Maken no Daydreamer Chapter 51-53 part3

Chapter 51-53: As the Disturbance Comes to an End, the Big Sister Makes Her Move – part 3

‘Diabolos’.

That was the identity of the monster I fought at both the ‘Sea of Trees’ and this ‘Flower Valley’.

It had draconic features and human build, and a characteristic long and strong tail. However… it was in a different league from the ‘Lizardmen’, the lizard people that shared the same characteristics.

It was covered in green scales, with blood-red nails and horns.

Their population was apparently low, so there were only a handful of eyewitness reports per year. That’s why their ecology has not been fully confirmed. And their habit of wandering around without holding a set territory added to that.

It’s been a few decades since it was first spotted, however, its appearance was depicted in the old literature and on the murals of some ruins too, and there were also reports of its fossils excavated from the earth… All that made it hard to tell how long have these species been around for.

Irene-san had encountered one forty years ago, and it was apparently quite a powerful one. It seems that they managed to collect its entire body back then and performed research on it in the Guild research facilities and such. And turns out that Will-niisan was the head researcher of that research team.

That said, due to the circumstances back then, she could not afford to hold back and leave the prototype intact… As such, its corpse ended up being a little too wrecked and as expected, they weren’t able to find out much from it.

With this, I understood why mom didn’t know about it. As I thought, it turned out to be an extremely rare… or perhaps, a ‘new’ monster, in a way.

That was just how little was known about ‘Diabolos’… however, there were three things that have been confirmed at present.

One was the fact that it possessed a dangerous physical ability, vitality, as well as befittingly crazy fighting strength.

Another was that it was intelligent enough to understand human speech, and its learning ability rivalled even that of humans.

And finally, the individuals that had grown up to a certain age apparently possessed something much similar to the ‘chivalric spirit of the warriors’. That is, discounting the times of extreme hunger, it avoided bloodshed unless it was challenged to a fight.

The eyewitness reports of them so far—discounting ‘exceptions’ like me and Irene-san—were all by powerless people like kids and the aged, hence they were able to run away without having to fight them.

Other than that, the adventurers and mercenaries that did stand up against them were… “assumed” to have been beaten down, ripped apart and killed without an exception, as if to say, “if you are going to fight me, then there will be no mercy.”

Indeed, assumed. Because only what “looked” like corpses of victims were found. Hence they could only make conjectures based on the nearby eyewitness reports, with nothing decisive to back it up.

…And that was all that we knew about ‘Diabolos’.

On top of that information, Irene-san told me three things that were somewhat unbelievable…or frightening, even.

One was that all the witnessed ‘Diabolos’ so far were green in colour, so there was a high possibility that the black one I fought was an even stronger ‘Subspecies’ of it.

Second was…

“Oh yeah, the ‘Diabolos’ you fought, Minato-kun. As it was less than 2 meters in height… It was probably still a ‘child’.”

“““…Say what!?”””

…C…h…i…l…d…?

Child? Kodomo? Brat? Shota? (That’s off)

Huh, what, are you saying that this one and that one from four years ago weren’t even adults!? Despite being that strong!?

“Yeah, the ‘Diabolos’ I fought, and the ones that have been confirmed at various places, were mostly about 3-4 meters in height. So I think at 2 meters it would still be in the process of growing.”

“…Whaa…”

It was that strong, you know? Like, seriously, I was in quite a tough spot there…

While I quickly handled it after I used my trump card ‘Dark Joker’… I actually had to use it… I feel like I’m losing my confidence here…

“No no, you are thinking about it the wrong way. The ‘Diabolos’ is deemed to be at least S Rank by the Guild. Even their children are befittingly strong… not to mention, you had to fight the ‘Subspecies’ which is even stronger, so I say you did great, Minato-kun.”

“““S!?”””

“Yeah. More or less… So, what do you think, Will-kun?”

“Let’s see. Considering its immaturity and the cell activity as subspecies… I would say it’s a AAA ranked, only a bit short of S, I suppose?”

“““AAA!?”””

“If it reached the full maturity… it could probably reach SS or even higher rank.”

“““SS!?”””

I’ve been learning so many unbelievable things one after another nowadays.

I never thought that fellow was on the level of S and above ranks.

I wonder if I should feel glad that the opponent this time was a ‘Child’… If I fought with an adult one, and a ‘Subspecies’ at that, I might have died even if I used my strongest move ‘Dark Joker’.

