Two days later.
At a port city south of Westland, called ‘British’.
“Hey…”
I was amazed at the appearance of the huge luxury passenger ship in front of me.
The, pure white, ‘White Rain’.
Even though I was completely ignorant about ships, I could easily recognize what this passenger ship was made in image of.
The movie ‘Titanic’. The ship’s design clearly took its cues from there.
To be honest, it felt a little weird.
As if a real-life movie scene had been transplanted into a manga.
“This your first time seeing a ship, big brother?”
Chinuavi asked with a grin as if he’d sensed the gleam in my eyes.
“Rather… you can tell it’s a great ship just by looking at it.”
Not just its appearance was good, even the settings applied to this ship matched that.
Fast enough to reach Eastland from Westland in just ten days, which meant very high speed when measured in knots.
An inviolable, unsinkable steel body that no sea monster could bite through.
A luxurious interior that hearkened back to the glory days of the ancient Golden Empire.
Finally, the phrase, ‘the ship of dreams that everyone longs for.’
Then,
“What are you doing, Squatjaw?”
Cocoa’s voice snapped me out of my daze.
“There’s no time.”
“Why? There’re still twenty minutes left before departure.”
“Ticket.”
“Ah, right.”
I’d forgotten the most important thing.
We hurried to the ticket counter.
But when I asked for tickets, the salesman wagged his fingers left and right with a very arrogant expression on his face.
“Nope. You’re too late.”
“You don’t have any tickets at all?”
“Well, departure is just around the corner. Don’t you know? That ship over there is the White Rain. The ship everyone longs for. There’re even people flying in on airships saying they want to ride it… tsk, and you’re trying to get a ticket now?”
But even as he said that, he wasn’t firmly cutting us off.
His sly stare explained it all.
He was asking for money.
So, I patted down my pockets as I’d been waiting for this.
Of course, I wasn’t trying to take money out.
A slightly cool plastic card brushed across my fingertips.
My adventurer’s license.
‘Heh heh…’
Although it was bit childish, I’d actually always been waiting for such a situation to unfold.
Wasn’t it something like revealing a bit of your hidden power?
Although it wasn’t as good as an S-rank or higher license, this A-rank adventurer’s license was also a symbol of enormous benefits and authority in this world.
The basic setting of this world is that the adventurers are the chosen ones, and the A-rankers belong to the top 5% among them.
Of course, in the second half of the work, it’d just be a cold and useless plastic card. Because everyone would be S or SS-ranked, and in Midland where the Tower of Adventure is hidden, there are no ‘ordinary people’ to appreciate it in the first place.
But right now was different.
Now, at the beginning of the story, was the only opportunity to do the ‘adventurer flex’ to my heart’s content.
At that moment, when I could feel the salesman’s gaze slowly turn toward me –
I took out my license and slid it forward.
“Excuse me, but… this is who I am.”
“Huh?”
Soon, the salesman, who confirmed the card’s authenticity, turned white.
Yup.
“Wait, are you an A, A-class adventurer?”
For a moment, I almost couldn’t help but laugh. Although expected, how appropriate a response!
“Um… it’s not really that great, I’ve actually just became an adventurer… I’m A-ranked, but just because I came first in the qualification test, so I’m still a young rookie…”
“Heo-, heok! F-, first in the qualification test!”
The salesman’s mouth was wide agape, as if his jaw was ready to drop down to the floor at any moment.
“Actually, this is a bit of an urgent situation because I’m carrying out an important mission from the Adventurers’ Association…”
“U-, urgent situation!?”
“It’s the ship everyone longs for, so I understand there aren’t enough seats, but since this is a very important mission…
“Ah, aah! Seats! Yes, there are. Our White Passenger Line provides such basic benefits for adventurers. Especially if you’re A-class or higher… Which seats do you want?”
Done.
Suppressing my laughter, I continued.
“Hmmm, it’s a little embarrassing to ask directly. In fact, our mission presupposes frequent encounters with the ship’s distinguished guests…”
“Third class.”
“Yeah, third class… huh?”
