9-8 Two S-Ranks

For now, it looked like I needed to gather information again.

First, I teleported to Armon.

“Hey.”

“Today you came properly by teleportation.”

He said it while working, barely even looking my way.

Lately, his treatment of me had been extremely rough.

“That’s harsh, Guildmaster. Whatever. Have you heard the story about the Empire’s crown prince?”

“Yeah, the rumor going around is that he was assassinated. But who knows what the truth is.”

Flipping through documents, the Guildmaster responded with a skeptical, pensive look.

“I went to check, and it looks like the crown prince is being confined by the second prince. I couldn’t get into the room itself. The emperor is in bed after being poisoned. What the hell is the taster doing? Maybe they’ve been bought by the second prince. I’d been thinking the emperor had been nodding off and sleeping all the time lately. Maybe they’d been dosing him with a gradual, accumulating poison—small enough amounts at meals that he wouldn’t notice. The culprit is probably not the second prince so much as Flash-God Nielsen. The second prince is just a useless figurehead they’re parading around.”

“I see. Then there’s going to be another mess.”

Armon set the documents aside and leaned back in his chair, thinking.

I read the room and served him coffee.

“Hey, should I just heal the emperor myself? With God Poison Heal, I could fix him easily. I wonder what kind of face that second prince would make.”

“Don’t. The current emperor is a capable man in his own right. You must never let him get back up. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

Sipping his coffee, the Guildmaster waved a hand as he warned me off.

“Then there’s only one thing to do. We have to deal with the enemy S-ranks. What kind of S-ranks would come to attack the Beast-Ear Garden? That’s what I came to ask.”

“Right. One is Rick. He’s a sneaky, ambitious schemer. He’ll probably be the one who comes. That one is dangerous. You’re oddly straightforward in some ways, so I feel like you’d be weak against that kind of opponent. And the other is Balan, the cautious type. He’ll observe first. From their perspective, you’re too dangerous. He’s a smart man. Maybe he’s guessed you might be a rare visitor.”

“I see. Are they strong?”

“Rick isn’t that strong, but he’ll attack with crafty methods, which makes him nasty. Balan is top-class with both sword and magic. He has an extremely troublesome high-heat skill and goes by the epithet ‘Balan of Scorching Heat.’ On top of that, he handles all kinds of magic smoothly—an impeccable powerhouse. He probably doesn’t have absurd amounts of mana like you do, though.”

“Hm. I see.”

I’d thought the Empire’s S-ranks wouldn’t be a big deal, but at least Balan sounded like someone to watch out for.

Rick’s reputation for being nasty also bothered me.

We had a lot of muscle-brained types on our side.

We might be weak against tricky, underhanded tactics.

And we were dealing with someone as troublesome as Flash-God Nielsen, too.

Wasn’t there anyone suitable we could recruit?

I should go back and hold a strategy meeting.

“Rick has a rugged face, a fairly solid build, short blond hair, and a longish face. Blue eyes, and about the same height as Antonio—so about half a head taller than you. Be very careful.”

“Roger.”

“And Balan has dark-brown hair and brown eyes. He’s about your height, maybe. He has a somewhat reclusive vibe, and at first glance he looks like a scholar, but that’s just a front, so be careful.”

“Got it, thanks. I’m heading back.”

Then I convened another emergency defense meeting at the Beast-Ear Garden.

“So, strategy meeting.”

“That was sudden again. Well, as always.”

Ars was serving as the little cat’s “horse.”

Had Aoi been abandoned?

Lately, the little one seemed to have taken a real liking to Mount Ars.

“Little oneee. Uncle and the others have important grown-up talk, so go play over thereee~”

“Nooo! I wanna play more with Ars-chan!”

Oh dear, it couldn’t be helped.

Then I’d bring out my trump card.

I used wind magic to lift the little one up and spin them around in the air.

And there were those who locked onto that immediately.

With ears perked up, of course.

That was why I didn’t want to do this.

Once I started, it never ended.

While squealing happily, the little one expressed pure delight with their ears and tail—no, with their hands, feet, their whole body.

But the instant I stopped, a tantrum-throwing kitty was born.

“Moreee, moreee!”

Worse, the others who wanted attention started inching closer like a game of Red Light, Green Light.

Right then, Mari scooped the little one up and nuzzled cheeks.

“Remi-chan, Aoi says she wants you to play with her over thereee.”

“Fiiine. Aoi-chan is sooo needy. I’ll play with herrr.”

Mari-san, I really appreciated you covering for me, but you were also one of the meeting members.

I gave the other creepers my trump card, too.

Water guns—proper ones shaped like long rifles like in Japan.

They were fitted with magic stones, and with water magic you could reload the tank.

That should hold their interest for a while.

The spiderlings with ears, eyes shining at their new weapons after the demonstration, scattered away.

“If you do it inside, everything gets soaked—play outside!”

Our toys were unnecessarily high-performance.

But if we didn’t go this far, adults couldn’t have a serious meeting here, which was its own kind of problem.

Ed and the others arrived, Mari homed in, and we started the meeting.

While glancing sideways at Aoi happily playing “horse.”

“Now then, this is what I heard from Armon…”

I relayed the information.

Ars, as usual, began in that breezy way of his.

“I’ve worked with Balan before. And unfortunately, I’ve also run into him as an enemy outside of work. He’s a calm man who does nothing wasteful—a truly frightening man. Of course, in a straight-up power contest, there’s no way you’d lose. But he won’t fight that way. His personality is the exact opposite of yours, but what he does might be similar. He prepares thoroughly and aims for certain victory.”

