37. How a 21st Century Person Survives the Middle Ages
37. How a 21st Century Person Survives the Middle Ages
Nikolai has joined the party!
What changed in daily life now that he'd joined up, you ask?
Nothing.
It just meant our high-performance script-writing Dobby now had "trustworthy" tacked onto his title.
That brief word, trust, let me bring Nicol to the count’s domain to observe the Room of Truth interrogation of the cultists.
After a thrilling session with the cultists in the Room of Truth, we left the count’s domain and handed off the cleanup.
"This is near your family home, right? Mind if I pay my respects to your parents?"
"Why?"
"Your family's on the primary protection list now."
Nicol caught on right away.
Unlike in my past life, counterintelligence agents in this world weren't disposable, use-and-discard parts.
In my past life, one person couldn't bring down an entire organization, so agents were often discarded after serving their purpose. In this world, however, a single embittered agent could destroy an entire agency.
So an agent's family matters.
If the Counterintelligence Department failed to protect the families and one of them went John Armstrong on us, we'd be in for one hell of a headache too.
"For starters, your father's going to need to be at least a Count before he'll be reasonably safe."
That was because a Count could maintain at least one knight order under his command.
Especially once someone reached the executive officer level, they inevitably became as strong as any field agent or gained access to major secrets, so their families became primary protection targets as well.
"Can you really fast-track him like that?"
"A regular agent wouldn't receive this kind of treatment. But you said you'd be my adjutant. Don't you understand how important a Counterintelligence executive is?"
A Counterintelligence executive could possess information that threatened the Emperor's life.
Leaving the family of an executive like that to their own devices, well...
Posterity would remember it as monumental stupidity.
"It's an honorary countship—there's no territory to manage, just the title. The plan is to assign guards under the pretext of a knight order, so he probably won't find it too burdensome."
"I can promise you, my father will have a fit."
"Nah, no way."
And then, a few hours later.
Only when the head of the Cervantes family had a fit right in front of my eyes, declaring he wanted to retire, did I finally understand.
He was simply an ordinary man who wanted nothing to do with responsibility.
*
There was rather a lot of commotion at Nicol's family home.
I usually liked to dismiss things as minor, but this was not minor.
The atmosphere remained tolerable until I handed them the dishwasher I'd bought in the count's domain.
Even when the head of the family kicked up a fuss about retiring from his barony, I could still chalk that up as a minor commotion.
But when my subordinate's mother did a magical-girl cosplay and handed me fruit, guilt and an unknown sense of dread constricted my heart.
I couldn't breathe while Nikolai's father and older brother stared at me with dead-fish eyes.
Aha.
So that was why Nicol ran away from home.
On top of that, around the time my brain went on strike after seeing my friend's older sister in an Isis cosplay, the two of us made plans to escape to the capital.
"Mother, Father. This good-for-nothing son will go see the wider world and return."
"Yes. You must build experience while you're young, mustn't you? Travel safely."
As he was leaving the mansion, Nicol kept glancing back as if reluctant...
He didn't.
The guy was pulling away faster than I was.
*
And so, the two of us began some sightseeing in the capital, with healing as our goal.
"Boss, this is my first time in the capital."
"That's definitely possible."
Plenty of people lived in 21st-century America without ever seeing Washington, so Nicol wasn't abnormal.
Rather, the Empire was larger than America, and the only thing substituting for an airplane was a slightly pricey airship, so most people would never see the capital, let alone leave the region they lived in.
Watching him glance around the second we arrived, I felt like a Seoul native showing a friend up from the countryside around town.
"I don't know everything about the capital either, but I've got all the fun spots down. Leave it to me."
"Oh, I'll trust you on this, Boss."
As I was showing Nicol around the capital like that, lunchtime arrived before we knew it.
While we sat at a decent restaurant eating lunch, Nicol kept glancing around and finally asked what he'd been curious about for a while.
"By the way, I kept noticing while we were walking around—why do the guards keep looking this way?"
"Hmm, who knows."
His sensitive perception must have picked up on their stares.
But nothing specific came to mind for me.
More precisely, far too many things came to mind, so paradoxically, none of them stuck.
Was it because I blew up the restaurant that passed off snake meat as drake tail steak?
Or was it because I planted the mercenaries who were illegally occupying an orphanage into the vegetable patch as educational materials for the kids?
If not that, was it the Ghost Rider impression I did chasing down the centaur biker gang tearing down the roads at night?
If I only listed the minor crimes the guards hadn't caught yet, I figured I could easily snag the title of King of the Capital's Petty Criminals.
When I shared this fact with Nicol, his face twisted with disgust as he said,
"Boss, you really lived like a total madman."
"Tsk, tsk. Call me a vigilante. Honestly, it's better than getting caught at drug parties like those third-generation nobles, right?"
Just as I was idly chatting like that and about to pay the bill at the restaurant, the cook who'd been in the kitchen suddenly stepped out and approached us.
Nicol noticed too, and his eyes lit up bright.
