Chapter 137
Compensation
After
heading to the Imperial Capital and asking around among my classmates, it seems
the person I was looking for had already secured a large inn for himself. When
I arrived at an inn called Night's Illumination, which was apparently
quite a high-class establishment even within the Imperial Capital, the
innkeeper guided me to the back without even questioning who I was for some
reason.
「There is no one in the human nations
right now who does not know of Masaru-sama, after all.」
I
decided it was too scary to ask what kind of rumors were spreading about me.
The
room I was shown to was a so-called suite, one with an exceptionally high rank
even among the rooms here. Whoa, this might be a nicer place than the inns I
usually stay at... Looks like he's making bank.
「Hm, I wondered who it was... So it's you, Kazuno.
You need something?」
When
I knocked on the door, it slowly opened. The person who appeared from within
was Mitsukawa Akira-kun, his hair wet as if he had just gotten out of the bath.
As
a result of the discussions between Emilia and Alice, everyone in
Class 1-1 was permitted to stay in either the Kingdom or the Empire,
whichever they preferred. That said, the people who were in the Empire
had already established their foundations here, and Kazuma-kun's party
in the Kingdom wasn't moving, so hardly any movement actually occurred.
The exception was the few guys and girls who got dumped by the knights and
maids now that Izel II was gone and the honey traps were no longer
necessary; almost all of them came to the Empire out of desperation.
Of
course, Mitsukawa-kun is one of the classmates who chose not to move and
continues to stay in the Empire. According to him, he's in the Empire
because the pay is better than in the Kingdom and the danger level is
higher. I think his reasoning makes it sound way too brutal.
「Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about
something.」
「It ain't anything weird, right?」
「What exactly do you think of me?」
Come
on, I want you to trust me. I think it's not a bad deal for Mitsukawa-kun,
who willingly throws himself into danger just to get stronger.
♢♢♢
「...Heh, hunting down demons who slip
in, huh.」
「Yeah. The Grust Kingdom,
which lags behind the Empire in various magical technologies, apparently
still has an influx of demons.」
「So you're saying I just gotta defeat
them... Honestly, I ain't feeling too enthusiastic about it.」
Of
course, I am fully aware that Mitsukawa-kun won't just nod along for
nothing. After all, Mitsukawa-kun, who was continuously pushed to the
front lines by Izel II in the hopes that he might die, has abundant
experience fighting demons. I figured that just fighting demons who try to
sneak in now wouldn't be enough to satisfy him.
「Actually, the demon who made it
possible for us to distinguish between humans and demons is incredibly strong.
I got permission from that demon to have a sparring session with you, Mitsukawa-kun.」
「Heh... Just how strong is she?」
「I think she's about as strong as the
Revenant party that appeared on the eleventh floor of the Holy Corpse
of the Knight. Please don't get mad when I say this, but I think she's
genuinely stronger than you right now, Mitsukawa-kun.」
Since
there supposedly isn't much work for a demon feudal lord to do, we're having Priola-san
stay in the Kingdom with Lirica for a while. I got permission to
have her train Mitsukawa-kun during her free time. Her ability is
considerably high; after all, she's the strongest living creature I've seen, at
the very least.
「It's just for a certain period until
the political situation stabilizes, but could I ask this favor of you?」
「The reward?」
「An amount with a little extra added
to what you're currently earning, Mitsukawa-kun, and training with Priola-san.
Also... how about cigarettes and alcohol?」
「—!?」
Mitsukawa-kun, who seemed to have been calmly
calculating the pros and cons in his head until now, had his face colored with
astonishment for the first time. In my negotiations with him, I intended to use
the strongest card I possessed right from the start. Since the people this card
works on are limited, and among my classmates it's pretty much only effective
on Mitsukawa-kun, I have no intention of holding it back.
「You... I'll ask just in case, but
you ain't jokin' around, right?」
「Of course not. I won't go into the
details, but I have a way to regularly supply those to you... Do you understand
what this means?」
「What the... I see. I can guess, but
I won't ask for the details.」
He
probably realized that this power is related to my Gift. But even so, Mitsukawa-kun
didn't pry any further, took a step back, and accepted the job to hunt demons.
