Einheria Tour

“That too is part of Einheria’s greatness, isn’t it?”

Efaria murmured that softly as she looked at the goblins working on construction here and there.

“It’s still nowhere near large enough to be called a city, though.”

I replied to Efaria’s murmur as I looked over the town.

Right now, I was leading Efaria and the others through the castle gate and into the castle town. Though when I say Efaria and the others, Count Heldio was not here.

She was in the middle of negotiations with Ilmitt and the others, so a different civil official had come along as an attendant.

Incidentally, the reason I was personally guiding them was that I normally take Lumina out for walks as a break between paperwork, but since today was a special occasion, I decided to invite Efaria along.

Of course, I did not invite her as a king, but as a girl named Efaria… though it was incognito, staying cooped up in a room the whole time would be boring, so this was the Overlord’s considerate gesture.

Incidentally, when the Overlord takes Lumina outside during a walk, he does not dote on her in the utterly syrupy way he does in his room. Even with a pet, I am a sharp and dignified Overlord.

She was properly wearing a leash.

However, the one holding that leash was not me, but the maid girl walking beside me.

A tragic injustice.

“Accepting goblins… Einheria is likely the only country among the neighboring nations to have done such a thing.”

Without noticing my inner sorrow, Efaria spoke with an utterly serious expression.

“Probably. Normally, no single nation can decide on its own to protect an enemy created by all the surrounding countries acting as one. You’d be making every nation around you your enemy just to protect a minority, so personal feelings don’t matter there. Well, I think it’s an extremely foolish practice, but creating enemies outside your borders and strengthening ties within your own nation and among neighboring countries is not necessarily a bad move.”

“… As one of those who accepted that arrangement, feeling apologetic toward them is arrogance, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so. I didn’t know the customs around here, but even so, an apology as one of the humanfolk is still necessary. Well, whether the goblins forgive that or not is a separate matter.”

“…”

Saying nothing to Efaria, who lowered her gaze a little with a troubled expression, I turned my eyes toward Bangagonga walking beside us.

Efaria, following my gaze, likewise looked at the giant goblin.

“… We goblins lived while being oppressed by the humanfolk. That will surely remain within us forever as a wound that can never disappear.”

“…”

Efaria listened to Bangagonga’s words with a serious expression.

I myself accepted the goblins without putting that much deep thought into it… so even though I said something lofty, it is not as though I truly understand the feelings of the goblins, who were the victims.

That is why I thought listening to Bangagonga now might be a good opportunity for the future as well.

“Perpetrators tend to forget that they were perpetrators, but victims never forget that they were victims. I think only after the generations continue to pass… after four or five generations, or perhaps twice that long, until that sort of history is forgotten, will the knots of emotion finally begin to fade.”

“…”

Victims never forget that they were victims, huh… well, that makes sense.

If there were someone who could casually pretend that the several hundred years their entire race had been treated like vermin had never happened, then that person would not be some kind of saint.

To me, they would just be insane.

There are plenty of stories where someone tries to persuade another by saying hatred should just be forgotten, but generally, no one ever hears that and says, yeah, okay, I understand!

Hatred is a perfectly valid emotion too, so there’s no way it can be stopped by some smug, shallow words.

Besides, the people who say that sort of thing are always the ones who completely lose it and beat someone senseless the moment an ally gets hurt or insulted.

Leaving aside my twisted feelings, for the first time Efaria had come into direct contact with the results of the policy of driving out the goblins, a policy she had until now accepted without protest, and though her face had gone pale, she still did not look away and listened to Bangagonga.

“However, the goblins were perpetrators as well.”

“Huh…?”

At Bangagonga’s words, Efaria blinked in surprise.

“To begin with, the reason goblins came to be hated and loathed like venomous vermin was because our goblin ancestors led a great nation, waged war on other races, and persecuted many of them. Just as Lady Efaria wondered just now, it means that only now has the hatred toward goblins finally been forgotten.”

As he said that, Bangagonga bared his teeth in a fierce… smile.

For Efaria, who was not used to seeing that smile, it might have looked like he was threatening her.

“That is…”

Bangagonga’s words could be taken to mean that since the goblins had also once been perpetrators, this was simply reaping what they sowed, or they could be taken to mean that it takes a mind-numbing amount of time for hatred to fade.

Well, given Bangagonga’s personality, I knew it was the former, but for Efaria, that would likely be hard to interpret.

“By now, we no longer know just how cruel the actions of our ancestors, who had grown arrogant, truly were… but most likely, the only thing that happened was that the positions of victim and perpetrator were reversed.”

“They were merely reversed…?”

Do harm, have it returned, then return it again…

In the end, hatred is probably just that repeating over and over.