While we were shuddering in the realisation of that fact, Irene-san delivered the final blow with her words.

“Also, Minato-kun, this has been bothering me since I heard your story, but you did not confirm its corpse after it fell into the valley, right?”

“Huh? Ah, that’s right… I quickly returned after that…”

“I see. …Well then, I wonder if it really died for good…”

“““Huh?”””

Say what?

“You see, the vitality of ‘Diabolos’ is beyond the norms… It wouldn’t die so easily. Moreover, its regenerative power is like that of the reptiles, so it’s fast to recover too.”

“If I remember correctly, I heard that the individual Irene-dono fought still looked quite lively even after everything below its waist was blown off by magic.”

“Yeah. After that, I cut off its arm, pierced its body along with its internal organs and bound it to the ground with magic spears, but it still did not die… Far from it, it even started roaring in a really loud voice, releasing shockwaves that assaulted the nearby humans, so I had no choice and pierced its head, and only then was it finally silenced.”

…What’s up with that. She continued fighting something like the ghastly splatter from those zombie movies.

Oh man, there’s no way I can have a piece of mind now after only destroying some of its internal organs and bones.

Timidly, I asked about that.

“I see… Well, as we have neither data nor a precedent, it’s hard to even make a conjecture… but in my opinion, as long as its heart has not been crushed, it would be able to regenerate the broken bones and internal organs…”

“I don’t know how deep that valley goes, but even if it was seriously injured I highly doubt it would die from a fall… And if there was water from a river down there, then we can assume that it is alive and kicking.”

So that means that I can’t feel relieved at all, doesn’t it? And it might come here again, right?”

Come on… are you for real…!?

The unexpected truth (well, still only a possibility) made all of us present to hold our breaths. Could it be that the mayhem of the ‘Flower Valley’… still had more waiting for us?

…As I was wondering that, Irene-san answered.

“Ah, that probably won’t happen, so you can relax.”

Huh, why?

It turned out that ‘Diabolos’ had 2 precedents in the past where it was defeated but got away without losing its life…

And in both of those cases, the defeated Diabolos left—I suppose you could say, with good grace—the place where it fought without attacking a single person.

As if a warrior that had lost the duel was recognizing the opponent’s strength and surrendering the territory to them.

What’s more, several such records have been found even in the ancient manuscripts… and it was thought that the previously-mentioned ‘chivalric spirit of the warriors’ was the primary cause of it.

That’s why, it probably wouldn’t even come back to the forest of the Dryads, much less attack this town; Irene-san believed that to be the case.

“Well, I’ll still take precautions just in case. There’s also the post-investigation too, so I plan to dispatch the personnel from the Royal Capital and the Guild… so you can have them protect this town and its surroundings during that time. At any rate, based on what I heard, there was no fault in what you did. You had no way to confirm it, either. You can relax, and there’s no need to blame yourself either.”

“Mhm…”

“…Well, I figured saying that would be useless, so just reflect on it to your heart’s content and reach your own conclusion.”

“Hah!?”

“Oh, I just can’t get enough of your reactions.”

“…Irene-dono, my little brother is seriously feeling troubled there, so leave your jokes at that…”

…I’m not even sure what I should be troubled about first.

We should’ve been having quite a serious conversation here, but before the mood turned serious—there is a chance that she intentionally aimed for that—our conversation had come to an end.

Before leaving she even encouraged me to properly see the request we took through to the end. After that, she mounted the Dark Dragon Delta along with Will-niisan and flew off into the distance.

Good grief…we found out so many shocking facts in less than an hour…

It seems that I’m still far too inexperienced as an adventurer and there is still a long road for me ahead.

I’m sure many things are waiting for me up ahead… so I need to give it all I have.

By the way, when we asked Irene-san and Will-niisan about Neil-chan’s ‘Evolution’… Irene-san actually knew what she was.

The superior species of plant spirits, one rank higher than ‘Alraune’.

Their name was ‘Fesperides’, and they were species in the AA Rank.

Well, she just evolved so she could not handle her power well, but still, Neil-chan, that was one heck of a leap you had there… Really, I wonder just what was the reason behind this.

Next day after Irene-san’s sudden visit.

Albeit slightly delayed, Malrus Caravan finally departed from the ‘Flower Valley’ towards ‘Volka’ loaded full of flowers. And so did we, their escorts.

We left the ‘Flower Valley’ behind as the townsfolk, and the Dryad-chans too in private, saw us off with words of gratitude. We enjoyed our journey without many accidents aside from occasional thieves and monsters.