Until now, I had been reluctant to supply goods from Home to my
classmates, but we decided that it should be fine to do it for Mitsukawa-kun.
「I brought some samples just in case.
HomeSpi 12mg and Kuroshu 18 Years... How's this for starters?」
「Seriously, man... This is stronger
than what I used to smoke... and a damn expensive whiskey on top of that...
You're really going all out.」
When
I handed him the cigarettes and alcohol, Mitsukawa-kun received them
with careful hands. Ah, since the perpetual motion machine (it's not perpetual)
won't be complete unless I refresh them to replenish the contents, I
transferred both of them into containers from this world. By the way, the
amount is four packs worth of cigarettes and an entire bottle's worth of
whiskey.
Mitsukawa-kun clamped a cigarette between his
fingers and used Fire Magic at the tip of his index finger to light it.
「Cough, cough! This is... strong.
And... nostalgic...」
He
choked at first, but after taking a second and third drag, he seemed to get
used to it, and the coughing stopped. If I remember correctly, you don't inhale
cigar smoke into your lungs, but you do inhale cigarette smoke, right? His
figure as he sat on the chair smoking a cigarette was honestly incredibly
picturesque. It's a demeanor that feels more like a Real Man than just a
guy, something you'd see in the hardboiled novels by Kenzo Minakata,
which I absolutely love.
(...I
kind of feel like trying a smoke too, but if I did it, it probably wouldn't
look like that.)
I
didn't know what the 12mg meant, but apparently, it refers to the amount of
nicotine. The one my dad had was the HomeSpi brand, and even among that
strong brand, it was the one with the highest nicotine content. I see, so
that's why he was choking.
「How much of this can you get your
hands on?」
「Well, if it's this much, about once
a week should be fine.」
Once
he uses goods of Earth quality, he'll be dying to get his hands on the
cigarettes, cigars, and alcohol my dad used to have. Since getting used to the
stuff from Home made me lose my appetite for the food in this world, I
understand his feelings perfectly well.
—If
I become the one supplying the cigarettes and alcohol he desperately wants, Mitsukawa-kun
will become favorable toward us. And even when push comes to shove, the
probability of him completely ignoring our wishes and betraying us can be
drastically reduced. From what I've heard about Mitsukawa-kun's Overlord
Gift, it seems he's going to keep getting stronger, so I want to keep
him on our side as much as possible. What do you mean, 'acquiring the power of defeated opponents'? A learning ability or
whatever, put a limit on these cheats! I intend to do at least this much for
that purpose.
(It
feels like I'm doing something a bit bad, but well, as long as he stays our
ally, it's a win-win, so I hope he forgives me.)
I
once heard somewhere that a person who smokes needs to try quitting over two
hundred times before they successfully stop smoking. And once you drink alcohol
matching Japanese standards, the ale full of impurities or the wine that's just
bitter in this world will become undrinkable. After all, even someone like me,
who has only drank a few times, can tell the difference in quality.
Supplying
luxury items to Mitsukawa-kun and getting him on our side. This is the
strategy I devised—the Overlord Drug Addiction Strategy! Yeah, that
sounds incredibly sketchy!
(Well,
we'll talk about Home again another time.)
He
snapped when Miku was taken away, and he stood up to Kazuma-kun
and sided with us. He's quite favorable towards us, so I believe I can trust
him fairly well. However, I don't intend to tell him about Home just
yet. Because if I told him about the training room or something, he'd
definitely start practically living at my house. Coming home to rest only to
find a sweaty, muscular macho man walking out of a door I set up is far too bad
for my mental health. Besides, Home is the only place I can relax without
keeping my guard up. I don't intend to let anyone inside unless they are
someone I truly trust... Well, it looks like I'll end up letting Lirica
in through a gradual breakdown of my rules, though.
「If that's the case, I'll gladly do
it.」
「Mhm, sorry it feels like I'm baiting
you, but I'm counting on you.」
「Nah, you ain't wrong at all. You're
completely baiting me.」
「Ehehe.」
「Smiling cutely ain't gonna fool me,
you know.」
And so, I safely secured Mitsukawa-kun's cooperation, successfully hiring him as the 'Kill Demons Who Come to the Royal Castle Man.'
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