Despite my puzzled glance, Cocoa again spoke with an indifferent expression.
“Third class.”
“… Look here, you little brat.”
But instead of responding, Cocoa silently pointed to a corner of the ship.
People in shabby clothes were coming and going through a small side door.
It seemed to be the entrance to the third-class area.
“Hoo…”
I could guess why Cocoa was pointing there.
That had to be the path.
But wasn’t this all the same ship anyway? Would it really matter?
Even when I pleaded, Cocoa just shook her head.
But I also had no intention of stepping back.
The door to the first-class area over there was clearly shining much brighter in my eyes.
“That’s not because of your pathfinding eyes. It’s because of those jewels at the entrance.”
“But that’s not all, isn’t the same light over there on the floor and the stairs too…”
“Nope.”
“… Yeah, I just had to try.”
It looked like I couldn’t avoid third class.
When I asked for three seats in the third class, the salesman’s eyes were full of surprise.
“I can even get you first-class seats…”
“… This isn’t about comfort, I’m riding the ship because of my mission. Well, then.”
Holding back my tears and grabbing the tickets, I ended up bound for the third-class area in the back.
There were no fixed seats in the third-class area.
It was a place where if you just laid down on an empty bed, it’d soon become your seat.
Moreover, just because you occupied a seat once, didn’t mean that would last till the end of the journey. Leave your seat, and it’s again up for grabs.
The reason was simple. Because there were far more passengers than seats.
In fact, there were some six-bed cabins that had more than ten people huddled together inside.
However, the reason why there wasn’t a free-for-all fight for seats going on was because of the rule ‘do not covet a seat already taken’, which, strangely, was being obeyed.
The shabbier and more uncontrollable a place is, the more violent the fights that happen there.
Moreover, third-class compartments of so large a passenger ship or airship have a common setting that criminals like to hide there.
In other words, it’s not a place that can stay undisturbed.
Here too, there were a few people right in front of my eyes who looked like they wouldn’t blink at violating the tacit rules.
And yet, there was no disturbance, and the cabins were relatively quiet.
Predictably, there seemed to be someone overseeing this area.
“Come this way.”
While I was immersed in various thoughts, Cocoa’s guidance continued.
Five minutes were left before departure.
The cabins and passageways were already crowded to the limit.
One could see at a glance that there wouldn’t be any seats left empty, but Cocoa never stopped walking.
She didn’t slow down at all, even after passing through a cabin full of drunkards, a warehouse full of unknown drugs, and a mysterious engine room full of dust.
Even though I knew her abilities, I had no choice but to voice my doubts.
“You’re not going to just keep going like this, right?”
“Shouldn’t we find our cabin?”
Cocoa seemed annoyed, and only beckoned a finger to follow.
How long did we walk like that?
When it felt like we were almost at the end of the ship, Cocoa finally stopped walking.
And there, surprisingly,
“… Alright, you win.”
“Also, Miss Cocoa. I believed in you from the beginning. It was big brother who was complaining nonstop.”
There was an empty cabin, which was even relatively clean.
“Okay, can I unpack?”
“Yeah.”
Cocoa nodded and then tacked on a few strange words.
“It might get a little tiring in the future.”
Then she flopped down on the floor, and it took only a few seconds for her to start snoring.
“She must’ve been pretty tired.”
“Looks like it. I’ll have a talk with her later.”
She’d probably been struggling a bit to see the path.
I picked Cocoa up and moved her to the extra bed, then flopped down on the floor.
Then, I took out the mission request form I’d received from the Adventurers’ Association and carefully began to examine it.
【Adventure Mission Request Form】
Request target: Squatjaw Adventurers (Class A) Difficulty: Rank A Content: Find the second princess of the Mainin Kingdom and escort her to the Adventurers’ Association branch in Eastland. Details Strange currents are flowing between the Skull Empire and the Mainin Kingdom, which have been in a state of truce for nearly twenty years. This is because the second princess of the Mainin Kingdom rejected the marriage proposal of the first prince of the Skull Empire. The empire that has never known rejection has been insulted. This is a situation where the twenty-year old armistice might be broken any day, but even the princess then suddenly disappeared. If she cannot be found within a month, there is a high possibility of war.※ Additional information
Find the Adventurers’ Association branch at Nanma Port, Eastland for the rest of the information. High possibility of linked missions being assigned.Hmmm.
