It's Underground in Goldon (1)
"You applied for a shared carriage two days ago… Mr. Satton?"
"That's right."
"Come aboard."
With the driver's permission, Satton climbed into the carriage.
He was too broke to hire one alone, so this was the only option left. Miserable as his circumstances were, he had no time to wallow.
"Good day to you all."
Satton offered a greeting to the passengers already seated inside.
"…"
They glanced at him, then ignored him completely.
Satton was just about to pout like Ocul when a voice cut in.
"Pleasure to meet you. Name's James. I was hoping for some conversation, so this works out well."
It was a middle-aged man sitting across from him, wrapped in a shabby cloak.
"Likewise. Satton. I was hoping for the same."
Having found someone to talk to, Satton grinned.
Carriage travel ate up hours on end—small talk was practically mandatory.
"Mr. Satton. Don't I know you from somewhere?"
"Hmm. Not that I recall."
"I've got an excellent memory."
James's bright yellow pupils dilated.
"Weren't you at a storytelling performance in Pushkin Village recently?"
"You mean The Sword's Performance? Yes, I was."
"I was there that day as well."
"What a coincidence! Do you enjoy stories, by any chance?"
"Very much so."
"Hahaha! Remember my name, then. One day it'll belong to a great man of letters!"
Satton laughed heartily and offered his hand.
"You're a spirited fellow."
The two men—whose speech patterns were completely identical—clasped hands.
"That square object in your bundle… is that a book you wrote, Mr. Satton?"
"It is!"
"I see. And why are you leaving Lenghel? It's a wonderful city for an artist."
Satton's words caught in his throat.
No one would take my new book. My emergency funds ran dry ages ago. I have to work as an adventurer just to eat. I'm on my way to a quest location right now.
Pride would never let him say any of that out loud.
"…An artist's inspiration doesn't come to those who sit still and wait. True masters of literature find their own colors through long journeys."
"Indeed. Well said."
James's eyes drifted to Satton's bundle.
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble, might I read it for a while? I'm quite fond of books. I'll compensate you handsomely."
"Compensation? No need—feel free. Even a manuscript is fine?"
"Perfectly fine."
Satton handed over his still-unrecognized masterpiece of the century, The Bird That Drinks Steel.
"The opening is quite striking."
"I put special care into that."
Rustle. Rustle.
Satton fell quiet without realizing it, absorbed in the sound of James turning the pages.
Hours later, James finished reading and spoke.
"This is… a truly remarkable work."
Satton shot to his feet.
"I—is it?! You have excellent taste!"
"Passenger! Please don't shout while I'm driving!"
Satton clapped a hand over his mouth and sat back down.
"It treats the theme of an age stripped of romance with gravity and delicacy. The structure, in particular—beginning, development, turn, and conclusion—was flawless."
"Exactly!"
"That said, the weight of the drama is considerable. Some readers might find it tedious. You might consider adding a character who lightens the atmosphere."
"I—is that so? I'll take it under advisement."
James produced an expensive-looking pipe.
"A writer, then… Good. Would you listen to a story I've been turning over? If it interests you, you're free to use it."
"By all means."
"It's about a boy. A boy who longed to become a knight."
James took a moment to smoke.
"A knight, you say?"
"A knight has enemies he must vanquish, does he not? A warrior who faces his fated rival and wages a fierce battle. That was what the boy believed a knight to be."
"How romantic."
"One day, crisis struck this boy. His impoverished parents sold him to the Shade."
"The Shade?"
"A cruel assassin organization that trains young children as killers."
"How dreadful."
"There, the boy was given the name 007, and through brutal training he became an assassin—one who never failed a single mission."
"Hmm."
"Time passed. The boy became a man, and he grew bored. The missions the Shade handed down meant nothing to him. Was it not inevitable that he would set his sights on a wider world? The man attempted escape, and after a long pursuit he broke free of the Shade. Though the comrades who had planned for the future with him all died in the process."
"A harrowing tale."
"The man who escaped the Shade went to the sunlit world under the protection of Order, grew steadily stronger, and soon climbed high. Through sheer effort he was eventually granted a knighthood. The boy firmly believed that from this position, he would finally find a worthy opponent."
Before anyone noticed, James's eyes were blazing.
"But the fated rival he had yearned for his entire life never appeared, no matter how much time passed. Life was no different from the Shade. Kill some nobody on orders. Kill some loudmouth on orders… How tedious a life is that? The man sank into a long ennui—until the Slaughterer appeared."
"The Slaughterer?"
"The nickname the man gave him. This Slaughterer who appeared out of nowhere massacred the Shade operatives the man had been tracking. In an instant. Can you imagine the man's shock? And his joy? At last he had found one. Someone of his own kind. An opponent worth staking his life against. A true rival."
The way he poured out the words so calmly looked deeply twisted.
The atmosphere had grown so strange that everyone but Satton was breaking into a cold sweat when—
"We've arrived!"
The driver's voice rang out as the carriage came to a halt.
"Ah. Time already."
"I enjoyed the story. So… a tale of 'the scoundrel who wanted to be a knight,' then?"
"A scoundrel… You could see it that way."
