Episode 29 – King Kong and the Hybrid Clash (1)
Derek could not have been more at a loss.
What was there to be so lost about? Had someone seen through him and driven him to the wall? Was he ringed in by enemies?
…He would rather it were that.
At least then my mind would be at ease.
He was forcing that bitter smile when the voice struck him.
Are you even listening to me!
"Ah, I-I'm listening."
Then repeat exactly what I just said.
"Th-that's…"
I knew it. Derek, do you have any idea how awful you're being! How could you forget a promise you made to me!
"…It's less that I forgot, and more that the promise was something you made all on your own, my lady—"
What did you say?
"…Never mind. It was all my fault, my lady. Please don't be angry."
Hmph!
"Nnngh…!"
Derek had to let a groan slip, sunk in a discomfort and bewilderment he could not begin to name. He had come all the way to the Tunnels for this. If anyone else had seen it, it would have been nothing but a lovers' quarrel begging for a fist, and it was no small mercy that Lee Han had not been the one to see it.
……Because if he had, there was a real chance Derek would have been introduced to Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocation.
A blessing beyond measure.
It went without saying that this world had nothing like a communications art. Even so, the only reason Derek could carry on this lovey-dovey nonsense—no, this conversation—with a young lady of the Royal Capital, hundreds of kilometers from the Tunnels, was an artifact.
An item one could obtain at the Academy: Bluebird's Chirp.
It was an earring that worked only when a man and a woman each kept one of the pair, and Derek, knowing it existed as an event item, had claimed it ahead of time. The condition that it had to be split between a man and a woman was a nuisance, but anyone would grant that its usefulness was enormous. Even a glance at modern war showed how the whole shape of a battlefield changed once communications were secured. For an event item, it was absurdly overpowered.
Well. Right now, at any rate.
So. When are you coming back?
"Ah, probably around the time the Academy break ends…"
You mean you'll show up after summer is already gone? So in the end you never meant to keep your promise to visit my estate?
"Th-that's not…"
He had been reduced to soothing the temper of a woman he was merely on good terms with.
Derek tasted regret.
…I shouldn't have given it to her.
Of the women he knew, she was the one he was closest to, and above all he trusted her, so he had left it in her care. He had never imagined it would come with a drawback like this (??). Swallowing the groan that wanted out, he spoke to her. To Karin.
"My lady—no, Karin, please let me off just this once. The next time we meet, I'll apologize properly."
Hmm. I really don't feel like believing you…
"J-just once."
Hmph! This time only.
"Th-thank you."
He had no idea why, but she cooled off far more often when he called her by her name instead of her title, and he was relieved the trick had worked today.
Thank goodness.
Remembering how she had hounded him from morning to night the last time she was angry, this had cleared quickly. He was dragging in a breath, trying to settle into the relief, when her voice came again.
Since you contacted me first, I suppose you're curious about the capital?
"……"
Honestly, you're impossible.
"I-I'm sorry."
Hmph!
Sharp as ever, Karin had seen at once why he had reached out first. Derek did feel guilty. He was leaning on her goodwill to gather word of what had happened in the capital. Even so, he could not afford to fix his attention on the Tunnels alone. The capital—the Royal Capital, the center of every affair—was something he had to keep an ear turned toward.
Right now, Young Lord Roen and Lady Irene are in the Royal Capital.
In the original, the protagonist, and the girl who would become the villainess. But now… according to the instructor's guess.
People predicted to be a regressor and a possessed soul…
Butterflies whose wingbeats were every bit as impossible to predict as the instructor's own. Derek had no choice but to want news of them.
Hmph. The fee for using me as your informant is going to be steep.
"…I know."
Haa. For now, nothing much is happening in the capital. Not on the outside.
"You mean…?"
I mean plenty is happening on the inside. For example, there's word that His Lordship the Marquess of Tristan has formally entered Lady Levi into the family register.
"E-entered her into the register…! Not merely taking her as a foster daughter—he's giving her the Tristan name itself?"
It seems His Lordship has taken quite a liking to Lady Levi. Once this news spreads properly, high society will be noisy for a while.
"Haa…"
People said you never knew how a life would turn, but to think the tragic hero would climb in station like this…
At this rate, isn't every scrap of information I have about to become useless?
The fates of individual people had been overturned far too thoroughly. Derek could not begin to gauge what kind of torrent this current would deliver, and his head was already starting to ache. But as if plenty of still more tangled matters remained, Karin's voice went on.
And recently, they say the existence of an illegal slave auction run by a certain trading company has come to light.
"……"
Also, from what I hear, the one who revealed the auction to the world, wiped the auction itself out, and freed the slaves is rumored everywhere to be some black-haired swordsman. Hmph. He doesn't seem to have the slightest intention of hiding who he is.
"…Young Lord Roen."
Nine times out of ten, it's him. Thanks to that, plenty of people are praising Young Lord Roen as a hero. …He himself is still denying it, of course.
"Mm."
…He went to save them.
Listening to how Roen had moved, Derek realized which slave auction the young lord had struck. The slave auction that appeared in Chapter 17: a house run by the ruler of the underworld, where no one could predict when or where a sale would be held. Derek knew it existed, but its whereabouts had remained a blank. True to a man presumed to be a regressor, though, Roen seemed to have found it, and his purpose was not hard to guess.
Cut down Count Nolan, master of the underworld, recruit the talents imprisoned in the auction, and get on friendly terms with the dwarves. Is that what he's after?
Count Nolan was still a troublesome enemy as late as Chapter 30, so if the aim was to deal with him early, now was the right moment. After that untimely terror, the Royal Capital's temper toward crime was vicious, which would leave the underworld's master at his weakest. And if Nolan alone were removed, the hidden funds to be had were enough to feed and keep an army of more than ten thousand for half a year. Derek's guess was that Roen was denying his own credit precisely so he could take those funds in full.
