CHAPTER 2 A Heroic Encounter? 1 The day after we somehow managed to escape the Cursed Forest. “Screw that! I’m not going outside after that shit we dealt with yesterday! I’m holing up in the safety of Hideout City for a while!” I’m in my room at Hideout City. I am chewing Alice out after she insists we return to the Cursed Forest despite our experience yesterday. “You were the one who reported finding a giant robot at the bottom of the lake. Remember, Lady Lilith brutalized the mechanical lizard known as the Forest King until it was beyond repair. There’s a pile of this planet’s technology at the bottom of the lake. There’s no way we can just let it sit there.” Alice ignores my pleas and begins to tug insistently at my arm. “Let go of me, shrimp. There’s plenty of others with time on their hands if you need protection! Since Vi erased my save data, I’m busy trying to get caught up on the game!” I peel off Alice’s hands and try to shoo her away when she turns to me. “If you don’t cooperate, I’ll erase your data when you get close to the end.” “Stop threatening me with my save data, dammit! Seriously! Given how often you back up your data, you, of all people, should know how serious of a threat that is!” As I’m busy arguing with the cold, unfeeling android, the door suddenly flies open. “Hey, Six, what in the world have you done?! Her Highness is demanding your presence at the palace!” Snow just starts yelling at me the moment she enters the room, but I don’t think she should be throwing around accusations just because Tillis summons us. “Hell of a greeting there, Snow. Whatever she’s mad about, it’s not my fault. I still have plenty of Evil Points at the moment. Go interrogate the other Combat Agents.” “So there’s no doubt the culprit is one of ours, hmm?” Yeah, no doubt about that. I arrive at the palace, essentially being marched along between Snow and Alice, and notice that the palace exterior was dramatically transformed in the short time I was away from it. There are two additional moats around the palace, and there is some sort of magical item that looks like bells installed at regular intervals around the wall. There are also more soldiers standing guard at the gates, giving the whole palace a more intimidating air. As we are let into the palace, I crane my neck toward Snow and ask, “The defenses are a lot heavier now, what happened?” “The defenses were reinforced because some pervert was sneaking into Her Highness’s bedroom every night. Lately, she’s been determined to make the pervert give up and has been doing everything in her power to discourage them from sneaking in.” Ah, so Agent Ten’s still been sneaking into Tillis’s room. I don’t get what’s driving the two of them to such extremes, but… “Y’know, this is the sort of thing where the two of them start enjoying it and start thinking about the other as a romantic partner. While she might feel relief when Ten doesn’t manage to sneak into her room, she’ll start to feel like there’s something missing.” “If you say that in front of Her Highness, she’ll demand your head on a spike.” It was just as we arrived at the courtyard while chatting… “Your Highness, it’s all right. We’re here to support you!” “All of you, offer your prayers! Offer your prayers so Her Highness’s voice will reach the heavens…!” “Your Highness, there’s not a person here who will laugh at you! Please, for the sake of the Grace Kingdom and its people! Please recite the holy prayer!” Tillis stood with her eyes closed and hands clasped in prayer in front of the rain-making artifact. She was surrounded by countless ladies-in-waiting with tense expressions on their faces. Then Tillis opened her eyes and called out the prayer in a booming voice…! “Dick Festival!” Tillis gave off an incredibly hallowed aura as she gazed intently at the machine… “Hey, Alice, can you believe it? The girl over there yelling about dicks is the ruler of this kingdom.” “I mean, it’s pretty embarrassing for a young woman, let alone a princess. I sure hope her parents don’t find out.” “Hey, quiet! This is important! She was finally willing to say the prayer after intense pleading from her retainers!” Tillis apparently heard our voices, and her expression shifts from determined to beet-red in the blink of an eye. But it seems her voice didn’t reach the heavens, because the machine remains unresponsive. Seeing this, Tillis places her head in her hands and ruminates. “This isn’t enough people, I see… One of the activation conditions is to have many of our people in front of it, but how does this artifact recognize that there are lots of people around? Requiring that it be in front of the people would make sense if it takes magic from all the people present. Does that mean there isn’t currently enough magic in the area to power it…?” “Hey, Snow, Tillis is trying to shrug off the fact that she just screamed ‘Dick Festival’ by mumbling some technobabble.” “Shh, not so loud! She can hear us! Her Highness is trembling!” Tillis is now red as a tomato and her shoulders are shaking, unable to ignore us any longer. “Sir Six, thank you for coming. We’ve been expecting you…” She smiles at us with her flushed face, but it isn’t just her shoulders that are trembling. There are noticeable tremors in her voice as well. “Alice, did you record that scene?” “Of course, it’s stored in my internal memory. I can record anything I see, after all.” “I’m not quite sure what any of that means, but it can’t be good. Please stop!” As the ladies-in-waiting try to do the tactful thing and leave, Tillis waves them off to the side and pleads with us. “I mean, why did you say something so stupid anyway? If it’s about solving the kingdom’s water problem, didn’t we bring you a useful replacement?” Yes, by capturing the Demon Lord’s Army’s Elite Four member Russell of the Water, the kingdom should have been regularly refilling its reservoirs… “About that… There have been mounting concerns among the citizens… Apparently, it’s hard for people to watch such a frail girl use so much magic to create water for their sakes…” But…Russell’s a boy. Welp, that’s one unexpected consequence of Tiger Man forcing Russell to dress like a girl. “<Hey, Alice, isn’t there some way to fix that machine’s password?