c14 14

It seemed the king hadn’t noticed yet. The king understood Haruhiro was here, yet had lost sight of him.
The king, huh? That was the king.
The reason he had looked like a stylish middle-aged bearded man was most likely because that was what the king chose to show them. Now, all Haruhiro could see were little boys with no clothing. What was that supposed to mean? Those ten-year-old boys that he could only assume were the same person... there were tens, no, hundreds of them filling the royal hall.
One of them was the king.
No matter which it was, the king was not an old man. He was a child.
Which was the king?
If he thought about it normally, the boy sitting on the throne should have been the king. If so, were the rest Doppels? Multiple Doppels? There could be cases like that, too, huh?
The door to the elevator that was not an elevator closed. It was moving. Returning. Eventually Alice and Ahiru would come here, too.
“One can never have too many vassals,” the king spoke up.
The voice was different. His natural voice must have been high, but he was forcing it to sound low.
Who was making that voice? It didn’t seem to be the boy on the throne.
Was any boy moving his mouth? He couldn’t tell. A good number of the boys had their backs turned to Haruhiro. He couldn’t figure it out.
“If they’re useful vassals, that is,” the king went on. “If they’re interesting vassals, even better.”
“I will keep doing my best.” Io bowed her head even deeper.
Tonbe and Gomi pressed their faces against the floor, their backs trembling.
“To serve the king is Io’s... my one joy,” said Io. “From here on, too... I will gather vassals for you. So, please, my comrade...”
“You demand I return your comrade?”
“No, um... If you can... If you would allow it, sire... Despite how he is, he can be of use to you...”
“That hideous man offended me, and you tell me to release him from prison?”
“N-No, I’m saying... I know I ask too much of you, but... someday, if I might be given a reward... that would be it... That’s all...”
“I could consider it.”
“Th-Thank you! I will keep working my hardest for you, sire, so please, I beg you...”
“I’m only going to consider it, you know?” the king said.
“O-Of course, that’s fine, even if that’s all you do...”
While Io was speaking with the king, Haruhiro was able to confirm that no boy whose face was visible from his current position was moving his lips. No matter how much that allowed him to narrow it down, there were still more than a hundred candidates.
This is bad, thought Haruhiro. If he didn’t find the king’s main body, there was nothing he could do. But the plan was already in motion. No stopping it now.
“From now on, you all are my vassals.”
Just which boy was this voice coming from?
“If you work yourselves to the bone, until I am satisfied, you will be rewarded. Let us hope that you are capable vassals, like Io here.”
It’s no good, thought Haruhiro. He just couldn’t tell. Searching by voice alone was impossible.
Noise came from the elevator that was not an elevator. Had Alice and Ahiru come?
That was the moment it happened.
It was a close call.
If he hadn’t been looking all around the royal hall like that, he’d have missed it.
One of the boys turned his face towards the elevator that was not an elevator. He was in front of Haruhiro and to the right, maybe ten meters away diagonally. He was sitting on the floor, hugging his knees. Judging by his angle, until he’d turned just now, Haruhiro couldn’t have seen his face.
That boy was the king’s main body, huh?





