there at all.

“Now, answer me. What are you people after? Where is Gram, and what is he plotting?” demanded Amelia as she lowered her hand to amplify the force again. Her eyes were cold and full of hatred, almost to the point that I myself felt pressured to answer her question myself. My other party members were starting to look rather pale from fright as well.

We’d all sort of assumed Amelia was a weak fighter. We’d never seen her fight before, so we had no way of envisioning how she might handle herself in combat. Our whole plan had been developed around the idea that she couldn’t protect herself, so it had been misguided from the very beginning. I had to wonder if Akira knew things would play out like this, and that was why he’d been so lackadaisical.

“W-we don’t know anything! H-honest!” blathered the committee representative, fear painted all over his face. But Amelia was not moved by the man’s pitiful plea; if anything, she seemed offended by it.

“Do you know what I hate more than anything else in this world?” she asked, lowering her slender arms even further. There was no longer even a flicker of light in her eyes; to the screaming men floundering on the ground, they probably looked like the eyes of death. “I’ll give you a hint: it’s being lied to. And I don’t believe for a second you don’t know anything. I’ve lived hundreds of years longer than you fools. You really think you can pull a fast one on me?”

The fact that elves lived extremely long lives was such common knowledge in this world that even our group knew it, despite never getting an education about this world back in Retice. Though I never knew they could be such ferocious fighters too. Eventually, Crow stepped up and gave the silent men a harrowing warning.

“I’d answer the lady’s question if I were you. She’s dead serious.”

In other words, she was more than ready to commit murder. And this world wasn’t like Japan; if she felt sufficiently threatened by these men, then we had no right to stop her from doing so in self-defense. Not that we could stop her even if we tried—all we could do was watch from the sidelines as the men were squashed into pancakes.

“A-all right, all right! W-we’ll talk!” screamed one of the men as his bones began to snap under the pressure. A few seconds later, and it would have been too late.

Amelia raised her arms up a bit, but she did not stop casting her spell completely. “Then you can explain yourselves from down there. Try anything funny, and I’ll crush you all.”

As Amelia stared them down, one of the men in black began to explain how they sold the pageant winners’ organs on the black market. All of what he said perfectly aligned with the intel Tsuda had brought to our attention initially, and it sounded like Amelia had indeed been their target this time around. Her expression gradually grew more and more grim.

“I see,” she said. “So there never was any grand prize, and your plan all along was to dismember me and sell off my parts to depraved lunatics, then.” Whether intentionally or not, she began to slowly lower her casting hand once more. But just before the men were crushed completely, someone jumped out from the shadows and accosted her—someone I recognized, but not necessarily someone I trusted.

“Okay, I think that’s enough!” said the girl. “Sheesh, Princess! You can’t just go doin’ stuff like that! This isn’t the Sacred Forest, y’know. You can’t just execute people on the spot, even if they are lowlife scum!”

It was Latticenail—the demon who’d tied with Amelia to win first prize in the pageant. I was busy participating in the men’s competition, so I hadn’t witnessed the action myself, but even from the men’s stage, we had heard the uproarious cheering when she walked out on stage.

“Why, hello, Latty,” said Amelia. “Last I checked, citizens do have the right to execute criminals who have wronged them in this country. Granted, it usually requires an officially sanctioned duel to the death, but these men all came at me with the intention to kill, and I merely defended myself. I think a judge would probably find that this counts as a fair substitute for a duel.”

That was an awfully unsettling thing to hear Amelia say, especially since her face was devoid of expression. Still, the demon girl refused to let go of her hand.

“If you ask me, even the baddest of bad guys has his own story to tell, and no other person has the right to take the chance away from him. So please, don’t go killing other people when I’m around, okay?” said the demon. There was calmness in her purple eyes peeking out from beneath her hood, yet firmness in her tone. The sudden change in her behavior seemed to surprise Amelia so much so that her hand went limp, ending her spell. Finally, the demon let go of Amelia’s wrist, and put on her carefree smile once more.

“But I mean, if you really wanna kill ’em, feel free to do it when I’m not looking, I guess! I may be a defender of the law with a strict moral code, but that doesn’t mean I can protect everyone, now, does it? I can’t be everywhere, and sometimes accidents happen!”

The men, who had been scrambling to try to escape, were now frozen in place, paralyzed in fear by the impish demon girl’s frightening indifference.

 

As Crow handed the men in black off to the authorities, I couldn’t help but think to myself: What had we even come here for? Obviously, we were hoping to expose Gram’s evil deeds and gain Akira’s favor, but in the end, we hadn’t really accomplished anything. All we had done was invite Akira to the festival, enter the contest, and win as a decoy we didn’t need, and try to act as bodyguards for someone who didn’t need protecting. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I had the power to protect anyone at this point. In fact, I was feeling more powerless now than I’d ever felt in my life.

 

POV: ODA AKIRA

 

IT FELT ALMOST LIKE I was slowly sinking further and further into a deep, dark ocean, swaying in the gentle currents as they carried me down to its deepest fathoms.

“Where am I…?”

I was surprised to find I could still speak as my voice reverberated through the darkness, but I still had no control over my body. I struggled to recall the last thing that happened to me before ending up here.

