Chapter 97

Or actually: She would always apologize and say she didn’t know I was in there, but would always make sure to get a nice, long look at my naked body. Given how serious and well organized she was at the time, would she really have made such a simple mistake? “Could it be that you secretly like me, Lady Belial? Do you look at me with lust-filled eyes?” “Right now, I’m looking for the best place to punch you.” She says something that’s pretty mean without so much as batting an eye, but when I think back to it, every time I’d visit Belial’s room, she was usually changing. Maybe she was trying to drop hints? “Putting aside whether you like it or not, Lady Belial, you’ve got a pretty dirty mind, you know?” “All right, guess you’ve missed sparring with me. Step outside, dammit.” At the time, Belial was a prim and proper lady on the surface, but I know she was secretly into all sorts of naughty things. She’d often come in to clean my messy room, but when she’d find my porn scattered haphazardly about the place, she’d pick it up and stare at it intently until I walked in. “Why are you smirking when I’m mad at you? We’re going to be doing some proper combat training. I’m not holding anything back.” Belial’s playing a little coy, I guess. I can see that her cheeks are faintly flushed even as she pretends to be mad at me. “Talking about combat training brings back memories of when I first joined Kisaragi. Back then, you drove me hard every day until I was nauseated at the end of the session.” But there’s something that’s changed since then. “To prove how grateful I am for all that you’ve done for me, I’ll show you just how strong I’ve become, Lady Belial.” I think back to the tough but fun memories of the past and twist my lips into a confident smile. 2 Alice is the first to greet me when I stumble out of bed a little past noon the next day. “Hey, loser. You slept in today. We’ve all finished our preparations.” “Good morning, Boss loser. You said we’d be going to the ruins today, but it’s almost time for lunch!” Are these two really my partner and my subordinate? They’re being awfully cruel to someone who was beaten up just a few hours ago. “It took a whole bunch of medical nanobots to force my body to heal in just a day! Why can’t you guys be nicer to me?! Every part of me still hurts!” Belial made sure I paid the price yesterday for going overboard when teasing her. I took opportunities during our initial sparring to sneak in a few fondles and ended up motivating her to take things seriously. By that, I don’t mean take things seriously in an erotic sense, but to seriously put the hurt on me. “Sorry, loser. I should’ve held back more. I didn’t expect you to be that fragile.” “The next person who calls me loser is going to be used to harvest some Evil Points.” I try to ward off any more attempts at rubbing salt in my wounds as I check the state of my body. It still hurts here and there, but I’m pretty functional. “All right. Here’s the plan. We’ll track Adelie as she goes to recover the sorcery stone. The moment she finds it and lets down her guard, we attack her and grab the stone from her. Well, we’ve done it before, so the chances of failure should be pretty low.” Alice confirms the plan, prompting Rose to mumble an objection. “This scheme really makes me feel awful when we do it. It feels like we take someone who’s at the height of their sense of achievement and kick them into the depths of despair…” While our chimera does become creepily predatory when she’s hungry, ordinarily she’s one of the good ones. “If you’re not too keen on it, I do have a plan B prepared as well.” “Really?! Can you describe it to us?” Rose looks at Alice, the brains of our outfit, with eyes shimmering with admiration. “I’ve got the color and shape of the shattered sorcery stone recorded, so we can send that data to Kisaragi and have a new one with the same color and shape made out of plastic or something. After that, we’ll just claim that we obtained a sorcery stone and hand the replica over to them, take the reward, and bug out.” “That’s even worse! Grunade needs the sorcery stone to keep functioning, so that might end up causing terrible problems after!” Alice raises a hand reassuringly to Rose’s vehement objection. “I have a plan for that, too. We just need to have Tiger Man steal the replica before they use the sorcery stone on the artifact or whatever. Even if they send us another request to recover the sorcery stone, we just need to refuse this time.” “I’m sorry I even raised an objection, it feels like it’d be better to just grab it fair and square…” —Deep in the woods near Grunade. When we head to the coordinates Lydia has given us, we see what look like ruins. It’s a facility that’s smaller in scale than the one in Torace, and it’s made of a material that’s similar to concrete. Alice