“Uuuuugh, luckyyyy!” Emma cried when George and William got home and started talking about the field trip. “Father, I wanna go too! I wanna see the monsters in the other regions!”
“But, Emma, you’re supposed to be taking time off from school... It’d be better for you to just stay put...” Though Leonard faltered before Emma’s insistent pleading, he still tried his best to stand his ground.
“That’s exactly why I should, father!”
“Myah!”
“Reowr rawr!”
“Mya mya!”
“Mya nyao!”
“See? The General and her company want to go too!” Emma and the cats were begging Leonard, nearly pushing him to the brink with their puppy dog eyes.
“Nngh... But you know that I want to go too!” Leonard admitted. “The Skyte region’s the farthest borderland from Pallas! I just know the types of monsters that show up there will be completely different!” Fighting a large vaQriety of monsters was a hunter’s dream, and building up that experience would make them stronger in the end. A hunter’s skills were a matter of life-and-death to those in the border regions.
“But there are a bunch of regions that won’t accept hunters from anywhere else, no matter how much they’re struggling, because they Qhave their ways of dealing with the monsters’...” William tilted his head, unable to understand why they’d be so stubbornly inefficient. The closer one was to the capital, the smaller the border area they’d need to patrol. As such, many of these regions determined they could handle the border themselves and didn’t have much need to cooperate—and they were quite stubborn about it. The Skyte region was the closest to the capital, so they were the most dogged about those beliefs.
“And that’s why Pallas always winds up getting stuck training the hunters who don’t have much experience with the barrier...” George said, a faraway look in his eye as he realized that Uncle Arven would be preparing to train a new batch right about then.
Number five of the Six Precepts for Regional Monster Subjugation stated lords of regions on the border of the barrier must regularly accept hunters from regions where monsters aren’t present and train them in the art of monster slaying. Before anyone could object, it was decided that it should take place during the farmers’ off season (though it wasn’t like hunters were all working on farms or anything). The other lands would complain that the snow was just too biting cold or whatever as some poor excuse to pawn the duty off to Pallas since it was the region that was the furthest south.
“And the government doesn’t budget for that sort of thing either...all the funding comes from the region who’s training them.” While they were fine now, Emma remembered just how hard it was back when they’d been poor. The land in charge of training these hunters was in charge of finding lodgings, providing food, treating any injuries that might occur, and finding proper equipment for everyone. It was extremely costly, and the winters were already rough to begin with.
“Right... And then there were all those hardheaded noble heirs who’d never even seen the barrier before getting it into their heads that they could handle it with book smarts alone... Teaching them was a pain too...” Leonard’s face darkened. They wouldn’t listen to anything he said, and if he got mad at them, they’d get all sulky, cry, then run out into the night and get drunk and cause all sorts of problems...
“Gosh, I sure hope Uncle Arven’s okay...”
All four of them sighed.
“But that’s why I think it’s so important that students at the academy participate in this field trip! There’s lots of stuff you can’t learn in books when it comes to Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques.”
“Myah!”
“Meow!”
“Nyaah!”
“Myamya!”
Emma and the cats all pleaded with Leonard once more, with eyes screaming, So is it okay if we go toooo?
“Er... Um...”
“It’s fine with me.”
“Melsa?!”
Melsa entered the room right as Leonard was being pushed to the brink, and he whipped around to face her.
“As it turns out, I heard something interesting from one of the women at a tea party I recently attended. Each student who participates in this field trip can have up to two guardians accompanying them on the trip.” She figured that since they still hadn’t solved the issues with the Minato doppelgänger, it would be better for the family to all go together rather than any of them being split up.
Melsa was the only family member still attending social events, so she’d gotten them some useful information. Unfortunately, she’d seen it through the context of her previous life, in which “guardian” referred to “parent.” In this world, it usually referred to a bodyguard or servant who looked after someone. Naturally, the guardians that the women at the tea party had been referring to were the latter kind. No normal noble lord or lady would want to go along with a field trip involving hands-on experience hunting monsters. It was one of the few times Melsa made a silly mistake, and as usual, nobody in the Stewart family noticed.
“So that means you and I can join too!” Leonard agreed, not doubting her for a second.
“Wait, really?! So, does that mean we can invite four more guardians?! The more the merrier, right?” Emma asked.
“Myah!”
“Myah!”
“Myah!”
“Myah!”
Kongming, Liu, Guan, and Zhang all raised their paws to volunteer, having waited for just that moment.
“God, they’re so cute...” Seeing all four cats in a row with their paws raised like that looked like a group of giant maneki-neko. The family had never felt more blessed.
“But, unfortunately... I don’t know about cats...” Melsa didn’t want to be the one to say it, but it sounded impossible. She shook her head.
“Mrowr?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Meanwhile, at the castle...
“Absolutely not.”
The lord of the Skyte region had come to see Juana, who was living in the castle. He was the man who had rescued her when she was found wandering the forest.
“Lady Juana... My people are all waiting with bated breath to be in your presence.” Every year, more and more monsters appeared in the Skyte region, and the people there were filled with anxiety. It had been a few months since he’d seen Juana’s black hair and eyes and sent his son to deliver her to the castle. Now that Juana had been officially canonized by the church, he had written her countless letters begging her to come offer her sympathies to his people.
“I said as much in my letters. I am far too busy. I don’t have the time to visit.” Unfortunately, Juana had rejected every proposal without fail. Thus, the lord had come up with another plan:
The school’s field trip that year would be in the Skyte region.
With the king attending, there would be far more knights accompanying him than there would have been for a single saint. The hunters would be available at all times during the field trip, so they might have a chance to enter the forest that had been deemed too dangerous to ever set foot in. The lord proposed that if she came along, it would be a chance for Juana to visit her dead grandmother’s grave.
But Juana rejected even that proposal with a snort. “Heh. Well, my apologies, but...I can’t leave the capital at the moment.” The capital was the center of the country. It was the safest and most opulent place around. Could someone really have changed this much in only a few months? Was this really someone the church had canonized? Someone who wouldn’t even show a little mercy to the people of her home, who lived in fear each day?
She now lived in a beautiful room in the castle. When the lord had met her, she’d only had the clothes on her back. Now, Juana was wearing the lavish uniform reserved only for those privileged enough to attend the academy. She was living in the castle as royalty, worshipped as a saint in the church, and never had to worry about monsters or going hungry. It did sound awfully appealing. However, as someone who had lived in the Skyte region until just a few months ago, she should have known that her pleasant lifestyle was only possible through the sacrifices of those living on the border.
She should have known, yet she still took such an attitude.
“Then I won’t ask again. Goodbye.” The one-armed lord of the Skyte region left the saint’s room dejectedly.