The Worst First Meeting (2)
"Wh-what is this?"
The woman staggered back a step or two, stricken. A tangle of emotions churned across her face — if I had to boil it down to a single word, it would be bewilderment, or perhaps sheer disbelief. Either would do.
"My benefactor! Thank you for pulling me out of this place!"
I shouted it with my forehead still glued to the ground, shameless as could be. Pride? No such thing existed in me. I had left anything of the sort behind in that dark, freezing Great Cavern long ago.
"What... in the world...?"
The woman seemed to be trying to sort out her thoughts as I battered her with incomprehensible gratitude like a storm. Well, of course she was. The very first thing anyone meets upon opening a cavern this colossal is a strange man groveling at their feet? However you dressed it up, it looked suspicious.
"Um... so, forgive me for asking, but this isn't the Founding Noble's residence, is it?"
There she stood at the mouth of a cavern where, by all accounts, a wicked villain lay sealed, asking after the neighbors like the lady next door. A truly astonishing airhead.
I pounced on that opening without a moment's hesitation.
"Oh, heavens, no! There's no one in this place but me!"
"Then you must be the Founding Noble—"
"No! A thousand times, ten thousand times no. I'm merely an adventurer who happened to be passing through the area, and through a run of ill fortune, I found myself trapped in here."
At that, she fixed me with a suspicious eye and pressed her case.
"Ill fortune? You do know how this door must be opened, don't you?"
My entry into the Great Cavern had, in truth, been pure accident — which meant I had no idea what the precondition had been, either. Unfortunately, I was in no position to say so.
I stitched together the most plausible excuse I could manage.
"The truth is... I was passing nearby when I felt a faint vibration. As though someone were throwing a tantrum inside an empty space."
Seeing as the tantrum in question was my own daily thrashing, it was half true.
"Curiosity got the better of me, and I went to the source of the vibration — where I found an enormous boulder. Had I not laid a hand on it, I would have lived out my days never knowing it was in fact a colossal door wrought of dark iron."
Here I stole a glance at her face. The suspicious look was still there, but she didn't seem to think it an outright lie.
"Go on."
"The moment I touched the door, a sinister voice rang out. I moved as though entranced by it — I couldn't tell you what I did. The next thing I knew, I was shut in the cavern, all alone."
"Then in that case, the Founding Noble—?"
"I couldn't say what that is, but if you mean the master of this place, I imagine he must have gotten out."
And in point of fact, at this very moment, I was out in the wide world, savoring the crisp open air while I strung my lies along.
"Then how long were you trapped in there?"
"A month, give or take?"
I said it low on purpose. Stretch it into years, and no ordinary human could possibly have survived the Great Cavern, could they?
"And how did you manage food and water all that time?"
"As it happened, I was carrying a generous stock of provisions for my journey. I eked them out for all they were worth and made it through. As for water, I licked the droplets that beaded on the walls, or gathered what I could."
Food I could explain away well enough, but water was shakier ground. By ordinary reckoning it wasn't an impossible excuse — except this was a sealed Great Cavern we were talking about. There was no reason it should answer to the weather outside.
"Hmm..."
She did not appear able to judge the truth of my tale one way or the other.
The reason she didn't press me on the spot was probably that she couldn't say offhand how the environment of a sealed chamber might correlate with changes in the outside climate. Not something anyone could know without living through it.
"So... have your suspicions been laid to rest?"
"If your story is true, then we have a serious problem. It would mean a dangerous villain is striding about out there. Heaven only knows what sinister schemes he is plotting even now..."
That villain is, as it happens, bowing his head with the utmost sinister devotion at this very moment.
"He may even be ensnaring people with some cunning artifice, just as you were ensnared."
If desperate lies denying my very existence count as ensnarement, then you wouldn't be wrong, strictly speaking.
"Good heavens, that's a disaster! A menace like that, turned loose on the world?"