Simply put, it was a missing person search.
Missing person search wasn’t the most difficult among the numerous adventure mission types. Compared to exploring ruins and clearing out bandits, it was barely an inconvenience.
However, as I read the mission request, I started feeling a little nervous.
All my actions so far had been based on my ‘metaknowledge’. Since I was well aware of the current situation, the characters’ personalities, and the future plot, naturally I’d gotten good results so far.
But not from now on –
Basically, I didn’t know jack.
First of all, I came to know about the ‘Mainin Kingdom’ itself from the mission request form. I didn’t even know the name of the kingdom itself, how could I know the background behind it?
Unlike Westland, which consists of about fifty free cities, Eastland is made up of ‘monarchies with kings’. The countries come together to form a coalition government, but it’s not a very cohesive alliance.
That was all I knew about Eastland at the moment.
Fortunately, though, I knew a little more about the Skull Empire.
Because it had been the country most frequently mentioned during the original’s Eastland arc. Also, the leader of this country was a very popular character.
Of course, I couldn’t be sure how much the Skull Empire of the current day resembled the one I knew, but the characters who’d play an active role in the future wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Anyway, going by to the mission request, the reason Cocoa had led us to this ship seemed obvious.
It had to mean that the ‘second princess of the Mainin Kingdom’, or somebody who might know her current location, or some artifact to point us towards her, was here.
Right around here, somewhere.
Slowly, my heart began to pound.
‘Should I try to find it?’
I was already used to my ‘pathfinding eyes’.
Telling Chinuavi to rest, I walked out of the cabin.
First step, set a goal.
‘… This is tough.’
I’d left the room all excited, but I had to pause for a while. Since I didn’t know the specific target, it wasn’t easy to set the goal properly.
It felt like my brain had suddenly frozen.
Hmmm.
Even after giving it some thought, I couldn’t come up with a proper way.
So, I just decided to keep it simple. Let’s take a rough approach first.
I stared intently at the mission request in my hand.
And simply aimed at ‘solving the mission’ itself.
That was then –
Zzzzz-pffff.
Zzzzz-pffff.
“Huh?”
There was a sudden burst of noise. Coming from the warehouse next door, at that.
How puzzling.
“Is this a clue?”
Cocoa had said that clues to the path could come in any form. It didn’t have to be something visual based on light. Just like now, a snore coming out of nowhere might also mark the path’s beginning.
It was so loud, and the clue came so swiftly and clearly, that I could only tilt my head.
‘This timing is too sudden… Whatever, let’s check it out.’
I immediately walked to where the sound had been coming from. It was the door to a warehouse that was only five meters away from our cabin. And the door was even slightly ajar.
‘Oof…’
As soon as I stuck my head inside, a terrible stench wafted out.
At first glance, the interior scenery was even more disappointing.
Some sort of dung was oozing all over the floor, and there were puddles of filth, manure, bales of straw, and even a water basin scattered here and there.
It looked like a place that’d been used for temporarily keeping livestock to be slaughtered, but now it was abandoned.
To be honest, I could never have imagined somebody staying in this place.
But,
Zzzzz-pffff.
Zzzzz-pffff.
The sound kept coming.
Holding my nose, I crept inside.
And witnessed an astonishing sight.
A person was lying on a pile of straw, snoring.
“… Crazy.”
I let out an unconscious exclamation of surprise.
I wasn’t surprised by a person sleeping so peacefully in this filthy environment, without showing any symptoms of respiratory problems.
Rather, there were three reasons behind my surprise.
First, that the sleeping person was none other than a woman;
Second, that she was a very beautiful woman, glowing with health;
Third, that her face was surprisingly familiar.
As I recalled, this woman’s name was Arte Khan.
