Epilogue: Cultural Invasion Redux

Actually arriving home presented its own challenges.

They started at the mansion that served as Amutech’s headquarters. Brooke and Cerise met me at the door.

“Good t’ see y’ again, Master.”

The two lizardmen looked exactly the same as always, which immediately gave me a comforting feeling of ahh, I’m back......... Kind of.

“Uh... Brooke?”

“Yessir.”

“What’s with the sword?” I asked, looking at the blade in his left hand. It was still in its sheathe, but from the workmanship, it was obviously a real weapon. The kind of undistinguished item a soldier might be issued to carry into battle.

Yes, I was aware Brooke had once been a famous hero, but when I thought about it, I realized I had never seen him with a weapon.

“Aherm.”

He gave the sword to Cerise, then knelt in front of me, like a condemned criminal awaiting judgment.

“It was m’ own inattention that allowed those villains to get close enough to this mansion to capture you, sir.”

“...Huh?”

“You’d be within your rights to have my head, Master. But I’ve a wife now, and t’aint just my own life anymore. I beg of you to show mercy and take only an arm or leg, or maybe—”

“I don’t need to take anything!” I cried. What was he, a member of the yakuza? Heck, even they usually settled for just a finger! Anyway, cutting off Brooke’s appendages wasn’t going to make me happy! It wouldn’t do anything for me!

“Just forget about it!” I insisted.

“Y’ mean you’ll be merciful to me?”

“Yes! Merciful! Magnanimous, forgiving, whatever you want! Cerise, don’t raise that sword like that! You’re scaring me!” While I had been talking (?) with Brooke, Cerise had raised the sword above her head like she was about to help Brooke commit ritual suicide.

“Brooke, you’re not even officially my bodyguard!”

“That is true,” the lizardman said, looking up. “Do you mean y’ intend to cut off Minori-sama’s arm instead?”

“No, I don’t!” I shouted, holding my head. Intercultural communication could be real tricky sometimes...

As this commotion was going on in front of the house, a contingent of knights and a carriage from Eldant Castle arrived for us. Maybe Loek and Romilda, who had left earlier, had told them we were back. In any event, we were pretty much forced to make an immediate appearance at the castle.

“Shinichi!” A familiar voice greeted me the moment I walked into the audience chamber.

It was Petralka. The loli(-looking) empress was, as always, seated on a huge throne that dwarfed her small body.

“It is you, isn’t it?! You aren’t hurt?!”

“Your Majesty...”

She had almost jumped to her feet when I came in, but slowly sat back down at the urging of Garius, her knight and trusted confidant. She’s so cute. And it made me happy to realize she had been worried about me, too.

But I’m definitely not the empress’s lover, okay?

I decided to keep the thought to myself.

Petralka coughed once, then shifted to face me and Minori-san again.

“We welcome you back, Shinichi,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And Minori, you’ve done well to bring him home.”

“It was my pleasure, Your Majesty. But I wasn’t the only one,” Minori-san said with a soft smile. “Myusel, Elvia, and Loek and Romilda were all crucial. Those last two in particular—I know you might wish to reprimand them, but please remember that they’re both young, and be merciful.”

“We understand,” Petralka said, smiling drily. She nodded at her advisors, who were lined up in attendance around the audience chamber. I could make out an elf and a dwarf among them, probably Loek’s and Romilda’s dads.

“Although they acted on their own accord, as a result of their adventure one of Bahairam’s puppet drake research centers has been effectively destroyed. They’re heroes, although they must be so secretly.”

The elf and dwarf councilors both nodded appreciatively at this.

“Shinichi. Everyone was worried about you.”

“I’m glad to know that, really,” I said. My time as a private security guard had given me an appreciation of how special it was to have someone who wasn’t even a blood relation be concerned about you.

“We believe a feast celebrating your safe return is in order!” Petralka said. She was in high spirits.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to... I mean, I’m sorry, but I’d really like to rest a little. To be honest, I’m exhausted.”

“Hmm. And well you might be. Very well, we shall postpone the feast to another time.”

So apparently there was no getting out of the feast itself. Not that I really minded...

“If instead there should be any token of appreciation that you wish, you need only say it. Food or drink or anything.”

“Thanks,” I said, but it just felt like a social nicety.

After a moment, something occurred to me. “Say, Petralka?”

“What is it?”

“There is one thing I’d like to ask for.”

“Hm?”

She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling; Garius and Prime Minister Zahar, who was also standing by the throne, exchanged a look. They knew from experience that I must be planning something.

“Well, not so much ask... Consider it a suggestion.”

Amatena’s words came back to me:

“I believed that someone like you was absolutely necessary to the future of this country.”

“For all the beating and shouting we gave her, we were unable to change Elvia. Not us her sisters, not her parents. Perhaps it only shows that such things lack the power to change people.”

Amatena had wanted to change Bahairam. Not by revolution or open rebellion or anything violent like that. She was, in her own way, afraid for her nation’s future. Not so much about the imposition of worldview, the trimming away of luxuries, or even the totalitarian rule—she saw Bahairam heading down a collectivist path that she didn’t like.