Oh, and there was no linguistic mistake in that line, okay? Those were my honest feelings.

And so, on one such day during our journey.

I was sitting on top of the carriage while basking in the pleasant spring (-like) warmth with nothing to do. Suddenly, Sherry-san came out from the inside and pushed a bottle of alcohol with a cup towards me in a flirtatious manner. Oh, is she asking me to keep her company?

Well, I don’t really mind that. My stomach was quite low on fuel too.

I accepted the cup after which she filled it for me. I drank it slowly while enjoying the taste.

I suddenly remembered that I had just perfect snacks—the dried fruits that Neil-chan gave me—to go with it in my bag, so I took them out and shared them with her.

“We really have nothing to do… There aren’t even any thieves or monsters around.”

“I mean, isn’t it quite fine this way? Peace is the best.”

We have gotten caught up in such a big battle in the ‘Valley’ and yet she was still complaining about there being not enough thrill; I couldn’t hide my exasperation towards her as I refilled my cup.

This alcohol was a product made in the ‘Valley’, and it didn’t have a strong taste as you’d expect from whiskey and such, but instead was sweet like a cocktail. Because it felt closer to drinking juice instead of alcohol, it wasn’t popular among those that preferred their drinks on the strong side, but it was just right up my alley.

We spent the time while doing idle gossips.

During our conversation, Sherry-san asked me something that suddenly came to her mind.

“Hey, Minato-kun. Why did you become an adventurer? You don’t look like someone that has any desires and seem to hate fights… I really can’t think of a reason that would urge you to become one.”

“Ah… You have a point…”

Elk told me the same a while back, didn’t she? That I wasn’t really ‘Adventurer-like’.

Still, ‘why’, huh?

Even if you ask me why… uhhh, it’s hard to find an answer to that; I feel like there isn’t one, to begin with.

After all, I simply felt like it would be fun after Mom recommended it to me… So I suppose there really isn’t any goal that made me do so.

Well, if I had to add, I suppose I could say that I felt like it was more unshackled and comfortable compared to normal jobs, and it also seemed to be less of a hassle than to climb up in ranks as a newbie in a corporation or the military. In fact, I’m the type of guy that finds anything beyond his interests a bother to do and wants to live doing what he likes.

As I gave that passable answer to her, Sherry-san, in turn, started to talk about her reason for becoming an adventurer.

Honestly, though, I could kind of tell what it was.

Given the personality she has… I daresay it’s some kind of wild and brutish reason like wanting to fight stronger people and living as she pleased.

When I listened to her story, my guesses ended up being mostly on point… But in addition, it seems that her family circumstances were involved in it.

Sherry-san and her tribe apparently lived in the so-called ‘Hidden Village’ located deep in the mountains, and they isolated themselves from the outside world as much as they could. So that they could protect their culture and customs.

That village had kind of ancient, or better said, old fashioned ‘laws’, and those who lived where were imposed with various strict limitations since their birth.

One of them, the most fundamental law was to cut any kind of interaction with the outside world.

It was banned to enter the village as well as to leave it. It seems they spend their entire lives within that village and its surrounding mountains. They hunted animals and gathered fruits and edible plants, living in quite a self-sufficient way.

As their site location was good, there were many a messenger from the surrounding tribes, but they sent each one of them back. It seems that they sometimes even escalated into fights, but they still obstinately kept on protecting their laws.

However, as Sherry-san had a battle mania since her childhood and was a free-spirited individual down to her roots, she gradually came to feel opposed to such an environment and insisted on wanting to depart on a journey in the outside world, often leading to conflicts with the other villagers.

Then one day, when she finally reached her limit, she broke that rule and rushed towards the outside.

The villagers caught up on it and tried to stop her even by force, however, Sherry-san stood out as the fighter of the strongest class even among her village, so she broke through the encirclement with her own strength and was successful in her flight.

And then, she spent her days freely as an adventurer—albeit with some hardships—in the outside world she always dreamt of… and arrived to this day.

“They really exist, huh… villages that are too uptight in trying to protect those old-fashioned and pointlessly strict customs.”

“I know right? You would think that, right? Those villagers were really, really hard-headed and honestly unbearable. You needed a license to leave the village, fights were forbidden. If that wasn’t enough, like I would want even my marriage to be decided by my family for me. I’m really glad I left that place.”

Well, leaving the fights and stuff aside, their laws were indeed full of things that would make her opposed. No wonder she couldn’t bear it.

