Maple Leaf Village (1)
There's an old saying that the day you set out is always market day. Turns out, it's true.
"Nin-nin."
Our party had gathered at the guild, grabbed a light meal, and set off — only to find ourselves shoved and jostled every which way by a crushing throng of people.
I wondered if this was how Hamlet felt, dithering over whether to stand against the crushing tide of fate. Except this tide was made of commoners, so I had no choice but to take the hits.
"Hmm. An awful lot of people. How inconvenient."
Saton, who'd just had his foot stepped on by a passerby, stuck out his lip like a spoiled child. Damn it — so the old line about lovers growing alike was true, too. Bonita, who was forging ahead and parting the crowd for us, offered an explanation.
"The festival hosted by House Martolan starts today. Commoners are allowed to attend, and for a provincial event it puts on a fairly spectacular show, so people come from other regions as well. Still, it's rare to see this many even on the opening day… We just got unlucky."
The lord of Martolan. From what I'd checked last time, he was a clean man with no real problems — aside from being an erotica maniac who read the Yokai Hunter's books. The latter left such an impression that it overshadowed everything else, but the people's opinion of him had always been high, and none of the servants at his estate had shown any signs of abuse.
Well, so what if a guy reads a little smut? When I had the time, I ought to go return Martolan's collection. The Yokai Hunter volume I'd burned last time was a lost cause, though.
Clank. Clank.
The crowd seemed to be parting, so I looked up — and saw women in full plate armor marching in a single file. So that was the all-female knight order Orphe had only ever mentioned in passing.
It was a small order of maybe twelve, but women built about as big as me, eyes gleaming with that particular light unique to career spinsters, walking in perfect formation — they certainly projected an air of authority. A whole different league from those Earth guys who get violated by pig yokai.
Our party pressed over to the left and cleared the road. When soldiers pass, civilians make way. That was only natural, so I felt no particular resentment about it.
Thud.
As Jina twisted her body to step aside, her oversized pack clipped one of the knights on the shoulder. In an instant the knight's face twisted into something out of a nightmare. Jina, who hadn't felt a thing thanks to the weight of her load, simply kept walking.
"You little bitch — you think this is a joke?"
Crack—!
"Kyaa!"
The knight strode over, stopped Jina cold, and slapped her across the face without so much as a word of warning. Jina lost her grip on her pack and crumpled to the ground.
"Nin?"
For a moment I couldn't process what had just happened and simply stared. Had she seriously just slapped someone for a shoulder bump and no apology?
"Are you out of your mind? You hit me and just walk off without apologizing?"
Her entire way of thinking was alien to ours. The kind of logic you'd expect from a yakuza thug for whom violence was a way of life.
"I—I'm so sorry. My pack is so big, I didn't even notice."
Jina scrambled up in a half-crouch and apologized. Her cheek was flaming red from the force of the blow.
"Ha. You really are a piece of work. What kind of apology is that — just words?"
"W-wait a second!"
The yakuza suddenly seized Jina by the collar and hauled her up. A flustered Bonita rushed forward to intervene, but the yakuza brushed her off without a second thought.
The other knights had stopped and were watching the scene with cold eyes. Not one of them moved to stop it. Judging by their reaction, these bastards were militaristic samurai through and through, bound together by a purebred sense of superiority. The thought had barely formed when a lion's roar exploded from beside me.
"Chivalry has → fallen ↗ to the ground~!"
Saton's scream, thick with extreme agitation. The sheer volume of it stopped even distant passersby in their tracks; heads turned our way from every direction.
"Wh-what the—"
Caught off guard by Saton's bellow and the sudden weight of the crowd's stares, the yakuza's tongue tangled and she stammered, letting Jina go. Jina still looked dazed, her expression blank. Orphe took her by the hand and pulled her back toward the party.
"Are your ears blocked?! She said she didn't notice because of the size of her pack! For a knight to freely assault a citizen of the kingdom over something so trivial — can a brute like you even be called a knight? You have forgotten your honor!"
Saton's sudden outbursts were nothing new, but this time I figured his rage was justified. Leave it to a man who made his living with words — his tongue was smooth as silk.
"And who the hell are y—"
"I am Ernst Saton, third son of House Saton and a great man of letters soon to join the Hall of Artists! Speak! Who are you to commit such an outrage?! State your name and affiliation at once and apologize to her with proper courtesy! Otherwise I shall report this matter to the Iregal Kingdom Artists' Association!"
Saton steamrolled right over her words and cowed the yakuza into silence. I had no idea what good it would do to tell a bunch of artists — they weren't journalists — but the plausible-sounding organization name and the word "report" made the yakuza's body tremble, so the threat had clearly landed.
Come to think of it, there had always been something oddly educated about the way he carried himself and spoke. So Saton was a noble, too. Of course — for an otaku to survive this harsh world, he at least needed to be a nobleman's son.
Wait. He used his family name as a pen name for writing erotica? Now that was a true madman.
The yakuza's face had gone deathly pale. She looked toward the watching samurai as if pleading for help. With a sigh, one woman stepped forward. Judging by the force of presence rolling off her, she was their leader.