The doors of the elevator that was not an elevator opened.
With arms bound at the back, and a belt wrapped around the neck, Alice was being dragged in by Ahiru. That was how it appeared at first glance, but Alice’s unmasked face was full of defiance. It was clearly not the look of one who’d been captured. Just what the script called for.
However, Alice soon started to grimace. Struggling, apparently. The king’s power was trying to force Alice to submit.
“Get going!” Ahiru pushed Alice from behind.
Alice stumbled forward, but did not take a knee even after having entered the royal hall.
“Hey! Kneel down, Princess!” Ahiru snapped, pulling on the belt. Alice finally fell to one knee.
“Well, well. If it isn’t our princess.”
The boy who seemed to be the king’s main body was looking at Alice. His mouth moved, too. No doubt about it. That was the king.
“Who’re you calling a princess?” Alice spat. “I’m not yours, either. Don’t make me say this stuff. You make me wanna puke.”
“What happened to that filthy shovel of yours?”
“Oh, shove off. Your face is a zillion times filthier, you know that? You make me sick.”
“Hearing it for the first time in so long, that chirping of yours is exquisitely comforting,” the king said. “I had just begun to tire of Yonaki Uguisu’s singing, too. Shall I make her a shadow, and fill my ears with only the warbling of a princess?”
26
“Y-Your Majesty! Wait, please!” Ahiru got down on all-fours and shouted. He was still holding the belt in his right hand, so that gesture ended up squeezing Alice’s neck.
“Guh! Hey, Ahiru, you...!”
“...Sorry.”
“What’re you apologizing for...?”
“Ah...” Ahiru covered his mouth with his left hand.
That was when the king’s main body stood up. “You two... you’re scheming something, huh?”
“No! We’re not! S-Sire, it’s not like that!” Ahiru exclaimed.
“What is it not like?”
In front of Ahiru, who was shaking his head back and forth, Alice undid the restraints on both arms, and took off the belt, as well. They’d arranged for them to be easy to remove.
“I... I was just threatened by this princess.”
“I made him bring me,” Alice said coldly. “You can guess why, right?”
“You wanted to see me, your king? It finally dawned on you that you’re happiest being kept as my pet, I see.”
“As if that would ever happen. I’m here to blow you away, you piece of shit.”
“Without that filthy shovel you were ever so proud of?”
“See, the thing about that is... I’ve still got it.”
Alice suddenly bent over, shoving a hand into her own mouth. Io and there others’ eyes went wide. Even if they knew, they couldn’t help but be surprised. After all, Alice was trying to pull that meat stick out of there.
“Urgh... blech... uhhh... blech...”
26
It looked downright agonizing. It was hard getting it out, but it was just as amazing that it had gone in in the first place. From the size of it, it didn’t look like it should fit inside the stomach or intestines, but the shovel wasn’t that hard, and it could shrink to a degree. In fact, the meat stick came out surprisingly easily. It was what came next that would be hard.
After the meat stick, the black skin, which was split up to be as thin as noodles or something, started to come out, too. It was incredibly long, and had a lot of volume, so how had it fit inside Alice’s body, or inside the digestive tract, to be specific? It wouldn’t fit, right?
Even the king was taken aback by this. He was watching Alice with his eyes wide.
Thanks to that, Haruhiro was able to approach the king while maintaining Stealth.
Haruhiro was diagonally behind the king. In another step, he’d be at arm’s length.
Taking two steps, he hugged him. He did it unconsciously. The feeling of, I don’t want to let him get away. I won’t let him get away, made him do it.
He was going to finish it here—no, he wanted to finish it here.
The boy’s skin was cold.
—I’m already—
“Ah...?!”
Honestly, he almost had it. In another tenth of a second, he’d have synchronized with the king.
What had he done wrong? Had he done nothing wrong? Was it just bad luck?
Whoosh! The boy seemed to get sucked into the floor. He’d escaped.

