81. Mari Episode
81. Mari Episode
It was the weekend before we started shooting the Mari episode in earnest.
I climbed into a portal and headed for the Helheim Kingdom.
Though these were times of peace, Helheim Kingdom began as the harbor that the demons from across the sea seized as a bridgehead for their invasion back when demons and humanity were at war.
The Four Heavenly King who had seized the harbor was an oni, and the army under his command was also made up of combat-oriented demons, so the country had a high proportion of bipedal demon races.
You know the type.
Orcs, goblins, trolls, gremlins—all that crowd.
The sort who come with a pair of arms and legs like people, a rag around their waist, shrieking and swinging a wooden club.
They were physically powerful foot soldiers despite their simple fighting style.
A gathering place for races commonly called demi-humans.
Since the country was rooted in an army composed of those types, it placed great importance on honor and combat and still retained a somewhat tribal character.
A prime example: it had no separate royal family, and the "most honorable person" became the king. In a sense, you could call it a land of real men.
"Just knowing Big Evil Wolf and John are the same person was astonishing enough—but who'd have thought both of them were a young man like you? I expected someone middle-aged, like King Lion."
And Dreul Stardum, the man now showing me the country, was himself one of the current top-ten Honored One candidates.
I accepted the skewer Dreul handed me, chewing and shrugging.
"Why, disappointed?"
"No. I'm impressed, honestly. Coming up with ideas like this at such a young age—genius really is different, I suppose."
Dreul let out a hearty laugh and performed the feat of eating three skewers in a single bite.
During my Wrestle Kingdom days I'd stayed so thorough about hiding my appearance that I never released my avatar even in the locker room, so hardly anyone knew my real identity.
Why, then, was I revealing it to Dreul now? Sheer friendliness.
The character Dreul originally played had been, in Wrestle Kingdom's setting, Wolf's apprentice.
So during my days as a wrestler, I'd interacted with him often. Although I hadn't revealed my identity, the two of us had developed an unspoken bond.
And now, when he'd volunteered to show me around the kingdom, keeping things at a business relationship felt awkward, so I'd simply come clean.
I took another skewer, eating as I asked Dreul,
"Mmph-mmph. So, gonna go around telling people?"
"Wouldn't dream of it. I'm an orc who knows honor. If you trusted me enough to reveal it, then I have to answer that trust."
His reply was quite satisfying.
In this country, which prized honor and friendship, those values even far outweighed the law.
To give you an idea how much: committing treason was unconditionally punishable by death, but committing treason to carry on the will of a friend who'd turned traitor first was actually recognized as grounds for leniency.
As we kept devouring skewers together, people's attention began turning toward us.
Once so many eyes were on us, ignoring it became impossible—I had to wonder what was going on.
"??? Do I have something on my face? Everyone's only staring at us. Maybe because you're famous, Dreul?"
"Not at all. They're probably looking because we're cheerfully eating something like this."
Dreul said, waggling a Drake Tail Skewer.
His attitude left me no choice but to ask.
"You said this was a traditional food."
"Even among those, it's the most polarizing one."
Aha.
So basically a dish in the same category as fermented skate.
Not that I minded.
Back when I got stranded somewhere in South America I'd eaten insects I didn't even recognize, so drake tail was nothing.
As long as it wasn't mushrooms, I had zero trouble getting it down my throat.
Just the two of us polished off twenty-five portions' worth, then we started the real tour.
Following Dreul's guidance I explored the culture and historical sites, learning the country's true face.
And the conclusion I reached was that Helheim Kingdom's image had been seriously distorted.
To give you an idea how much: people imagined something like the wild savagery of the Incan Empire, but in reality it was just a place where people lived with a slightly more romantic spirit.
When I honestly laid out these impressions to Dreul, he spoke with a rueful expression.
"That's why I wanted to appear in Magical Mari. I wanted to change the prejudice that demi-humans are stupid and savage, even if only a little."
