Chapter 210
Chapter 210
Chapter 210
Utopia (2)
Rudian and Rebecca crossed over Nevan's castle walls in the middle of the night.
It was strange in many ways for a noble to climb over walls like a night visitor.
But they had no choice since the patient was making a fuss about where he was wandering off to.
'Well, Jester will let them know when dawn breaks anyway, so it shouldn't matter...'
Well, it was like a light transgression.
If his companions really set their minds to it, they could instantly teleport to wherever he was on the continent and drag him back.
"Hehehe..."
Rebecca was following behind Rudian as he flew through the sky, giggling cheerfully.
'...Will this be okay?'
He was worried that Rebecca seemed to think of this matter as just a light outing.
It wasn't exactly wrong, but since this was a world where things even the current Rebecca couldn't handle could pop up, he hoped she would be a bit more tense.
"A water city? What kind of place is that Lucretia?"
Rebecca asked a question while they were rapidly heading east.
"Hmm, I don't know exactly either..."
Rudian answered while carefully recalling his knowledge from the original work.
"In the past, it was a city that worshipped the Water God, but unfortunately that Water God was defeated in political strife and fell."
"So that city sank along with it?"
"That's right, more or less."
This was all the background knowledge Rudian knew.
doesn't provide detailed explanations of how the Water God, who was a high-ranking deity of the Pantheon, was defeated and how he fell. Since the protagonist Abel had never been to Lucretia, no episodes related to it appeared either. 'But I do know this much.' In Chapter 3, after surface civilization was destroyed once by extraterrestrial forces, the maritime races that had been hiding underwater until then crawled out. Did those races fight against the extraterrestrials in place of humanity? That wasn't the case either. The maritime races were essentially similar in nature to the extraterrestrials. Rather, they allied with the extraterrestrials who had seized control of the surface and took the lead in oppressing the surviving humans and other surviving races. The maritime races would later enjoy a very brief period of revival until Abel and his companions, who had returned from outer space, swept them away with overwhelming power. 'There's a very small setting that survivors of Lucretia existed among those maritime races.' That's about it. A very small branch that couldn't even twist the original story content. It was a place with so little influence that he wouldn't have thought Adi's terminal could exist there.
"Still, being underwater sounds kind of romantic..."
At Rebecca's dreamy words, Rudian chuckled and brought her back to reality.
"You'll forget all about that the moment you see a deep-sea fish."
Actually, the seas of the Pirate Kingdom were beautiful. With their nickname "Grand Blue," the jewel-like light of the coastlines and clean ecosystem held a deep charm that would make scuba divers go crazy. But that was only limited to the vicinity of a few islands adjacent to the inland areas. Go just a little further and you'd immediately encounter underwater terrain rivaling the Mariana Trench, giving you the sensation of jumping off a mountain peak while standing at the seaside.
"Ugh, uuugh!"
Rebecca's shoulders immediately began to tremble at Rudian's threatening description.
"W-well, it doesn't matter! I'll just think of it as swatting cockroaches and beat them up!"
"Yeah... that's a good mindset."
Even with her head full of flowers, Rebecca was a tough girl who had survived desperately in Baran village. Just because she'd gotten a bit stronger didn't mean she'd let her guard down in actual combat. *** Rudian and Rebecca crossed Morian's border in less than an hour from Nevan. Not stopping there, they passed through the Seta Duchy and the Kapuras Kingdom, eventually reaching the Pirates Archipelago, which was the territory of the Pirate Kingdom. Rudian looked around at the still dark surroundings.
"Hmm... let's start our activities when dawn breaks, and for now, let's find an inn and rest a bit?"
The place Rudian had arrived at was an island called Stillus, the capital of the Pirate Kingdom. Even though it was a pirates' paradise, since it maintained the form of a kingdom, the public safety in such places probably wasn't completely chaotic, but...
"An, an inn!"
"Even if it's an inn, since this is the Pirate Kingdom... I'm not sure if there are any proper inns."
He could just charge straight into Lucretia and retrieve Utopia, but Rudian's instincts told him that would be a bad move. 'There's a high possibility it's hidden away somewhere...' If it were a place with decent importance in the original work, he could target the parts that held that importance, but Lucretia had ridiculously little information and significance. Since there was no telling what kind of traps might be hidden there, being cautious wouldn't hurt.
"Let's go over there for now."
Rudian and Rebecca entered an old tavern with "inn" written on it.
"Welcome." '...It's quieter than I expected.' Though old, it was quite a spacious place, but surprisingly there were fewer signs of people than expected.
"A young man and woman... Their attire looks high-class too, you don't seem like locals... What brings you here?"
Rudian smiled broadly and answered.
"How cautious. Normally wouldn't the standard be to just keep quiet and accept them, then pull a job on them?"
He wasn't sure about pirates, but in the case of bandits or thieves, this kind of operation was quite commonly used. It was especially a method used by the bandits near the Iskar territory where Rudian had worked, disguising themselves as slash-and-burn farming villages. But surprisingly, the old proprietor shook his head with a strange smile.
"Jobs depend on the target too. I wouldn't carelessly look down on someone who comes all the way here in such neat attire during peak business season."
