——The City of Rookie, Northern Nations.
A strange pair walked through the streets of Rookie—a city taken in by the Demon Lord’s army through a series of scheming and plotting: Tahara, the mastermind behind the acquisition, and Hummer. The former had come to pick up a few things and check on the city, and the latter had asked to tag along.
“This place is bumpin’. Economic growth is a helluva drug, ain’t it?” Tahara joked.
“I— I heard they discovered a new level of the dungeon...” Hummer said timidly.
“Bingo! Just as soon as the Secretary got his hands on it. Ever wonder how far ahead he sees? My head would explode if I had to think through everything he sees.” Tahara frowned as if simply imagining that had brought on a headache. Alas, the Demon Lord had as much foresight as a blind rat.
Regardless of the Demon Lord’s intentions—or lack thereof—Rookie was teeming with adventurers who traveled from all corners of the continent while voices of street vendors rose like a continuous, burbling stream. More and more vendors were selling weapons, armor, and items useful for dungeon crawling. Even the inns and restaurants were booming from open to close thanks to the influx of customers and cash flow, all stemming from the discovery of the new dungeon level.
“And the ones who found it were working on the Secretary’s orders,” Tahara pointed out.
“Y-Yessir. Adventurers Yukikaze and Mikan.”
“Huh. Are they famous or something?”
“As famous as famous can be. They are celebrities among the adventurer community—shining stars, unlike myself... I never caught a break adventuring,” Hummer said.
“Another seed planted by the Secretary blooms... It never stops, does it?”
Tahara’s generous misunderstanding was warranted. Since the Invasion, the city of Rookie had practically been a disaster zone. Now, shortly after the acquisition, its economy was booming. Tahara was shaking his head at what he imagined to be the depth of the Demon Lord’s scheming...when he suddenly beamed. “Get this, Hummy! You know those fish you caught yesterday? Manami chowed those down! She said she’s never had fish that good! You should have seen that glorious, Grand Angel smile! Something like that could bring back the dead!”
“I-I’m g-greatly...honored?”
“You put a smile on the face of the Secretary and my Grand Angel! You and I are BFFs now! Keep up the good work, Hummy!” Tahara said, repeatedly clapping Hummer on the back and finally putting him in a headlock.
“Ow, ow, ow...” Hummer felt nothing but pain from Tahara’s friendly gesture. “D-Does the Grand Angel enjoy seafood...?”
Tahara’s eyes became fixed on the distance, lost in a reverie of their days on the streets. “We skipped out on our shit parents when we were kids. For a while, we lived in a damp corner of the docks, living off of the fish I’d nick off of boats. I’ll never forget how that fish tasted.”
Hummer could only say, “Th-That must have been...difficult,” despite the countless questions bubbling in his head: How could an angel skip out on her parents? Then, he recalled how the Fallen Angel had been exiled from Heaven in the myths, and somehow made it make sense.
“Those fishermen had tempers, so you really didn’t wanna get caught... After that, we ended up in a Shinto shrine run by this old fart. It feels like I’m always thinking back on those days.”
“Shinto... Old fart?” Hummer asked.
“His name’s Sougen Okuda—the most powerful guy in the world, but only for three minutes. What a joke, right? Even the Secretary and the other higher-ups of the Empire made sure to stay on his good side,” Tahara said.
Hummer felt like his head was about to implode from all of the incomprehensible statements. His only option for maintaining his sanity was explaining them away as tales of a distant world above the clouds.
Then, a trio of thugs walked over—ones Hummer knew well.
“Well, well, well... If it isn’t useless Hummer.”
“You thought you were good enough to take a swing at the new level?”
“Nah, he wants to pay us to tutor him again, right?”
Hummer quivered at their voices, frozen by the trauma of these thugs always strong-arming him for every coin he had.
Tahara gave them a glance and said, “How’d these cartoonish trash heaps roll in? I gotta have a word with the security team.”
“Huh?! Who are you supposed to be, bozo?!”
“What are you, the pig wrangler? You’re about to owe us big time for a special lesson.”
“Take it easy... Hey, Hummer! Go get us some booze, like old times!”
Tahara silently lit a cigarette as he stepped forward.
One of the thugs stepped up, swaggering. He bumped into Tahara and tumbled to the ground with all the acting skills of a lousy soccer player. “That hurts... You broke my arm!”