Watching Dreul suddenly drift into melancholy by himself, I had the useless thought that the people around me were growing emotional far too often lately.
And since it had come to this, alongside the idle thought that I might as well moonlight as a troubles counselor, I clapped Dreul on the back and made him a bold promise.
"Don't worry. Once this installment wraps, everyone's prejudices will change completely."
*
Meanwhile, on the day Allen was enjoying his field research in the Helheim Kingdom.
There was someone else spending their weekend in the same city.
Skadi, to be exact.
Returned to her hometown after a long time, she was roaming the capital with hometown friends and relieving her academic stress.
She had been having a pleasant time, telling her friends about the outside world and engaging in friendly sparring.
Then a piece of news reached her ears that stirred up quite a lot of interest.
"Hey, Skadi. They say some imperial's building a tower out of Drake Tail Skewers right now."
"Oh, is that all? Is it really so unusual?"
Up to that point, it didn't hugely grab her attention.
Helheim Kingdom's image within the Empire was so terrible that tourists were rare, but they did exist.
Even Drake Tail Skewers polarized people so badly that locals struggled to eat them because of the funky smell, but it wasn't as though no foreigner ever ate them, so this wasn't remarkable.
But the next words were plenty to spark her interest.
"The thing is, that imperial is eating them with his arm around Dreul Stardum's shoulders."
When she heard that, Skadi suddenly grew curious about that imperial.
Dreul Stardum was officially ranked among the kingdom's top ten candidates, but in practice, forget the top ten—he was the de facto next king.
The reason was that he'd dramatically softened prejudice toward demi-humans through Wrestle Kingdom and Magical Mari.
As recently as six years ago, the Sanctuary of Parma had no place for demi-humans.
To be precise, there had been roles for them, but almost all were villains or minor parts.
Dreul was the one who'd shifted that entire market dynamic in one stroke.
After he made a splash in Wrestle Kingdom under the ring name Juggernaut, leading roles began opening up to demi-humans as well.
Skadi herself had only been able to seriously land leading roles after Dreul's success in Wrestle Kingdom—before that she'd been cycling through villain roles and minor parts.
So to Helheim Kingdom, Dreul was practically a national hero who'd opened the doors of art for its demi-human people.
And a national hero like him was casually sharing traditional food with an imperial?
It was impossible not to take an interest.
So Skadi headed straight for the shop where he was.
Pushing through the crowd to peer into the shop, she found Dreul and a man, still eating inside.
Only when she sensed the Mark of Vengeance engraved on that man's head did she realize who he was.
'Allen Price?'
She briefly considered why her junior was here, then recalled that Dreul was appearing on Magical Mari and accepted it.
'Then Scapul must be appearing in the next installment.'
As a fairly devoted Magical Mari viewer herself, it was pretty welcome news.
She was on Mari's side, so she'd been waiting for the Mari episode anyway, and now Dreul—whom she admired—was joining in, so her expectations couldn't help but rise.
She strained her ears toward the pair's conversation amid that anticipation, but as expected, Dreul had cast a barrier, so she couldn't make out the contents.
So instead she focused on Allen's lips.
Lip-reading couldn't be aided by interpretation magic, so it was hard to fully decode, but she was reasonably familiar with the imperial language and managed to pick out a few words at last.
In the process, she unearthed one startling fact.
'John? Why did Allen just say the name John?'
Her eyes narrowed.
Could she really dismiss it as a coincidence?
Come to think of it, what Allen had said when he first met her was strange too.
She had been told that the Mark of Vengeance on him came from a sparring match with her during a festival, back when she served as Era's Great Warrior. But there was no way she would have forgotten a warrior as strong as Allen.
She had not found any worthy struggle to relieve her boredom, so Allen's appearance was more than enough to pique her interest.
"Skadi, what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Only when her friend called her name did she pull her eyes off Allen's back.
Allen Price.
Placing his name at the very top of her inner Book of Strife, she returned to the training grounds.