12-1 The Uninvited Guests

At last, the day of Antonio’s wedding had arrived.

For me to say this after staging the wedding myself might be something, but since this was ultimately someone else’s affair to me, I was completely at ease.

Even though it was being held at the royal palace, I was basically there in the mood of an attendee in the close-friend category.

That was not exactly wrong for the relationship between Antonio and me, though.

Rather than a friend, it was my buddy’s wedding.

It was the kind of development you often saw at the beginning of American cop movies.

In those movies, after the wedding, or during it, things usually went very badly.

Well, for the couple themselves, they had already gone so far as to have a child, so at this point it was a bit late for all that.

Our children were really looking forward to it.

The children could not enter the ceremony hall, but I had specially had a space made for our children inside the royal palace.

It was a magnificent abuse of host privileges.

Normally, children from an orphanage would not be invited into the royal palace on the occasion of a palace wedding.

In any case, the one presiding over the wedding was His Majesty the King himself, and Jessica-chan would officiate the ceremony itself.

Basically, the main members were almost all people who were practically like family.

For some reason, the mysterious development was that Fal was all fired up too.

Lately, perhaps because she was full of magic power, Fal was constantly in human form as well.

Now in human form, she had gotten bigger than Remi-tan, so Remi looked a little dissatisfied.

Not long ago, she had often carried her around like a stuffed toy or a big doll.

Apparently she wanted to say, “I’m the big sister!”

In the end, the role of holding the hem of Margarita-san’s dress was decided to go to Touya and Fal.

Since this was a wedding for a couple that looked likely to attract sniping comments, I thought I would lend dignity to the ceremony by having Sacred Elion serve as the veil girl.

Normally, with that alone, absolutely no one would be able to raise objections anymore.

Fal, please, at least do your job properly.

She was still someone who had only been born not long ago, so I was very worried.

That was why I had assigned the reliable Touya as her support.

I thought up a whole mountain of ways to provide backup if something happened.

In a sense, this was harsher than dealing with that Rick.

And I myself would attend in “Blazing Flame Style.”

It was a superb item, generously adorned on the back, chest, and cuffs with the crest of a flaming hawk.

It looked extremely splendid, but to tell the truth, it was actually a very easy and comfortable outfit to move in.

It also used plenty of synthetic fibers.

It was like the difference in the Self-Defense Forces’ camouflage uniforms between the lightweight work-use variants and the heavy combat-use variants.

If it came to battle, I had also prepared a dedicated change-of-clothes inventory that would let me instantly switch into a leather combat style.

Well, this was an exquisite item that would absolutely keep any guilty-looking noble from approaching once they saw it.

After all, it was the “formal wear of the noble-killer.”

And yet, of all things, it seemed that those dangerous Duke Bighton father and son had shown up to Antonio’s wedding without even being invited.

Just who did they think had caused the Orston House all that needless suffering?

When I asked His Majesty the King and Antonio whether I could throw them out under host authority, they told me, “That would be too much.”

Nobles and royalty really were a pain.

His Majesty the King had said he would keep an eye on things, and Antonio seemed resolved to endure it with patience.

But I muttered, “This time, the title of duke-killer would not be bad either…” and chilled the blood of everyone concerned around me.

After pulling all that on my best buddy, were they really going to pile on even more?

You two alone, I absolutely will not forgive.

In the name of this Spirit Demon King, I resolved that I would definitely obtain the title of duke-killer.

Come on, pick a fight with me.

You people, if things went badly, looked like the type who might even sell this country to the neighboring empire for the sake of your own desires.

If necessary, under the name of national defense, I would crush you even if I had to gather all the spirits in the world.

The spirits had the weakness of their restaurant reservations, and they would not dare defy our Fal either.

Well, I would at least give them as much reward magic power as they wanted.

Should I throw in Eri’s sweets too while I was at it?

The piles of equipment I had made too much of last time and never got to use at all were crying.

I had even obtained a temporary license to kill, and I had not gotten to use that at all either.

Well, I had slaughtered plenty of small fry, and my lifetime kill count had reached the triple-digit mark.

I guessed the next milestone would be the revived murder record of 169 by that Japanese killer.

I was already closing in to within a little over fifty of that.

Ahh, how awful.

Today, with festival excitement spreading throughout the entire Royal Capital, it would not be bad to add some flowers to it.

Should I just tie them to an orichalcum bunker buster and fire them into enemy territory in the Empire?

Without drawing attention, I marked the duke and his son from a distance.

In other words, I had identified them as enemies.

Since it was something no longer used on allies.

On Earth, I recognized it as corresponding to radar illumination for attack targeting, or the act of a submarine pinging an enemy ship with sonar.

Ordinarily, it was something too good to waste on people like them.

A slight festival atmosphere was spreading among the common citizens too.

I had also brought in a large number of food stalls from Adros, and had invited quite a number of performers to the square.

The performers had received plenty of money from me, and on top of that they would be getting tips from other people too, so the gathered entertainers were in high spirits and it was getting lively.

I had given the children of the orphanages in the Royal Capital free tickets usable at the food stalls.

Aoi-chan had made these on a PC, and I had transferred them with my item box onto Earth-made “copied (and created) paper,” so with this world’s technology, they were absolutely impossible to forge.

Just for playfulness, I had even gone so far as to use special codes like those used on Japanese banknotes.

Those things, when you looked at them under fluorescent light, had seal-like parts that glowed in reaction to ultraviolet light, did they not?

In other words, if someone used a fake, it would be blatantly obvious in sunlight.

Well, there was probably no need to worry about counterfeits circulating today, but if by some chance there was a genius who could make a fake of this, then I would have no choice but to scout that person personally.

