The Gold-Eye Tribe and the Fox Beastmen Tribe (1)
The Gold-Eye Tribe and the Fox Beastmen Tribe (1)
The border between the Philiut Empire and the beastmen territories was defined by the river.
The headwaters, which began in the Elankaya Mountains, flowed along countless streams toward the Brillium Great Waterfall. The two nations had agreed to use a broad river — wider than the Han River — that lay between them as their border.
Such waterways had traditionally been good trade routes. The fox beastmen, who had realized this, began trading with the Imperials ten years ago. It was around the time Count Saliere moved his territory to this area.
Count Saliere was a wise man. He treated the beastmen, whom people had long dismissed as barbarians, as people. He permitted barter with humans, and whenever floods came every summer, he shared food.
Thanks to that, relations between humans and the fox beastmen were reasonably good. That was part of the reason Rote hadn't tried too hard to stop me when I said I was heading into beastman territory.
The drawbridge I was crossing now had also been built out of the Count's consideration. The three iron drawbridges symbolized the current amicable relationship between the beastmen and the Imperials.
"Though I doubted it was always like that."
I occasionally spotted ferryboats traveling downstream or upriver. I took in the scenery as I walked into the beastman nation. That was when I noticed the strange boat.
"What's that?"
No, the boat wasn't strange — the person aboard it was. I'd seen that figure somewhere many times before.
Her deep violet hair was just as twisted and tangled as her personality. Her eyes, blessed by Earth Magic, held a subtle gleam like black pearls, and her face was round and youthful — far younger than her actual age.
Above all, she was a small girl. Her height was at most 140 centimeters.
"That's Frey."
Frey Shelkerni. She was the one I'd come here to meet.
[Master, why would your friend be piloting a boat in a place like that?]
"Ah!"
Right then, the little one spotted me too and looked startled. After glancing around anxiously, she dashed inside the cabin.
[Why would she do that?]
It was a reasonable question.
If I hadn't heard Vermel's account either, I probably wouldn't have understood why Frey reacted like that the moment she saw me.
To put it simply, a kind of 'event' had occurred. An event that would let me enter the beastman nation without much resistance.
I tucked the Hardcover Book into my coat and straightened my clothes. Having watched my preliminary actions from the side, the Hardcover Book asked in an extremely anxious voice.
[Wh-What are you doing?]
"Can't you tell? I'm going to jump from here."
[What?]
I began running across the drawbridge's deck at full speed. It was to build momentum.
[H-H-Have you lost your mind?! How do you know you can reach that boat by jumping from here?]
There was a way to know.
To gauge whether success was possible, you needed to know the distance between the boat and the bridge, and their relative speeds. The Gold-Eye Tribe processed all that computation unconsciously. In short, it was a matter of intuition.
If the feeling said, 'This will work!' then it really would.
[Is there no Darwin Award equivalent in the Empire or something.]
"Don't say weird stuff."
—Thud!
Along with the Hardcover Book's flat remark, I landed securely on the deck.
The boat rocked up and down and side to side from the restoring force against the sudden weight increase. I nearly fell over.
"Haah."
I steadied my center of gravity and caught my breath.
[Trespassing onto someone else's vessel. You pull off what amounts to piracy as if it's nothing.]
"Even if I take some flak for it, it's better than fighting outright."
I turned the cabin door handle. A racket came from inside.
"Oww...."
When I threw the door wide open, Frey was lying in the middle of the cabin floor shedding a few tears. From the way she was rubbing her backside, she must have fallen on her rear trying to move in a hurry.
"What are you doing?"
"Y-You're the one...."
She had frantically tried to cover her head, but it was already too late.
Small fox ears poked through her curly hair. That alone was enough to tell her race.
Frey quickly grabbed the hat lying on the shelf and pulled it on. It was the conical hat she always wore at the academy. Her roommate said she'd never even taken it off while sleeping.
"Why are you here?!"
Frey shrieked, threatening my eardrums. She pulled her hat down even further. She was trying to hide her flustered expression along with her identity, but....
"I can see your tail."
"Uwaaah—!!"
Now she was practically on the verge of tears.
She must have known. That she couldn't hide it any longer.
Frey took off her hat, revealing the two perked-up ears. They were unmistakably fox ears.
"I got caught...."
Her voice was filled with lament.
It was only because the Saliere Territory treated her well that things were fine, but the Empire's perception of beastmen was still terrible.