It is indeed a disaster. A true calamity.
"It is. That is, if your story turns out to be true."
"I'm sorry — what?"
Startled, I asked her to repeat that. Had my excuse about the water been too thin after all?
"If you truly are not the Founding Noble, then let us verify it."
"Verify... what, exactly?"
"Your waste. Excrement, I mean. The Founding Noble is immortal — he has no need of metabolism, and so he cannot produce any. But an ordinary human such as yourself would be another matter, would you not?"
...She's right.
An unexpected, full-marks answer had just dropped out of her mouth. Eating, drinking, sleeping — not one of those acts was any longer necessary to me. Naturally, that went for the other business as well.
It was a fact so long and so naturally accepted that even I had forgotten it.
"H-hey, hold on. So you're telling me you want to look at my — my private business? A grown woman, no less!"
"I am aware it is embarrassing. But this is a matter of grave importance, so I must ask for your cooperation."
"M-men and women are meant to keep apart! Why on earth would you look at a perfect stranger's — at his waste?!"
That was the best flustered excuse I could scrape together. So what if men and women had to keep apart? Nobody ever wrote a rule about waste and women.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
It had nothing to do with anything. But I couldn't very well spit out the sensible answer, either.
So I crossed my arms and answered with all the dignity I could muster.
"It has everything to do with it! Which is to say — a grown woman would be fixing her gaze, unblinking, upon my — my business — would she not?"
"Now, I wouldn't go so far as to stare—"
"Most intensely! At my thick and long one!"
"I would only need to confirm its existence—"
Naturally, she did not yield easily. Her cheeks had flushed a little, but her position had not budged an inch.
Desperate to slip out of the situation by any means, I began babbling whatever came to hand.
"Look — say someone asked you to show them what underwear you had on today. Would you just innocently show them?"
"That is entirely different!"
"Then flip it around — if a total stranger asked to see what you ate today and what came of it afterward, would you show him?"
"Ugh. That's..."
"Which of the two is more embarrassing? Take your pick, no hurry."
For the record, strictly speaking, it was the poop I found embarrassing. Underwear gets hung out to dry in yards and on balconies all the time. Public urination, on the other hand, is a lewd act one could never bring oneself to show another living soul.
Huh. Wait — isn't this logic actually pretty solid?
Perhaps she had no answer for such unorthodox reasoning, because she simply stood there, red-faced, fidgeting. Emboldened by her reaction, I declared with perfect confidence:
"If you truly must see my waste, then show me your underwear in return! That would be fair, would it not?"
It was lunacy, not worth the breath it took to say. Only after shouting it did the realization land: no matter how firmly you have someone on the ropes, stray too far off course and the tables turn on you!
"Tch..."
It actually worked?! More to the point — isn't this woman being far, far too nice?
The aura I could feel radiating off her was anything but ordinary. Something I could only sense because I possessed Netionpis's body. If she had lacked confidence in her own strength, she would never have opened the Great Cavern's door in the first place.
And yet this woman was matching eyes with a self-proclaimed ordinary man as servile as they come.
In truth, even if I had been no ordinary man but a decently strong one, the moment she turned and walked away, there would have been nothing I could do to stop her. I would simply be dragged along the ground in the most pathetic fashion, clinging to her ankle. If she pushed me off with real force, my bones would have shattered.
And here she was — with the villain called the Founding Noble either loose or about to be — leisurely weighing which was the more shameful, poop or underwear.
She was clearly not a woman in possession of her senses. Which, for me, was a blessing in disguise.
"So what will it be? Will you show me? Or won't you! Come along, now!"
Pressed for an answer, she quivered her trembling lips. Her voice cracked as though she were being made to say the unsayable.
"Ugh... I...!"
At the answer that spilled from those shivering lips, I could not hide my astonishment.
"Perhaps today is the day my allotted years run out."
I murmured it under my breath. What I now faced was the door of the Great Cavern, where the villain — the Founding Noble Netionpis — lay sealed.