stares at the ruins from a distance before taking a look around the area. “There’s signs of an encampment near the ruins, so it seems like they’ve already started their search. So I’m guessing the secret door that only Adelie can open is probably already open, yeah? Let’s just have Lady Belial roast everything in the ruins.” “My turn, huh? One ruin roast coming right up.” “After which Adelie will somehow make it out of the ruins and the intense heat ends up melting the sorcery stone, right? I can already see how that plays out, so please stay back, Lady Belial.” Belial slumps her shoulders as she’s told to stay put, prompting Rose to nervously try to reassure her. “…Hey. Adelie’s emerging from the ruins. And she’s got some company we don’t want her to have.” I guess because it took a while for me to wake up, Adelie has already finished her dive into the ruins and is emerging with her party in tow. “It looks like a film crew or something is mixed in with the knights. Does this planet have TV?” Belial asks, evidently impressed, but that’s probably the bad company Alice is referring to. Trailing behind Adelie and surrounded by knights belonging to the prince’s faction is a man carrying something that looks like a television camera. “Yep. Despite the fact they still use outhouses, they have these weird TVs powered by some mystery sauce. I guess it’s all part of this planet’s whole magic schtick.” “Oh, right, I saw that in the reports… Wait. That means if we grab the sorcery stone, it’ll all be broadcast to the populace, right?” When Lydia asked the prince yesterday: “Besides, even if they were to take the sorcery stone by force, how would you prove it?” The prince said, “I have plans of my own.” I guess this is what he meant. “The problem is with the fact that they already have the sorcery stone. If not, we could just have Lady Belial incinerate them before they can film it… Maybe we can hit the camera from a distance? Though even if we take out the camera, we can’t be sure they don’t have any other filming equipment. In that case, should we just hit the cameraman…?” “No, Miss Alice, we can’t do that! Even during a war, the postman, the cameraman, and the beetle merchant are off limits!” I get the postman and the cameraman, but why do the laws of war protect the beetle merchants? Just then: Belial, who has been keeping watch over our surroundings, spots something. “…Mm? Hey, isn’t that Tiger Man? What’s he doing over there?” When we follow her gaze, we find Tiger Man lurking in some bushes. “Good catch, Lady Belial. Tiger Man’s tough to find when he’s hiding in foliage. He’s probably trying to snatch the sorcery stone from Adelie. He’s been on a sorcery stone–collecting kick lately.” “You can’t become king if you’re not a royal, even if you have the sorcery stone, right? What’s he planning to do with it?” Belial tilts her head and watches Tiger Man slowly approach the target. “There’s someone on this planet who can manipulate time. Tiger Man believes that if he can get a powerful-enough sorcery stone, she can eventually make him a child again, so he’s been trying to find every powerful sorcery stone he can get his hands on.” “Maybe it’s because I’m kind of stupid, but I don’t understand what Tiger Man’s trying to do.” Well, I don’t get it, either. …Just then, Tiger Man makes his move. He probably sees that Adelie and her party are tired from dealing with the monsters in the ruins. “Ah, Tiger Man’s about to spring into action. I’ve never seen him look so committed.” As Belial notes, the usually laid-back mutant has a look of intense determination on his face. “Oh, there he goes! Boss, are you sure we should just be sitting here watching?” Rose asks with a note of concern, perhaps because she’s fond of him. “Yeah, just watching is kind of dull… Lady Belial, shall we make a bet on whether or not he succeeds in nabbing the stone? I’ll bet some information on one of Lady Lilith’s screw-ups on him succeeding.” “Then I’ll bet a compromising photo of Astaroth on him failing.” “You shouldn’t gamble like that! And that’s not what I meant…” “Yo, looks like Tiger Man’s taken the initiative. But the camera’s got a good view of him.” As Alice notes, the camera’s captured the entire progression of Tiger Man’s sneak attack. Tiger Man lets loose with a jump kick against Adelie, as though to pay her back for the other day. Adelie somehow manages to block his kick, but the impact tosses her back. The knights around her intervene and help cushion the blow as she’s thrown toward the ruin wall. Meanwhile, the cameraman manages to capture the whole exchange without missing a single beat. “That cameraman is more agile than Tiger Man or Adelie.” “That’s cuz film crews are sent to get footage of monsters in the Cursed Woods. There was a lot of buzz around the recent dragon documentary where they managed to