All was peaceful on the ground as well. I only wished that we hadn’t been surrounded by the flock of mermerls.
They were, on the whole, moving. But there were so many of them around us that the two of us had been totally stuck. We each had water and rations on hand, so we ate where we stood.
Now in charge of eye gunk removal, the prince was leisurely engaging with the mermerls.
I had my hands free, but even if I wanted to do something, I was too scared of the mermerls surrounding me. I’d tried to get them to warm up to me by similarly grooming them, but they ignored me, thinking that I was a whiskered barbarian. They seemed to prefer the pretty little prince, anyhow.
Damn, did these monsters have to be so openly honest?
“Oh, right... Wal? Is it okay if I ask you some questions? I need to verify a few things.”
“I’d be happy to tell you anything I know,” Wald gently replied.
I lowered my voice. “I want to know more about the adventurer’s guild. Does the guild hold as much power as a state?”
Wald’s hands stopped.
When the mermerls sensed his heightened stress, they began to bleat agitatedly.
This was a mistake—I shouldn’t have asked him that just then. But just as I began to panic, the prince quickly stroked the mermerls on their heads to placate them.
“If you’re asking whether they’re equivalent to a state, then no, they’re not considered equal,” he began. “Regardless of the de facto situation, the adventurer’s guild is—just as with the mercantile and craftsman guilds—a private organization for the people. It’s an entity legally protected by the countries in which it’s established.”
“So, does that mean they can’t issue orders to a state?”
“That’s correct. The guild is not a sovereign nation in and of itself. They actually have to pay taxes, and they ordinarily maintain a position of subordination to the state. I suppose they could offer advice to the state, but they are by no means on equal grounds.”
“I see... But wouldn’t their actions against Tiuccia be considered interventionism?” I asked.
And if so, considering their position as a private organization, couldn’t their interventionism be considered unjust?
The prince closed his emerald green eyes tightly. “Correct again. It would, indeed, be considered interventionism. The case six years ago has already been closed. By all rights, they shouldn’t be able to mete out additional punishment...”
Right, they shouldn’t.
Which meant...
“That’s why they needed Khrasiel to take the stage,” I suggested.
Something Sakita had said back in Tachyrinn had been gnawing at the back of my mind.
Six years ago, Tiuccia had paid the guild’s demands for the incident, so the whole issue should have been considered a closed case. The erasure of names from the Right of Rule was House Tiuccia’s problem, which meant it was Tiuccia’s own internal affair.
The adventurer’s guild wasn’t a nation. It had neither the right nor the qualifications to voice a complaint about a domestic issue in a sovereign nation.
“They really had their own go at ‘peace unto the land, plenty for king and pauper all,’ didn’t they?” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, it’s a reference to a famous historical event in my old world. Although the victim hadn’t committed any wrongs, the perpetrator deliberately misconstrued those words as an insult and used them to justify the use of force.”
The story went that, back in the Warring States period in Japan, the Toyotomi clan had presented a bell to Hokoji Temple. Those words had been inscribed on it. Ieyasu Tokugawa, the shogun then, had deliberately misinterpreted the text to be a slight on his name and rule. He had then launched a series of battles against the Toyotomi in the Siege of Osaka, which had ended in the annihilation of their entire clan.
In this situation, the offense taken regarding the names that’d been erased from Tiuccia’s Right of Rule was likely being used as a pretext for war. Ordinarily, the removal of names from a family line would be considered a punishment for those people. Given that, House Tiuccia should’ve been lauded for their decision—not criticized.
Maybe Sakita had a grudge against House Tiuccia.
But there was a clear possibility that the adventurer’s guild might’ve exploited both his hatred and Khrasiel as a whole for their own ends...
I asked Wald whether the adventurer’s guild and Khrasiel had some sort of special relationship, and his reply affirmed my suspicions.
“The current queen of Khrasiel is a transmigrator,” Wald answered.
Not only that, but she had been one of the transmigrators who had left Tiuccia six years ago. Given that, it was easy to guess that she and the guild were connected behind the scenes.
I’d heard that Raghion held no sway over the adventurer’s guild, and in fact, it had been the other way around—they said the guild was controlling the empire. It wouldn’t be a long shot to imagine Khrasiel was also controlling Raghion.
“I see. Looks like Tiuccia might’ve been set up for a fall,” I suggested.
I didn’t know the actual truth of the events that had transpired all those years ago. All I could do was make a stab at it by considering the circumstances after the fact.
“At any rate, as far as the removal of names from the Right of Rule goes, neither the guild nor Khrasiel nor anyone else, for that matter, is entitled to interfere with Tiuccia’s domestic affairs. In fact, I think you and your house have suffered the most out of anyone—it couldn’t have been an easy decision to erase the names of family you once knew, to pretend they had never existed at all,” I said.
After all, the members of Tiuccia’s royal house had seemed to be so close to one another.
Besides, the excuse about resolving the tragedy of Tariyth was nothing more than a pretext in my eyes.
The members of the Tiuccian royal family who had been involved had been killed; the guild had exacted its revenge. If the guild’d gotten their pound of flesh and had closed discussions, then the angered transmigrators had no choice but to accept the outcome. If they’d had an issue with how the situation had been resolved, they should have voiced their dissent at the time.
“Huh?”
The air crackled.
He’s an enemy, isn’t heee?
For some reason, I could sense hostility distinctly rising from the mermerls.
He’s bullying the little one, riiight?
The little one’s cryiiing.
The little one’s crying because of hiiim.
The accusations startled me. “Wait, what?”
Clear tears were rolling down Wald’s fair cheeks. When the mermerls around him saw his tears trickle down his face, they started bleating. They sounded concerned.
Then, the creatures turned to glare at the object of their ire: me.
He’s a bad person, yeeeah?
He’s making the little one cry, yeaaah?
So that means he really is an enemy, riiight?
Sudden peril was staring me in the face.
“Wait,” I said.
I wanted to back away from the balls of fluff sparking with electricity, but the mermerls behind me blocked my retreat.
Wait, we can talk this out! If you strike me with lightning now, I’ll probably survive, but the “little one” there will get caught in the blast and die, you know?!
Then, after that happened, they’d get really pissed off and kill me for real. I could see it all unfolding already.
“I’m okay,” Wald said. “Don’t worry.”
The mermerls’ spiking hostility faded at the sound of the prince’s gentle voice.
Are you really okay, little ooone?
Have you cheered uuup?
Is everything fiiine?
They looked up at him concernedly. He smiled gently down at them...and seeing that, I thought he’d probably make a pretty good Monster Tamer. His charisma was no joke.
“Can you let me through?” he asked.
At his entreaty, the mermerls who had been standing between me and Wald stepped aside.
“This whole time, I’ve wished that someone would understand how I felt. Thank you, Kariya...”
Now standing before me, Wald gave me a glowing smile through the tears that still dampened his cheeks.
He reached out and wrapped his arms around me in a great hug, which I returned...and we Jumped the hell out of that flock of mermerls.
Damn, I Jumped really far. I drained all of my MP.
Back in Golden Dawn, players had used the term “mermerl death” to refer to someone getting killed by a flock of sheep. I didn’t want to die because of sheep here—the embarrassment would kill me twice over.
“Oh, I see the outer walls of a town,” Wald suddenly said.
I looked out across the plains, now green with newly budding grass heralding the coming of spring.
Sure enough, looming on the horizon were the tall, ashen stone walls of a large town.