Kyou kara Ma no Tsuku Jiyuugyou! Vol 4 Chapter 5

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Hey!  I actually put this chapter out in a timely fashion!  It's a miracle!!!  Don't expect this all the time XD  But anyway, yeah.  I started this one earlier this morning (and by morning I mean this afternoon) and bam! done.  It was about the same length as the others at 20 pages, but there wasn't any jokes I had to translate/re-create so it went super smooth.  It literally only took 9 hours during which I also made and ate lunch/dinner, washed and hung the laundry, swept the apartment, watched a bunch of crap on youtube, stared at the ceiling for a while and then walked to the supermarket XD  Oh, and there was even a word I didn't know at all and it wasn't in any of the dictionaries I had so I had to ask a Japanese friend and that took a few hours to get a response~  I feel so damn accomplished! And I learned something! :D

ANYWAY, here's the next chapter~~

      Using the last bit of strength in his body, Günter von Christ braced his legs in order to not collapse on the bed behind him.

      As soon as he’s told that, he opens his mouth wide like a fish.  Next to him is the middle-aged, former soldier, seemingly at peace with his completely different look.  This unlucky man’s name is Dacascos.  The chance visit to the king’s office with a message was the beginning of his misfortune.

      Actually, as the royal advisor, Günter has gone to all the ceremonies and blessings at the Shrine of the True King.  As such, he has met many people who have come into contact with the True King’s noble spirit and work as priestesses.  But, they are all women there.  They have long hair and they also have eyebrows.

      To think that there was a monastery full of men like this just a half day’s ride through the mountains from Blood Pledge Castle.

      The move he made when he said ‘shall we’ at the end, bending his knees and thrusting one foot’s toes behind him, was the greeting here.  It was a pose you see a lot in folk dances, but there’s nothing cute about a monk doing it.

      “More importantly Your Excellency… I don’t think that His Majesty and the girl who attempted to assassinate him are here… I mean, it’s all men here.”

      “Oh, I forgot something important!”

      “All pleasures are forbidden at this monastery.  The only one allowed to let loose at night is His Majesty the True King.  During this trial period, all objects of worldly pleasure will be confiscated.  Alcohol, cards, face masks… what is this?”

      Lord von Christ thrusts out his hand in a panic, but the green, mountain goat leather bound book finds its way into the hands of the lead monk.  He flips through the pages.  This is an emergency situation.

      If he still had eyebrows, they would have been drawn together in a frown right now.

      “Ughyaa!  Your Excellency!  What the hell kind of things are you writing!?”

      “… My everything belongs to His Majesty if he so commands….”

      “I’ll confiscate this as well until the last day.  However…”

      Both Günter, who’s almost in tears, and Dacascos, who’s covered in tears, freeze while waiting for the next words.

      ‘Then don’t say it!’ Dacascos says in his mind.  There wasn’t really a pause for it though and the mental thought overlaps with the lead monk explaining with a pitying face that all life under the True King is equal, but…

      Dacascos could feel the blood pressure of the beauty next to him shoot through the roof.  There’s no time to calm him down or stop him.

      His Excellency Günter von Christ, beautiful hair disheveled, runs away.

*.*.*.*.*

      “This is great huh, Greta, it’s a whole bunch of freaky animals.”

      “… This is… a, a mini stegosaurus, right?”

      That’s one of the animals in my limited imitation repertoire.  Dinosaurs are popular with children in any world.

      The door won’t open even if we ram into it or kick it.

      I turn around in the weak light.  Huddled together against the curly grained wooden wall are two figures.  One is lying down on the floor, obviously not feeling well.

      Red-brown eyes turn to me.  The girl lying next to her also opens her eyes slightly to look in my direction.  Thinking she looks familiar, I remember she’s the girl I met this afternoon.  Instead of a blanket, what’s draped over her is the down jacket I’d lent her.  The warmth in my hand leaves me and Greta runs forth and places a hand on Izura’s cheek.

      “I should be asking about you, mister-”

      Surprised, I stare at the back of her instant ramen head.  After lowering her voice from a shout, the child repeats my name.

      “Ah, yeah.”

      “Nina’s cold has gotten worse.  I’m fine.  I just got hit because I couldn’t find any customers.  But, I’ll just be in the way until I can appear in the store again.”

      “Do you have any medicine?  Her fever hasn’t gone down since this evening.”

      I end up stripping off another piece of clothing for Izura in her slip dress and placing a hand on Nina’s cheek.  Just as I thought with her pale face and dry lips, her skin is hot.