And what about me? Was there anything I could do? Some small act of resistance I could contribute to a culture and worldview in danger of becoming closed off?

“I recommend a cultural invasion of Bahairam.”

That sent a real shock through the audience chamber.

A month had passed since Shinichi had returned to the Eldant Empire.

I had finished work and was just arriving home when I saw something exceedingly unusual: a package addressed to me. And one not sent through channels, at that.

Most likely it had been passed from hand to hand. The wooden box was filthy, and the sender had not included their name. Frankly, I was impressed it had reached me at all. Written across the top was “A curse be upon whoever breaks this seal without permission,” but this was mostly a conceit. Very few people actually bothered to curse their mail. Although there was no shortage of lowlifes who might try to open other people’s letters and packages.

I opened the box and looked inside. It appeared to be full of books, a whole pile of them. Folded neatly on top was a single sheet of paper.

I opened the paper and spent a moment staring at the characters inscribed on it.

I was shaken out of my reverie by the ringing of the doorbell.

“Who’s there?”

The familiar voice of my subordinate answered: “It’s Clara, Big Sister.”

I stood and went to the entryway and invited her in. Her respect for me as my subordinate was of course dictated by our professional positions, but Clara graciously had enough personal respect for me as well that she often came over after work, where we would share meals or pass the time in trifling conversation.

Clara looked at me. Then she suddenly asked, “Is something going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. You simply... somehow...”

Such hesitation was unusual for Clara.

“I somehow what?” I urged her. I was genuinely curious.

“You somehow seem... happy.”

“Happy? Happy... Hmm.” I shook my head slowly, but then thought of the piece of paper I was holding. I held it out to her. “Perhaps it’s on account of this.”

“A letter, sister?”

“An unofficial one,” I said

“May I?”

I nodded. “Be my guest.”

It wasn’t just all right for Clara to see this letter. I felt almost obliged to show it to her. After all, she had been rather fond of that man herself.

Clara looked shocked. “This is—”

“Yes. From Shinichi.”

More specifically, someone had translated what Shinichi had written into our language. Elvia didn’t know how to read or write, so he must have had some Eldant scholar do it.

“The contents of this box come from him as well.”

Clara looked inside, mystified.

“This is the ‘otaku culture’ that has so enamored the Eldant empress. It seems they call it manga.”

I took out one of the books and showed it to Clara. I flipped through it; it appeared to depict some kind of story via pictures, presented at great density and over an absurd number of pages. Just thinking about how much time and effort must have gone into the creation of this single volume was enough to make me feel faint myself.

“Huh...” Clara breathed, looking at the manga. I wasn’t sure quite what the sound meant. Perhaps she was mystified by it. I couldn’t blame her.

“But why would he send such a thing to you, Big Sister?” she asked, shaking her head.

An excellent question. “If you read the letter, I think it will become clear,” I said, taking the piece of paper back from her. “He claims these are samples of merchandise to be offered on the black market.”

“B-Black market?”

“In essence, he wants to smuggle them.”

Clara looked at the so-called “manga,” unimpressed. Perhaps she felt we couldn’t trust Shinichi’s motives. But...

“If instead of ordering me to create something that would cause the people to be more loyal to the King, you had asked me to think of something that everyone could enjoy together... I would gladly have helped.”

Shinichi’s parting words came back to me. Deep down, he was a bold and eccentric clown. That was why I doubted there was any hidden motive in this illegal offering. If anything, I suspected he just believed that these books would bring everyone the most joy.

And that was good enough.

It was good, period.

Boldness and eccentricity: these were things that, in our rush to strengthen the country, we had forgotten—or perhaps deliberately cast aside. They were the leaves and branches we had cut down in our fervent attempt to strengthen the trunk of the great tree called the future.

But leaves and branches were what eventually bore flowers, and then seeds. Seeds that would become the great trees of tomorrow.

And so—slowly, gradually, without force or intensity, they would bring change. Like saplings suddenly sprouting along the roadside.

“What will you do, sister?”

“A good question...” I turned away from Clara. The truth was, I had already made up my mind. “What do you want to do?”

“Me? I will follow you, sister,” Clara said without a moment’s hesitation. It was as if she knew completely what was in my heart. I couldn’t suppress a bit of a smile.

“He is more shrewd than I took him for,” I said, absently flipping the pages of one of the manga. “Talking smuggling with the very country that kidnapped him. And making Elvia his contact point, no less.”

His letter said he would periodically send Elvia back to Bahairam as his courier for the black market. Outwardly, Elvia would be coming back to deliver materials she had collected during her spying. True, some of these manga had already made their way to Bahairam via merchants from the Eldant Empire—but getting them directly from the source like this would make them cheaper, more numerous, and more accessible to the common people.

“We may wish our nation had never gotten involved with a man like him,” I mused. If we weren’t careful, our country might find itself swept away, perhaps in ways even Shinichi himself didn’t fully understand.

I didn’t say anything more, but as I began paging through this book called a manga once again, even I could finally tell that the smile on my face was a happy one.

（つづく）

To Be Continued...