Hnng… for Ars to say that much, Balan sounded pretty formidable.

Sipping my coffee, I urged him on.

“What are the odds the two of them attack together?”

“Probably not~. I hear those two don’t get along. Rick is just too vicious. He’s disgusting, you know—him. Even I refuse to team up with him. You never know what kind of thing he’d do even to allies. Balan seems more reasonable, at least. On the other hand, there’s a scary side to him where you can’t tell what he’s thinking.”

“That’s unpleasant information in its own way.”

“So the Empire knows that too, which is why they won’t force those two to work together. It raises the odds of a job failing. They weren’t promoted to S-rank for nothing. They don’t have a record of failing jobs. Well, not choosing their methods is part of the reason, too.”

Even more unpleasant information.

I’d assumed the Empire had forcibly inflated their S-rank count out of pride, but apparently not.

With that country, it would have sounded entirely plausible.

I still couldn’t forget how brute-force they’d been in Antonio’s A-rank exam.

Because outside our circle, the only S-ranks right now were in the Empire.

“Should we temporarily evacuate the children?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary~. For pure defense, this place is more impressive than the royal palace. And if you hole up in a safe house and get attacked there, where exactly do you plan to run?”

True, if you put it that way…

“What do Mari and Ed think?”

“Yes. I think it’s better to stay here. I believe this demon king’s castle is the safest place.”

“Hey!”

“And if we force them into evacuation life, the children will get anxious. Especially the ones who arrived only recently. I don’t want to see children curled up hugging their knees again.”

Had she seen many like that a thousand years ago?

Mari rarely wanted to talk about the horrific old days.

“Fair enough.”

“And besides, if it’s only that much, Demon King. You can just go hunt the S-ranks for us, right?”

“Yeah. That’s one option. If they’re going to lay hands on our kids, I’ll do it. I’d love to take the second prince’s head too, but that’s pushing it. If I took a royal’s head in peacetime, it would be a disaster. In my world, there was a time when an imperial-assassination incident sparked a massive world war that dragged many countries in. If we’re unlucky, that would trigger an immediate war with the Empire. Even without proof, they’d fabricate whatever they wanted. Just the fact a royal died would be enough. And it’s not like they’re aiming for this kingdom’s king, either.”

(Going after that man’s head felt more reckless than going after the king, though.)

“Ed, as head of security, what do you think?”

“Well…”

Ed reached for the tea cookies, took a bite, then continued calmly.

“Defense here is preferable. However, I recommend that children and staff avoid leaving the grounds for the time being. If it’s an errand we can delegate, we adventurers will handle it. If I judge it dangerous, the children will retreat into the buildings, and depending on circumstances, Team Ed will use teleportation magic to move all non-combatants to the safe house. In that case, the first evacuation destination will be the royal palace.”

Ed laid it out crisply and coolly.

Lately, the role of defense chief suited him completely.

He was still young, but he’d always been remarkably steady.

“Please act as the situation demands. You can stay here and focus on defense. Or if you watch their movements and decide it’s dangerous, you may go and defeat them. We also have the equipment that’s been lent out, and Ars and Mari-san can operate as roaming support. And we have two veteran B-ranks as well.”

I nodded.

With a hand to my chin, I asked the B-ranks.

“What do you two B-ranks think? Among us, you’re the most experienced and prudent veterans.”

First, Beryl showed agreement.

“Yeah. For now, that’s not a bad plan. If anything concerning comes up, I’ll report it to Ed as needed. If we need to assemble again, we’ll hold another meeting.”

“Understood. Johnson, anything?”

“Hm. Broadly speaking, I think it’s fine… But honestly, the fact that Rick is involved worries me. No—‘worries’ isn’t quite it. It troubles me. I’ve got a bad feeling. I don’t think we should ignore things like that. It comes from long experience. Just… keep it in the back of your mind.”

That made my heart jump.

The ability to sense that sort of thing—the Seventh Sense, or something like it—wasn’t unique to me.

Any human carried it in their genes as ‘primal instinct.’

An instinctive, zero-time-lag perception shared by hunter and prey.

The closest image might be the tailbone.

Humans had tails too.

They were just vestigial.

People like adventurers in this world—especially those above B-rank—probably had such special abilities to some degree.

In my case, it wasn’t exactly an “ability,” though.

What I called the Seventh Sense was simply ‘that thing inside me’—a ‘being.’

Fantasy protagonists got thrown into one crisis after another; there was no way someone without this kind of sense could survive.

They’d die immediately.

Everyone had it.

Authors just skipped over it for convenience.

Even movie heroes would die instantly in the real world.

Even the famous actor playing them could die just from slipping on a banana peel and hitting their head.

So remarks like that made my heart jump.

Johnson continued.

“Rick the Reaper. It’s not uncommon for only him to come back alive after some operation or job. He’s a cold man who treats even allies as shields—expendable supplies—for the sake of the objective. More than that, if necessary to complete the mission, he’ll actively use people up as sacrifices. His viciousness is guaranteed. Well, at least it’s better to know he won’t come by straightforward means. Not that there’s much you can do in advance to counter that.”

Hnng…

Thanks for yet more information I didn’t particularly want.

If I underestimated him as a lower-tier threat, it could become a disaster.

And he was, one way or another, an S-rank.

An S-rank Reaper—Rick the Reaper.

I’d better brace myself.