"Oh. Is this an event trigger?"
"What event? I want to live peacefully."
But contrary to my feelings on the matter, the cook kept walking straight toward us.
Every time the massive orc with arms like logs drew closer, I could feel the ground tremble.
When he stood right in front of Nicol, a shadow fell over Nicol's face.
His eyes went wide, the whites bloodshot, and his mouth opened.
"Um... aren't you Sage Cervantes, sir?"
"Yes? I am, but..."
"Oh, Lord Berdos, thank you! I'm an aspiring Sage myself... would a handshake be possible, by any chance? Ah! There's no need to pay for the meal the Sage has eaten."
"Uh..."
Nicol looked at me.
He still seemed unsure how to handle situations like this.
I subtly indicated the cook with my chin and, in a voice only Nicol could hear, whispered, "Give him an autograph too."
Nicol followed my instructions, though he looked a little nonplussed.
The cook took the autograph and headed back into the kitchen, delighted.
I tossed a word to Nicol, who was staring dumbfounded at the orc's retreating back.
"You're more famous than me now, huh?"
Starting with that cook, the restaurant patrons swarmed toward Nicol.
Before we knew it, he was surrounded by an enormous crowd and couldn't budge an inch.
Well, it was only natural.
I was a Luchador, but Nikolai's identity had been openly revealed to the public.
He figured that people wouldn't be interested in the Sage or the Prophet, so he didn't bother hiding—but that only applied when a film was moderately successful.
The Sage of a massive blockbuster film earned fame rivaling any decent Hero or Hero's party member.
I briefly turned my gaze from the crowd-surrounded Nicol to look out the window and saw the guards he'd mentioned just moments ago.
Admiration was written across their faces; anyone could have seen it.
After confirming that, I parted the crowd and approached Nicol.
"Can you do two autographs? With a message saying 'Thank you for your hard work.'"
"Huh?"
"Just write them for now."
Nikolai signed two autographs with obvious reluctance.
Leaving him there, I stepped out of the restaurant, bought two drinks from a street stall, and approached the guards.
"Thank you for your hard work. Have these while you work."
"We can't! While on duty, we cannot consume food or drink provided by civilians!"
"The rule is about drinks from unidentified people, not ordinary citizens, right? I'm with Sage Cervantes. He sent me to bring you these while you work."
The guards hesitated, but they accepted the drinks.
That left each of them holding a crossbow in one hand and a drink in the other.
I slipped the autographs into both men's pockets and bolted.
Someone behind me called out to wait, but I ignored it and returned to the restaurant, pushing through the crowd once again to get back to Nicol's side.
He'd apparently seen what I'd done outside amidst all that chaos, because the moment I got back he asked what that had been about.
"Watch and learn. This is all fan service. If you're going to be my partner from now on, you need to have at least this much sense."
After that, pretending to be Nicol's manager, I took command of the crowd and ran the impromptu fan meeting that had erupted in the restaurant.
About an hour passed before we made it out of that restaurant.
*
"Boss. This world, compared to the fantasy worlds I know..."
"It's polite?"
"Yes."
That was what Nicol said after we left the restaurant and were walking down the street.
I could understand where he was coming from.
People usually have this image of a fantasy world as rude, barbaric, and uncivilized.
It wasn't entirely wrong.
The basic medieval-era foundation hadn't gone anywhere, so if you went way out to some remote backwater or frontier, you'd see plenty of those stereotypes.
But at least in the capital, that kind of person wasn't common.
"As technology advanced, refinement must have developed alongside it to some degree, right?"
"No. No way. It's just that anyone without manners got themselves killed."
"Excuse me?"
"There's a perfect example right there. See that old man at the smithy?"
"Y-yes."
"Three hundred years ago, that old man made the Grand Canyon with a single sword."
"?"
"This is a world where you can randomly encounter people like that just walking down the street, so you've gotta watch your mouth. You never know what might happen to you otherwise."
"Boss, have you ever misspoken?"
"Of course. I threw a tantrum in that old man’s shop and demanded a gun, so he beat me black and blue with a scabbard."
"..."
Nicol looked at me with cold, flat eyes.
Anyway, we diligently toured the capital.
"I think I've shown you just about everything worth seeing. Anything you personally want to check out?"
"The Adventurers' Guild!"
"Ah, I can see why you'd be curious. But it won't have any fun events like you're imagining."
People without manners die.
Adventurers were no exception to that.
We were, after all, Sage Cervantes and a nearly two-meter-tall wall of muscle.
Anyone who'd picked a fight with us had to be out of their mind.
"I'm not expecting anything anymore. I just want to use it as reference for our next production."
"All right, I'll show you."
Pushing open the kind of swinging doors you'd see in a Western, we entered the Guild.
The first thing I saw was a counter that served as restaurant, bar, and quest desk all at once.
At various tables, adventurers were eating while discussing their missions.
And as I'd said, they didn't so much as glance our way all the way until we reached the counter.
