Chapter 86

Gerario handed me a longsword.

“Don’t swing it around. If you’re not trained, you won’t be able to cut properly anyway. Instead, brace the sword at your waist, don’t think about anything, and just charge straight in. Then, once you feel it sink in, twist the hilt with all your strength and pull it out. After that, do the same thing to the next one.”

In other words, instead of swinging it around like a master swordsman, I was supposed to do the thug attack from a gangster movie, holding it like a short blade.

And I felt a strange admiration, thinking that that was actually a rational practical method in its own way.

The sense that I might be about to kill someone felt like it was there and not there at the same time, strangely unsteady.

“I’ll kick down the door and blast them once with light magic. You jump in right away and look for Kururu-chan. If there are enemies, do it like I just told you, and move like you’re pinning them to the wall.”

This must have been what a veteran soldier lecturing a new recruit felt like.

Gerario patted my shoulder at the end, and even just that was incredibly reassuring.

“All right, and…”

However, Gerario said that much and then trailed off.

Crape Myrtle House was right in front of us.

They apparently did not expect to be attacked, and there were no particular guards. Smoke was rising from the chimney, so it seemed they were having lunch.

It was the perfect chance to rush in.

When I looked at Gerario, wondering what he could possibly be hesitating to say at this point, the battle-hardened adventurer fixed quiet eyes on me.

“This is tactless, but I’ll say it anyway. No matter what’s happened to Kururu-chan, just hold her.”

Gerario did not look at things optimistically.

He moved while imagining everything that could happen on a battlefield.

I tried to nod, but my neck had turned as stiff as stone, and I could not nod.

It probably took around four deep breaths before I finally managed to nod.

“Let’s go.”

No matter how hard I tried, my breathing grew ragged.

No matter how much air I breathed in, it did not enter my lungs at all.

I was wrapped in a strange sensation, as if I were watching myself walking behind Gerario from somewhere far away.

My heart was pounding so painfully that I could not even hear my own footsteps.

Gerario glanced back lightly and said something, but I did not even know what I answered.

The only sensation I could be certain of was the feel of the sword hilt I gripped with both hands.

Gerario stood before the door, took a deep breath, bent his body back, and kicked it down with a loud crash.

“Rot and die, you bastards!”

Gerario shouted abuse and charged in, raising the hand that clutched a magic stone.

I had heard that he would fire a powerful light spell, so I closed my eyes and leapt into the room from beside him.

After taking one step, then two, then three, I opened my eyes, and the state of the mansion’s hall leapt into view.

There were several rough-looking men there, like Marks boiled in oil. Some of them were bare from the waist up.

All of them stared at us with dumbfounded expressions, and several were clearly looking at the sword in my hands.

In the stretched-out flow of time, just as I was about to take my fourth step, I noticed.

One of the tables placed in the hall.

There was an especially small outline there.

Distinctive silver hair, delicate shoulders, and a slender neck.

And tear-swollen green eyes.

Kururu had indeed gone through something that terrible, and so she widened her eyes at me, opened her mouth, and—

“Hm, huh?”

She had opened her mouth wide and was about to bite into a stuffed piece of bread.

“Yorinobu!?”

At Kururu’s voice, the flow of time abruptly returned.

Gerario stumbled forward with his right hand still raised to use magic, and I dropped the sword.

Seeing that, the men of the brothel, who had been about to fight back against the attack, also stopped moving in confusion.

“Kururu…san?”

“Yorinobu! You were safe!”

Kururu kicked over her chair and threw herself at me.

“U-wah!?”

Unable to withstand her sheer momentum, I toppled backward onto the floor.

Beyond Kururu clinging to me, I could see Gerario’s face.

That face of Gerario’s gradually changed from surprise into a relieved smile.

“Yorinobu, you, you—”

Her voice gradually grew nasal, and Kururu pressed her face into my chest and stopped moving.

I had no idea what was going on, but there was one thing I knew.

I was not capable of holding her manfully, and once again, the one who did that was Kururu.

“What’s all this racket, honestly?”

The familiar voice that came from the back of the hall must have belonged to that old madam.

“Oh my, aren’t you a wonderfully rugged man?”

The smooching sound seemed to be a blown kiss.

“So? What’s the Cat Princess doing?”

