Chapter 94

Together with Gerario and Dodol, we discussed how to deal with Roran, but we generally reached the same conclusion as the one we had already been discussing.

The enemy must be kept at sea. We must not allow them to land. To that end, we must build a surveillance network.

Then, we must take measures so the island does not become unsettled before the war.

Explaining semaphore telegraphy was difficult, but by continuing the explanation, they finally understood, and though half in doubt, they agreed to the plan.

However, the reason Gerario agreed was not so much because he was convinced of the wonders of semaphore telegraphy, but because he seemed to expect that as long as towers were built, even if the semaphore telegraphy did not function, we could secure the bare minimum communication function by ringing bells or waving flags.

There was one more thing.

Gerario showed strong interest in securing personnel who could understand the theory behind semaphore telegraphy.

Because if someone could understand such a complicated topic, they should also be able to display their ability in analyzing the large-scale magic circle in question.

And if Gerario, a specialist in war, agreed, there was no reason for Iiria, Kururu, and the others to deliberately oppose it.

After that, we discussed various ways to prevent confusion from arising within the island ahead of the war, and then each headed to our assigned posts.

I went to the company, briefly told Yoshu what had happened in Roran, and then had him prepare the magic stone stock.

When I said it was to pay for the ship fare, he was clearly surprised.

After all, the amount was greater than the trade with the Bax Company.

“I never thought you’d actually pay the full amount.”

The man who had fought together with us in Roran, one of the men from Crape Myrtle House, smiled sarcastically.

“I thought you’d pay half at best.”

“Our company puts trust first.”

The man shrugged, returned the magic stones he had taken from the box back into it, and said.

“We stole plenty of treasure too, and Mother told us to stay on good terms with you people. If you’re going to war with Roran, do you need food?”

They were carrying the treasures they had taken from Roran, and the plan was for them to head straight toward the empire’s center.

“That would be… extremely helpful, but…”

“The captain of this ship owes me a favor. After he delivers us, I’ll have him bring cargo back. It’ll probably just barely make it before the Roran bastards come. Ah, we’ll cover the payment. Having too many gold coins on hand is dangerous, and above all—”

The man grinned.

“Rather than keeping it locked away in a money chest, it seems more profitable to lend it to you people.”

“Thank you very much. That helps.”

The man nodded, then snorted.

“For some reason, it feels like you people will beat Roran easily. You rampaged nicely in the palace.”

“That was only because of everyone’s diversion. Please take care on the road.”

When I held out my hand, the man blinked. Perhaps the men who lived in the brothel were not very accustomed to the refined custom of handshakes.

After he gripped my hand back hard enough to hurt, he quickly began preparing to set sail.

They were, so to speak, on the run, so this was no time to dawdle.

If they left Jirenu and headed east, they would soon cross the provincial border of Azuria Province. They would probably rest only after reaching land beyond Roran’s reach.

After finishing the deal with them and returning from the pier to the harbor, I found Kururu there, mixed in with Katz and the other harbor men who were also busily working.

“Is the talk finished?”

She was not dressed for travel, but in her usual maid-like outfit, so she stood out a little in the harbor, but perhaps because of that, she looked thirty percent more girlish.

“I don’t know whether it will arrive in time before Roran’s blockade, but it seems they’ll ask the ship carrying them to deliver food on its way back.”

“That’s good. Dodol, Marks, and the others are going around the companies, but as expected, once the topic of war comes up, those bastards try to hold back their goods.”

Kururu was going around the harbor companies together with Dodol, Marks, and the others as preparation for the coming battle.

Before talk of war spread and prices on the island soared, they had come to check the stock held by the major companies.

What would be most troublesome once talk of war came out was companies with supplies hoarding them, or fleeing the island together with those supplies. Then there was speculative panic buying.

They were free to leave the island, but we would not allow them to behave freely within the island.

We wanted to block extreme price hikes justified by the war.

For the merchants, it would be like having the seeds of profit crushed, but with Iiria’s authority as lord becoming established, this policy should not be difficult.