"I am Aileen Pitman, captain of the Iron Lobster Knights and second daughter of House Pitman."
"Ah… mm."
The look Aileen gave Saton after that introduction was ice-cold. Dry-ice-from-a-popsicle-shop cold. A thoroughly cowed Saton gulped. Fastest demotion to washed-up extra in history.
"Remove your helmet."
Aileen ordered the yakuza. The woman pulled off her helm, cold sweat beading on her face.
Crack—!
"Ghk!"
Aileen slapped the yakuza just as hard as the yakuza had slapped Jina, and the woman went down the same way. Instant karma.
"Stand up straight."
Aileen spoke flatly, rolling her wrist with casual ease. The terrified yakuza, blood streaming from her nose, scrambled back to her feet in front of Aileen.
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!
A merciless, rhythmic beating reduced the yakuza to a wreck. So this was what athletic-club hazing looked like in the flesh?
"Apologize to her yourself."
When Aileen's beating finally stopped, the yakuza — her face twisted into something out of a yokai story — bowed her head toward Jina. A yokai yakuza. What a nightmarish hybrid.
"I—I'm sorry."
"Say it properly."
"As a knight, I failed to control my temper and committed violence in the street. I am truly sorry."
"I-it's fine…"
Jina touched her cheek and accepted the apology in a daze. If her father had seen this, he would have blown a gasket.
"You said you were the third son of House Saton."
Suddenly Aileen looked Saton dead in the eye.
"Th-that is so."
Saton had fully transformed into a whipped puppy. He looked pathetic now. I never believed in you, you bastard.
"I apologize for the unsightly display. Please forgive our discourtesy."
"Ahem. Very well. I shall forgive you."
"Safe travels. Move out."
The Iron Lobster samurai fell back into a single orderly file. Everyone except Orphe and me turned like machines and walked on ahead. Completely terrified, the lot of them.
From behind, I could feel the prickling killing intent rolling off Aileen and her samurai. Judging by how casually the others were walking, I was the only one in the party who could sense it. Trash looking to die, throwing shade from the rear.
The Iron Lobster Knights and Aileen Pitman? The next time we met, it would be nothing but Massacre-lute.
No innocent blood had been spilled today, so I decided to let it slide. Still, a little "verification work" would be necessary. I hoped they'd stick around this town until our quest was finished.
Whether because of the earlier incident or not, the atmosphere in the carriage was rotten. Clown Saton wasn't performing any tricks, and the silence had grown so thick it was starting to make me nervous.
"Aileen, captain of the Iron Lobster Knights. I have heard of her."
Saton finally opened his mouth, and everyone leaned in as if they'd been waiting for it. He was the mood-maker, in his own way.
"She is a disciple of the Soft Sword King. They say her skill is so formidable that rumors claim she will join the Sacred Sword Assembly within a few years."
"The Soft Sword King?"
What the hell is that, you damn otaku. Still, the pretentious title had me curious enough to ask. Sacred Sword Assembly? Seven Sword Kings? From the sound of it, this world had its own SSS-rank samurai clan. Since they were people I'd probably fight someday, I listened to the explanation.
"…And so the title of Aegis King was claimed by a knight in golden armor. As for the Swift Sword King, I hear he has gone missing of late…"
Boring as hell.
After more than an hour of this human wiki dumping lore nobody had asked for, I was so done with Saton that I just turned and asked Orphe something else.
"You said there was a reason there are more female knight orders than male ones. What was it?"
"Mm… It's a bit long… The Magic Towers define mana as the source of life."
Ah, damn it. I was already getting sleepy. How little did these people have to do with their lives to remember this kind of stuff? Suddenly I could picture Orphe's miserable childhood with painful clarity. A yakuza-slayer origin story you couldn't watch without tears.
"When a woman carries a child, the child is said to take a portion of the mother's life force. Every living thing is born that way, according to what I was taught. That's why female mana users are forbidden from romantic relationships unless they've hit their ceiling or fully settled into their power. You never know what might happen in a mixed-gender knight order, right?"
I was so drowsy I nearly closed my eyes. For a second I thought I saw the Buddha's face. Orphe must have noticed, because she sped up.
"So most families prefer to place their daughters in all-female orders rather than mixed ones. Men don't face that risk, so they tend to join mixed orders more often than all-male ones. The women in mixed knight orders are mostly there looking for partners, so courtship is free. As for the all-male orders, from what I know, most of the knights already have spouses. Everything has its reasons."
Roughly sorted: spinster knight orders, married-man knight orders, and couple knight orders. So that was why the yakuza had thrown her virgin-hysteria tantrum and gone berserk.
Not that I had any intention of understanding. If a runaway ninja sat around listening to every excuse like that, he'd go gray before his time. I was still too young for that.
"Well, we've arrived. Follow the path on this map and you'll reach Maple Leaf Village. Quite a few carriages run the road I just brought you down, so once you've finished your business, wait here and one will come by. Farewell!"
Hee-hee-hee-heeigh!
The driver left us with nothing but a single map and took off. Outside, the sun was already setting.
"It's not far. Let's go into the village and find lodging."
"Nin-nin."
The quest hadn't even started, and I was already exhausted.