“Hey, dirtbag! You better pay us medical expenses. Let’s start with—” The thug cried out in agony as Tahara—hands still in his pockets—landed a roundhouse kick straight from a kickboxing textbook. The sound of his arm shattering echoed in the streets.
Next, Tahara stomped on his right leg, smashing the bone and drawing out an agonized shriek from thug number two. “Sure is broken,” Tahara said.
Hummer was frozen in place, unable to react to the split-second retaliation. The final thug—the only one still uninjured—crumpled to the ground in the face of Tahara’s brutality.
Blowing out smoke, Tahara looked down at him like he was trash. “No one’s gonna make my BFF their bitch... Get up and go get us our booze!”
“Y-Yes, sir!” Thug number three rushed to his feet and ran off like the wind.
Tahara sat on a nearby crate like nothing had happened and took a drag.
Finally, a city guard and his captain arrived. “G-Grand Foreman! I am terribly sorry for this! Thugs like them are flooding the place these days...”
“I don’t pay you to patrol the city just to hear your excuses,” Tahara said.
“Forgive me... With adventurers coming in from all over, we have not had enough eyes on the streets,” the captain said.
“Well... Part of that is on me—I should have wised up to the Secretary’s plans.” Tahara said as he stood from his crate and casually handed five gold coins to the captain. This was his way of maintaining the popularity of the Demon Lord’s regime. “My bad. I’ll make sure you get more men soon. Take the squad out for some drinks tonight.”
“Th-Thank you, Grand Foreman!” The captain thoroughly expressed his gratitude before hauling the thugs away. With five gold coins, he could treat his entire team to as much fine wining and dining as he wanted. It was plenty of money to boost his squad’s morale.
As soon as the captain left, thug number three returned with a bottle of wine in each hand—which Tahara rejected with a chuckle. “Go take it to your buds in lieu of a fruit basket. By the way...I don’t give third chances.”
“Y-Yes, sir! I’m sorry!” The thug couldn’t flee the scene—and Tahara’s predatory gaze—fast enough. All the while, Hummer had been as still as a statue.
“Wakey, wakey, Hummy!”
“Huh?!”
“I’d better send for those new guards quick. Let’s hit the road,” Tahara said.
“Y-Yessir!”
The pair continued down the crowded street, the contrast between Tahara’s slender yet muscular stature and Hummer’s portliness almost comical.
As they walked, those who recognized Tahara made way, pulling aside those who didn’t.
“What’d you do that for?!” one of them asked his companion, who’d pulled him to the side of the road.
“Dumbass! That’s the Grand Foreman who took over the city!”
“N-No way... He’s that young...?”
While whispers passed along the parted crowd, Hummer stopped and said apologetically, “Sorry, sir. I’d like to make a little detour...”
“Oh? No worries, Hummy. I’ll go with you”
“I-I wouldn’t dare take your time, given how busy you are as Grand Foreman!”
“We don’t get out of the village enough. Let’s do something non-work-related, huh?” Tahara said, pushing the reluctant Hummer along.
Hummer stopped to purchase a pail before leading him to a run-down fishing port with several fisherman’s huts that indicated how the port had once thrived—now, they had all been eroded by ocean spray.
“This place is pretty run-down... They don’t fish around these parts anymore?” Tahara asked.
“Fishing was a huge industry when I was a kid, but Euritheis fishermen started scaring off the locals with battleships.”
“And the port was abandoned.”
Hummer crouched down by a large rock and began cleaning an altar so dilapidated that it was impossible to tell what deity it might have worshipped.
Tahara watched curiously before asking, “What’s that? Some kind of altar for a god of this world?” He chuckled, seeing how diligently Hummer cleaned the altar.
Hummer chuckled too. “I actually have no idea. Coming here...calmed me down, somehow. Whoever this altar was built for, they and I have something in common—everyone seemed to forget about us.” Tahara couldn’t see Hummer’s face, but he noticed how his back hunched with loneliness. Still, Hummer dipped his rag into the pail over and over, scrubbing the forgotten altar. “Unlike everyone else, no one’s ever needed me. By doing this, I felt like I was commiserating with someone. Whoever this altar was made for, they’d probably take offense to that...”