Of course, we had promised that our own company would not take advantage of the situation to profit.

“But are you really sure we don’t need to forcibly seize the goods?”

Kururu had a short-tempered side, so she seemed to be saying that if we were going to make the companies stop holding back goods, it would be faster to requisition them.

“If we forcibly seize them, they may oppose us again, and we may not be able to obtain their cooperation in the future. I think it’s better to merely keep them under pressure.”

Kururu shrugged as if to say, if that was how it was.

“How does it look with the lumber?”

“Look, we were originally planning to build another harbor, right? Under Dodol and Kengo’s direction, it seems the beastfolk will carry the lumber secured for that harbor, but—”

Kururu cut off her words because, just as she was saying it, we saw beastfolk walking heavily along with enormous logs on their shoulders.

“Magicians are amazing too, but when it comes to brute strength, the beastfolk really are on another level.”

The slave trade in beastfolk had been flourishing in Roran, and I could understand why. This labor force was overwhelming.

Kururu, who was half beastfolk herself, shrugged, perhaps because she remembered the scene in Roran.

“Still, you know.”

After saying that, Kururu suddenly looked distant, gazed at Marks and the others talking with merchants in front of a warehouse, and closed her mouth.

“What is it?”

When I asked, Kururu opened the mouth she had closed and let out a rather large sigh.

“Roran was mostly awful, and I’ve always been irritated by the arrogance of those nobles. What is with the way those people act, as if they don’t even think of others as people? Well, I’m half not human myself, though.”

Showing the canine tooth on her left side in a self-mocking way, Kururu smiled.

“But now, if we use Iiria-sama’s name, everyone on this island bows and scrapes. Thanks to that, I’ve started to understand how those people feel… a little.”

We were not forcibly seizing supplies from the companies, but we were checking their stock and warning them that we would show no mercy if they withheld sales or hoarded goods.

Of course, back when Nodon was around, this would have been completely impossible.

Being able to make something proceed as one wished was precisely what power itself was.

Kururu seemed to have felt an indescribable emotion toward that taste.

“It becomes frightening. Especially the appealing parts.”

Jirenu Territory was, so to speak, right in the middle of an uprising.

Until just recently, Iiria had been a figurehead lord, but now she was an influential person who had humiliated the provincial capital Roran, and Kururu was her foremost attendant.

The young girl who had once stood before a coast where rough waves crashed in and been forced to realize there was nowhere to flee had suddenly come to hold great power in her hands.

When it came to magic, she had tended to get somewhat excited, but this thing called power was probably even less familiar in her hands.

However, I thought Kururu’s confusion over it was a healthy thing.

“It’s like alcohol. All you can do is be careful.”

Kururu pricked up her cat ears, looked at me, and smiled ambiguously.

“They do say one becomes drunk on power.”

“Ah, that expression is the same in this world too.”

As I was strangely impressed by that, Kururu gave a small laugh and shrugged.

“You don’t seem like you’d change even if you became king.”

“Well, I’m a commoner to the core.”

“Weirdo.”

Kururu’s green eyes stared at me and narrowed slightly.

“But with you around, it seems we won’t lose our way.”

When she grinned, her fangs showed beneath her lips.

Standing beside Kururu like that and watching Marks and the others go around checking the stock of the companies in the harbor, the talk of war looming right before us seemed almost like a lie.

A peaceful harbor afternoon, with good weather and no wind.

Suddenly, I even heard Kururu humming.

It was something the sailors had been singing on the ship escaping from Roran.

Her cat ears swayed as if keeping the beat, and I laughed at the fact that she kept rhythm there.

While listening to Kururu’s somewhat off-key humming, I spent a peaceful moment that could be called the calm before the storm.

…or so it appeared on the surface.

Because beneath the face I had put on to appear calm, I had been tormented by conflict the entire time.

Ever since Kururu got off the ship from Roran, she had behaved exactly as she always did.