Kururu, who was pressing her face against my chest and trembling at the shoulders, was apparently called Cat Princess here as well.

“We came to save our companion.”

It did not really feel like she had been forcibly imprisoned.

If anything, while Kururu’s eyes were tear-swollen and bright red, she had been opening her mouth wide to bite into an extra-large piece of bread.

For a short rest after something terrible had happened, she looked a little too defenseless.

“Huh? So the companions who were drugged and taken away were you lot? Letting you escape like that—Bax Company has gotten soft lately.”

If we had been in a normal state, escaping from prison would have been impossible.

But this was not the time to talk about ourselves.

I grabbed Kururu’s delicate shoulders and made her raise her face.

“Kururu-san.”

“Ngh…hic.”

Kururu sobbed with her cat ears lowered. It was a face I felt I had never seen before, and yet also not entirely so.

After hugging her again as if enclosing her head and all, I tried hard to sit up.

“Why are you…Kururu-san…um, safe?”

I thought she was probably safe.

For someone who had gone through something terrible, how should I put it, the Kururu I held smelled like she always did at Iiria’s mansion.

“That is…hic…my…sniff…line.”

Kururu, who seemed to have finally begun calming down, said that.

“There’s no ‘why’ to it. Bax Company contacted us, saying they’d gotten their hands on a top-quality girl, so when we went to pick her up, this child had been drugged and collapsed.”

I understood that much, but it did not connect to why Kururu had not been surrounded by men and subjected to something awful, and instead had apparently been eating lunch with everyone.

“When I got curious and looked into it, they said even the lord of Jirenu Territory had been captured. So at that moment, I thanked God.”

“Huh?”

As I stared at the old madam’s broad grin, Kururu grabbed me by the chest and pulled my gaze back to her.

“I’m going to save Iiria-sama. These people will lend me their strength for that.”

Why?

As I was bewildered, Gerario, who had completely dropped his combat stance, picked up the bread Kururu had thrown away and said while munching on it.

“Were you saved by the beast ears?”

Kururu’s ears moved.

“The people from the company didn’t check whether Kururu-chan was a magician, did they?”

I still could not see what he meant at all, but the old madam nodded toward Gerario.

“They’re too stupid, aren’t they? Their hatred of beastfolk is a kind of faith, you see. Since she’s this cute, if they’d simply stripped her right there, they would’ve noticed the tattoo.”

Kururu’s magic tattoo was on her shoulder, a place difficult to find unless her clothes were removed.

“That’s why I thought this child was an angel sent by God.”

“I see. You’re a villain too, sister. Been in this business long?”

“I’m the type who was baptized in a brothel too.”

“Heh. No wonder the company’s noble lords are no match for you.”

Gerario polished off the bread, licked his fingers, and then looked at me, who was still standing there dumbfounded.

“The attendant of the captured lord was sold to a brothel like any ordinary girl without anyone checking whether she was a magician. That’s the greatest blunder they could’ve made.”

Still not understanding, I slowly tilted my head toward Gerario, and Kururu, who was wiping her eyes and sniffling in front of me, said,

“I’m going to save Iiria-sama. I’ll mow down every obstacle and use any magic I need.”

“I’ll lend this child those magic stones.”

“And then there’ll be masked men moving around in the middle of a town thrown into chaos.”

Gerario looked around at the people in the hall.

For brothel customers, every one of them looked rather shady.

But how did Kururu’s existence make her an angel?

Why was this old madam cooperating to save Iiria?

Was this not a brothel favored by the Bax Company?

“You’re a slow child, aren’t you? As the owner of a good and honest brothel, I don’t suspect even a speck that this child is a magician. So when that little magician wakes up, we good citizens will be mowed down with ease. Then this child will go off to save her master, right? She’ll use magic in anger, right? And then, would you look at that…the wall of the city palace’s treasure vault just happens to get a huge hole blown in it.”

The old madam licked her lips.

Once she said that much, I finally saw the structure of the situation.

“You people are planning to loot during the chaos—”

“Yorinobu.”

When I looked at Gerario, he shrugged.

“Sister here probably knows where the big shots in town keep their valuables.”

“Of course I do. Since before we were incorporated into the empire, captured nobles were always shut up in the Municipal Council Spire. And what’s more, that place is lined with all sorts of treasures.”