In fact, even I would’ve found it unpleasant if those kinds of laws were forced on me. They were made to look as if they were the most righteous acts, while they were no more than some selfish ‘sense of values’ they came up with.

Back when I was having a fake battle with Sherry-san she said, “I hate when some values are forced on me” but it seems that that in itself was not an act but her true feelings.

“Well, I have only heard it from rumours, but it turns out to be true, huh. The fact that Elves consider themselves to be special and often live isolated from the other races. I take it Dark Elves are the same?”

“Err, well part of them, I suppose. But my tribe was a bit different or should I say special… Rather, Dark Elves are in general a more unconstrained race compared to Elves.”

“Oh, is that how it is?”

When I asked that, she told me that while there were only a few in ‘Volka’ and this region, if you headed more to the northern side of the continent, you could—while not in great numbers—sporadically find Dark Elves working as adventurers, merchants and such.

Huh? Then is Sherry-san’s village special or unique in some way? Why would there be such old fashioned laws only among her villagers…

“…Aah, sorry. Actually, I’m not really a Dark Elf, you see.”

“Eh? Really?”

“Yeah… I’m actually ‘Nega Elf’. Have you heard of it?”

A sudden revelation. It seems she was, in fact, a race called ‘Nega Elf’.

They were, in short, an even higher species of ‘Dark Elves’. Similar to how ‘High Elves’ were to ‘Elves’.

Generally, there was a notion that if ‘Elves’ were light then ‘Dark Elves’ were shadow, so following that logic, ‘Nega Elves’ formed a similar pair with ‘High Elves’. In other words, they were extremely powerful Elven race.

And I’m not sure whether it was their way of rebelling against ‘Dark Elves’ having uninhibited characters, but they stood out even in this world for their sense of superiority, perhaps even higher than the ‘High Elves’. For that reason, they made a hidden village for themselves and lived in isolation under their strict ‘laws’.

But Sherry-san desired freedom even though she was born as one of them, and as previously mentioned, she escaped from there and has since been working as an adventurer while pretending to be a ‘Dark Elf’.

Though, the familiarity of the race ‘Nega Elves’ was low in itself, and there wasn’t a big difference between a ‘Nega Elf’ and a ‘Dark Elf’, so it wasn’t necessarily a lie.

“But why tell me that so suddenly? Are you sure it was fine to tell me your secret?”

“Sure sure. You didn’t really act any different even after knowing it, and you wouldn’t really go and spread it around, would you?”

“Well, I won’t…”

“Then, everything is fine. I judged it to be fine. Besides, I don’t want to hide things from someone I will be adventuring with from now on.”

“I see…hm? ‘From now’?”

“Eeh, is that a no? I thought we were quite compatible… As adventurers, don’t you think we can improve ourselves while cooperating with each other?”

It seems that she was not expecting that reply and appeared a bit sulky.

Ah, no, it’s not like that… Look, it was just too unexpected for me, okay? I didn’t think she would suddenly say something like that.

Setting aside that we got involved in a serious incident, we’ve really only taken one request together, haven’t we?

“What are you saying, that’s exactly the reason why. Encounters between adventurers are once-in-lifetime events, so once you meet someone that interests you even slightly, you have to assertively call out to them! Especially when someone who makes you think  “he is the one” is in front of you like now, there is no reason not to invite them, is there? Of course, there isn’t!”

She pumped her fists and emphasised the contradictory conjunction, and she looked quite passionate about it.

As I felt a bit overpowered by her behaviour, she suddenly approached and peeked at my face while saying those words. Wait, close, close! Your face is too close!

As I reflexively bent myself back, she grinned at me and continued without fixing her posture.

“And frankly speaking, I don’t think I can ever meet someone even better than you, Minato-kun. Until now, all I’ve met were people that looked at me with lecherous eyes but had no ability and power back it up, or those that spoke exaggeratedly, which is fine and all, but their thinking and sentiments were too childish… Looks, nature, ability – it’s really hard to find someone that has all three of those.”

“No like, even if that’s the case… and Elk also told me this, but shouldn’t adventurers be a bit more careful in choosing their companions? All the more so if it’s someone like you, Sherry-san, who has a secret or background to hide.”

I mentioned it earlier, but ‘Nega Elves’ were a very rare race, so having it known could easily lead to quite a lot of troublesome problems. Kidnapping, for example.