Nicol seemed to have been expecting some event where they'd bark, "This is no place for a suckling babe like you!" and pick a fight, but alas.
After ordering drinks, I brought Nikolai to the receptionist and asked her to explain how the guild worked. I paid the introduction fee, of course.
The receptionist, professional as she was, explained the guild's history, operations, and more in detail.
Nicol nodded along and took notes with keen interest.
"Was the explanation all right?"
"It was more than satisfactory."
Nikolai was about to leave, looking satisfied.
Then the receptionist shyly stopped him.
"Um... could I get an autograph..."
Now accustomed to signing autographs, Nikolai moved the pen smoothly across the page.
"Thank you!"
She was so delighted a visible flush spread across her face.
Nikolai, also looking rather pleased, was about to exit the Guild.
It would have been really nice if an adventurer hadn't stopped him.
An adventurer who had been waiting in the queue for the receptionist's window blocked Nikolai's path.
"What business does a bookworm like you have in our Adventurers' Guild?"
"Ah, my apologies. I wanted to observe for my next work."
Despite the slight rudeness, Nikolai answered politely.
But what came back made his courtesy meaningless; it was even ruder.
"What? Observe~? Oooobseeeerve~?"
"If I've committed some discourtesy, I'll apologize. I'm not well-versed in the customs here."
"Of course you should apologize! We're risking our lives just to scrape by day after day, and you're hogging the window to shoot the breeze?"
"I'm sorry."
I tilted my head and glanced around.
It was the middle of the day.
We were a long way off from five in the afternoon, when the adventurers' windows got busy. Naturally, besides the one Nikolai was standing at, there were plenty of empty windows.
I turned my gaze back toward the adventurer.
He was trying to hide it, as if ashamed, but a copper adventurer's badge was sticking out of his back pocket.
A copper-rank adventurer wouldn't have any genuinely dangerous quests.
When I raised my eyes to his face, I saw a nose flushed red like a strawberry.
And every time he opened his mouth, the smell of alcohol wafted out.
'Aha.'
Even as he heaped every kind of insult onto Nikolai, his eyes kept flicking furtively between Nikolai and the receptionist he'd been talking to just moments ago.
As a bonus, the receptionist's expression was souring under that gaze.
Yet through all of this, Nikolai was silently enduring the insults—maybe because he was conscious of being a public figure.
Oh dear.
He was misunderstanding something. This was Amazing Fantasy.
He seemed to have completely forgotten what I'd just told him.
'What was it about people without manners again?'
Well then, I'd have to show him.
The medieval way.
Right on cue, the adventurer reached a hand toward Nikolai's collar.
The moment I grabbed his wrist, his eyes snapped to me.
"Who the hell are you?"
Wordlessly, I directed my gaze downward.
His gaze followed mine downward as well.
Looking down, he saw Peace & Keeper in my other hand—the one not holding his wrist.
The barrel, adorned with a cute star charm, was aimed at his knee.
"Ah."
"Be a good boy—yap."
*
Three days later.
"Allen, you are not permitted to use the portal."
"Why?"
"Anyone arrested in the capital within the past month is prohibited from using the portal. That is the rule."
"..."
Ah, for fuck's sake.
Damn uncivilized Middle Ages.
*
The setting shifted to the imperial palace, located in the heart of the capital—a detached palace there.
A dark room without a single light.
A massive canopy with frills blocked the sunset that sought to illuminate the bed, and in its shelter, a girl lay facedown on the bed, playing chess.
When she moved her knight, the opponent's piece moved in response.
Even though there was no opponent to move that piece.
She narrowed her eyes at the opponent's move.
"Oh my. So that's how you intend to move, is it?"
Naturally, no answer came.
But she laughed quietly and moved her knight once more.
Onto the pawn's diagonal.
At her move, the invisible opponent hesitated to move, as if deliberating, then finally moved its pawn to capture the knight.
In that instant,
Crack
The pawn shattered into pieces.
Reveling in the invisible opponent's consternation, the girl laughed lowly.
"Goodness. Truly, you are so naive. Reality isn't chess, you know?"
The chessboard flipped over as if in fury.
The board spun through the air, and the pieces atop it went flying.
But when the chessboard fell back onto the bed, only her black pieces stood tall on the board.
Looking at the result, she smiled with satisfaction and addressed her opponent.
With a hint of anger in her voice.
"How arrogant of you to dare try to place my knight upon a game board. Your defeat was decided at that very moment."
Still no answer came, but having said her piece, she rose from the bed.
When she pushed aside the canopy, the evening glow dyed her beautiful golden hair red and made it shine.
In the highest room of the detached palace, Pia Parma opened the window and gazed in one direction.
She whispered toward a carriage leaving the castle far in the distance, too softly for anyone else to hear.
Her voice dripped with affection.
"Please endure just a little longer, my knight."
A small table stood behind her.
Next to a cup of tea long gone cold lay a photo of Allen and the Duke's emblem.