That is precisely why it goes on forever, and why that chain of negativity never ends…

If it were only a personal matter, someone could grit their teeth somewhere along the way and cut off that chain.

But goblins and humanfolk… this is not something that can be solved by saying someone just has to endure it.

Just as Bangagonga said earlier, the only way is likely for that hatred to be slowly thinned over a very long span of time.

“If possible… I would be glad if the generation without fences appeared in the not-too-distant future.”

Bangagonga, whose eyes had landed on a group of child goblins at just the right moment, said that with deep feeling.

“… Lord Fels became the wedge that cut through the resentment between goblins and humanfolk… the resentment that had swelled over such a long time, didn’t he?”

“Ku-ku-ku… Efaria, you are too stiff. I was not thinking of anything so grand.”

“You weren’t?”

Efaria turned an even more blankly surprised look on me than she had given Bangagonga earlier.

It had been like that even before we came here, but… I felt like Efaria had been praising me in a strangely exaggerated way.

Did something I said in yesterday’s meeting strike some special chord with her?

No, I did say I’d help her if she wasn’t lying… but that’s not exactly something that should make someone like me that much, right?

Well, she might be grateful for the help, but being told, make sure to verify things first, okay? is not the sort of thing I think a ten-year-old would simply accept.

Efaria is not an ordinary ten-year-old, though…

Well, whatever.

A powerful nation called Einheria, and me, the one who rules it.

She was probably flattering me so that after getting even a little help, she could secure more favorable terms.

That idea was off the mark, but there was no need to point that out…

After all, once her story is verified, we’ll lay out our terms openly anyway.

Thinking that, I gave Efaria a shrug.

“Efaria, after speaking with Bangagonga, what did you think?”

“Well… I suppose I felt apologetic, or rather guilty… in any case, it made me think about many things, both about what has happened until now and what lies ahead.”

“Hm, that’s not the kind of thing I was asking. I meant something simpler.”

“Something simpler…?”

“Yeah, for example… he looks scary, but seems kind, or… is this person really a goblin? Or… maybe he’s actually a bear pretending to be a goblin…”

“Hey, Fels. All of that is just insults.”

“Is it? I was praising that magnificent physique of yours…”

At my words, Bangagonga shot me a flat stare.

Though, with a flat stare like that, he looked like he could shoot down a bear too.

Efaria, who had been listening to our exchange, opened her mouth in surprise.

“You two… are very close, aren’t you?”

“… Lady Efaria, what Fels said just now was entirely an insult.”

“You’re so cold, Bangagonga. As your friend, that makes me sad.”

“…”

Bangagonga once again gave me a flat stare.

Seeing the two of us like that, Efaria let out a small laugh this time.

“Hehe… you really are close. I’m truly surprised.”

Whether she meant me, Bangagonga, or both…

Either way, Efaria seemed surprised, and showed a cheerful smile befitting her age.

“What I wanted to ask was… in other words, this. Bangagonga and I can talk. Despite his appearance, Bangagonga is a good man and dependable too. And I only understood that because we spoke.”

At my words, Efaria nodded as though she understood.

“To persecute someone you barely know because others tell you to. Isn’t that a terrible waste?”

“… You are exactly right.”

“That is why I joined hands with Bangagonga and the goblins. Of course, among goblins too there are good ones and bad ones. But that is something to judge on an individual basis, not something to declare about an entire race.”

“…”

“Besides, even if words can be understood, there are opponents you still cannot come to an understanding with… for example, that prince from the country we mentioned.”

“That… I understand very well.”

“And the one here is another opponent whose words could be understood, yet with whom conversation could not be established.”

We had arrived at a warehouse in one corner of the castle town.

This was also one of today’s destinations.

“… In here…?”

“You can rest easy. It won’t bite.”

At my joking words, Efaria nodded with a somewhat tense expression.

Well, it’s not as if there were any actual danger, so there shouldn’t be a problem.

I signaled with my eyes to the maid girl beside me, and while still holding Lumina’s leash, she slowly opened the door.

Today, even more than usual, I hadn’t been able to give Lumina much attention during the walk…

Once we get back to the room, I’ll brush her carefully and then play with her.

“… Wow.”

While I was paying more attention to Lumina than to the opening door, Efaria, standing beside me, let out an awed voice in a dazed tone.

Cold air rushed out from beyond the opened door.

Though it was called a warehouse, it was not cluttered with various goods.

There was only one thing there: in the very center of the wide warehouse sat a gigantic block of ice.

And inside it… was the Ground Dragon’s head, preserved unchanged.