Had I not consciously attended to my breathing, I could scarcely have kept its rhythm. Such was the enormous tension that had come creeping up over me, slow and steady.
If it had been possible, I would have wished for this visit to come at some later date. But the situation had changed overnight.
"As the seal upon the Founding Noble weakens with each passing day, the Commander of the Nelprugia Knights shall, with utmost loyalty, relieve the Emperor of his burden."
Put plainly, it was an imperial command to subjugate the Founding Noble. The moment I accepted the order, a crushing weight settled over my shoulders — enough to make every duty I had ever carried feel like a child's game.
I could not begin to guess what manner of desperate struggle lay ahead. In the end, I left behind in my office the first will I had ever written.
"If I do not return, please see that this reaches my house. And as for the next Commander..."
I had steeled myself for death and named my successor in advance. Such was the resolve — the absolute resolve — with which I had come to this place. And yet the scene before me now seemed to flow on, mocking everything I had been.
All because of the one man bowing his head into the dirt before my very eyes. From the moment we first met, I had been certain of it: this was the villain, the Founding Noble Netionpis.
...It is true that after speaking with him a while, the thought did cross my mind — could he truly not be? But it lasted only an instant. Never once did I withdraw my certainty.
And not merely because the matter bore directly upon the security of the Eld Empire.
Corrupt qi writhed and swarmed about the man — a thick, dense aura, the kind that would swallow any ordinary strongman whole in the space of a breath.
Never in my life had I beheld a being like this.
Whether he knew I could sense it or not, the man droned on, excuse after excuse.
This man's nonsense — it slides down the tongue as though basted in oil.
Regret welled up in me, thick and bitter.
Was Netionpis a man like this? That Founding Noble, of all people?
For now he seemed to intend to slip quietly past and melt into the world at large — but I had no intention of allowing it. I decided to nod along to his story just enough, and watch how he moved.
"So... have your suspicions been laid to rest?"
Netionpis asked, clinging to his servile manner. And I answered:
"If your story is true, then we have a serious problem. It would mean a dangerous villain is striding about out there. Heaven only knows what sinister schemes he is plotting even now..."
A woman who holds her doubts, and yet entertains other possibilities besides — naive, guileless. That was the impression I meant to give, and so I spoke readily.
I'll dance to his tune — and let him believe I do.
I could have cut Netionpis down then and there, and it would have cost me nothing. But that was on the assumption he would come at me head-on.
Somehow, inexplicably, he was trying to deceive me with servility instead. For Netionpis to look this foolish was unexpected — but from where I stood, it was a boon.
As it happened, I had — contrary to my habit — gathered in my body's energy and disguised myself as weaker than I truly was. A foolish knight-maiden who, drunk on reckless ambition, had dared to come subjugate the Founding Noble.
That was the mask I wore now.
If he cannot talk his way out of being the Founding Noble, he will bare his true nature and try to kill me. While my guard is down, no doubt.
When I judged that the image of a somewhat dim knight had taken root, I threw my gambit onto the table.
"If you truly are not the Founding Noble, then let us verify it."
"Verify... what, exactly?"
"Your waste. Excrement, I mean. The Founding Noble is immortal — he has no need of metabolism, and so he cannot produce any. But an ordinary human such as yourself would be another matter, would you not?"
Flawless logic — so I believed.
After all, no one relieves himself in the brief moment it takes for a door to open.
At my words, Netionpis — out of pure spite, if anything — spewed sophistry in reply.
"Look — say someone asked you to show them what underwear you had on today. Would you just innocently show them?"
"That is entirely different!"
"Then flip it around — if a total stranger asked to see what you ate today and what came of it afterward, would you show him?"
Truly filthy, base conduct. Not worth the hearing. Give it the slightest thought and it falls apart...
...
Huh? Why does it... kind of make sense?
