16-7 Mao X Raccoon, Again

The venue froze at what Fal had indicated.

Seeing the transformed atmosphere, Fal looked up at me in puzzlement.

I nodded and took over from Fal.

“And Elion-sama has also said this. If you do not listen, she will pull all the spirits out of this country.”

That declaration was equivalent to a death sentence for this country.

After all, if that happened, judgment equal to the Dark Age without Fals would come only to this country in the entire world.

The participants in the venue wore expressions of despair.

And the handsome Count Richter was trembling.

He had a look on his face like, “You actually did it, you bastard.”

“Summon, Great High Priest Jolly of the Spirit Forest!”

Ignoring Richter, I declared it loudly.

It was nothing special.

I had simply used myself as a marker and activated the teleportation bracelet I had put on him.

Jolly appeared with a puff, along with smoke.

His mouth was covered in cream.

I had merely added a very stereotypical magical effect to make it look that way.

Maybe I should consider a dry-ice performance next time.

“Huh? Where’s my cake? Where am I?”

Silence ruled the venue at the pathetic disgrace of the great high priest of the spirits, who had suddenly appeared like that.

“Ah, Master.”

(((Master…?)))

“Ah, this guy is Jolly, the Great High Priest of the Spirit Forest, which is Sacred Elion’s home base. He is my apprentice. Jolly, actually, this and that happened.”

Jolly wiped his mouth and barely managed to recover the dignity of the Great High Priest of the Spirit Forest.

Although he still looked like a cute child.

That was fine, but since this was his big moment, he should have come out in his true form instead of a human one.

That would have had more impact.

This guy was always in a humanized state, so I had never seen his true form.

Recently, Fal had been the same way too.

Damn them. Was it easier to eat snacks while in human form?

“People of the Empire, quickly hand over the confectionery craftsman to Sacred Elion-sama. Otherwise, I do not know what may happen. After all, Fal-sama is still a child who was born only recently. There is no telling what she may do. Even we, spirits who attend her are trembling in fear.”

Hearing that, the imperial nobles began to murmur.

This was already an outrage committed while fully aware it was unreasonable.

The frozen expressions on the imperial nobles’ faces were a sight to see.

Then the person responsible was brought forward as if pushed out.

Poor man, he had completely shrunk in on himself.

Then the patron of Count Brown, called by the half-drooping man, came forward.

Apparently, he was Marquis Clift.

In the end, he was the one who would guide us to Count Brown.

Being guided by him, we arrived at Count Brown’s mansion by carriage, but things became difficult from there.

We had the estate guard announce us, but he came back looking troubled and said,

“He says he does not wish to meet you…”

“I do not wish to meet you” was not going to cut it.

His own patron, a marquis, had come in person.

Normally, after receiving such an urgent visit, it would not have been strange for the man himself to come flying all the way to the gate in a panic.

This was another serious case.

I understood.

I understood your feelings.

I had spent a long time as a shut-in after becoming an adult too.

That was why…

“Lord Granburst, he is now at the very depths of despair. Please let this be enough for tonight. I shall certainly send the confectionery craftsman to the Albatross Kingdom. Therefore…”

To think even the Empire had kind nobles like this.

But I did not let him say everything.

With a small, restrained flare spell, I blew the mansion gate away in flashy fashion.

“Y-you! What in the world are you doing so suddenly?”

Even the seemingly gentle marquis changed color at that.

An act of destruction against a noble family’s mansion.

And with attack magic, no less.

No matter how much I was treated as a high-ranking noble, it was not something a foreigner should be allowed to do.

It was certain to become a major problem, especially considering the current relationship between our countries.

On top of that, I had gone out of my way to come here despite being busy because a royal in charge of national intelligence had asked me to “go make a scene.”

If such a story leaked out, an immediate war in the form of “a declaration of war from the Albatross Kingdom” would be unavoidable.

Well, neither I nor that Michael were that stupid, though.

But I shot back at the marquis without backing down.

“For this kind of person, it is better to give him a shock. The more time passes, the worse the darkness inside him becomes, until he can no longer turn back and shuts himself inside his home. Since I myself was exactly like that until very recently, that much is certain in this harsh world.”

When the marquis heard that, his eyes widened, and he muttered,

“My, my. You truly are as much of a wild man as the rumors say.”

Then all he could do was hold his head.

Still, that count.

Even after I did all this, he still would not come outside.

What admirable shut-in spirit.

Then I suppose I would go to him myself.

I strode into the mansion grounds without permission.

In addition to property damage, the crime of unlawful entry was added to my record.

The guard had collapsed at the gate.

But the mansion door would not open.

A siege?

No, since it was a noble family’s mansion, maybe this was only natural.

Hmm, I see.

So you are shutting out this Demon King-sama?

I filled my palm with power.

The eight-million-HP power that I always kept sealed away.

Even the larger dragon in the Adros Labyrinth had only around one hundred thousand HP at most.