“So this is that calamity, the Ground Dragon… It’s enormous… And even just the head alone has overwhelming presence…”

Efaria stood there with her mouth hanging open, and her expression was clearly not one befitting a Holy King…

But since there was no point in bringing that up, I pretended not to notice and turned my eyes back to the dragon’s head.

On the way, I caught sight of Efaria’s attendant’s face for a moment, and he too had his mouth hanging wide open as though his jaw might fall off.

“Yeah. It certainly has an impressive appearance.”

“So Lord Fels fought something this terrifying…”

“It was mostly all show, though.”

“All show… that can’t be… This is the Ground Dragon, famed as a calamity, isn’t it?”

Efaria tore her gaze from the dragon’s head and looked up at me, so I gave a small shrug.

“But in reality, it hardly became much of a battle. What do you think, Bangagonga?”

“Unfortunately, I did not see you fighting the dragon. I was directing the evacuation.”

“Directing the evacuation…?”

As if something caught her attention, Efaria tilted her head while looking toward Bangagonga.

“Yes. I only saw the dragon from a distance as it flew in. However… while we were taking shelter inside the walls and doing a head count, the state of maximum alert was lifted, and word came that the dragon had been slain. So I believe there is no doubt the battle did not last very long. Come to think of it, though I barely saw it, I did hear the dragon’s voice. It seemed to be speaking with Lord Fels, but since all I could hear clearly was the dragon’s voice, I have no idea what kind of exchange took place…”

“… Um, Lord Fels? There are too many things I want to ask. I don’t even know where to begin…”

After hearing Bangagonga’s explanation, Efaria, now even more confused than before, turned to me.

“You may ask whatever comes to mind.”

“Um… then, when you say the dragon flew here… do you mean to this town?”

“That’s right.”

“W-why this town?”

“Because this town—or rather, Einheria Castle—is in the Dragon’s Roost.”

“This is the Dragon’s Roost!?”

Huh?

That’s where she starts?

… Come to think of it, we came here by teleportation from the old Lumoria royal capital, and since the dragon threat had already been eliminated, maybe I never told her?

“Yeah. This is the Dragon’s Roost.”

“No way… To think Einheria Castle was in the Dragon’s Roost… No wonder we could never find it no matter how much we investigated…”

She looked incredibly shocked…

I thought that since the dragon had already been dealt with, she wouldn’t worry too much, but I guess that and this are separate matters.

“Um… I think you mentioned it before we entered this warehouse as well, but… did you really speak with the dragon, Lord Fels?”

“Yeah. It seemed like it could understand words. But since it failed to become a proper conversation and in the end tried to harm us, I decided to kill it.”

“… Even so, you still tried to speak with it… With this dragon…”

Efaria stared up blankly at the dragon’s head.

Was it really that shocking…?

No, I suppose so.

To me, it was not much of an opponent, but it was still a dragon called a calamity.

Efaria’s reaction was probably the normal one.

If someone in Japan told me, well, a lion attacked me, but I tried talking to it first, I would absolutely recoil.

If anything, Efaria did not seem so much horrified as simply stunned, so in that respect she was definitely kinder than I would have been.

“I had already thought of Lord Fels as a person too great to be expressed in words… but it seems my understanding was still far too shallow.”

Was it because I had just been thinking something strange?

Even though Efaria was surely praising me, somehow it felt like she had just called me an incredible idiot.

“I tried talking because I thought it would be a creature with at least a little more reason… but that thing was merely a beast capable of using words. Well, now it is nothing more than a large ornament… anyway, it’s cold in here, so shall we move on to the next place? Count Heldio and the others will probably need to be brought here too, and since this is your second time, you can enjoy watching their surprise with a bit more composure.”

“Hehe… thank you very much. I’ll do just that.”

Her attendant still seemed stunned, but Efaria had already returned to normal.

As expected of a Holy King.

“Well then, Bangagonga, lead us to the next place.”

“… That’s fine, but… are you really going to take them there?”

“Would that be a problem?”

“… I really can’t recommend it.”

Bangagonga, still sounding hesitant, voiced his objection regarding our next planned destination.

“Is something the matter?”

“No, it’s nothing. Bangagonga, could you guide us to the clock tower set up in the square?”

When I said that, Bangagonga’s expression brightened.

Probably.

So taking them to that field really was that bad, huh…

Well, I do think it would have even more impact than the dragon’s head.

Personally, I was curious about their reaction and wanted them to see it at least once…

But I can understand Bangagonga’s concern, so I suppose we should obediently settle for showing them the clock.

If the Lufelon Holy Kingdom is going to come under our banner, then we will need to align things like units of time as well.

That sort of thing will probably be worked out in detail later, but for today, a simple explanation as part of the tour should be good enough.

A tour of the sheep field that our glorious Einheria takes pride in will have to wait for another time.