Chapter 92

When I stepped down into Jirenu’s harbor, I was wrapped in a sense of relief.

It seemed my body had completely recognized this place as home.

And unlike Roran’s harbor, beastfolk were not chained up and driven along with frightening-looking weapons.

Gerario had called the looseness of this Jirenu Territory “playing house,” but that atmosphere was precious, and it was something that had to be protected to the end.

And now, there were people trying to threaten the peace of this Jirenu Territory.

Ignoring the surprised gazes around us as we, who should have been in Roran, disembarked from an unfamiliar ship, we made straight for the lord’s manor.

Even Marks and the others, who were loitering in front of the gate again today, looked startled when they noticed us.

They probably had not expected us to come back this quickly, and above all, it was probably because of Cole, who was being carried on a beastman’s shoulder.

As we noisily entered the mansion, I said to Marks.

“Excuse me, could you call Kengo and Dodol-san for me?”

“Y-yeah.”

Before soothing the exhaustion of being poisoned, thrown into prison, fighting magicians, and rescuing the captive lord, there were things to do.

Gerario, whom we had parted with at the harbor, was also going to bring Balan and the others to the manor right away.

As I tried to enter the manor while organizing what came next in my head, my eyes met Marks’s.

“You, your face changed.”

“?”

I tilted my head slightly and touched my chin.

“A lot happened, so I haven’t been able to shave…”

It was supposed to have been an elegant dinner with nobles in Roran, yet I was completely covered in stubble.

However, Marks blinked at that answer, then gave a somewhat wry smile and went to call Kengo and the others.

“Oh my, are you going to shave off your beard?”

Iiria, who had been showing the room to the beastman carrying Cole, widened her eyes in a somewhat deliberate way.

“You look more mature and rugged that way. Right?”

The one Iiria directed the question to was, of course, Kururu.

“Kengo alone is enough when it comes to looking stuffy.”

Kururu shrugged, and Iiria smiled meaningfully.

This sharp-eyed lord had, of course, noticed how Kururu and I had been acting on the ship.

The look on her face that said she had found a new toy was a little frightening.

“Well, for now, a bath. My hair and tail are sticky with salt!”

Boiling bathwater was the work of those below.

I rolled up my sleeves and went to draw water from the well.

Kengo, who unexpectedly liked fiddly little things, had made something like dragon soap mixed with herbs while we were away.

I thought Iiria and Kururu would be delighted by the gorgeous fragrance… but it was somewhat unpopular, with them saying, “It smells like it makes me hungry.” Kururu kept sniffing her own scent, so she looked exactly like a freshly washed dog or cat.

“So? I guess it wasn’t exactly a fun noble dinner party.”

I could not exactly bathe together with Iiria and Kururu, so I washed myself over at the magic stone workshop before returning to the lord’s manor. When I shaved my beard too, Iiria deliberately made a disappointed face.

“It was truly awful.”

Iiria dropped both shoulders, let out a big sigh, and then bit into the smoked dragon meat Kururu had prepared. The reason it smelled so good seemed to be that it had been roasted with honey poured over it, so I picked up one skewer too.

“I’m just glad you came back safely, but the guy sleeping upstairs is from the Bax Company, right?”

Just a little earlier, when we shared some of this dragon meat with the two beastfolk who served Cole, I had roughly explained the situation to Kengo.

Kengo had been surprised by what happened in Roran, and the beastfolk had been just as surprised by the gift of dragon meat.

“I only heard about what happened afterward too. He sided with us, right?”

“Yes. If Cole-san hadn’t been there, I’m not sure whether we could have escaped.”

In the battle against the magicians as well, without Cole’s advice as someone with experience, it probably would have been impossible with Kururu alone.

Kengo looked puzzled by my answer, so Iiria, who had been munching on dragon meat, said.

“He said he loved me.”

Kengo burst out with a pfft, but then shrugged as if to say he understood.

Meanwhile, Kururu looked displeased, as if to say that she was the one who loved Iiria the most.

“However, it’s too early to say all’s well that ends well.”

Iiria, who had been greedily scraping at the meat stuck to the bone, looked at me.

“We’re going to war with Roran, aren’t we?”

Her face became not that of her usual soft, fluffy girl self, but that of a girl who had seen only the harsh side of the world.

Even so, the reason she did not look weak at all was probably because she had defeated Nodon, slain a dragon, and crushed the Bax Company’s scheme to do whatever they wanted.

“I’d like to say they were the ones who made the first move, but we did half-destroy Roran’s Great Palace.”

Kengo looked startled.

“Half-destroyed?”

“We were poisoned, confined separately… A lot happened, but in the end, we aimed for the tower where Iiria-san was being held, and just blew everything away with magic.”

