Chapter 82

A cold wall was closing in, crushing me.

I felt like I had been having that kind of dream, but I could no longer remember even that.

The focus of my muddled consciousness slowly settled, and I realized I was lying face down on a damp stone floor.

By then, why I had ended up that way was also starting to connect vaguely in my head.

I did not know how long I had been unconscious, but aside from my neck hurting, my body did not feel as though I had been treated particularly roughly.

And when I looked around, it was an unmistakable underground prison.

“Ugh…”

However, the core of my head was still hazy, and nothing resembling anger rose up in me.

I thought I had to go help Iiria and the others, but the fire would not catch.

While I was still unsteady, I grabbed the iron bars and tried to stand, and then I heard a familiar voice.

“Yorinobu?”

Gerario’s voice came from a little distance away.

“…Yes.”

“Are you hurt?”

I checked again, but there was nothing in particular.

While I was at it, I was wearing clothes, but my wallet and such were gone. My shoes had also been taken off, leaving me with almost only my clothes.

The only thing left was the belt with a buckle engraved with the workshop’s crest. It was made of iron and had little value, and since it was like a small puzzle ring, they might have thought removing it was too troublesome.

“No. What about you, Gerario-san?”

“I’m not hurt, but I’m stark naked and tied up.”

That was probably the difference between a commoner and a mage. Rather, it might have been fortunate that he had not been beaten or killed.

“If I’m alive, then Iiria-chan and the others are probably safe, at least for now, but…”

Among our group, the most troublesome one was Gerario the adventurer. I could vaguely understand the logic that if he had been kept alive, the others were safe too.

However, Ostro had probably captured us on the Bax Company’s orders, but why would they do something like that?

Naturally, it would be to seize the wealth of Jirenu Territory.

“The mass purchase of magic stones was bait, damn it.”

Carini, the deputy manager of the Bax Company, who had brought Cole with him.

I had naturally been wary of him at first, but partway through, I had started to see him as a superior who had come to punish Cole for lining his own pockets.

“Do you have any other basis for thinking Iiria-san and the others are safe?”

Gerario answered my question immediately.

“Leaving aside the territory’s mine, that girl herself has value too. If they hurt or sullied her, they wouldn’t be able to arrange a good marriage for her, right? I don’t think they’d do something that wasteful.”

“…”

I fell silent at that overly blunt way of putting it, but Gerario, who had been our guard, might have been irritated by guilt.

“As for Kururu… she’s probably safe, but I don’t really know. She can be used as a tool to threaten Iiria-chan, so I don’t think they’d kill her, but…”

I could imagine for myself what the words he left vague after that were.

After all, this was exactly the kind of situation where a captured warrior woman would be humiliated.

Iiria was a girl with noble blood, so even if she was treated with some degree of care, Kururu, as a servant, might be made to entertain their subordinates. It would also be an effective way to make Iiria obediently do as they said.

“Hah… I got a pension and still ended up like this. Sorry about that.”

The anger that had briefly shown itself quieted down, and I heard a voice with the tension gone from it. Perhaps he could switch so quickly because this was not the first time something like this had happened to him.

“No, that isn’t really…”

Rather, I had let my guard down too.

In this place, I should not have trusted anyone as an ally, and I should not have neglected caution.

Because this was not Jirenu Territory, where things were like playing house.

“…Is the church priest on our side?”

I groaned in thought at Gerario’s question.

“He should see us as a source of money. If we don’t show up at the church event, he might realize something is wrong… or so I think.”

“I can’t imagine he’d fight the Bax Company for that, though.”

Rather, if the Bax Company offered him benefits, that priest would probably switch sides easily.

After all, because they were outnumbered on an isolated island, he had merely chosen to coexist with Iiria and the others.

“…”

After Gerario was silent for a while, he said this.

“I’ll do what I can, but I’m going to prioritize my own survival.”

His tone was strangely clear, and perhaps that was his own form of sincerity.

He was originally a wandering adventurer, and Gerario had people he had to protect above all else. Those were Balan and Tsatsaru, with whom he had entrusted his life for many years.

He did not casually agree to do things he could not do, and he did not give meaningless hope.

That was probably a judgment made by someone who had lived on battlefields.

“Yes. Please escape when you see an opening.”

But when I answered, I could sense some confusion from Gerario’s direction.

Gerario really was a good person after all.

“If you survive, someday you might save those two when they are going through something painful.”

I did not know whether I would still be alive then, but if I thought that I might simply move to another world again, dying was not that frightening.

I only thought that I would prefer it not to hurt, if possible.

“You…”

Gerario said quietly, then gave an annoyed sigh.

“Damn it.”

After cursing, Gerario fell silent.

Then, after I did not know how much time had passed, I soon heard snoring.

Perhaps only Gerario had been given an especially large dose of the drug, or perhaps, from his battlefield life, he had developed the habit of sleeping whenever he could.

Not nearly as bold as that, I sat cross-legged in the cell.

Not looking directly at the turmoil in my chest followed the same logic as looking the other way when being given an injection.

Iiria and Kururu had been captured.

And this world was not kind to the weak.

How many terrible things had innocent craftsmen and merchants’ daughters suffered because of their debts to Nodon and his people?

I could not possibly think that only Iiria and Kururu would be treated kindly.

I remembered the words of the brothel madam.

Kururu would surely become popular—.

“Ugh…”

I grabbed the iron bars and slammed my head against them.

Even though it did not make much of a sound, it hurt like hell.

This was not a dream, but reality.

I had failed again.

Just as I should have hurried up and made my game, but had not made it in time because I dawdled, this had happened while I still had not made up with Kururu.

Important things should be done quickly.

Because peace that seemed as though it would last forever could be overturned all too easily.

“Damn it!”

I slammed my head against the iron bars once more and forcefully pressed my face into the narrow gap.

Even a cat could not pass through a hole narrower than its face, but with my left eye pressed against the gap between the iron bars, I observed the underground prison.

It seemed like there were several cells like the one I had been put in.

It was dim, but not pitch-black, so there was probably something like an air vent somewhere, and light was coming in from there.

In other words, it did not feel as though we were deep underground.

Also, even though Gerario and I had been talking, no one carrying a club had come to poke us around. Furthermore, no stereotypical minor thug had yelled, “Shut up!” so I could also tell that only Gerario and I were here.

“…”

I thought.

I thought desperately.

However, it was not about how to get out of here.

It was about what to do after getting out.

Were Iiria and the others at the Bax Company? Even if I could rescue Iiria and the others from the Bax Company, could we return to Jirenu Territory?

Even if we returned to Jirenu Territory, could we fight the Bax Company through to the end?

And there was something I must not avert my eyes from.

If I found Iiria and Kururu, what would I do if they had been subjected to something terrible?

Could I face reality without running away from it?

Could I swear that I would not leave everything to Kengo and Gerario, wallow in self-pity over my own stupidity, and act like a coward from some early-2000s world-crisis story?

“…”

I took a deep breath and exhaled.

When I had brought up the business plan to Kengo at the tavern.

When I had told the plan to Kururu, who had chased after us.

When I had ignored Iiria after she told me not to get involved with them.

The points where I could have turned back had long since passed.

I had no choice but to do it.

No matter what terrible reality might be waiting.

If I could reach for the possibility of continuing that territory management that was like playing house, making something like a board game, and showing its scenario to Kururu, then I would not care even if this world was overturned from its very foundations.

If I used everything I had right now, then I could probably make any absurdity a reality.

Just as that church’s giant magic circle had been made in pursuit of something worthy of it.

“Gerario-san.”

When I called his name, the snoring stopped.

“Where is the cell you’re in located?”