As the empress of the Great Skull Empire, she had two nicknames: ‘The Black Star of the Meadows’ and ‘The Wild Horse that Cleaves the Winds’.
Not only that, despite being a woman, she was said to be born with the strength of twenty men, and was the first woman to pass the ‘Warrior’s Path’ test of the Skull Empire.
And, more simply, she was one of the named characters that’d appeared in the Eastland arc.
I was having a hard time holding back the laughter that was trying to escape my throat.
The meeting place was indeed a bit iffy, but I seemed to have found the ‘key’ very easily.
I didn’t know if this woman was already the empress now or not, but anyway, a few years later, she’d meet Leo as the leader of the Skull Empire.
Naturally, she must’ve had a high status in the Skull Empire even now.
I didn’t know how it all connected, but I clearly had to use this woman to solve this mission.
‘Okay.’
Finding out the key’s identity was enough for now.
Let’s have a conversation later in a more comfortable place, with the sea breeze blowing.
Then, while I was ready to quickly get out of this cage –
“P-, Princess! Princess!”
Someone hurriedly opened the door and came in. It was another woman.
At that moment –
‘Yikes!’
Without thinking, I threw myself into the pile of straw next to me.
And the next second, I regretted it.
‘… Haah.’
The smell of filth suddenly deepened, and the moist and sticky ‘stuff’ hidden under the straw began to make my body itch all over.
In order to ignore the discomfort jabbing into my bones, I had to focus on the situation in front of me.
“Princess! Come on, get up!”
“…”
“Princess Thermis!”
Erm?
I was a little perplexed. Because the name was different from the one I remembered.
The new woman kept calling the empress ‘Princess Thermis’, and kept trying to wake her up.
After a while,
“Ugh… yaaaaawn!”
The woman got up with a loud yawn.
“What? What is it?”
“Sk-, Skull Empire’s people…”
“Did they come all the way here?”
“Yes, they’re now on the deck… They haven’t come to this place yet…”
“Really, they’re like roaches. I think I’ll just kill them all.”
“Y-, you can’t … The king is already worried about a war breaking out…”
“Uh-huh… damn it. Why does that sick weakling keep needlessly bothering me?”
By now, my initial puzzlement had grown out of control.
Princess Thermis? People of the Skull Empire? A frightened king and a sick weakling being a bother?
With my doubts multiplying over and over, I again went over the contents of the mission request.
Find the second princess of the Mainin Kingdom, who fled after rejecting the marriage proposal of the first prince of the Skull Empire.It was confusing.
Did I make a big mistake?
I immediately shook my head.
It couldn’t be. There hadn’t been that many important named characters in Eastland in the first place.
That girl. She had to be the empress of the Skull Empire I’d seen in the manga.
Ten minutes later.
About five more minutes after the two women had left the cage, I was finally able to sort things out.
The woman a while ago was Arte Khan, who’d later become famous as the empress of the Skull Empire.
However, she was currently the second princess of the Mainin Kingdom. She’d run away because she didn’t want to get married.
To put it simply, it was a scenario of someone being forcibly taken as the daughter-in-law, and eventually the daughter-in-law swallowing the whole dynasty.
And my present task, whatever the future might be, was to gently tame that wild horse-like woman and make her marry into the Skull Empire.
“… So that’s how it is?”
It was messy. It was completely different from all the adventure quests I’d seen so far.
I put off making a decision right now.
For now, I just had to watch.
The next morning.
Suddenly waking up, I could see why Cocoa had said that I’d be tired in the future.
Although, it wasn’t because of the princess’ loud snores.
I could feel some suspicious presences in the passage outside the cabin.
Some people who’d foregone sleep, were approaching the animal cage where the princess was.
They hadn’t simply lost their way.
Thoroughly silenced footsteps, breathing slow enough to go beyond common sense.
The faint noises they did make couldn’t escape my sharpened hearing, and reminded me of someone familiar.
Haka.
These guys felt similar to Haka as he’d been in the beginning.
The Haka of that time, brimming with secrecy and murderous intent.
My calm eyes shined in the darkness.
They were assassins.