get shots of a dragon’s lair and the dragonlings inside.” I really want to watch that documentary, and I’d love to poach him for our team. “Adelie’s working with the knights to fight back, but Tiger Man’s still got the advantage.” Alice provides commentary, watching the exchange like a neutral observer. Whatever else he might be, Tiger Man’s still one of the most powerful of our mutants. Even with knights in support, he’s still going to be too much for someone like Adelie, who’s about on my level. Shield-carrying knights in full armor are tossed aside like tin soldiers, and before long, Adelie is cornered on her own. The image of a humanoid monster cornering Adelie against a wall looks pretty dodgy from an ethics point of view, so the cameraman makes sure to capture the situation from multiple angles. “Lady Belial, looking forward to seeing that compromising photo of Lady Astaroth.” “It’s not over yet. Pay close attention, Six. I’ll show you what it means to work smarter, not harder.” Belial then jumps out of the tree cover we’d taken shelter behind. She makes the most of her enhancement surgery–boosted physical abilities and dashes forward at a speed that a normal person would struggle to follow by sight. Belial quickly closes in on Tiger Man as he faces off against the knights. “<Been a while, Tiger Man. Glad to see you looking well! Hang on, I’ll execute you in a sec!>” “<What are you doing here, Lady Belial?! I can think of lots of reasons why I should be put to death, but neow’s a bit sudden if you’re not even going to hear mreee out!>” Tiger Man quickly leaps backward to dodge the smiling Supreme Leader’s punch. “Hey, Alice, what are we going to do? She’s so dead set on winning her bet with me that she’s charged out without thinking.” “Even I haven’t planned for this. She’s shouting at Tiger Man in Japanese, so it’s only a matter of time before people find out he’s affiliated with us. Don’t worry, I’ve made preparations to bug out.” As I’m trying to figure out what to do about Belial’s sudden burst of unexpected activity, Adelie, who’s ended up being rescued by Belial, faintly blushes as she looks at Belial’s back. I guess from Adelie’s point of view, Belial looks like a hero suddenly intervening to save her in the nick of time. The cameraman rolls along the ground to get the best angle on the flame-haired beauty’s sudden arrival. “<Then I’ll give you ten seconds. Try to convince me.>” “<When I snuck in to steal the sorcery stone, Princess Nadia was sitting there by herself looking lonely. When I asked her what was wrong, she spoke to me without any fear and told me she was sad because she wasn’t able to do anything to stop her older siblings from fighting.>” …Oh? “<When she saw me carrying the sorcery stone, she didn’t try to stop me, and instead encouraged me to take it, because it was causing the fight between her brother and sister. And then she said that if she were to vanish, maybe her big brother and big sister would put aside their differences to find her, so she asked me to take her with me in exchange for me taking the sorcery stone… When a kid asks something like that of you, you can’t just turn her down, can you?>” …Tiger Man’s so serious that he’s forgetting to add his usual meows and purrs when speaking. As Alice translates Tiger Man’s Japanese for Rose, I feel shame at having rushed to judge him. “Boss, Miss Alice! I don’t know what Tiger Man is planning to do, but we should go, too!” Rose, deeply moved as Alice tells her what Tiger Man said, clenches her hand into a fist and holds it up. I reach back and unholster my pistol to support Tiger Man. “<So I made a decision. I’ll smack the idiots neglecting their little sister and fighting over the crown. Then, I’ll obtain a new sorcery stone and take that with Princess Nadia to—>” “<You’ve said enough, Tiger Man!>” Belial interrupts his passionate monologue. Belial looks upon Tiger Man with a serious expression, as though to say he doesn’t need to speak any more. Then after giving a nod of understanding— “<I said you had ten seconds! Your story’s way too long, and it didn’t convince me, so I’m going to execute you!>” “<That’s way troo unfair! Meow!>” —I have no time to intervene before Belial attacks. 