For an instant, my thoughts simply stopped. I churned my brain over and over, desperate to point out the flaw in his logic.
Why am I the one who has to think this through so seriously?
Just as I was drowning in the question, a single possibility flashed before my eyes.
Sorcery. He must have wielded some art that dulls the mind. As befits the Founding Noble — how utterly base!
Thank the heavens I had caught on when I did. The moment I recognized it, my thoughts ran crisp and clear, and my head felt clean once more.
...In any case, that was how it felt.
Against sophistry, one does not answer with intellect!
Quivering at the lips, I opened my mouth.
"Ugh... I...! I am Irelphi of the Nelprugia Knights, pride of the Eld Empire! I will not answer to so base a bargain. What I wish to see, I shall see; what I do not wish to see, I shall not! Stand aside — I am executing my official duty!"
Against sophistry, answer with authority. That was the brilliant solution I had conceived. At the same time, by never revealing my true rank and letting him take me for a common knight, I would lull the Founding Noble into carelessness.
And if, at last cornered with his identity on the verge of exposure, the Founding Noble tried to overpower me — I would strike him apart, limb from limb, in that very instant of complacency. It was a counterblow aimed at the hunter's blind faith that the prey will never become the hunter.
That was the perfect plan I had devised.
...Although — against a man whose very title was Founding Noble, was really leaning on authority to crush him the right call?
The moment I heard her — Irelphi's — words, astonishment struck me, and every hair on my body stood on end.
Insane.
Those two syllables carried every feeling I was capable of expressing.
Why is the strongest being in the entire setting standing right here?
I hadn't even imagined it. This woman — Irelphi? Never in a thousand years.
Irelphi Justiha — that was her full name. She was the DLC raid boss of the newest entry in the Eld Chain series. Unlike me, a mere Easter egg, she was a character with a proper storyline and an official lorebook to her name.
Of course, I had cleared Irelphi in the game — but that had been less a duel than a full raid, throwing every NPC and mechanism the game offered at her. She was, from the ground up, a boss designed to make a solo, barehanded clear impossible.
Across the entire series, she was the only boss built around a gimmick like that.
The reason I had failed to recognize a boss I had already faced once came down to one thing: the heavy armor.
From our first encounter to the end of the raid, she had gone about in constant full plate, her body hidden from head to toe — nothing visible but ash-gray hair that dragged along the ground. More than that, she was a grotesque boss who never let out so much as a groan, no matter how hard she was struck.
The only sounds she ever made were clipped utterances as unpleasant as fingernails on a chalkboard.
Had it not been for her oddly feminine name and her lorebook, I would never in my dreams have guessed she was a woman.
Wow. Setting all of that aside — she is genuinely gorgeous... How did the devs ever plan to hide something like this?
Her silky white hair spilled down to her waist, as though it had drunk its fill of the pale moonlight of midnight. And those lake-blue eyes that met mine without flinching — were they not exactly like a lake poured out beneath a clear sky?
Her flawless, unblemished white skin seemed to glow with its own luster — so much so that I almost doubted she was really a knight.
It was a bewildering encounter, in more ways than one.
But thanks to it, at least I know where we are in the timeline. Judging by how she came looking for me, the story seems to have drifted a little off course, though.
Left to its own course, she would soon meet with a tragic event. And because of it, Irelphi would lose everything and live on as a ghost of vengeance.
The DLC's story begins when the protagonist finds Irelphi — the woman who laid the entire vast empire to waste and then withdrew from the world.
This might, just possibly, be my opportunity. If I could only prevent Irelphi's tragedy, then she would owe me a debt.
A debt deep enough that even if my identity as the Founding Noble came to light, she — of all people — would not raise a hand against me...
Stop Irelphi's descent into darkness! That will be my second step toward keeping myself safe.
And the first step, I was about to take right now.
The mighty first step toward turning my waste into Schrödinger's waste, by any means necessary...!