Two days later.
At a port city south of Westland, called ‘British’.
“Hey…”
I was amazed at the appearance of the huge luxury passenger ship in front of me.
The, pure white, ‘White Rain’.
Even though I was completely ignorant about ships, I could easily recognize what this passenger ship was made in image of.
The movie ‘Titanic’. The ship’s design clearly took its cues from there.
To be honest, it felt a little weird.
As if a real-life movie scene had been transplanted into a manga.
“This your first time seeing a ship, big brother?”
Chinuavi asked with a grin as if he’d sensed the gleam in my eyes.
“Rather… you can tell it’s a great ship just by looking at it.”
Not just its appearance was good, even the settings applied to this ship matched that.
Fast enough to reach Eastland from Westland in just ten days, which meant very high speed when measured in knots.
An inviolable, unsinkable steel body that no sea monster could bite through.
A luxurious interior that hearkened back to the glory days of the ancient Golden Empire.
Finally, the phrase, ‘the ship of dreams that everyone longs for.’
Then,
“What are you doing, Squatjaw?”
Cocoa’s voice snapped me out of my daze.
“There’s no time.”
“Why? There’re still twenty minutes left before departure.”
“Ticket.”
“Ah, right.”
I’d forgotten the most important thing.
We hurried to the ticket counter.
But when I asked for tickets, the salesman wagged his fingers left and right with a very arrogant expression on his face.
“Nope. You’re too late.”
“You don’t have any tickets at all?”
“Well, departure is just around the corner. Don’t you know? That ship over there is the White Rain. The ship everyone longs for. There’re even people flying in on airships saying they want to ride it… tsk, and you’re trying to get a ticket now?”
But even as he said that, he wasn’t firmly cutting us off.
His sly stare explained it all.
He was asking for money.
So, I patted down my pockets as I’d been waiting for this.
Of course, I wasn’t trying to take money out.
A slightly cool plastic card brushed across my fingertips.
My adventurer’s license.
‘Heh heh…’
Although it was bit childish, I’d actually always been waiting for such a situation to unfold.
Wasn’t it something like revealing a bit of your hidden power?
Although it wasn’t as good as an S-rank or higher license, this A-rank adventurer’s license was also a symbol of enormous benefits and authority in this world.
The basic setting of this world is that the adventurers are the chosen ones, and the A-rankers belong to the top 5% among them.
Of course, in the second half of the work, it’d just be a cold and useless plastic card. Because everyone would be S or SS-ranked, and in Midland where the Tower of Adventure is hidden, there are no ‘ordinary people’ to appreciate it in the first place.
But right now was different.
Now, at the beginning of the story, was the only opportunity to do the ‘adventurer flex’ to my heart’s content.
At that moment, when I could feel the salesman’s gaze slowly turn toward me –
I took out my license and slid it forward.
“Excuse me, but… this is who I am.”
“Huh?”
Soon, the salesman, who confirmed the card’s authenticity, turned white.
Yup.
“Wait, are you an A, A-class adventurer?”
For a moment, I almost couldn’t help but laugh. Although expected, how appropriate a response!
“Um… it’s not really that great, I’ve actually just became an adventurer… I’m A-ranked, but just because I came first in the qualification test, so I’m still a young rookie…”
“Heo-, heok! F-, first in the qualification test!”
The salesman’s mouth was wide agape, as if his jaw was ready to drop down to the floor at any moment.
“Actually, this is a bit of an urgent situation because I’m carrying out an important mission from the Adventurers’ Association…”
“U-, urgent situation!?”
“It’s the ship everyone longs for, so I understand there aren’t enough seats, but since this is a very important mission…
“Ah, aah! Seats! Yes, there are. Our White Passenger Line provides such basic benefits for adventurers. Especially if you’re A-class or higher… Which seats do you want?”
Done.
Suppressing my laughter, I continued.
“Hmmm, it’s a little embarrassing to ask directly. In fact, our mission presupposes frequent encounters with the ship’s distinguished guests…”
“Third class.”
“Yeah, third class… huh?”