3 Adelie bows her head along with the cameraman and knights. “Thank you very much! Without your help, he would’ve taken the sorcery stone!” Under assault from Belial, Tiger Man started yowling as he dodged her attacks, then tossed a stun grenade before retreating. As a woodlands combat expert who specializes in sneak attacks, Tiger Man’s fond of making use of stun grenades. It’s why he even wears sunglasses that protect against the flashes. “What I didn’t expect was…” Adelie looks over at us with a torn expression. “That this gentlewoman is Agentsix’s superior. Lady Belial, yes? Allow me to once again express my gratitude. Thank you so very much for helping me.” Adelie eyed us warily when we emerged from the copse of trees, but now she’s let down her guard. “I wanted to finish him off myself, but, well, I’m glad to see you lot are unharmed.” Pleased that Belial is worried about her, Adelie blushes faintly. “Do you have a history with that monster, Lady Belial?” “Yeah, he used to be my underling.” … “Lady Belial, what are you saying?! They didn’t know Tiger Man was one of ours!” Adelie freezes up in shock, and Belial just smirks at my urgent whispering. “If you’re going to make it as part of an evil corporation, you need to know how to always live on the razor’s edge. Screw playing it safe. You and I are both villains; live for a good time, not a long time!” Why does the Kisaragi Corporation always seem to attract these sorts of people? I wish they’d pick up some common sense from me. I mean, this is Belial we’re talking about. If things go wrong, she’s probably figuring she can brute-force her way out of it. “You just enjoy riling everyone up, don’t you, Lady Belial? Just recently, we were in similar circumstances where we had to try to make sure we didn’t tip off the other party. Combat Agent Ten started enjoying himself by trying to make us break character and mess up like you’re doing right now, Lady Belial…” “She’s just using a bit of Kisaragi-brand humor. Of course, we don’t know anything about that monster.” “O-oh, I see now! Heh, you had me going there for a minute! I even heard you talking in a language that sounded like the one the monster was using…” Belial does a complete 180, probably because she doesn’t want to be mentioned in the same breath as Ten. Adelie looks at Belial with eyes shimmering with admiration and holds out her hand. “Lady Belial, your sense of justice is remarkable! I’m Adelie the Gray Savior, Apostle of the Hiiragi Agency of Order!” “So you’re an enemy!” Adelie, who was holding her hand out for a handshake, instead gets a headbutt from Belial and crumples to her knees. “Who else did you think she was? You told me yesterday that you completely understood the situation after I explained it to you.” “I was just letting you talk for maybe eighty percent of it, duh. Still, this makes things a lot easier.” Belial smiles maliciously as she grabs Adelie by the collar and lifts her up. “Adelwhatever of our competition. You admit that we saved you despite the fact that you’re our competitor, right? And you admit that if I hadn’t stepped in, you would’ve lost the sorcery stone, right?” “O-of course… We, the Hiiragi Agency of Order, are a just and righteous organization. We repay our debts.” While Adelie’s got tears welling in her eyes from the pain of the headbutt, she doesn’t give an inch even as Belial has her dangling off the ground. “So long as you understand. Then let’s make this quick. You’re going to repay us with that sorcery stone.” “What?! What are you talking about?! I can’t possibly do that! Technically, it isn’t mine to give…!” While the knights around Adelie ready their weapons, the most they can do is look on at Belial from a distance as they recall how easily she defeated Tiger Man. Adelie, hanging off the ground as Belial holds her aloft with one hand, tucks the sorcery stone against her stomach to show she won’t give it up. “I-I’ll repay the debt with something else! I can’t give this to you; there’s people who need it!” “…Fine. Then I’ll accept something else.” Evidently impressed by Adelie’s defiance, Belial sighs and sets Adelie on the ground. Adelie looks up at Belial with a sigh of relief. “Your organization’s name, Hiiragi. It’s too close to Kisaragi, and it’s confusing to people. Change your name to make it clear you’re on the other side. Use one of those normal names like Whateverangers.” “What the heck!” As Adelie cradles the sorcery stone and backs away on the ground, Belial snaps at her. “No on the sorcery stone, no on the renaming! You’re being awfully unreasonable considering you’re in my debt!” “I-I am not! Hey, people watching this broadcast, am I being unreasonable?!” The cornered Adelie makes her appeal to the camera, when Alice murmurs something to Belial. “…Fine. We’ll just say you owe us a favor for this one. Hurry up and take your sorcery stone to the people who need it.” Adelie cowers as Belial suddenly becomes calmer, but she screws up the courage to announce to us. “I’ll be sure to repay this debt! But I win this time! The Hiiragi Agency of Order…” Adelie pauses a moment to build up dramatic tension. “Will never bow to evil!” And makes a pose toward the camera. “…” “W-w-wait! Are you mad because I was mugging for the camera?! I’ll apologize for that, but we’ll be on our way for now!” Belial, irked by Adelie’s posing, wordlessly shuffles toward her, prompting Adelie and her knights to flee. Having returned to our inn, we turn