“Right, Amelia put me to sleep…”

That was it. She crafted a new spell and induced a Forced Sleep in me, probably out of concern for the growing dark circles beneath my eyes. When I remembered the look on her face right before she cast it on me, I let out a heavy sigh. It was my fault for pushing myself so hard despite my lack of sleep. I’d need to apologize to her after I woke up.

After calming down a bit, I tried to assess my current predicament. Considering Amelia had used Forced Sleep, and I had no recollection of waking up, I could only assume that I was still asleep and in some sort of dream state at the moment. Maybe I could try using World Eyes and see what information showed up? Though since my eyes were closed, I didn’t have particularly high hopes.

“Yeah, no dice.”

I couldn’t use World Eyes, or any of my skills for that matter. It was just a dream, after all. So now what was I supposed to do? But before long, I felt something press up against my back. Sticking with the metaphor that I was sinking down into a deep, dark ocean, then this would have been the ocean floor, yet it felt far too flat and warm. But since I couldn’t move my body, all I could do was lie there and listen to a distant voice.

“If you don’t feel like answering the question, I’ll be happy to squash you all like bugs.”

It was so soft that it was drowned out by the sound of my breathing, but I could never mistake this voice—it was Amelia, though her tone was uncharacteristically cold. I could tell it wasn’t a friendly conversation. It was the first time I’d ever heard such animosity in her voice—even when I first rescued her and she wasn’t sure I could be trusted, I never felt any malice from her. She was, understandably, very cautious around me at first, presumably because she’d checked my stats with World Eyes, but she never treated me like I was nothing.

“Do you know what I hate more than anything else in this world? I’ll give you a hint: it’s being lied to. And I don’t believe for a second that you don’t know anything. I’ve lived hundreds of years longer than you fools. You really think you can pull a fast one on me?”

To be fair, I could see how someone might mistake Amelia for a girl around my age, even if they knew about elven lifespans. Even I sometimes forgot she was actually hundreds of years older than me, like when she was chatting it up and giggling with my female classmates.

“I’d answer the lady’s question if I were you. She’s dead serious.”

This time, it was Crow’s voice, and it was even fainter than Amelia’s. From the context of the discussion, it sounded like this was happening on the way to pick up the prizes from the pageant, which told me the rumors Crow and Gilles had told me about were true. After Crow’s warning, I heard a third voice crying frantically about something, but it was too indistinct for me to make out. Apparently, I could only pick up the voices that were closest in proximity to Amelia. Maybe this was an unintended side effect of her new spell, and the mana had forged a link between us while I was under her spell.

“Then you can explain yourselves from down there. Try anything funny, and I’ll crush you all.”

I couldn’t help but grimace at the merciless tone of Amelia’s voice. Just then, I felt a wave ripple through the ocean-like space I was suspended in, almost like the water level was being lowered… Was I trapped in a metaphorical basin of Amelia’s mana reserves and feeling the effects of her using some of it? It would certainly make sense that it felt like an ocean, if that was the case, since her mana supply was nearly infinite. Maybe I could ask Crow about it after I’d woken up. If my theory was correct, then the level had lowered because she’d just cast a spell—probably Gravity Magic, judging from the “I’ll crush you all” line.

“And your plan all along was to dismember me and then sell my parts to some depraved lunatics, then.”

I could almost taste the venom in her words, though I had a hard time believing she had any intention of actually killing these goons. I was disappointed in myself for being unable to go to her aid, but then, I had to strain my ears and listen as an unintended challenger joined the fray.

“Okay, I think that’s enough!”

The sound of Latticenail’s peppy, rambunctious voice set my mind at ease. Maybe she had come to collect her grand prize as well. It was odd how relieved I felt to have her on the scene, considering we’d only just met yesterday, and she was a demon to boot.

“Sheesh, Princess! You can’t just go doin’ stuff like that! This isn’t the Sacred Forest, y’know. You can’t just execute people on the spot, even if they are lowlife scum!”

She must have closed the distance between her and Amelia, because I could now make out her voice far more clearly than Crow’s. Also, since when do demons have a problem with wanton killing? I listened to Amelia argue with her. Personally, I didn’t see any reason she had to kill these guys, even if they were criminals. Then, as if speaking my own words by proxy, Latticenail expressed the same sentiment to Amelia in an uncharacteristically solemn voice.

“If you ask me, even the baddest of bad guys has his own story to tell, and no other person has the right to take the chance away from him. So please, don’t go killing other people when I’m around, okay?”

I was beginning to doubt this girl was truly a demon at all. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some massive twist where she turned out to be a past hero, even. Hell, I’d welcome her to the team without a second thought.

“But I mean, if you REALLY wanna kill ’em, feel free to do it when I’m not looking, I guess! I may be a defender of the law with a strict moral code, but that doesn’t mean I can protect everyone, now, does it? I can’t be everywhere, and sometimes accidents happen!”

Welp, there went that theory. How very like her to almost say something inspiring and then spoil it at the last minute. Not long after, I suddenly felt my consciousness rising rapidly to the surface, and it seemed Amelia’s spell was about to wear off. When I finally regained control of my body and shot awake, it felt like coming up to the surface after a deep dive, gasping for air.