Despite my puzzled glance, Cocoa again spoke with an indifferent expression.
“Third class.”
“… Look here, you little brat.”
But instead of responding, Cocoa silently pointed to a corner of the ship.
People in shabby clothes were coming and going through a small side door.
It seemed to be the entrance to the third-class area.
“Hoo…”
I could guess why Cocoa was pointing there.
That had to be the path.
But wasn’t this all the same ship anyway? Would it really matter?
Even when I pleaded, Cocoa just shook her head.
But I also had no intention of stepping back.
The door to the first-class area over there was clearly shining much brighter in my eyes.
“That’s not because of your pathfinding eyes. It’s because of those jewels at the entrance.”
“But that’s not all, isn’t the same light over there on the floor and the stairs too…”
“Nope.”
“… Yeah, I just had to try.”
It looked like I couldn’t avoid third class.
When I asked for three seats in the third class, the salesman’s eyes were full of surprise.
“I can even get you first-class seats…”
“… This isn’t about comfort, I’m riding the ship because of my mission. Well, then.”
Holding back my tears and grabbing the tickets, I ended up bound for the third-class area in the back.
There were no fixed seats in the third-class area.
It was a place where if you just laid down on an empty bed, it’d soon become your seat.
Moreover, just because you occupied a seat once, didn’t mean that would last till the end of the journey. Leave your seat, and it’s again up for grabs.
The reason was simple. Because there were far more passengers than seats.
In fact, there were some six-bed cabins that had more than ten people huddled together inside.
However, the reason why there wasn’t a free-for-all fight for seats going on was because of the rule ‘do not covet a seat already taken’, which, strangely, was being obeyed.
The shabbier and more uncontrollable a place is, the more violent the fights that happen there.
Moreover, third-class compartments of so large a passenger ship or airship have a common setting that criminals like to hide there.
In other words, it’s not a place that can stay undisturbed.
Here too, there were a few people right in front of my eyes who looked like they wouldn’t blink at violating the tacit rules.
And yet, there was no disturbance, and the cabins were relatively quiet.
Predictably, there seemed to be someone overseeing this area.
“Come this way.”
While I was immersed in various thoughts, Cocoa’s guidance continued.
Five minutes were left before departure.
The cabins and passageways were already crowded to the limit.
One could see at a glance that there wouldn’t be any seats left empty, but Cocoa never stopped walking.
She didn’t slow down at all, even after passing through a cabin full of drunkards, a warehouse full of unknown drugs, and a mysterious engine room full of dust.
Even though I knew her abilities, I had no choice but to voice my doubts.
“You’re not going to just keep going like this, right?”
“Shouldn’t we find our cabin?”
Cocoa seemed annoyed, and only beckoned a finger to follow.
How long did we walk like that?
When it felt like we were almost at the end of the ship, Cocoa finally stopped walking.
And there, surprisingly,
“… Alright, you win.”
“Also, Miss Cocoa. I believed in you from the beginning. It was big brother who was complaining nonstop.”
There was an empty cabin, which was even relatively clean.
“Okay, can I unpack?”
“Yeah.”
Cocoa nodded and then tacked on a few strange words.
“It might get a little tiring in the future.”
Then she flopped down on the floor, and it took only a few seconds for her to start snoring.
“She must’ve been pretty tired.”
“Looks like it. I’ll have a talk with her later.”
She’d probably been struggling a bit to see the path.
I picked Cocoa up and moved her to the extra bed, then flopped down on the floor.
Then, I took out the mission request form I’d received from the Adventurers’ Association and carefully began to examine it.
【Adventure Mission Request Form】
Request target: Squatjaw Adventurers (Class A) Difficulty: Rank A Content: Find the second princess of the Mainin Kingdom and escort her to the Adventurers’ Association branch in Eastland. Details Strange currents are flowing between the Skull Empire and the Mainin Kingdom, which have been in a state of truce for nearly twenty years. This is because the second princess of the Mainin Kingdom rejected the marriage proposal of the first prince of the Skull Empire. The empire that has never known rejection has been insulted. This is a situation where the twenty-year old armistice might be broken any day, but even the princess then suddenly disappeared. If she cannot be found within a month, there is a high possibility of war.※ Additional information
Find the Adventurers’ Association branch at Nanma Port, Eastland for the rest of the information. High possibility of linked missions being assigned.Hmmm.
