Winning Favor Was The Easiest Job! (4)

Sitting politely, Guts and the men began talking with me. I learned that they were Guts’s private mercenary band, the “Invisible Mercenary Company”

“So, you’re saying the Empire is in an uproar over the medicine I made?”

“To be precise, it’s the invigorators causing the uproar.”

“Well, that’s awkward. I’m busy, you see. I don’t have much time to make that.”

“What on earth… what have you been doing out here?”

“Let’s say I became a viscount and got exiled?”

By human-society standards, this place was a place of exile. It was basically a place they sent you to die. But the Empress had something in mind.

I could guess why she thought I would do well here. She knew I lacked the preconceptions people of this world were supposed to have—especially in how I viewed beastkin.

They must have done their homework; given the Empire’s information-handling ability, they could at least have found out that I was the “leftover” dragged along when the Hero was summoned from the Apoca Kingdom.

“The wording’s lousy, but… it isn’t wrong. From their side, I am a leftover…”

Bluntly put, the only one they needed was the “Hero.” And the reason they handed over a bit of hush money and let me go smoothly was, I think, image management—to give the impression that a man from their own land had at least been treated decently when released.

That was the conclusion I came to in hindsight. In the end, most of those dragged along were probably called back to the royal castle—or exploited somewhere.

I wasn’t exactly enterprising, but I’d acted a step ahead of the kingdom’s expectations in various ways, and perhaps that was why I was here now.

At least, that’s what I thought.

“I never imagined you’d end up a noble… above a viscount, even.”

Guts suddenly spoke with honorifics; perhaps this was the difference between revealing the noble status and not.

“Formal speech all of a sudden, huh? Anyway—were things so urgent you came blundering all the way out here? If I recall, the imperial palace periodically activates a magic circle to admit merchants into this place…?”

“Information and circumstances regarding the Ingrad Domain aren’t easy to learn from outside. Besides, this area is called the Demonic Frontier . It’s a region where you won’t easily see anything—not beastkin, not even monsters—under ordinary rules.”

I hadn’t known it was called the Demonic Frontier, but I did know it was a place you didn’t easily see.

Because a fellow like Debik was scattered across the domain…

“I wonder what rank Debik holds among the beastkin…?”

Judging by how he one-punched the Ogre Lord’s teeth out, he clearly wasn’t weak. And remembering how he led the beastkin out to hunt, I guessed he wasn’t of a low rank.

But seeing Hirna handle Debik like a calf at slaughter, I wondered if she might be the real power. I turned my head and glanced at the beastkin women rolling goat-dropping pellets.

“Anyway—given the situation, getting back will be hard, won’t it?”

“…A lord whom the beastkin follow… I’ve never heard of such a thing. And the fact that beastkin… saved humans… same story. What exactly did you do?”

I glanced back at the beastkin behind us and spoke.

“What did I do to you?”

At that, they all shrugged and stayed indifferent. Honestly, it was a business relationship; they became domain folk in exchange for various things I crafted.

Explaining it would only wear out my mouth, but I gave Guts a version he could digest.

“Beastkin are the same as ‘people.’ Through conversation and exchange, we came to understand each other—and before I knew it, we could get along. I don’t intend to force humans to do that, nor ask them to—but there’s one thing I can state clearly.”

“What’s that…?”

“Beastkin are people—and now they’re my domain folk. So, for any human who wants to work or live here, recognizing beastkin as ‘people’ is the most basic requirement.”

He looked baffled. His expression said, “What nonsense is that?”—so I could tell he hadn’t accepted it. But discomfort is the burden of the one who can’t accept; I had no need to meddle further.

That was as far as I could go.

“So then, shall we talk business? Or would you rather rest today?”

“…We may rest, yes…?”

“I can’t just let anyone into the lord’s residence… Seria?”

At my call, Seria—who had been watching from the side—startled and answered, “Y-yes? Yes!”

“Do we have anything like tents at the residence?”

“Um… if it’s makeshift tents, we have enough to pitch several!”

“You heard that? Please be satisfied with those.”

“Thank you for your help.”

“Don’t thank me—bow your heads to the beastkin who brought you here. The dogfolk over there picked you up.”

Only then did Guts turn his gaze to the dogfolk group. His expression looked conflicted; then he took a deep breath, sprang up, walked over to them, and bowed with formality.

“You saved our lives. We won’t forget this favor. Thank you very much.”

The dogfolk stared at Guts with unexpected expressions. Their response to his thanks was very slight, but I thought it wasn’t a bad start.

Afterward, the compounding of the mana suppressant wrapped up; from the first batch, we secured over a thousand pills. What mattered was what came next.

All that remained was to check how long the effect lasted on Hare—but my work showed no sign of being finished.