The king had slipped out of Haruhiro’s arms.
In an instant, the royal hall changed. Dark. With thorn-like, or stakelike, or spear-like, or sword-like, or katana-like growths everywhere.
It was the king’s magic. Had Haruhiro’s Stealth broken?
He’d failed. The king had noticed him.
“Me!” The king roared. His voice was no longer the voice of a boy.
The bearded man rose from the throne.
“You touched me! The king! What is that magic?!”
“You screwed it up, Haruhiro!” Alice had just finished puking up the shovel’s skin.
Wiping around the mouth area with a sleeve, Alice tried to deploy the skin, but it wasn’t going to happen.
“Ah...!” Alice suddenly landed butt-first on the ground, as if some force had been pushing down from above.
The shovel’s skin was like a withered flower. Alice might have been trying to get back up, but it wasn’t going to happen with legs that were quaking like that.
Ahiru, and Io, and Tonbe, and Gomi, and Kuzaku, and Setora, and Merry, and Kiichi, they were all huddled and shivering. Their forms blurred and he started having trouble seeing them.
It seemed that Haruhiro was crying. Why was he crying? He wasn’t sad. Was he scared? Yeah. He was scared beyond belief.
He tried to close his eyes. He didn’t want to see anything. Didn’t want to hear anything. He couldn’t take it anymore. Why were his eyes still open? It was all useless, wasn’t it? What meaning would there be in getting stubborn now? Had he always been so bad at giving up?
He probably wasn’t tenacious, or strong-willed, or anything like that, he was just afraid to end it all by shutting his eyes.
It might have been because Haruhiro was a coward, but he witnessed the miracle of Enba standing up.
Enba didn’t just get up, though.
He exploded.
Well, Haruhiro was crying like crazy, so he couldn’t see that well, but he saw Enba get erased in an instant.
“I don’t even matter,” a voice sniffled.
Shihoru.
Sparkling stuff came out of the body here and there, just everywhere, all over the place, and it sparkled so much, it hurt his eyes.
Not to be outdone by Haruhiro—no, not wanting to be outdone probably had nothing to do with it, but Shihoru was shedding sparkling tears.
“Is that your magic?!” the king shouted, the bearded man who was presumably his Doppel turning the palm of his hand towards Shihoru.
Shihoru stumbled under the king’s intimidating pressure when he did, but she withstood it somehow.
You’re amazing, Shihoru, thought Haruhiro. Those tears are amazing. It’s like a flood of sparkling tears.
“Why are you bullying meeeeeeeeeee?”
When Shihoru swung both of her arms up, those tears sparkled and flew towards the king. It was like a river of stars in the sky.
Was even the king unable to block Shihoru’s tears? When they touched the bearded man on the throne, there was a cracking, splintering sound as those parts were crushed.
It was working. It worked. The sparkling tears compressed the bearded man on the throne more and more.
It was over in no time. With each tear, the bearded man on the throne got smaller, until they couldn’t see him at all.
But what did it matter?
By that point, right next to Shihoru who was a good distance from the throne, a tall bearded man wearing a crown had appeared.
The bearded man on the throne was nothing more than the king’s Doppel. He had plenty more Doppels. Even if the one on the throne was taken out, another Doppel just had to pretend to be the king instead.
“You’ve opposed the king! I’ll make a shadow of you!” When the bearded man raised his right foot, he suddenly got big. Incredibly big. That wasn’t any human size. No, not that he was human to begin with. He was a Doppel.
Was he still keeping his calm? Haruhiro couldn’t say for sure. Were his actions rational, in the end?
Shihoru looked up at the bearded man, flinching. The tears didn’t come. She was so terrified, she couldn’t even cry.
By the time Haruhiro thought, I can’t abandon her, he might have already been acting on emotion.
“Stop...!” Haruhiro dashed.
What did he plan to do? What could he even do? Nothing, probably. But he had to save Shihoru.
No matter if she became a trickster, no matter anything, she’d still be his comrade, his friend. For Haruhiro, if someone was a comrade and a friend, they were more important than he was.
“What?” The bearded man turned his way. The moment he looked down at him, Haruhiro’s body went rigid as if he was paralyzed. “You want to be turned into a shadow first? Then let me grant your wish!”
Intimidated by the king’s magic, Haruhiro couldn’t move so much as a finger.
This is the worst, he thought. The king would stomp Haruhiro and turn him into a shadow. Then, after that, he’d probably do the same to Shihoru.
Alice couldn’t beat the king, either. If Haruhiro had been using Resonance to boost Alice, would they have been able to at least do some damage on their way out?
Either way, they’d failed. It was over.
“Go, Fatty!” Before it could all end, the long-chinned dread knight dressed all in black threw in the fat man.
Gomi and Tonbe should both have been too intimidated by the king to move, so had he launched him with magic? Did they deserve praise for pulling it off?
Tonbe, propelled by Gomi, rolled into the gap between the bearded man and Haruhiro. He was carrying his massive mirror like he was a turtle.
“For Io-sama...!”
It was a mystery. Why would Gomi and Tonbe do this? It was so unexpected, the surprise blasted all emotion out of Haruhiro, leaving only his reason to find the answer.
Oh, I get it, he thought.
Tonbe had said, “For Io-sama!”
Haruhiro’s magic was the cornerstone of this operation, and only
Haruhiro could defeat the king. If they lost Haruhiro, Io would die, too. That was what Gomi and Tonbe had determined. For Io, they had no choice but to do this.
“Don’t interfere!” The bearded man’s right foot came down on Tonbe.
In that instant, Haruhiro sank his consciousness, and went into Stealth. When he Stealthed, he realized there was no bearded man anywhere. That was just an illusion. The boy playing the bearded man was just standing in front of Tonbe.
But, at this very moment, a bearded man was trying to stomp and crush Tonbe. That had to be how Tonbe felt. That was how it looked to everyone but Haruhiro and the king. In fact, Tonbe probably would become a shadow. The bearded man didn’t exist, and Tonbe wouldn’t be stomped flat. Yet, still, something the king would do was going to turn Tonbe into a shadow.
He knew this was heartless, but Haruhiro needed to watch it from beginning to end.
Was that boy in front of Tonbe, that Doppel, going to do something? No, it would most likely be the king’s main body. There were many boys in the royal hall. Which was the real one?
Whoosh! The king rose up out of the floor.
Right next to Tonbe.
He crouched down, thrusting his right hand into Tonbe’s flank.
He didn’t stomp him.
He was sucking something out.
Was it blood, or water, or perhaps some sort of life force or energy, maybe?
Tonbe became an empty shell as he watched, darkening, and being reduced to a shadow.
On the face of the king’s main body, the pale boy’s face, there was a slight smile.
Haruhiro didn’t get hasty. He wouldn’t repeat his earlier mistake.
He crept in quietly, grabbing the boy’s wrist without getting overeager.
He became the boy.
 