on the mystery TV. And here they return in triumph! Dame Adelheid, the Apostle summoned by Prince Madia by the Hiiragi Agency of Order, has brought back a sorcery stone! The crisis that was feared when the national treasure was stolen has now been averted! On the screen in front of us, Adelie is waving her hand to the camera, and the reporter declares loudly that it’s all thanks to Prince Madia. I look at this less-than-pleasing segment and turn to Alice as she dangles her legs off the side of the bed. “Hey, are you sure we made the right call here? It looks like game, set, match to me.” “As I told Lady Belial at the time, there’s still a plan C to go. But to get that to succeed, we can’t have her going on a rampage on camera.” Rose, who has been strangely quiet, says in response with a downturned gaze: “Um…is there any way we can help Tiger Man this time? He seems to have been really dedicated to helping Princess Nadia, and I have to admit I’d like to help make her wish come true, too.” It all got lost in the hubbub because Belial cut him off, but I’m pretty sure Tiger Man wants to get Nadia on the throne to stop this stupid fight over the succession. I don’t know what she’s like since we haven’t met her yet, but based on Tiger Man’s story, she seems better than the other two. “I can’t say anything about that for now. Tiger Man’s started it on his own, so it’s his responsibility to get it done.” Rose seems to deflate even more at Alice’s harsh judgment. “But Tiger Man is Kisaragi’s most powerful mutant. Even without our help, he might be able to snag a sorcery stone or two on his own.” “Miss Alice…you’re right. Evidently you can obtain one of those stones by defeating a superior dragon, and I can see Tiger Man going and hunting one!” Something about Rose’s statement makes something rattle around in my memory. Yeah, I feel like we’re forgetting something concerning sorcery stones… As I’m trying to remember whatever that might be, Belial excitedly asks Alice: “So what are we going to do now? You have this plan C, right?” “The plan itself is pretty simple. But to do it, we need a sorcery stone.” Alice then hops off the bed. “The sorcery stone should arrive in this city soon. Let’s go pick it up before Tiger Man notices!” We leave the city of Grunade and walk down the highway leading to the Midgard Mountains. …How long have we been walking? The sky starts to get darker, and we start setting up camp. Just then… “Hey, there’s someone coming this way.” With her exceptionally good instincts, Belial notices there’s someone approaching us from the other end of the highway. I turn to face that direction at her prompting. “You there! Could we trouble you for something to eat?! I am Snow, Knight Commander of the Grace Kingdom Royal Guard! Do not worry! I have no hostile intentions, and I have money to offer! So please…please give her something to eat!” Snow is there, with a slumped Heine on one shoulder, using her sword as a cane. 4 “Hey, gimme another piece of that bread! Also, more water!” “I’ll take more bread, too! Ah… The last time a simple piece of bread tasted this good…was when I was given a piece of rye bread at a soup kitchen after going five days without food when I lived in the slums…!” It seems they were famished; the two start vacuuming up the food I ordered with my Evil Points. As Snow weeps while gnawing on a piece of bread, Heine also starts to tear up for some reason. “You’ve had such a hard life… Here, have my piece of bread, too.” “Don’t be ridiculous, Heine, you need to eat that. I haven’t forgotten that you lied, telling me you didn’t like the gaminess of monster liver, and gave it to me, even though you love it so much, you were salivating just looking at it! I’m going to feed you until you burst!” They exchange tearful words as they eat their bread. Is it just me, or are they weirdly close now? I guess they became friends during the course of their survival training. “Here, this meat’s ready. It’s times like this I’m glad I’m a fire mage. It makes it easier to control the cooking fire.” “Heh… That’s the Heine I know. I’ll gratefully take it. But you take this skewer that looks the tastiest.” As they laugh and offer each other barbecued meat skewers… “If you two don’t want them, I’ll take them.” ““Ack!”” Completely oblivious to the friendly mood, Rose gobbles down the two skewers. “Why are you eating that skewer! I was trying to give it to Snow to eat…” “Heine was close to death earlier! Heine should have been the one to eat that…” Heine and Snow exchange glances after yelling at Rose and blush. “You two look ready to start a shipping company. When’d you start dating?” “You moron! Don’t tarnish our friendship!” “You always have your mind in the gutter! What can’t you just appreciate a friendship forged in the fires of adversity that goes beyond race and country?!”