>” “<There should be if we reformat the machine. But it’s more fun to leave it as it is, don’t you think?>” Yep, she’s an android made by an evil corporation all right. I agree that it’s more fun to leave it alone. Tillis tilts her head in curiosity as Alice and I launch into an exchange in Japanese, but then seems happy to resume the conversation. “Let’s set aside the water problem for now… No, there’s another reason I’ve called you in today. There have been reports of suspicious people lurking around in the city—” According to Tillis, someone dressed in an outfit similar to power armor shows up at night and meddles in various affairs around town. Up until now, Tillis and the kingdom looked the other way on our less-than-admirable activities because they are relatively harmless, but the more recent incidents have escalated to the point of being serious problems. For example, someone recently attacked the orc farms in an attempt to free the orcs. Also, someone revealed the source of the meat used by a certain skewer vendor and cut deeply into his sales. There are countless other examples, in fact—too many to name—but they are all clearly different from the pranks that we’ve been pulling up to this point. “That’s gotta be one of our Combat Agents. I take my eye off them for one second, and they lose their damn minds.” “Sorry, Princess, we’ll take care of it on our end.” As we immediately draw the conclusion that it’s one of our people, Tillis shakes her head. “No, Sir Six, at first I thought it was someone from your organization, but… The armor that the suspect was wearing was white, not black. That’s why I wanted your help investigating this matter…” At Tillis’s words, Alice and I exchange glances— “There’s a traitor in our midst!” The moment we return to Hideout City, we gather everyone in a room and I make the announcement. Kisaragi Combat Agents aren’t allowed to wear power armor that isn’t black. It’s not that white itself is prohibited. Alice’s dress is white, and Spider Woman likes wearing white-silk outfits. “You call us together and blindside us with this?! You’re the one who tagged along with the girl in the Hero squad when they made a pass at you!” “Keep your delusional bullshit to yourself! You’re the sorry excuse for a Combat Agent who fled back to Hideout City after a single night out camping!” “All of us are veteran agents of Kisaragi! None of would choose now, of all times, to turn traitor!” “Besides, we all belong to an evil organization! Is betrayal really that big a deal?!” Their arguments made me want to smack them one at a time, but I calmed myself before responding. “It seems someone in white armor is going around causing problems in the city of Grace.” At those words, everyone froze in shock. Power armor had to be black. This was something that was true for all evil organizations throughout human history. It was tradition for the bad guys to wear black, and for us cannon fodder Combat Agents, it was our most distinguishing feature as well as our cherished sense of style. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with betrayal. But we all know how important the color black is to our identity, don’t we? Remember how hard we fought when Lady Lilith tried to claim black as her color and change the power armor color because it overlapped with her title?!” Yes, there was a time when Lilith said, “Black is the signature color of Lilith the Black. So I’m going to change the official power armor for Combat Agents to hot pink,” prompting all of us to take up arms and rise up in rebellion. We united under the banner of outrage. Outrage at the idea of Combat Agents being forced to dress in hot pink, and outrage over the fact that this woman—whose real name was Yasuda—was using the moniker, “Lilith the Black.” “Yeah, I remember that… That’s when you, Six, said, ‘If you’re afraid about the overlap, it’d be a lot cheaper to just change your name from Lilith the Black than change all the power armor.” We all called her Lady Yasuda for a while, didn’t we…?” “Sure did. She ended up crying and begging us to stop calling her Yasuda when we were facing off against the Heroes.” My colleagues think back on those days fondly. It was a reminder of just how important the color black was to us. It was something we had clawed back from Yasuda’s temper tantrum. Which brings me to the question of why the hell she even calls herself Lilith the Black when she always dresses in a white lab coat. As Alice watches the reaction of the Combat Agents, she nods to herself. “Hey, Six, it doesn’t seem like they’re to blame.” “But…Tillis did say the armor was similar to our power armor, right? Which means…” I glance around at the agents, then decide to travel to visit a particular subordinate— 2 That night. I’m pushing a wheelchair along as I stroll around the city of Grace’s nightlife district. “…You’re such a bad boy, Commander. Using a mission as an excuse to take me on a date…” Grimm, who is sitting in the wheelchair as I push her along, rambles