"Ah, it was business season? No wonder there were so few people..."
"...Didn't you see the ships spread out in the nearby waters?"
"Ah, those things?"
Rudian deliberately gave a sinister smile.
"It was hard to distinguish between fishing boats and pirate ships, so I just left them alone. If I'd known, I would have sunk them all."
"......"
Even though he'd flown over without colliding with them, there was still a need to make such threats.
"I hate troublesome things anyway."
Rudian tossed a gold coin to the proprietor and said: "Lodging and meals. Give us the best room. Lots of meat for meals. We're planning to stay about 3 days, so keep that in mind."
"I'll serve you with the utmost care, sir."
The proprietor's attitude immediately became respectful.
"And since I hate troublesome things, if there are any guys around here planning to pull jobs, just gather them up right away. Once I beat them all up, things should get quiet."
"...That's..."
"Of course, saying this might make them fire cannons at this place. I'll definitely cut off the heads of guys like that, so tell them to come prepared."
DIIING! Rudian formed a sword hand and created an aura with it. Seeing the aura formed long enough to almost reach the ceiling, the proprietor's expression immediately hardened.
"Got it?"
"...Y-yes, I understand."
Leaving the proprietor sweating nervously behind, Rudian and Rebecca moved to the bedroom on the second floor. Having been dealing with gods and demon kings lately, coming down to a scale where people were scared of just aura felt somehow strange. Is this the joy of power harassment!
"Rudian, was it necessary to threaten him that much? Couldn't we just quietly do our business and leave?"
Surprisingly, Rebecca made a sensible point.
"Hmm, this is just my guess, but..."
"Yeah."
"This Pirate Kingdom probably... has some connection to the maritime races."
"So?"
"Being able to create aura with your hands is enough to be called a Sword Master-level knight outside."
When such a skilled person suddenly snuck into the middle of their territory, how could they not be concerned?
"And more than anything, that proprietor..."
"What about that proprietor?"
"That guy is at least an Expert top-tier skilled person. It's strange enough that he's running a tavern here."
He'd deliberately looked for someone with quite strong presence and struck it lucky, but still, jackpot.
"Well, if he's a criminal in hiding, it would be a waste, but he didn't really seem like that."
He was definitely connected to the Pirate Kingdom's upper echelons in some way. Rudian lay comfortably on the bed and grinned, showing his teeth.
"So we just need to wait for the guys who come crawling to us and beat them up."
"Hmm... if Rudian says so, then it must be so."
Moreover, he could feel the proprietor who had been on the first floor until just now urgently running off somewhere. 'Adi.' -Yes, I've cast a tracking spell, so I can track his movements anytime. If the opponent doesn't come, he could just go find them. Before that, should he take a little nap? That's when it happened. THUMP! Rebecca lightly pushed her bed to stick it together with Rudian's bed.
"...What are you doing?"
Even at Rudian's bewildered voice, Rebecca shrugged and said boldly: "What do you mean? I hate sleeping apart, so I stuck them together!"
"This is so improper..."
"I had to be mindful of others at the mansion, but I don't have to worry about that in a place like this, right?"
Rebecca had already crawled under the covers and claimed Rudian's arm.
"......"
"Hehehe...!"
Hmm... somehow... In this kind of situation, there should be something that makes your heart race... 'Is it because I'm used to it?' Actually, it wasn't once or twice that he'd shared a bed with Rebecca when they were young. Before entering Count Iskar's castle, situations like this happened often... Still, the reason they never went all the way was largely due to his fear of Rebecca, who had been the epitome of a yandere in the original work. But now that she was completely free from that blood curse, and now that his past fears had disappeared... '...Huh?' Now... wouldn't it be fine to make a move?
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing..."
When he became conscious of Rebecca looking at him while using his arm as a pillow, for some reason his previously calm Leviathan core began to beat faster. 'I need to get permission from father-in-law first...!' Come to think of it, for the orphaned Rebecca, the only father-in-law figure would be the village chief, and that guy had been singing about why he wasn't dating Rebecca all along...! Or maybe Baal? If that bastard was the father-in-law, that would be the scene of patricide. 'Is this a green light?' Just as Rudian was about to reach his hand toward Rebecca's hair. Thump, thump, thump, thump! FLINCH! At the sound of many footsteps from downstairs, Rudian's hand immediately retreated.
"...Who is it."
And at that moment... Rudian could hear Rebecca's chilling voice, as if it had risen from hell.
"The mood... was so good too..."
"Um... Miss Rebecca?"
"I can't forgive them."
BOLT! Rebecca bolted upright from her spot and began stomping roughly toward the first floor. Rudian lightly clutched his pounding heart and let out a quiet sigh.
"That was close..."
He'd thought that as his realm had risen and he'd become closer to divinity, various desires had died down considerably, but it seemed the function was still working normally.
"Oh right, this isn't the problem."
He needed to quickly go downstairs and stop Rebecca before she did something in her anger. Judging from the heavy footsteps he'd heard from below, they were probably elite soldiers equipped with fairly heavy gear... 'It's fine to beat them up, but don't kill them!'