Chapter 83

“…”

Perhaps Gerario was still half-asleep, because he did not answer for a while, but I heard a sound like him shifting, like skin rubbing against the stone paving.

“From where you are, let’s see… a good ten steps away. Not on the same side. It’s a cell lined up on the opposite side.”

About ten meters?

It was not a distance like the cell next door, the one after that, or the one diagonally across.

I touched my clothes and considered whether I could tear them up and make them reach the place where Gerario was.

If I tore them well and made them into a cord, I might be able to do it, but I was not confident.

If I failed, it would all be over.

I wished I had practiced this sort of thing.

“Hey, why are you asking?”

Gerario asked, sounding impatient.

“There’s a chance we can get out of here—”

The moment I tried to say “there is,”

A metallic crash rang out.

From the feeling of the sound, it came from far away, slightly above us.

Then came several sounds of hard leather shoes stepping on stone paving… two people?

And the sound of something being dragged.

The footsteps drew closer, stopped right next to the cell I was in, then came the sound of a keyring, the sound of a key opening a lock, and the creaking sound of iron bars opening.

Then, at the very end, came a sound like garbage being thrown away.

“Heh, how pathetic.”

After those parting words, I also heard the sound of someone spitting.

The footsteps grew distant again, and far away, I heard the sound of iron bars closing and a lock being fastened.

There was a brief silence.

“Yorinobu.”

The one who called my name was Gerario.

“Don’t be surprised.”

His tone sounded as if I could almost see a hesitant smile.

“The one they just brought in is someone we know very well.”

Who was it?

It could not be Iiria or Kururu.

But here in Roran, we had no other acquaintances…

“Cole-san?”

No matter how ridiculous it was, the final remaining possibility was the answer.

That was a line from a mystery novel or something, but Gerario chuckled.

“What’s going on? I don’t understand this at all.”

That probably was not about me having guessed the answer.

Yes. Why, and how, was Cole here?

“Ugh…”

I heard a voice that could be taken as either a groan or a sob.

Or perhaps it was a voice of resentment.

“Damn it… damn it…”

There was a scraping sound, and I understood that Cole was writhing.

But his groans were strangely muffled, and on top of that, his voice sounded terribly nasal, so he had probably been beaten badly.

The sound of something being dragged when he was brought in must have been the sound of Cole being dragged because he could not walk on his own.

I did not know what had happened.

I did not know, but I took a deep breath.

Cole had been an enemy. He had joined hands with Nodon, fed off Jirenu Territory, and lined his own pockets.

His behavior had been that of a truly unpleasant noble, and together with Nodon, he had made fools of Iiria and the others.

When Carini came to the island, even as Carini was leaving, Cole had still tried to hide part of the magic stone transactions from his superior’s eyes in order to preserve the possibility of lining his own pockets.

A greedy, shrewd, unpleasant noble son.

And yet that Cole was now next to me.

More precisely, between me and Gerario.

“Young master, what kind of mischief did you get up to?”

Gerario asked mockingly.

“Looks like they did quite a number on you.”

Cole was a valuable source of information here and now.

He was the only person who knew what had happened after we had been drugged at Ostro’s place.

“…”

Cole did not answer.

He was so quiet that I wondered if he had fainted.

“Did you try to lay hands on a cute girl with beast ears and a tail?”

“——!”

The voiceless scream was exactly like the roar of a beast.

There was also a violent sound of him hitting the iron bars, and it rang out loudly.

Even bumping my head a little had hurt, so was he delirious from the drug?

“I, I—!”

After that voice, there was a thud.

Just when I thought he might have fainted this time, Gerario said,

“…Don’t tell me you tried to help Iiria-chan and the others?”

I thought that was ridiculous.

For what reason would he do something like that?

But I could think of no other reason why Cole, who should have been an employee of the Bax Company, or in other words a member of the nobility, was here.

I could hardly imagine that it was because of the matter of joining hands with Nodon and lining his own pockets.

“…Those incompetent… fools…”

It was a muffled voice, as if his face was still pressed against the stone paving.

“Ugh… all of them are shit, utter bastards…”

Cole, who had once stylishly worn crisp, well-tailored clothes.

His voice, mixed with sobs, sounded very young, even boyish.

“Hey, kid.”

There was a hard sound, and Gerario had apparently struck the iron bars with handcuffs or something.

“If you’ve got time to cry, explain. If you’re their enemy, then the enemy of my enemy is my ally. Am I wrong?”

A battlefield life was thoroughly realistic.

Apparently, his right hand might be holding a magic stone and get cut off by an enemy, and his body might be blown apart by the excessive power of his magic, so he had a tattoo that could identify him placed on his left hand.

In response to Gerario’s question, Cole spat.

“Silence… lowborn…”

“Heh. They don’t beat someone up that badly over a minor blunder or two. It’s hard work for the side doing the punching too.”

I was surprised that it was that bad, but Cole stopped hurling abuse.

“Hey, let us hear it. Depending on what you say, how I deal with the idiot who brings food here next will change.”

Since the information that he was a mage and an adventurer had probably been passed on, the Bax Company should have been wary of Gerario too. But perhaps he sensed their naivete in the fact that they had kept him alive instead of killing him immediately.

“…What will you do… after hearing it…?”

Gerario gave an exaggerated sigh.

“An idiot brings food here. I break his neck with my legs. I take the key. I escape. I find magic stones and blow everything up.”

He said it so smoothly that it felt as if he really could do it.

Perhaps Cole thought so too, because he laughed as if coughing.

“There’s no way… you can do that…”

“You think so?”

It was the confidence of someone who had survived until now.

Or perhaps it was the sort of thing said as a joke, like, “I’ve never died even once, so I shouldn’t die this time either.”

“…There are factions… in the company…”

Cole said.

“The ones… who wish for Roran’s… independence… and…”

“Ahh.”

Gerario seemed to understand from just that.

“And, on the other side, the ones trying to deepen ties with the empire. Their opinions were split over whether to use Iiria-chan as a tool for that or not.”

Iiria probably had the blood of a great noble.

Until now, she had been someone discarded as a figurehead lord, but the magic stone output in her territory had increased, and she had even come to have skilled people capable of slaying a dragon under her.

That must have suddenly given her value as something to use.

Roran had lost a war or something and been incorporated into the empire, but it was a so-called province, an outsider underling, and if they wanted to raise their position within the empire, forming ties with a great noble of the homeland would be the quickest way.

Iiria should be used as that lever.

But what if there were still many people in Roran who considered being incorporated into the empire a humiliation in the first place?

Even at the magic tool shop, they had said that whenever emergency taxes came from the empire, the magic tools once used when fighting the empire sold well.

“So the kid is in the empire faction.”

When explaining the company’s situation, the first thing he had mentioned, resentfully, was the people who wished for independence.

However, if that was the case, there was something that bothered me.

“Why are you the only one here?”

Cole was a noble and one of the executives of the Bax Company.

If that executive had been beaten to pieces and thrown into prison, then the people standing on the same side as Cole should have suffered the same fate too.

“That’s obvious, isn’t it? This kid is probably the only one in that faction.”

When he said that, I remembered that the attitude of the jailers who had brought Cole here had been quite something.

Being scorned even by people at the very bottom also meant that Cole had always been an eyesore within the company.

“…My father… understands… me…”

Cole said unhappily, but he no longer had the spirit he had shown earlier.

Was he on the verge of passing out after being badly beaten, or on the verge of having his spirit broken?

“Father? Is he some important person?”

Cole coughed painfully, then said it like a sigh.

“…He is… the general manager… of the company… after all.”