Well, given her strength, any slave trader that tried to abduct her would have the tables turned on them, but still.

“I don’t have anything to worry regarding that. After we fought together, and even with each other—regardless of them being training matches and a fake battle—I have come to understand you as a person.”

“No, that’s not something you can understand by fighting, you know…”

“There are those that do. Each person has their way of sensing that. In my case, the fastest way of coming to a mutual understanding is by fighting on the battlefield.”

That’s so disturbing… There’s no way people who held interest with you could bear it if they had to fight you one by one just to get to know each other.

Actually, I believe that most people consider fighting to be ‘a result stemming from failing to understand each other’.

“I understand that, of course. I’m well aware that I’m quite an oddball. But in that case… how do you go with your way of ‘mutual understanding’, Minato-kun?”

“Huh, me?”

“Yeah. Since it’s different for each person, you can just measure me up with your own criteria. I was the one who asked for a sham battle at the beginning, so I’ll be glad to keep you company. Should we take a request together or something? Or should we chat in a cafe? Or maybe do an eating tour? Or maybe… you prefer to take it to the bed?”

“Now listen here…”

My heart skipped a beat when she told me that while leaning towards me in all grins… but before the bewilderment, there was one question that ran through my mind.

Now that she said it… Maybe I don’t have any such criteria or sense of values…?

So far, I’ve never really had any criteria in mind when judging someone’s character, huh… Like how they had to be for me to either trust or not trust them. Honestly, it never even crossed my mind.

Even if I were to earn mutual understanding by doing something I liked, like in Sherry-san’s case, I don’t really have a particular hobby…

If I was forced to say… maybe researching new Original Magic? No, talking about that would be too boring, and it’s not like I particularly like studying either.

Sherry-san seemed to have more or less guessed what was going on in my head after seeing the idiotic expression I had, and she drew back with a face that said, “ah, I see now.”

“Hmm, I see… But in that case, how was in with Elk-chan, Minato-kun? It seems that you trust her very much, but how did you come to trust her?”

“With Elk, is it? Yeah, well…”

Right, Elk… I don’t think it stemmed from anything in particular.

Rather, our first meeting developed into something that could easily leave a bad impression instead… Many things happened after that, and I had many opportunities to understand her true intentions and her pure disposition; so I believe that process was what allowed us to understand each other.

And in that case, it really comes down to me having no criteria, huh? I don’t think there was any clear point during all our exchanges so far… where my true feelings suddenly changed or I became able to trust Elk from the bottom of my heart.

“…The course of events, maybe?”

“Oh dear… you couldn’t have been any vaguer.”

For a second, Sherry-san looked like a wife in her third year of marriage who asked her husband “What do you want for dinner?” only to be answered with “Anything is fine,” but a moment later she pulled herself together and added.

“In that case, maybe try finding it right now? You have the opportunity now, and I will cooperate. You can try asking me anything, you know? If it’s now, I’ll really even follow you to the bed if that’s what you want.”

“No, wait a minute, are you seriously saying that?”

“Oh, do I have your interest~? It’s fine, you know~ You don’t have to hold back. Rather, a man and a woman can understand each other better that way instead of being so awkwardly reserved~ So what’s your answer, hmm? Well, you can think about that during our time together from now on, you’ll have as many chances for it as you want.”

“No, like I said… I feel like you already assumed that we will be travelling together…”

“Oh, was I found out? Tee-hee.”

“Sorry for disturbing your ogling, but do you have a moment?”

“Uwah!?”

“Oh my, Elk-chan.”

We heard a sudden voice.

Tracing it back to its source, I found Elk, who had just climbed up on the roof, looking at me with her cute, reproachful eyes.

I feel like it was directed at both me and Sherry-san though.

“What’s up? Do you want to join in? We plan to have quite an extreme conversation from now on.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Eeh, Minato-kun, you are so cold.”

“I don’t really want to join in so you can relax. Minato, there’s a message from Zally who went ahead to scout the area, come here for a bit.”

“? Did something happen?”

“There aren’t any monsters, but the road seems to have been blocked by fallen rocks. It seems there was a suggestion to gather magician-type adventurers and destroy it, but there is the danger of the shock from it causing even more to fall. So Zally has another suggestion…”

“Did he say that I could clean it up by myself?”

“Something like that.”

“…Ok, I got it. I’ll head out.”

Come on, don’t treat people like fucking bulldozers.

Oh well, I’ll still do it. I don’t want to delay it if I can help it.

Chapter end