Simply put, it was a missing person search.
Missing person search wasn’t the most difficult among the numerous adventure mission types. Compared to exploring ruins and clearing out bandits, it was barely an inconvenience.
However, as I read the mission request, I started feeling a little nervous.
All my actions so far had been based on my ‘metaknowledge’. Since I was well aware of the current situation, the characters’ personalities, and the future plot, naturally I’d gotten good results so far.
But not from now on –
Basically, I didn’t know jack.
First of all, I came to know about the ‘Mainin Kingdom’ itself from the mission request form. I didn’t even know the name of the kingdom itself, how could I know the background behind it?
Unlike Westland, which consists of about fifty free cities, Eastland is made up of ‘monarchies with kings’. The countries come together to form a coalition government, but it’s not a very cohesive alliance.
That was all I knew about Eastland at the moment.
Fortunately, though, I knew a little more about the Skull Empire.
Because it had been the country most frequently mentioned during the original’s Eastland arc. Also, the leader of this country was a very popular character.
Of course, I couldn’t be sure how much the Skull Empire of the current day resembled the one I knew, but the characters who’d play an active role in the future wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Anyway, going by to the mission request, the reason Cocoa had led us to this ship seemed obvious.
It had to mean that the ‘second princess of the Mainin Kingdom’, or somebody who might know her current location, or some artifact to point us towards her, was here.
Right around here, somewhere.
Slowly, my heart began to pound.
‘Should I try to find it?’
I was already used to my ‘pathfinding eyes’.
Telling Chinuavi to rest, I walked out of the cabin.
First step, set a goal.
‘… This is tough.’
I’d left the room all excited, but I had to pause for a while. Since I didn’t know the specific target, it wasn’t easy to set the goal properly.
It felt like my brain had suddenly frozen.
Hmmm.
Even after giving it some thought, I couldn’t come up with a proper way.
So, I just decided to keep it simple. Let’s take a rough approach first.
I stared intently at the mission request in my hand.
And simply aimed at ‘solving the mission’ itself.
That was then –
Zzzzz-pffff.
Zzzzz-pffff.
“Huh?”
There was a sudden burst of noise. Coming from the warehouse next door, at that.
How puzzling.
“Is this a clue?”
Cocoa had said that clues to the path could come in any form. It didn’t have to be something visual based on light. Just like now, a snore coming out of nowhere might also mark the path’s beginning.
It was so loud, and the clue came so swiftly and clearly, that I could only tilt my head.
‘This timing is too sudden… Whatever, let’s check it out.’
I immediately walked to where the sound had been coming from. It was the door to a warehouse that was only five meters away from our cabin. And the door was even slightly ajar.
‘Oof…’
As soon as I stuck my head inside, a terrible stench wafted out.
At first glance, the interior scenery was even more disappointing.
Some sort of dung was oozing all over the floor, and there were puddles of filth, manure, bales of straw, and even a water basin scattered here and there.
It looked like a place that’d been used for temporarily keeping livestock to be slaughtered, but now it was abandoned.
To be honest, I could never have imagined somebody staying in this place.
But,
Zzzzz-pffff.
Zzzzz-pffff.
The sound kept coming.
Holding my nose, I crept inside.
And witnessed an astonishing sight.
A person was lying on a pile of straw, snoring.
“… Crazy.”
I let out an unconscious exclamation of surprise.
I wasn’t surprised by a person sleeping so peacefully in this filthy environment, without showing any symptoms of respiratory problems.
Rather, there were three reasons behind my surprise.
First, that the sleeping person was none other than a woman;
Second, that she was a very beautiful woman, glowing with health;
Third, that her face was surprisingly familiar.
As I recalled, this woman’s name was Arte Khan.