James tucked the pipe into his coat and rose from his seat.
"Now that I've said it out loud, it sounds like a dull, predictable story you could hear anywhere. How embarrassing."
"Isn't that just how life is? Every story is predictable in the end."
"True enough."
"I have one question, though."
Satton grinned as if something amusing had just occurred to him.
"Ask away."
"What if the 'Slaughterer' the protagonist waited for his whole life never considered him a rival at all?"
"Hmm?"
"What if the moment they met, the protagonist was defeated without putting up any real fight? What if, to his fated rival, the protagonist was nothing?"
"That would be… rather despairing, I imagine."
"Would it?"
Satton's lips curled into a smirk.
"How very interesting. Mr. Satton—I hope you live a long life. I mean that sincerely."
James smiled with elegant composure, offered a nod of farewell, and left.
"A character who eases the tension of the drama… What about a monster beauty with a human heart? That might sell…"
Satton sat on a roadside rock, muttering to himself for a long while.
And so the meeting of two excessively talkative men came to an end.
My body only started recovering after another full week. The whole time I was stuck in bed, I fantasized about the new power this upgrade would give me.
Maybe I'd finally be able to use the Orbital Bombardment Technique? Maybe I'd inherited Delbanas's area-of-effect skill? And if neither of those, maybe my mana pool would skyrocket like last time?
Fucking hell. It was none of the three.
Woooooom—
In the dead of night, while everyone slept, green light waves radiated outward. Rough estimate put the range at about three hundred meters.
Ziiing—
The Goldon citizens the waves locked onto lit up in green.
That's right.
The new ability I'd gained was the infrared-beam Delbanas used to track my position.
That, plus a pathetic little bump in mana. And even this ability didn't activate naturally. It just fired off on its own whenever I clenched my sphincter in the bathroom.
"Urgh."
I was clenching my sphincter to use it right now. Did Delbanas use it the same way?
From a distance, life looks like a nice bowl of soybean-paste stew. Up close, it's shit. I wanted to spend the whole day slaughtering yasayo to blow off steam, but I still had one piece of homework left.
The secret underground map of Goldon that the spirit-yokai Hanssanda had injected into my brain. Before leaving the now-safe Goldon, I absolutely had to find this place.
"Robin. Diana's ready too."
"Come out quietly. Let's go."
This job included not just Orphe but Diana as well. I'd already checked with ninja-radar—every citizen of Goldon was dead asleep, so getting caught wasn't a concern.
Everyone had been whooping and dancing around because the war was over, and just like that their sense of danger had evaporated.
"…Do I really have to go?"
"Diana. We can't just do classroom lessons forever. You need real combat experience to become a proper ninja dinosaur."
I'd cut her from the siege where people were killing people, out of respect for her social status as a minor—but I couldn't let her skip this too. Keep making excuses and ducking out, and eventually she'd start skipping the group projects she actually had to do.
As a Sanzang-ninja and her teacher, I simply could not allow that.
Thud. Thud.
Our destination was a well in the corner of Goldon Plaza—abandoned because water never collected in it.
Crack!
I shattered the wooden boards with a Jet Kick.
"The bottom's sealed with wooden boards too?"
"What is this, double-locked?"
I kicked through those as well and climbed in.
"It's not that deep."
Orphe was right—the well's depth was ordinary. If this was the end of it, it wouldn't be a secret passage.
I shoved the largest stone block forming the well wall inward. A weight ten grown men working together couldn't budge. But the one pushing it was a Runaway Ninja.
Grrrnnnk—
After I pushed it a certain distance, the stone block began moving on its own.
"Whoa…"
"Close your mouth. Bugs'll fly in."
I shut Diana's gaping jaw and walked forward. If she was a yokai, maybe she ate bugs just fine? Something to test later.
"So it wasn't that water didn't collect. It couldn't collect. Not with a space this wide."
"Nin-nin."
At the end of the narrow secret passage stood an enormous door.
"What's that?"
A scrap-metal robot in human form stood beside it.
"The Tin Woodman?!"
I think we took a wrong turn into a different setting.
"Orphe. Explain. Is that a yokai too?"
"I've never seen one either. Think it'll move?"
Covered in cobwebs and vines, I figured the odds of this thing moving were zero.
Click.
"Huh?"
"Diana? What did you step on?"
"I—I was just looking around and my foot suddenly sank in…"
I'm going to lose my mind. Should I have started with military discipline training instead of human lessons?
Ziiing—
Light returned to the scrap-metal robot's eyes.
[Watchman…]
It slowly stirred, then pointed a finger at me.
[The Watchman… must die.]
Whirr-clank. Whirr-clank.
The way it shuffled toward us was painfully slow. Infuriatingly so.
"Halt! Who are you?!"
Orphe, already armed with spear and shield, stopped it in its tracks.
[Hero…? Why…]
Clang!
I fed it a Jet Kick.
Crack!
The thing shattered into six pieces.
Head, chest, arms, legs.
Perfect disassembly.
"Some cyber-yokai bastard, talking about killing people like it owns the place."
A scrap-metal punk that points fingers at strangers on first meeting? No way that thing isn't a yokai.