“…”

Kengo, who looked dumbfounded, bit into the meat as if to check whether this was reality.

“They were the ones who attacked first, and normally speaking, they were the ones in the wrong, but Roran is still the provincial capital, however rotten it may be. In other words, I think they’ll see it as having been bested by the lower-ranked Jirenu Territory. The powerful people over there must be absolutely furious.”

“And those people really were good-for-nothings.”

Iiria wrinkled the bridge of her nose and made a face like a bulldog.

“Iiria-chan, your face isn’t cute right now.”

“Oh, how rude.”

Iiria put on a composed look and then giggled, but Kururu slapped the rude Kengo on the head in her place.

“But… what kind of town was Roran in the end? If there was a palace, does that mean it was a city? Is that place going to attack us?”

“Since they called it a province of the empire, I thought it would be some kind of backwater too, but apparently it simply means they were incorporated into the empire late. The provincial capital, Roran, was a splendid city with history. In this world, where people are fussy about honor and such, I think they’ll come at us with everything they have, staking the city’s dignity on it.”

“That’s why we need to take action right away.”

Iiria said it lightly while reaching for a second piece of dragon meat.

Iiria had always had an aloof side, but after being poisoned and imprisoned, she seemed to have become even more resolute.

“Well, I had thought Roran would probably come after this place’s magic stone mine someday…”

“We have four magicians now. We’ll definitely win.”

“Four?”

When we told the suspicious-looking Kengo about Cole, he was surprised.

“While I was at it, I also told Gerario-san and Cole-san about the synthetic magic stones. So even if war breaks out, we can fight with everything we have without hiding anything.”

“…”

Kengo held a piece of lean dragon meat, looked up at the ceiling, and slowly lowered his gaze again.

“Then even if we can’t win, maybe we won’t lose?”

“They can only come by ship, after all. Since we’re defending, I think we have a certain advantage.”

“The scary part would be only if they land under cover of night.”

“Also, we may need to be wary of people coming and going at the harbor for a while.”

“Ah, yeah. We’ll have to think about that too.”

A magician became a powerful fighting force as long as they had a single magic stone.

“We might be able to handle that area by limiting exchanges with outsiders to out at sea. Unless they use a fairly large magic stone, I don’t think they can fire magic that would reach from out on the water.”

The magic battle we encountered in Roran’s palace was exactly a magic battle, but with magic using magic stones of the size that was normal in this world, it was not as if everything as far as the eye could see would be turned into empty ground.

So if an assassin wanted to blow away Lord Iiria together with this manor, they would probably need a magic stone of a size that would be difficult to conceal.

However, that would not apply if they got close.

To protect her safety, it might be better to ask not only Marks, but also Dodol and the others to guard the area around the manor and Iiria.

“If it’s war, we’ll need to secure supplies and maintain control over the islanders too… Oh, right. If there might be war, are you going to tell the islanders?”

In response to Kengo’s question, Iiria, as the lord, set down the now-clean dragon bone and straightened her back.

“I want to tell them honestly. If war really breaks out, this is an island with nowhere to run. If there are people who want to flee first, I think I’d like them to flee.”

Gerario might say that respecting the people’s freedom too much was right as a person, but far too naive as a ruler.

But I felt that this was probably something Iiria, who had continued to be tossed about by fate, could not compromise on.

Because this girl knew better than anyone the pain of not being able to choose her own life.

“Well, that might be best. After we win, we can thoroughly squeeze taxes out of the people who come crawling back to the island.”

I was surprised by Kengo’s words, and only then did I finally notice Iiria smiling a little wickedly.

“It should be a good opportunity to test the true nature of the hostile people still dragging along the Nodon era.”

In other words, there was no use for disloyal people who would run off once war broke out.

However, what made me hesitate was that Iiria already looked as if she was certain of victory.

Roran would undoubtedly come at us seriously to crush us, and their harbor had many large ships, with more than enough military strength to attack the island. Repelling them should not be such a simple matter.

And if we lost to them, we would…

After thinking that, I finally understood.

If we could not win the war, everything would end anyway.

That was why Iiria was assuming we would win, and thinking only about what came after victory. Thinking about what would happen if we lost would serve no purpose at all.

Although she looked far softer and fluffier than Kururu, a straight core was beginning to form in Iiria’s upright back.

A backbone, so to speak.

“Nfufu. Just imagining those greedy merchants who abandon this place after hearing about the war coming back to the island and bowing and scraping would be enough to let me drink as much as I wanted.”

And also a hint of malice.

It seemed she had not yet vented all her resentment from the Nodon era, and even Kururu looked a little exasperated.