As the empress of the Great Skull Empire, she had two nicknames: ‘The Black Star of the Meadows’ and ‘The Wild Horse that Cleaves the Winds’.
Not only that, despite being a woman, she was said to be born with the strength of twenty men, and was the first woman to pass the ‘Warrior’s Path’ test of the Skull Empire.
And, more simply, she was one of the named characters that’d appeared in the Eastland arc.
I was having a hard time holding back the laughter that was trying to escape my throat.
The meeting place was indeed a bit iffy, but I seemed to have found the ‘key’ very easily.
I didn’t know if this woman was already the empress now or not, but anyway, a few years later, she’d meet Leo as the leader of the Skull Empire.
Naturally, she must’ve had a high status in the Skull Empire even now.
I didn’t know how it all connected, but I clearly had to use this woman to solve this mission.
‘Okay.’
Finding out the key’s identity was enough for now.
Let’s have a conversation later in a more comfortable place, with the sea breeze blowing.
Then, while I was ready to quickly get out of this cage –
“P-, Princess! Princess!”
Someone hurriedly opened the door and came in. It was another woman.
At that moment –
‘Yikes!’
Without thinking, I threw myself into the pile of straw next to me.
And the next second, I regretted it.
‘… Haah.’
The smell of filth suddenly deepened, and the moist and sticky ‘stuff’ hidden under the straw began to make my body itch all over.
In order to ignore the discomfort jabbing into my bones, I had to focus on the situation in front of me.
“Princess! Come on, get up!”
“…”
“Princess Thermis!”
Erm?
I was a little perplexed. Because the name was different from the one I remembered.
The new woman kept calling the empress ‘Princess Thermis’, and kept trying to wake her up.
After a while,
“Ugh… yaaaaawn!”
The woman got up with a loud yawn.
“What? What is it?”
“Sk-, Skull Empire’s people…”
“Did they come all the way here?”
“Yes, they’re now on the deck… They haven’t come to this place yet…”
“Really, they’re like roaches. I think I’ll just kill them all.”
“Y-, you can’t … The king is already worried about a war breaking out…”
“Uh-huh… damn it. Why does that sick weakling keep needlessly bothering me?”
By now, my initial puzzlement had grown out of control.
Princess Thermis? People of the Skull Empire? A frightened king and a sick weakling being a bother?
With my doubts multiplying over and over, I again went over the contents of the mission request.
Find the second princess of the Mainin Kingdom, who fled after rejecting the marriage proposal of the first prince of the Skull Empire.It was confusing.
Did I make a big mistake?
I immediately shook my head.
It couldn’t be. There hadn’t been that many important named characters in Eastland in the first place.
That girl. She had to be the empress of the Skull Empire I’d seen in the manga.
Ten minutes later.
About five more minutes after the two women had left the cage, I was finally able to sort things out.
The woman a while ago was Arte Khan, who’d later become famous as the empress of the Skull Empire.
However, she was currently the second princess of the Mainin Kingdom. She’d run away because she didn’t want to get married.
To put it simply, it was a scenario of someone being forcibly taken as the daughter-in-law, and eventually the daughter-in-law swallowing the whole dynasty.
And my present task, whatever the future might be, was to gently tame that wild horse-like woman and make her marry into the Skull Empire.
“… So that’s how it is?”
It was messy. It was completely different from all the adventure quests I’d seen so far.
I put off making a decision right now.
For now, I just had to watch.
The next morning.
Suddenly waking up, I could see why Cocoa had said that I’d be tired in the future.
Although, it wasn’t because of the princess’ loud snores.
I could feel some suspicious presences in the passage outside the cabin.
Some people who’d foregone sleep, were approaching the animal cage where the princess was.
They hadn’t simply lost their way.
Thoroughly silenced footsteps, breathing slow enough to go beyond common sense.
The faint noises they did make couldn’t escape my sharpened hearing, and reminded me of someone familiar.
Haka.
These guys felt similar to Haka as he’d been in the beginning.
The Haka of that time, brimming with secrecy and murderous intent.
My calm eyes shined in the darkness.
They were assassins.