The luxurious, sturdy-looking, tasteful door was easily smashed to pieces by brute strength alone, and the sound of destruction echoed through the mansion.

Using my Radar MAP, I marched forward as if this were my own home.

A maid who unfortunately ran into me by accident screamed and fled.

That was because I was spewing out a mighty Demon King aura that I had raised to a level even ordinary people could see.

At this point, this kind of thing was starting to become a kind of pleasure.

I was heading straight toward becoming a Demon King.

After all, this was the enemy nation, the Bernstein Empire.

Until now, the Empire had done whatever it wanted to us, but this was the first time we were attacking them.

I was unintentionally happy about it.

The master of the mansion, whom I had already detected by radar, was in the living room.

However, he was completely haggard and sat weakly on the sofa, while scattered wine bottles and glasses exposed their disorderly limbs on the table in front of him.

Looking at those items, I could tell he had quite refined taste, but with such a miserable scene, those fine articles had gone completely to waste.

“Ah, Marquis Clift. It has been a while…”

He said that hollowly, without even standing up.

Among nobles, this was probably considered extremely rude, but the marquis showed no sign of reproaching him.

However, I did not miss the slight flicker of emotion in Count Brown’s eyes when he noticed the marquis at the edge of his vision.

His hair was brown, just like his name, and his eyes were an intelligent-looking blue.

He was utterly exhausted, but his features did not contain even the slightest trace of vulgarity.

Since he seemed to have originally had an active personality, judging from what I had heard, he must have been the intelligent yet bright, sociable, and charming type.

Marquis Clift gently opened his mouth toward him in a lightly admonishing tone.

It was almost as if he were speaking to his beloved son.

“Lowry. If you keep drinking so recklessly, you will eventually ruin your body. Considering your present situation, I will not tell you not to drink. But did I teach you to drink so irresponsibly? You must care for your own body.”

Count Brown merely listened in silence as the marquis spoke to him gently, but the light in his eyes recovered a portion of its brilliance, and he seemed a little closer to normal.

It looked as though the young Count Brown adored Marquis Clift like a father.

This guy might move if we pushed him.

Then, “for some reason,” Marquis Clift gave a small cough and continued speaking.

In noble etiquette, was this a signal that he had rung some kind of gong?

“This is extremely difficult to say to you in your current state, but the truth is, we have had to hand over the confectionery craftsman in your employ to the Albatross Kingdom.”

“What did you say!Him? N-no. Even you, even you will take something from me!?”

Count Brown suddenly stood up and pleaded through tears.

Was it something like, “Even the marquis I revere as a father is turning against me”?

Well, at the very least, this shut-in bastard seemed to have recovered a little vitality now.

Was deliberately giving him this kind of treatment also a form of parental love—or rather, patronal love?

“You must not resist, Lowry. This gentleman is a wild man known as the noble-killer. Now, he is even called the ‘duke-killer.’ The duke-killer.”

Then, in a gesture clear enough for Count Brown to understand, the marquis deliberately “glanced” toward me.

That kind of thing was no longer a glance at all.

It was like some kind of play or something.

For that sort of thing, you had to act it so the audience could properly understand it too.

Come to think of it, “line of sight” was originally a term used in theater or film, wasn’t it?

At this point, would it be better to put in a caption reading “Starring, Written, and Directed by Marquis Clift,” or maybe roll the end credits?

“You may have the confectionery craftsman. But not for free.”

It was as if he wanted me to say that.

Was it so important that he said it twice?

Was this okay?

Was it really okay to go ahead with this?

I found Raccoon Number Two here.

Mao × Raccoon 2 had already received its sequel.

“Greetings, Count Brown. A pleasure to meet you. I am Granburst, the duke-killer. The duke-killer.”

I also said it twice, and just as deliberately, I slowly made a slightly exaggerated glance at the marquis, as if to show “Lowry-kun.”

The angle as I turned my neck while raising my chin only slightly was probably just over five degrees.

But my eyes alone looked clearly toward the marquis.

A bold noble drama had begun, as though the very concept of a coy glance had gone extinct from another world.

Marquis Clift also wore a wonderfully pleasant smile.

It was not a spirit contract, but a contract.

A contract without words had been established.

I loved people like this too.

Come on, Lowry.

Hurry up with the next line.

There were only three actors here.

The audience roles, meaning the marquis and I, were waiting for your decisive line as the leading actor.

But Count Brown was looking at us with a somewhat fed-up expression.

He knew the personality of Marquis Clift, with whom he was close, inside and out.

He immediately understood that the marquis had probably wanted to steer things in this direction from the very beginning.

“…Very well. However, he is not my property or anything of the sort. I cannot say whether he himself will agree to it.”

Even as he said that, there was no trace anywhere in his expression, as he stood up to guide us, of the empty shell of a noble from earlier.

His clear mind seemed to have begun calculating furiously as a noble, considering what to do next.