      “Huh?”

      “You can heal her right?  You healed my fever.  You healed it just by holding my hand.”

      It’s too late.  The three girls are staring at me with hope.  Well, I might be able to at least give them some peace of mind.  If I believe Gisela, it’s not impossible for me.  Remembering what she did, I softly grasp Nina’s pale and dry wrist.  Was it talk to them and draw out their vitality?

      ‘Is that all you think about?’ I berate myself.

      Maybe it’s because she hasn’t spoken in a while, but her voice sounds hoarse and stuck in the back of her throat.  Her light colored eyes are cloudy with fever.

      “No, aren’t there any better jobs?  You’re still a middle school student so you should go back home and look for work there.  Like at a convenience store or a family restaurant, you’ve gotta find a part-time job suited for girls.”

      “Nina and I have been together since we were little.  We were raised in the same village. Until a half a year ago, we worked in the esoteric stone mines, but one day the stones just stopped coming up.”

      I wonder if that’s because our group searching for the Demon Flute laid waste to the mines.  There was one place where I definitely destroyed a mine with my own hands.  But, that was an internment camp so it shouldn’t have anything to do with their lost place of work.

      “Even though it’s raining we can’t grow crops.  There aren’t any seeds.  We ate them all.  Even if the grass is green, it doesn’t mean the cows and goats will grow fat.  We didn’t have any in the first place.  With the long drought and food shortage, they died or we ate them.  There’s nothing left in Svelera.  All there is is water and domineering soldiers!  The army doesn’t pay… All the men who came to our village told us that there’s work in Hildyard and if you want us to take your daughters there, we’ll give you a deposit.  So, the adults in the village got together and had a meeting… We didn’t want to do this kind of work, but going against the decision of the older women would be a crime…”

      Hearing the end of Izura’s sentence tremble, I swallow my next words.

      Damn it.

      “… ow…”

      “I’m sorry, I-”

      Drawing everyone’s gaze at once, the ten year old’s cheeks redden.  With her hands pressed to her sides, she sits there, swaying lightly.  Like she was going along with some rhythm, she lightly taps her fingernails on the floor.

      “I… wanted to be a teacher.”

      “A teacher, huh?  But isn’t being a teacher hard work?”

      “The ones who have to go to school every day are the students, not the teachers.”

      So that’s how it is in Svelera?

      “What do you want to be, Greta?”  Izura asks the younger girl while unconsciously stroking her swollen cheek.

      Like when I was on the boat, pain and heat run through my body and disperse along my medulla.  And then like nothing happened, the heat and weight subside.  Did that heal Nina’s cold?

      “But you are a child!” everyone yells.

      Greta’s voice goes back to being young and innocent from the voice low for her age in which I couldn’t read any emotion.  Threading her fingers behind her back, she continues tapping on the floor.

      Her mother told her that on their last day together…   Hearing her confession, I think of my own mother.

      “Hey Yuu-chan, is it a girlfriend?  A girlfriend?  You have to properly introduce her to Mama!”

      “Ah, Murata.  Is Murata well?  That’s right, while love is important, friendship is even more important.”

      My nose started to sting.  Trying to cover it up, I push my sunglasses back up.

      “Like my mother said, His Majesty and Her Royal Highness of Svelera didn’t make me their daughter.  We didn’t talk and we didn’t even see each other much.  But I wanted to be a child of Svelera.  So I thought if I did something that they’d like, they would be happy and praise me and make me a child of the country.”

      “Four months ago in the castle, there was suddenly a lot of bad talk about the demons.  Whenever  I happened to meet with His Majesty and Her Royal Highness, all they would talk about was how the demons infuriated them.  So I thought if I killed the king in the demon country, His Majesty and Her Royal Highness would be happy and tell me how great I was.  I thought they’d make me a child of Svelera.”

      “So, I made a deal with a demon in the dungeon and we escaped the castle together.  They brought me to the castle in the Great Demon Kingdom, and I tried to kill Yuuri.”

      “… I didn’t think he was a good person… They said so many bad things about him, so it didn’t even occur to me that Yuuri could have been a good person.  I don’t need to be anyone’s child anymore.”

      “I’m sorry, Yuuri.”

      There isn’t really a reason I’m about to cry.  The deer and bears and hippos would be crying too if they had tear ducts.  In other words, it’s the atmosphere.  Yes, the atmosphere is dragging me along.

      “… Really?”

      And I have been dragged along to this.

      This emotional scene of becoming a new father was cut off by an unpleasant shriek.

      “A demon!?  He’s a demon!?”