We decided to store the completed medicine separately and dismissed the beastkin. Only Hare, at my request, remained and came into the residence with me; she looked around the lord’s residence with an expression of wonder.

“Is it fascinating?”

“…I’ve never had reason to enter a human building.”

“So there hasn’t been any exchange at all, then?”

“Right. They say the war ended before I was born.”

“Pardon me, but—how old are you now…?”

Hare shot me a look, hesitated, and then spoke.

“I’m nineteen. I’m well past the age to take a husband…”

“…Sorry?”

If nineteen was “past the age” to take a husband, at what age did beastkin usually marry? I asked, just in case.

“At what age do beastkin generally marry?”

“Beastkin live to sixty, at best. So once we’re past fifteen, we generally marry; each year that passes unmated, a beastkin woman is judged to have a problem.”

That was just four years. And Hare was still very young—yet they treated her like a spinster.

“Even if the world’s different, that’s quite a gap in norms. Do humans do this too?”

Thinking this custom might be tied to the Demon God’s curse, I decided to ask the maids or Vincent later. For now, I headed upstairs with Hare. Then I showed her into the empty room next to my workshop and said:

“For the time being, it would be best if you stayed here.”

We stepped inside together; she looked around with a curious face. I wondered what it felt like for Hare—who had lived a wild life—to experience a human life, and that of a noble at that; but she didn’t seem to dislike it, and I was simply relieved.

“Your Majesty—pleeeease grant permission!”

Luminas de Terakan, the Empress of the Terakan Empire, found it absurd that all this fuss had arisen over a single drug.

“So you’re saying: since the Viscount of Ingrad might be in danger, I should authorize emergency teleportation. Is that it?”

“Yes, Your Majesty! The Ingrad Domain sits in the forest of the Demonic Frontier, and the Viscount of Ingrad was a Free Citizen, not even a basically trained noble—hardly a safe land for him to live in.”

“I allowed him five knights of the Guard to accompany him. And still you think him in danger?”

“I do!!”

Duke Balsen shouted proudly. It was clear the noble faction had made up their minds to press the issue this time.

“If your reason is proper, I will permit it. However, if I hear it and find it improper… you will pay for wasting my time. Speak.”

At the Empress’s threat as she awaited an answer, Duke Balsen glanced behind him.

“Didn’t the cursed Yusillian side say they would also move? Incompetent wretches…”

Where Duke Balsen’s downcast gaze fell, Marquis Doriyan was sweating bullets. Though a high noble of the same noble faction, in Balsen’s view he was an incompetent insect who cared only for money and women.

On the strength of Doriyan’s words, they had set out to bestow a favor on that Viscount of Ingrad—only to risk drawing the Empress’s ire.

Moreover, contrary to what Marquis Doriyan had said—that the imperial faction Duke Yusillian would coordinate beforehand—Yusillian kept his mouth shut, even wearing a thick, sticky smirk. Duke Balsen felt cold sweat bead on his brow; his political life might crack at this rate.

“Humbly report I must: the Viscount of Ingrad is a ‘priceless asset’ to humanity. The medicines he can make are a great power that can contribute to human progress. To consign such a figure to the ‘Demonic Frontier,’ which is a death ground, would be a grave sin against humanity. We must secure his person at once and take him out of the Frontier.”

“And if he is not in danger?”

“How could that be? History tells us plainly, does it not? Beastkin and humans can never be one—Your Majesty knows this.”

The Empress chuckled. Duke Balsen was confused by what that laughter meant, but he had no intention of stopping now.

“The Viscount of Ingrad’s exploits have spread. There is no subject who does not know of the medicines he can make, and rumors say the imperial house seeks to monopolize him. This could become a great spark for unrest in the Empire. We must swiftly distribute his medicine in the capital to soothe public sentiment—or else put him before many people.”

The Empress found the claim ridiculous. But nobles of the noble faction took Duke Balsen’s flustered argument as right doctrine and began to shout, “Please grant permission!”

Everyone knew it. What those trashy nobles craved was the “invigorator,” the so-called “blessing of the gods.” They were, truly, amusing creatures.

“He was brought along with the Heroes… but not himself a Hero, was he?”

Through investigation, the Empress already knew his identity. But that was that, and the present situation another matter.

“Very well, then. I will order an inquiry by the Imperial Guard. If nobles intrude, you as well will be affected by the rumor’s fallout. The imperial house, already under suspicion, will, at the very center of responsibility, produce a result that satisfies public opinion. Therefore… withdraw. I will hear no further statements.”

The nobles of the noble faction looked displeased, but Duke Balsen thought it didn’t matter.

Because it was the Empress who spoke, he was sure some result would be produced. Thus, the political game began to turn and turn.