Lately, strong-arm states and countries like dictatorships had shifted from forging cash to stealing cryptocurrency online.

Cashless payment had spread, and some countries hardly used cash at all anymore.

The Japanese yen still continued to see heavy cash use, but since it used the highest-quality paper in the world and was made with artisan-level precision, counterfeiting had always been rare.

Unlike the dollar, which had broad international demand, the yen was a local currency that would absolutely never be worth the effort no matter how much labor you put into counterfeiting it.

Recently, apparently in some places it had even become difficult to exchange yen cash for dollars overseas.

Because of the Lost Thirty Years and the weak yen, Japanese people had stopped going abroad, so there was no demand for Japanese yen either.

Now was the age of the dollar, euro, and yuan.

Had even the pound, once a key reserve currency, been forgotten?

The yen was not a key reserve currency, and overseas it had only really been used in places like North Korea, which received remittances from resident Koreans in Japan.

Even that tiny demand had probably died out because of the strict remittance restrictions on North Korea.

The ten-thousand-yen bills they used in that country probably had a design from before Yukichi, did they not?

Even Japanese people barely remembered who had been in the watermark on those.

Was it Prince Shōtoku, maybe?

In that country too, because dollars were full of counterfeit bills they themselves had printed, Japanese yen cash had once been considered the most trustworthy, enough that you could buy Japanese beer with yen at foreign-currency shops.

Now that almost all resident Koreans in Japan had gone through generational change and grown distant, there was probably no one left who would send actual Japanese yen cash through remittances anymore.

Even they, who in the past had reportedly abducted Japanese printing technicians and dabbled in forging ten-thousand-yen bills of the backward local currency that was the Japanese yen, had lately stopped caring about the yen altogether and were now focused entirely on stealing cryptocurrency.

Forgotten Japan, and forgotten Japanese yen.

But here, food-stall tickets made with Japanese technology were securing enjoyment for the orphans.

Well, since it was a festival anyway, I supposed I would “enjoy” it too.

I switched through the security camera footage one after another while keeping watch, changed the search conditions around in various ways, and checked whether any suspicious people had slipped in.

There they were!

It turned out to be that duke and his son.

They were showing up bright red on my radar screen.

All right, guilty.

I informed Ars and Ed and the others about it as well and had them stay alert.

I also sent orders to the security unit escorting the children to secure the children’s safety.

If it came down to it, we would get them out of the royal palace and evacuate them to the Beast-Ear Garden by teleportation magic.

But if that happened, it would be pitiful for the children who had been looking forward to the event.

If it actually came to that, I supposed I would have a nice little talk with the duke and his son in the Glass Garden with a lovely smile on my face.

Mainly in the language of the body.

When I teleported to Armon’s place, he was, as always, fighting against a mountain of paperwork.

He would probably feel more at ease dealing with dragons than this.

“Working even on a day like this, huh. Good work. By the way, do you know what kind of people Duke Bighton and his son are? What kind of vicious tricks do they use?”

“Oh? I have absolutely no idea what this is about. Sorry, but give me a cup of coffee.”

He was in tired mode from the morning on…

“They showed up to Antonio’s wedding without being invited. Burning bright red with hostility. This was outside expectations, so we have not taken measures yet.”

“I see… I do not think they can do much, but well, the most troublesome thing is probably the duke’s status. Even his retainers are sick of him. Maybe his retainers too are looking forward to seeing their lord get a lesson from you. I have heard that among his personal followers, there is one strange man. Well, if I had to compare him, he is someone like Rick.”

“Ahahahahaha. What a delightful bunch. Got it, thanks. Do your best with the rest of your work~”

I quickly returned to the royal palace and searched for the duke’s personal follower, but I could not find anyone who looked like the person in question.

Hmm.

I had a bad feeling about this.

Up until now, this sort of story often had not led to good results.

Time was also getting quite tight, and guests were entering one after another.

Right now, an incredible number of carriages must have been crowding into the royal palace.

Everyone was dressed in dazzling gowns, but out of consideration for the bride, there were no pure-white outfits.

If someone did that, they would become a laughingstock for a long time afterward.

None of the attending nobles spoke to me when they saw me.

Well, that was only natural.

Among guests of the level invited to this ceremony, there was no one openly trying to avoid me in particular, though.

Though I might have been leaking a bit of killing intent myself right then.

I went to check on Fal and Touya, but they looked the same as usual.

Touya, it seemed, was seeing all sorts of things and feeling his dismantling spirit blaze up.

The dismantling tools he had been secretly carrying were confiscated in the morning.

Fal was already so fidgety over the scent of sweets drifting through the venue that she could not settle down.

If her fine formal clothes ended up covered in cream, that would be bad, so sweets had been withheld from her.

If I were there, I could purify her, but letting one’s guard down around these two was forbidden.

Food had also been properly secured for their share, but at this rate, it did not look like she could endure it.

It could not be helped.

I supposed I would let them each have just one.

It would be a problem if Fal got too fidgety and turned into her Rainbow Fals form halfway through.

When I gave the two of them parfaits, they dug in with total focus.

By now, the little cat was probably biting into special cupcakes made by the royal palace chefs.

Even so, watching Fal like this, rather than Sacred Elion, she only looked like the second coming of Genuine Erin to me.

As it turned out, Erin’s name had been taken from this Elion.

Since Elion itself was too presumptuous, it had been changed just a little.

But it had resulted in the unfortunate outcome that the divine messenger resembled the believer more.

And only in the unfortunate ways, at that.

Fal too was always being shown Erin’s disgraceful behavior at the Beast-Ear Garden.

Well, apparently there were no gods in reality anyway, so I supposed it was fine.