Mind If I Take the Legs?
“Mind if I take the legs with me?”
“What is that mer-thing, Crab?”
“It says it came seeking to become a knight, Crab.”
A duel watched by countless crabs.
The Crab Knights looked upon the two species standing in the duel stadium with half-believing, half-doubting eyes.
One was Crabph, an elite knight of the illustrious Pincer Knights.
The other was a stark white creature draped in some sort of blue seaweed — mermaid or not, who could say.
They had no idea who their opponent was, but compared to Crabph with his imposing shell and razor-sharp pincers, the thing looked hopelessly frail.
“The outcome is obvious, Crab.”
“Naturally, Crab. Crabph is a member of the illustrious Pincer Knights. He shall never be defea—”
—Kiiiiiiiing!!!
“...!”
“What—Crab?”
Not even three seconds had passed since the duel began.
Crabph's pincer flew through the air.
The commander's signal rang out across the arena, and the match began.
Exuding confidence, Crabph clacked his two pincer claws together with a tang!, then in the very next instant skittered sideways, closing the distance. For a creature moving laterally, it was remarkably fast.
Shiiiiiing!
His enormous pincer, gleaming in the sunlight, rose up and came flashing down.
“It ends here, Crab!”
“...Hmm.”
It was a pincer that looked sturdy even at a glance.
Simply slicing through it wouldn't be easy — not like that lotus toad I'd encountered before.
I funneled the barest sliver of mana into my spear as the descending pincer closed in.
Pincer met spear—
“Oh.”
“Kiiiiiiing!!! Crab!!!”
—and the pincer went flying.
“I… I! Crab!”
The loss of his pincer lasted only a moment. Recovering quickly, Crabph seemed determined to settle the contest with his remaining claw and legs, leaping high to latch onto my body.
For a very brief instant, he was completely defenseless.
“...Gulp.”
My spear moved.
Once upward, then six times down. In that fleeting moment I severed the remaining pincer and all six legs, then kicked the now-legless body of the crab and flipped it over onto its back.
The crab crashed haplessly into the ground.
BOOOOOOM!!!
Sand scattered across the duel stadium.
“I won.”
“Kii… Crab.”
Twirling my spear, I retrieved it and looked down at the crab.
Stripped of the pincers and legs that were the very symbol of a crab, it lay comically flipped on its back — but it was not yet dead.
Besides the suffering, it didn't even look particularly grave.
'So losing a few legs doesn't faze it, huh.'
To kill it, I'd clearly have to target the body itself…
There are currently 13 routes available to you.
And something told me killing it would slash that number down drastically.
“Well? Is that proof enough?”
“Kii! I have not yet lost, Cra—!”
“That's enough. Crab.”
The commander of the knights strode out beside us.
He was certainly far larger than the crab sprawled on the ground here.
“There is no need to watch further, Crab. From this day forth, you are a member of the Pincer Knights, Crab.”
With a smooth flourish, one of his pincer legs extended something toward me.
A clamshell?
Looking closely at the silver-colored shell, I found a pincer emblem engraved upon it. It looked rather like a crafted ornament.
“While you carry that, you will be treated as a knight anywhere within Sir Crabnius's domain, Crab.”
“Thank you.”
“Good. For now, go to the chamber a servant will show you to, Crab. You will be summoned when the time comes, Crab.”
“Mind if I take the legs with me?”
“......”
“Yes!”
“Shall I carry that for you, Crab?”
“It's fine.”
I'd been somewhat shocked to learn that severed legs could simply be reattached, but under the noble pretext of collecting spoils of war, I'd torn off one of the pincer legs… no, salvaged one.
What should I cook with this?
“This way, Sir Knight, Crab.”
“Thank you.”
Following the servant's guidance, I arrived at the knights' quarters. Still resembling a bakery, the room was nonetheless quite lovely, decorated with clamshells and various other crafted ornaments.