But the true profit in striking the auction was neither of those things. It was talent, and it was connection.
The twin half-elves were definitely at that auction, weren't they? Bring them in, and they're tier-one talents…
Talents who, raised properly, would climb to Lv. 7 without difficulty. A chance to obtain a Hero Class that neither power nor money could buy. And among the people held at the auction, there would be dwarves as well. A mystery-race that repaid a grudge twofold and a kindness tenfold. Famous for clever hands, for excellence as artisans, and for a deep store of wisdom. To form a bond with them was a value nothing short of astronomical.
Two birds with one stone—no. Four. That man took all of them.
Honor and money. Talent and connection. Was this not the textbook shape of a regressor's privilege?
Even so, Derek neither envied what Roen had gained nor looked at it with a sour eye.
He didn't do anything wrong, at least.
Honestly, Young Lord Roen was someone he had never properly spoken with. On top of that, unlike what Derek had known, an uncertain element—the possibility that he was a regressor—was mixed in, so Derek did not know what sort of character the man had. And yet, though Roen had taken his own profit, the fact that he had singled the auction out from among the hidden pieces, attacked it, and torn it down was enough to earn him points. Left alone, an auction like that only deepened the suffering of the people who had been kidnapped. He had saved them.
If he wanted a gain at this point in the story, he could have gone after something like a dungeon instead. He chose the auction. I don't think he's a bad person.
Quietly settling on that favorable judgment, Derek thought he might be allowed to set a little of his suspicion toward Roen down.
…Of course, given the sort of man he was, he could not throw all of it away.
"K-Karin, i-if it's all right, please keep telling me what Young Lord Roen does. You don't have to dig deeply."
Hmm. So you find him suspicious?
"…Haha."
There was simply no hiding anything from a clever person.
Hehe. All right. I was growing interested in him myself, as it happens.
"?"
D-don't get the wrong idea! Not in a romantic sense. Understood? I don't even like that kind of slick man. I like men who are full of wariness, pitiful as a puppy caught in the rain. Understood?
"Y-yes…?"
…Wasn't her taste in men a little too peculiar?
The thought passed through him, but Derek did not commit the folly of letting it out of his mouth. He would simply respect her preferences. Still—a wary man, pitiful as a rain-soaked puppy…
Has there been someone like that around her?
He also found himself wondering whether such a person even existed.
Oh, and. About Lady Irene.
"……"
Karin was plainly scrambling to wrench the subject aside, but Derek fixed on the name regardless.
Irene Windler. A girl he was all but certain, by his own estimate, was possessed. Unlike the regressor, though, Derek's judgment was that she was a woman who seemed to have possessed no information whatsoever about this world. He had never once seen her take the initiative in anything. She gave off the feeling of a typical romance-fantasy heroine, and sure enough—
She seems to be drawing the interest of several great figures. There's the fact that she's Galahad's foster daughter, of course, but the magic she showed the other day was truly incredible, wasn't it? Perhaps because of that, there's talk that the heir of the Empire's Magic Tower means to come see Irene in person. On top of that, they say a sultan of the western continent has taken an interest in her water magic and plans to visit the kingdom.
"……Huh."
The heir of the Magic Tower, which existed only on the Central Continent, and a sultan of the West, coming in person? Because they had taken an interest in one woman?
Whoa. It feels like everything that was supposed to happen to the original heroine is landing on Lady Irene…
The original story's true beginning was supposed to be next year, when Derek was a second-year. But the original had been damaged so badly that nothing was accurate anymore, and events that ought to have waited until next year were already breaking out. And so Derek thought:
This is screwed…
He had the feeling that more than seven-tenths of the information he held had become unusable. The presumed regressor was probably in much the same state.
So this is why they say too many hands on the tiller.
The boat was not merely heading for the mountains. At this rate it was halfway to the sky.
"Haa…"
What's with the sudden sigh?
"Ah, I'm sorry, Karin. My mind got a little complicated."
…Don't worry so much. It's not as if you have no one around to help. I'm here, too.
"……"
I'm telling you not to stew over it alone. Tch. You can't even understand that the first time.
"…No, I understood. Thank you, Karin. I think I feel a little better, thanks to you…"
Only a little?
"Ah, a whole lot…!"
Hehe. That's more like it.
"…Haha."
Her confident declaration pulled a wry smile out of him before he knew it, but inside he really did feel a little easier. Was it because, unlike him, she was always brimming with confidence and optimism?
She's a good person, Lady Karin.
She was also someone who handed him a more positive frame of mind. Yes. As she said, what good was groaning over it by himself?
Focus on now.
Better to take it as a good thing. It was not that his information had become useless. It was that there were two more people who would handle matters in his place.
They'll take care of their own business.
Derek worked to hold that positive mindset, and in the end he firmly believed that the disasters and troubles they themselves had called down would be resolved by them. After all, weren't a regressor and a possessed soul two of the three great clichés of the culture business?
Of course, the final boss is me. The System Window.
So he only had to do his own job well. As long as he did his part, that was enough.
With that mindset, Derek exchanged a few more words with Karin and returned to the side of his reliable partner. He wanted to share the information at once and see this matter settled.
……That had certainly been the plan.
"Oh, you're back?"
"…?"
"Ah, that? Don't mind it. Just think of it as decoration."
"……"
"Right. I found something out. Looks like those Blood Cult knockoffs are planning something bizarre."
"…Eh? Y-yes?"
"So we deal with that and go home. I've got a feeling it'll be over quick."
"??"
…Derek suddenly suspected that he might not have been needed at all.
He's solving everything by himself…
A strange, sulky disappointment washed over him.