19. The Naked King [streaking]


Once upon a time, there was a very clever boy.
This boy was born with an exceptionally good head on his shoulders, so the people around him looked like incredible fools.
The adults didn’t understand what it meant to be clever. They would praise the sort of quiz king who was only good at remembering things as a genius, so there was no helping them. They were, after all, fools, so who could really blame them?
There was no way such fools could understand the richness and depth of intelligence, its sharpness, its height. If they could, they wouldn’t be fools to begin with.
Still, the boy thought there must be those out there who were as clever as he was, or perhaps even more so.
There were so many people infesting this planet, and the world advanced every day, so there had to be a lot of clever people out there. If there weren’t, that would be strange.
But what was he to make of this? The parents who had given birth to such a clever boy were incorrigible fools, and every single person the boy met was more foolish than he.
For the clever boy, every thought the fools had was easy to see. And yet, the fools could not understand the boy. No one could understand the boy.
Perhaps the boy was unfortunate. He may have simply happened to have been born into an environment full of nothing but fools. If he’d been born somewhere else, the boy might have been blessed with people who understood him, and thus been able to live a proper life.
The boy found it hard to recognize the fools around him as even being human. He didn’t hate them, or think they were evil. He simply was sad.
Why were they not the same as him? It would have been fine if he was the same as them, too. They didn’t set out to be fools, and the boy himself had never chosen to be born clever.
We can’t choose anything before being born. Once we are born, we can only live the lives we’ve been given.
The boy knew time would go by, and he would grow up, grow old, and then he would eventually die.
Death is the cessation of life functions. In the case of humans, their consciousness vanishes, and when all hope of recovering it is lost completely, we say they have died.
There is no meaning in life and death. There is no significance in life reproducing to leave descendants. It’s what living creatures do, so they do it, that’s all.
Thinking about it, it may have been logical for the fools to be fools. If they were foolish, then none of it could crush them: this unbearable lack of meaning, the weakness of a life that will disappear in a poof if left alone, and the feeling of emptiness from being unable to resist this fate.
This must be the misfortune of a chosen one, the boy thought.
The clever boy was a special being, and he was made to bear a special sorrow.
The understanding that he was special helped to comfort the boy’s wounded heart. It helped him bear the empty-headed laughter, and the boisterous ruckus of the fools who were simply that way because that was the kind of creatures they were.
He was not of their kind, and if he thought, I’m different from you people, he could still bear it.
I’m special, unlike all of you, and someday I’ll do something to get my name carved in history, like become a bestselling author and win international prizes, or set records at international sporting competitions, or something like that. Maybe no one will notice how special I am before then. They’re all idiots, and I’m special, so who can blame them? I’ve always been different from everyone, and always will be. No matter how far we go, we will never meet, like parallel lines.
That was how the boy saw it, but looking back now, how had it been, really?
Naturally, he’d had an inborn aptitude from his genetics. Not just anyone could run the 100 meter dash in the nine second range, even with sufficient practice. However, the fact was, talent was not just a gift from the heavens; it was a result. Those who gained something, or reached someplace, they were regarded highly, and recognized to have talent. In that sense, those born with some sort of gift, what we would call geniuses, didn’t exist.
The boy thought himself special, and a genius, but he was completely wrong. That was because, if you asked if the boy had accomplished even one earthshaking feat, he had not. He was just more clever than those around him, not understood by idiots, and thought of himself as a tragically isolated special being.
The boy was an avid reader. His parents had less than stellar academic histories, but books were the one thing they were willing to buy him a lot of.

While kids his age inattentively read fictional stories and comic books that were not even good enough to be called foolish, the boy read deeply out of high-minded literature and specialist manuals.
Thanks to that, by the time the boy was ten, there was no text he could not read. He had gained knowledge on many things, from the names of birds and plants, to the movements of the stars, to how to solve quadratic equations, to the basic fundamentals of music.
It was true that the boy was clever. However, that basically meant he had worked to read and understand more books than other people, had observed many things, and had analyzed them.
The boy had not been born clever. He had followed a path to becoming clever, and the result was that he became clever.
They say that without one percent of inspiration, the ninety-nine percent perspiration will go to waste, but we must not lose sight of this. That one percent inspiration comes from unceasing hard work. Those who achieve success first spend their every moment, waking or sleeping, deep in thought in order to find that one percent inspiration.
In the end, talent is that which we have worked to build up, taking a form that others are capable of recognizing.
The boy was ten years old at the time. He was a very clever boy, but only ten years old, and he was suddenly cast into a world completely different from the one in which he’d been born. It made no sense, and it was incredibly frightening, so it was all he could do just to survive.
If the boy had not been clever, he’d surely have been gobbled up by monsters in no time. He might have failed to see through the laws of this world, and made some mistake he could not undo.
That said, thanks to the boy only being ten, he was able to get out of trouble countless times.
In this world, the boy met many people. Most worked with him for a time, and then they parted. It was not infrequent for death to be the cause of that parting.
Or rather, in almost all cases, it was death.
When danger approached, the boy’s special privilege as a ten-yearold was that people would protect him. There were some who claimed that a child would only get in the way, but there were surprisingly few of them.
A number of people were caught by monsters in front of the boy’s eyes. When one man who had been his self-proclaimed big brother had his arms torn off by a monster, he had shouted to the boy, Leave me and go!

Chapter end