“Sir Knight… ah, I never asked your name, Crab. What might your name be, Crab?”
asked the crab, far tinier than the knight I'd dueled. If that knight had been the size of a large dog, this servant crab was somewhere between a small and medium one.
I fiddled with the enormous pearl sitting on the table as I answered.
“Lily.”
“Sir Knight Lily. First, my sincerest congratulations on your knighthood. Later, a formal investiture ceremony must be held under Sir Crabnius's patronage, Crab.”
“...I was hoping to meet Sir Crabnius anyway, so that works out nicely.”
“Sir Crabnius is a man befitting his gentle and benevolent imperial nature. …However, recently— ah. No. Never mind, Crab. Please forget I said anything, Crab.”
The servant hastily buried his words. I had a fair idea of what he'd been about to say, so I just nodded.
Still, the fact that a mere servant knew about the dispute between the current crown prince and the second prince meant things had gotten far worse. It meant the crown prince no longer had the power to suppress the ugly rumors swirling about him.
The balance of power had likely already tilted beyond any hope of recovery.
'The only reason the second prince hasn't toppled the crown prince yet is… lack of a pretext, probably.'
The Emperor still held the throne, and the second prince's influence had grown because of the Empress's failing health. With the Empress not yet dead, he lacked the justification to launch a war of succession.
“What kind of man is the Emperor? I've crossed over from distant seas, so I'm not well versed in the internal affairs of the Crab Empire.”
“His Majesty is a truly remarkable figure, Crab. He subjugated the countless sea races of the Crab Strait and expanded our great empire, now in its seventeenth generation, further still, Crab. Had our crab kind not been cursed with mortality, we might have enjoyed an eternal golden age beneath His Majesty's benevolence, Crab.”
So the Emperor had entered his twilight years.
In that case, the second prince might make his move sooner than expected.
And beyond that, the servant, like a fish returned to water, gushed about the Emperor's greatness without a moment's pause. I offered appropriate murmurs in response until, at his suggestion that I rest, I was left alone in the room.
“What do you all think?”
Crown prince, or second prince — which would be better for me?
“Hmm… I suppose I should meet the crown prince first.”
I'd have to see what kind of person — no, what kind of crab — the crown prince was before making a judgment.
I rose from my seat.
Thud. The pincer leg tumbled off the bed.
“Ah.”
Right. Grilled crab first.
“What? A mer-race? Crab?”
“That is correct, Your Highness, Crab.”
A palace whose grandeur made Crabnius's, the crown prince's, look utterly unremarkable by comparison. Its master — Crabcrous, the second prince, now closer than anyone to becoming the next Emperor — had just heard a rather absurd report from one of his confidants.
'A mer-race has entered the ranks as a knight.'
According to the spy he'd planted in his half-brother Crabnius's palace, the creature had used a common skewer — what humans called a 'spear' — to sever all eight limbs of a Pincer Knight in a single breath.
The Pincer Knights were Crabnius's pride and his last line of defense. Though the crown prince's forces had been greatly weakened of late, their fighting prowess remained as formidable as ever.
'...And yet a knight like that lost without even landing a pincer strike.'
“Is the information reliable, Crab?”
“It is, Crab.”
“Ahem… Crab.”
His plans to seize the succession were proceeding smoothly — and now a wild card had appeared out of nowhere. Granted, his own power base had grown so vast that it posed no great threat, but leaving such an anomalous variable unchecked could invite disaster.
“...But didn't Father drive the mer-races all down into the deep sea, Crab? Then why is that thing crawling back out, Crab?”
“About that… the knights themselves are divided, Crab. Some say it is a mermaid; others claim it is some other creature entirely, Crab.”
“Whatever it is, one thing is certain — the creature is strong, Crab.”
“Yes. Crab.”
“......How troublesome, Crab.”
What to do?
The plan was already well underway, but moving against this new threat now felt awkwardly premature.
“...Approach the mer-thing and try to win it over, Crab.”
“Understood, Crab.”
“And if persuasion fails… Crab.”
Tap. Tap.
“Kill it, Crab.”