She was so normal that I had been treating her normally too, but it had been bothering me the entire time.

It was the last exchange I had with Kururu on the ship when we were escaping from Roran.

What did Kururu intend?

Was that bittersweet exchange on the ship a momentary whim caused by relief after escaping danger?

A war with Roran awaited us from here on.

If someone told me that this was no time to be thinking about such things before a war, they would be exactly right, but even if I had no intention of losing the war with Roran, I had just learned in Roran that one never knew what might happen.

Even the game development that had been my dream had not made it in time because I kept putting it off.

Beside Kururu, who had finally started happily humming while even swaying her tail, I made up my mind.

“Um, Kururu-san.”

“Mm?”

When I saw Kururu turning around, I got nervous.

Thinking that it was truly pathetic, as if I were some adolescent boy, I began to speak.

“It’s, um, about what we talked about on the ship.”

That had clearly been the flow of confessing one’s feelings.

In that case, what should be said should be said while it could still be said.

I took a deep breath and turned my whole body toward Kururu.

Then I raised my face from my feet, which I had been staring at—

I flinched.

Because Kururu, who was looking at me, had an extremely displeased look on her face.

“Don’t ever bring that up again.”

Kururu said that and turned sharply forward.

“…”

If the harbor wind had been a little stronger, I might have collapsed on the spot.

The exchange on the ship must have been a lapse of restraint caused by the relief of safely escaping from Roran.

The only one who had been carried away was me.

Jumping the gun. A delusional man. A giddy fool.

As my mind went completely blank, Kururu, who had been facing forward with her arms crossed in displeasure, said while looking somewhat downward.

“…Iiria-sama keeps teasing me about it.”

“… …Mm, huh?”

“I’ve never seen Iiria-sama wag her tail so happily.”

Kururu sighed from the bottom of her heart in annoyance, then looked at me.

Her cheeks were a little red.

“Even this outfit, she kept saying things like, Yorinobu absolutely likes this kind of thing better. I told her it was strange since I was going to the harbor.”

Each time she spoke in annoyance, her pointed fangs appeared and disappeared.

When I was unable to say anything, Kururu closed her mouth and kicked my foot.

“I’m saying that if I just let myself get swept along like this, it’ll feel like everything is going according to Iiria-sama’s plan, and that’s frustrating. So for a while, pretend things are the same as they’ve always been.”

After saying that, Kururu turned forward again.

Kururu crossed her arms in front of her chest and proudly puffed out her chest, looking every bit like the strong-willed attendant who had survived the Nodon era.

But when I looked at her profile, her cat ears were restless, her tail was swaying, her cheeks were red, and her mouth was pressed tightly shut like that of a stubborn child.

“Understood?”

And I had never been able to stand up to Kururu since the Nodon era.

“Yes.”

I answered reflexively.

Kururu snorted and averted her eyes.

I stayed silent, unable to say anything, but suddenly, something rustled around my right calf.

When I realized Kururu was poking at me with her tail, her green eyes were looking at me.

“Idiot Yorinobu.”

Kururu said that, then gave a small smile.

But that lasted only an instant, and when she noticed Marks and the others coming out of the company, she raised her hand in response to them waving.

It felt somewhat like I had been made to wait, but in the first place, I had never been able to stand up to Kururu.

Also, I had an idea of what Kururu meant when she seemed fed up about Iiria teasing her.

We must not give that wicked lord any bait.

However, right now, no one should be listening in.

“I like both that outfit and the wandering magician costume.”

Caught off guard, Kururu pricked up her cat ears and stood on tiptoe.

Then, as if frustrated that she had been caught off guard, she looked at me and hit my arm.

“Idiot.”

Leaving that word behind with her fangs bared, Kururu began walking with large strides.

I only muttered in my heart that it would have been even better if she had put her hair in braids too, and not just worn the outfit.

Chasing after Kururu’s small but powerful back, and the tail that appeared and disappeared beneath her skirt, I also broke into a light run.