Savage tribes who would plunder at any opportunity — to the Empire, the beastmen were nothing more or less than barbarians. In the northwest and south, where public order was unstable, beastmen were still conducting raids even now.
"So, what are you going to do with me? Are you going to tell your friends?"
"As if."
"D-Don't lie. You hate that I'm a fox beastman too, don't you. You're human too...."
Drip. Frey, who had been speaking that far, stared at me with shimmering eyes. They were blank eyes, and stupid eyes too. The cast-off gaze met my own.
I tossed out a single line.
"I'm a member of the Gold-Eye Tribe, you know."
"Ah, right...."
A race that had been persecuted since ancient times, just like the beastmen.
They couldn't use magic and their numbers were low. Because of that, they'd even been suppressed by the Church back when magical supremacy was at its height. They'd been saddled with the stigma of being demon-spawn, no less.
In reality, it was the opposite.
"What good would it do me if I told people you were a fox beastman?"
"W-Well, beastmen are...."
"Is that why you went around lying about being a dwarf?"
"I'm a half-breed, I told you!"
"Do you know that's genetically impossible between you two?"
I remembered reading it in a book covering the history of biology in this world.
Humans can only produce offspring with other humans. Likewise, elves only with other elves, and fox beastmen only with other fox beastmen. The concept of a 'half' did not exist.
The reason was genetic difference. A tiger and a lion don't breed in nature, do they?
"Uek."
Frey let out her usual stupid exclamation. It was the sound she made when flustered.
"Anyway, what were you doing steering a boat by yourself?"
"I wasn't doing anything?"
"I can see you've been hiding something behind your back for a while now."
"Nope? I'm not hiding anything?"
I sighed and pointed at the box behind her. It was cargo that looked suspicious at a glance.
"Th-This?"
"Is it opium or something?"
"What do you mean opium...! This is Mana Cigarette, Mana Cigarette! I received it directly from the Great Spirit.... Hhk...!!"
The little one, who had been spilling information readily, realized what she was saying and promptly clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Great Spirit?"
"It's nothing!"
"By Great Spirit, you mean that dragon living on Falling Dragon Peak."
"You... know our Great Spirit?"
There was only one being around here that the fox beastman tribe would call a Great Spirit.
Great Machines of the Nine Heavens First Seat, Radiation Dragon Jormungand.
Jormungand belonged to the Demon King's army. Now that the Demon King was gone, she was the most powerful being.
Despite holding such a position, Jormungand was uncooperative with the Demon King's army. She was a dragon before she was a member of the Demon King's army.
The dragon tribe, who possessed strong fellowship, was classified as a faction of the beastmen. They were merciless toward those who were not their compatriots, but conversely, if you belonged to the same race, they would burn with compassion and chivalry, ready to sacrifice everything.
This pushover mindset was the nature of dragons in this world. Jormungand must have been maintaining that identity too.
Thanks to that, the fox beastman tribe living near Pitchblende Mountain received Jormungand's protection. When the fox beastmen left offerings at the mountain's base, she would take them and use them as food to sustain herself.
It must have been the same for this little one.
"I know a bit. The legend of Falling Dragon Peak is famous, after all."
"I see!"
"Then that Mana Cigarette must be some kind of offering."
"Yeah! I was on my way to distribute it and also sell it to humans. There's a small village if you follow this river down."
In short, she was in the delivery business.
Wait.
"The Empire only trades at specific locations, and what you're selling is Mana Cigarette. In a way, it's half-smuggling, isn't it?"
"Maybe?"
I felt like there had been a similar case on Earth.
I tried to remember, but it was quickly blocked by another train of thought. Because that wasn't what mattered right then.
"Hey."
"What."
"When you're done selling this and heading back up, let me set foot in the fox-beastman village too."
"...If you're a member of the Gold-Eye Tribe, it shouldn't be a problem. But why?"
"I have something to do there."
—If you look after my compatriots well, I will make as much highly enriched uranium as you want. The contract is settled, no take-backs. Is that sufficient now?
Because I had a contract with your Great Spirit, that's why.
The contract I had concluded with Jormungand was exceedingly vague. But the reason I'd said OK to such an uncertain, open-ended clause was because of Vermel's Strategy Guide.
He was the only person I could properly exchange opinions with as someone from the same homeland.
The 'way to receive Jormungand's help' he'd mentioned was precisely
not leaving this little one alone to commit suicide.