      “What do I do!?  A demon touched me!  A demon touched me!  I’ll be cursed!  God will definitely punish me!”

      “Somebody come!  There’s a demon here, a demon!  I’m gonna get killed!”

      Standing with her feet apart, Greta enters battle-mode.  She has a determined and cool look just like when she came running at me with only a cheap knife in the office at Blood Pledge Castle.

      “… It’s okay, Greta.  I’m used to it.  You don’t have to get mad.”

      In Hildyard’s pleasure town, no matter who the person, if they’re a paying customer, they’re accepted.  But these girls are citizens of Svelera.  Since they’re from a place where you can be thrown into an internment camp just for falling in love with a demon, then I can understand the excessive reaction.

      The child gives me a face as if to ask ‘are you okay with that?’  I am okay with that, I’m your dad.  Before she can tell me she understands, a presence comes close and stops nearby.  After the sound of a key being violently turned in a lock, the door bursts open.

      “Now!”

      “Yuuri!”

      “You brat!”

      Bam!  After a dull noise, the man’s eyes roll back into his head and he falls to his knees.  From there, he slowly falls forward.

      The girl shamelessly exposing her long, sun-tanned legs and wearing the sweater I lent her, is standing there holding a stuffed animal head with both hands.

      It doesn’t have a heart, but there are tears in the deer’s eyes as well.

      “But then you… Hey, come with us.”

      “Nina’s here.”

      “Because I know he’s a good person.  Go, hurry!  It’s alright.  I’ll just say that this fell.”

      “My mother-”

      “I think my mother would be happy that there’s a just and brave girl who has her name.”

      Catching the girl’s faint smile in the corner of my eye, we step over the guard’s body and start running.  We need to get back to the hotel and rethink our plans.  Conrad and Wolfram will definitely lend me their wisdom.

      We run through winding hallways.  There were times where we were cut off by people that seemed to be pursuing us, but we got through without any problems after a hit from Windpipe No.1.  At first glance, it seemed to be just an old man’s walking stick, but it’s more suited for a career as a weapon than a walking aid.  Gisela would grieve if she knew.

      On sofas set out on the floor, there are customers checking them out and customers who have already decided and are laughing and whispering together.

      The girls are letting out forced laughs or are silent and staring at the floor or using another of many self-defense techniques.  In order for their own hearts to not be broken in this humiliating and unforgiveable act.  In order to deal with this for their families.

      We pass in front of an old man who’s not even trying to hide his triumphant smile as he sets a girl who’s still a seventh-grader on his knees.  He sees the two of us and says something to an employee.  A small and weak looking boy tells him that no, they are not from our store.  Old man, no way were you looking at my kid like that.  If you were, I’ll beat you so hard with this cane that no one will recognize you.

      Around a few meters from the exit, I notice some men in black.  Of course in reality, they don’t have the guts to wear black and are instead wearing ivory tops and bottoms.  I was almost fooled by their pleasant masks, but judging from the bulging shoulders and thick necks, they’re quite the able-bodied bodyguards.  And there’s two of them on each side smiling and greeting customers.  We’ve got to get by them somehow.   (1)

      “It was lucky they let us use the bathroom, right, Greta?”

      “But you were in there so long, Daddy got tired of waiting.”

      “Excuse me, sir.”

      “Wh-wh-wh -what!?”

      There’s nothing to be done.  And that was a great idea with the bathroom thing.  Our pursuers slowly come up behind us.  It probably wasn’t the guard who got hit with the deer head, but I expect a member from some brutish group.  No matter which way we run, we’ll be met with defeat.  If I could at least get Greta out of here…

      “Now, Greta!  Jump over my corpse and go!”

      At the head of the group of three people overflowing with dignity that just entered, a solidly built man stoops forward to peer at us.  He’s an elegantly dressed, middle-aged gentleman.

      “Gya!”

      “Just as I thought, it’s the man we owe our lives to.”

      “Eh!?”

      A bald head shining in the light of the chandelier.  It’s a foreign country’s elegant greeting of the rich and powerful.

      “… Mr. Shiny..?”

(1)    In case you’re wondering what the hell is going on here, in Japan, the people who work at restaurants (and sex shops), etc. who deal with the customers are called ‘black clothes.’  This is because they usually wear black.  But of course, in this world, only demons (and more specifically, only the Demon King and their family members) wear black.  So, Yuuri’s like ‘oh, there’s some black clothes, but they’re in white!’  It’s kind of a joke, but not really.  More of an ironic musing on his part ^-^

Chapter end