Iiria’s place of confinement matched Cole’s information.

This old madam and her group planned to storm the Municipal Council together with Kururu’s attack, steal all the treasure they could carry, and run.

If that was their goal, then indeed, feeding Kururu bread and providing her with magic stones was cheap.

I was impressed by the old madam’s toughness, and Gerario was also amazing for immediately noticing their intentions from Kururu’s situation.

Perhaps any small-time villain would have thought of it quickly…but just as I thought that, my clothes were tugged hesitantly.

When I looked, it was Kururu.

“U-um, Yorinobu…”

Perhaps because she had only just stopped crying, Kururu looked terribly young.

“Y-you know? If they moved Iiria-sama somewhere else, it would be bad, so I was only trying to save Iiria-sama first…and, um, I-I was of course going to save you all too, all right?”

Kururu said it as if making an excuse, but when she had been about to bite into the bread, her eyes had already been swollen from crying. That probably meant that, more than I had worried about what had happened to Kururu, Kururu had believed we had already been executed.

And after accepting that reality, deciding what would be best with the limited moves available, and steeling herself while eating before battle, Gerario and I had barged in looking like fools.

“I knew you’d come save us, Kururu-san. Even if we hadn’t made up yet.”

“…!”

Kururu’s ear fur stood on end as if she had been poked in the side, and after her mouth trembled, she clung to me again as if biting into me.

Gerario and the old madam grinned like an uncle and aunt from the family.

“So, sister, we want to save the princess together with Kururu-chan, and our interests should line up with yours.”

Gerario said to the old madam.

“After you steal the treasure, have you decided what to do?”

“I have to stay here and play the good citizen, but there’s a ship I know at the harbor. Once my children steal the treasure, I plan to have them escape to the imperial mainland, where the people from Roran can’t touch them.”

“Yorinobu.”

Called by Gerario, I desperately set my head to work.

To return to Jirenu Territory, we had no choice but to secure a ship, but of course there was no way we could rely on a priest or anyone like that, and we had no acquaintances. On top of that, the harbor should be packed with Bax Company people.

“Could you let us board that ship as well? If it takes us as far as Jirenu Territory, how about magic stones worth two thousand gold coins?”

I should probably be able to produce that much stock right away.

For them as well, even if they stole treasure and escaped, they would have trouble converting it into cash for a while, so magic stones that were easy to exchange should be useful to have while fleeing.

“Hmmm?”

“And Iiria-san is of the bloodline of a great imperial noble family.”

The old madam snorted.

“Contract accepted.”

She reached out her hand, so while holding Kururu with my left arm, I stretched out my right hand and shook it.

“We’ll also pick up that girl from Jirenu Territory that you lot were looking for from the unlicensed group.”

“…! That would help.”

“Nfufufufu. Well now, a payment of two thousand gold coins is generous. We all help each other out.”

The inhabitants of this world, living in such a harsh world, were tough, every last one of them.

In that jungle, Bax Company had made a grievous mistake simply because they failed to check things that made one think, surely that cannot be possible.

For example, they had not confiscated the buckle of my belt.

For example, from a simple calculation of profit and loss in battle, they had not killed Gerario, and Cole had also been placed in the same cell.

And they had not checked whether Kururu was a magician.

On top of that, they had never doubted that their pet dog would always be obedient.

“Now then, is everyone done eating?”

A meal before battle.

In the atmosphere where everyone seemed to have shifted their minds toward battle, my stomach growled with perfect timing.

I had collapsed after being drugged, so I had not eaten anything. Gerario was impressive as expected, and had shrewdly picked up and eaten the bread that had fallen on the floor.

As everyone aimed exasperated gazes at me, Kururu, the only one smiling, said,

“I’ll make you plenty of food later.”

After we saved Iiria.

All of us together.

“All right, let’s go, you bastards!”

She sounded nothing like the female owner of a brothel and entirely like the head of a band of thieves.

But Gerario was originally a ruffian, and Kururu, baring her fangs and making her eyes gleam, also suited that impression perfectly.

Kururu stood up with vigor and reached her hand out toward me.

Still thinking that the roles of man and woman were reversed after all, I firmly grasped that small hand and stood up as well.