nonsense as she smiles up at me. I brought Grimm with me on patrol to look for the suspicious individual, but… “What are you talking about? I keep telling you, we’re just doing a night patrol of the city.” “Yes, yes, I know, I know. Boys do want to show off, after all. You need a reason to take a girl on a date… That’s it, right?” Grimm says cheerfully and chuckles, but no, she’s wrong. The reason I brought her along is because she’s competent at night, and because life in the city has settled down, and we’re done passing out food to the demons, and she’s just collecting a free salary, so she needs to earn her keep. The other Combat Agents are busy either exterminating monsters around Hideout City or heading back to scout Toris. Viper is occupied with an enormous amount of paperwork and is managing all the demons. What’s most surprising is Snow, who has been calling herself the Deputy Lord of the City, has started negotiating with the merchants of the city of Grace and has been pretty useful in doing things like securing supplies for cheap. And Alice has taken Rose as her bodyguard as she goes to check on the giant robot at the bottom of the lake. Which means that Grimm was the only one left, and she’s lazily collecting pay without doing much of anything. “So where are we patrolling? How about a bar with a nice, mellow atmosphere? There’s also a park up ahead that’s usually deserted, but it’s a bit early for that. First, we need to set the mood with some light conversation. Then we can go to the park after we’ve had a few drinks and I’m a little tipsy. Girls need a reason to tag along with you, after all.” What the hell is this deadbeat talking about? “I’ve already got our first destination planned out. We’re going to turn that corner and head to the slums.” Hearing that, Grimm lets out a dry chuckle as though in faint exasperation. “There’s plenty of scary men hanging around that area, so if you take a pretty girl like me, you’ll definitely stir up some trouble… Tsk, you and I have known each other for a while, you know… What’s it called? Misattribution of arousal? There’s no need to set up that sort of charade. I know you’re a man I can depend on, Commander.” Grimm continues rambling as she winks up at me. “…Commander. Hey, Commander. Mind if I ask you something?” Having arrived at the slums, we are wandering around looking for the suspicious individual. Grimm looks up at me with a serious face as I push her wheelchair. “What is it?” I reply to Grimm while directing an intimidating glance at the thugs in the slums… “…Is this really for work?” “…? That’s what I’ve been saying from the start. There’s a suspicious person that’s been showing up around here lately.” At my nod, Grimm suddenly starts throwing a tantrum. “Whaaaaaaat?! You asshole! You got me all excited for this?! Why did you only invite me, then?! And why did you choose the nighttime to take me out? “The reason I brought just you along was because you’re the only one who wasn’t doing anything important. As for why we’re doing this at night, it’s because you’re useless during the day.” “Don’t use logic on me! You, over there! Can’t you see that there’s a beautiful woman sitting right in front of you? Why aren’t you sticking your nose into our business?!” As Grimm finally goes so far as to rope bystanders into her nonsense, the men dressed like thugs standing around suddenly start glancing away to avoid getting involved. “Just so you’re aware, the thugs that frequent this area won’t pick fights with me. I made sure to show them who’s boss a while back. That’s just business as usual for an evil organization member.” “What an awful thing to do! You’re the thug here, Commander, not them! …Wait, come to think of it, at the bars I’ve been visiting lately, most people avoid eye contact with me. Is that because—?” “They probably think you’re one of us.” “Ahhhhhhh! Nooooooooooo!” Bawling her eyes out, Grimm tries to wheel herself away from me, but I make sure to hold her firmly in place. “You’re a proper member of Kisaragi now. It’s too late for you to get away. While we happily accept all newcomers with open arms, no one’s allowed to leave!” “You never told me that! You never mentioned that at all! It’s bad enough that I’m woefully single, but now everyone looks at me like I’m undesirable!” I’m pretty sure worshipping a dark god already made you plenty undesirable. “Pipe down and get over here! You already accepted the payment, so I’m gonna make you work it off with your body!” “At least phrase it differently! You make it sound like you’re about to do something lewd to me!” I just meant that she needs to earn her keep, but it doesn’t sound like a joke when she says it. As I attempt to forcefully wheel Grimm away… “That’s enough!” …an oddly spirited voice that feels out of place in the unhealthy slums echoes across the alley. When I turn in the direction of the voice, there is a slender black-haired beauty standing on a ramshackle hut that looks on the verge of collapse. Since the white-armored woman is glaring straight at me, I can only assume I’m the one she’s talking to. She seems indignant as she lays eyes on the teary-eyed Grimm, and she points an accusatory finger at me. “I’m Adelheid Krueger, the Umbral Savior! I’m the arbitrator assigned to determine if this kingdom should be left alone or brought under our management! As I’m currently on assignment, I probably shouldn’t get involved, but…” At a glance, she seems like a calm, collected beauty with sharp, aggressive features. However, her booming voice and the hatred burning in her eyes quickly shatters that image.
Chapter 74
16 min read