Chapter 34.3 : Ogre-ruled Land
This castle was around an hour"s walking distance from Koki country.
The day had turned to night. I wanted to hit the bed and yet here I am, doing this request.
The craftsmanship of the ogre is high due to the fact that they can build castles and palaces on the mountain. It seems that some of these ogres are even capable of building a castle on top of a cloud.
It is said that various treasures are hidden inside the castle of that ogre. It is also mentioned that the size of an ogre mansion is proportional to the number of treasures hidden within.
I"m looking at Zengu mansion. Though it"s far more splendid than the residence of a human, looking from the front, it"s on the smaller side for an ogre.
It seems that Zengu is on the weaker side as an ogre.
「Well then, let me too…」
I seize the clothes of Echigos when he tries to run away.
「Uhm… What"s the matter, Shirone-sama?」
「Are you thinking about going back, Echigos-san? I don"t care if it was another person, but there"s no way I can let go of you and that werewolf」
When I said so, Echigos and Daigan lower their line of sight.
This Echigos is a human, but different from the other humans in the country, he was the one supervising the citizens of Koki by flattering the ogre. There"s no way I"m just letting him go.
The country of Koki is being ruled by the ogre called Zengu. According to Kaysan"s investigation, countries ruled by a powerful demon like this one aren"t on the rare side.
This kind of country isn"t attacked by the other demons in exchange for it being ruled by a demon. That"s why at a glance, there"s more merit to it.
But, that is nothing more than a relationship between livestock and it"s owner. There"s no way anyone will be fine being treated as food.
After hearing their story, the citizens gleefully offered themselves to be our guide when we said that we"re going to slay the ogre Zengu.
So, aside from Kyouksan, Kaysan, and I, some people have come with us to this mansion of Zengu.
Being guided by Echigos, Daigan, who has the power of several people, is carrying our baggage after we healed his arms and foot. Several citizens of Koki country are also following behind us .
I push Echigos to keep moving until we neared the gate.
「ZENGU-SAMA―――！ZENGU-SAMA―――！PLEASE OPEN THE GATE―――！」
After Daigan hollered, that huge gate opened.
The one coming out from inside is as tall as height of three men combined. It"s a five-meter-tall giant man. This one might be the one called Zengu.
According to Echigos, Zengu is the youngest ogre amongst the eight of his mother"s children. It seems that we arrived in this country while Echigos was in the middle of choosing a human sacrifice as a present for his mother"s birthday.
Zengu seems like a human in the latter half of his thirties. A sloppy type with a bulging belly. Yup, definitely a dumb one.
In fact, I feel absolutely no threat from Zengu when he came out while scratching his nether region.
「Oh, isn"t this Echigos, what"s the matter that brought you to meet me today?」
And then, Zengu"s eyes land on us who are standing behind Echigos.
「Hou, so you have come to bring the women for my dear mother, huh. It must be hard on you, Echigos」
Zengu is laughing while he"s looking at us. That smiling face is creepy. The racial characteristic of ogre race is the fact that there"s a huge tusk that grows upside down. Thus, they have a huge mouth and a square-shaped jaw. That"s why they look creepy when they laugh.
The citizens of Koki are frightened.
「Let me see, what do you feel now?」
Zengu is stretching his hand toward Kyouksan.
At that moment, I thought “Watch out”. Kyouksan herself isn"t dangerous. Kyouksan can"t control her own magic. If Zengu ever touches Kyouksan, the angry Kyouksan might use magic and turn the entire area into charcoal.
Thus, I retreated.
Kyouksan is always on house-sitting duty. Though Kyouksan hated that duty at first, as expected, even Kyouksan agreed to do house-sitting duty when her rampaging magic accidentally injured Reiji-kun when he was trying to protect Sahoko-san.
Zengu"s hand is approaching Kyouksan. But, that hand is swatted away.
「You shouldn"t try your luck by touching my lady」
Naturally, the one who did that was Kaysan. Even though she was standing behind me, she"s already in front of me since who knows when.
「What the h.e.l.l are you?」
Zangu leaps toward Kaysan.
「(Heart Break)!」
She lightly punched the chest of Zengu while uttering so.
「GUH!」
Just like that, Zengu fell down while moaning in pain.
"Heart break" is a skill that demolish someone"s heart without causing any external wounds via the shockwaves that are transmitted when the fist connects to the target.
Zengu"s heart stopped beating and collapsed.
「Well then, just when we need food for our hippogriff」
The people on the surrounding tremble in fear when she said so while looking at Zengu.
「No way… That ogre, with one hit」
「How can she do that with such a slender body」
「Moreover, being treated as food for the magical beast… She"s even more terrifying than the ogre」
Several citizens of Koki unintentionally utter out aloud. By the way, sometimes I also feel that Kaysan is scary.
Kaysan tosses the body of the ogre to the hippogriff who came along.
「I"m so tired, Kaya. Let"s go in」
Kyouka says so and goes inside.
When we followed her to enter the mansion of the ogre, the inside was as splendid as its outer appearance.
According to Chiyukipedia, the architectural skill of the ogres are on par with the dwarves; there"s even a legend of them building a castle above the clouds.
So, choosing to lodge for one night in the mansion of the ogre is a better choice than that human house. However, since this is originally an ogre"s residence, we still need to do some cleaning.
The bedroom seems quite disordered.
There are a lot of pictures of naked ogre girls pasted on the wall of the room.
And there"s this underwear-like thing scattered on the floor.
「This one seems like a garbage can, yes. But then, there"s a lot of ball-like things in there. It smells fishy…」
Kyouksan is frowning while saying so. That kind of things appeared inside Kuroki"s room once in a while. I think it"s better to not touch those ball-like things.
「According to the stories, this is the room of a single man, so…」
Kaysan is muttering.
「Kuroki"s room wasn"t as messed up as this one though. Could it be THAT thing is also hidden somewhere in this room?」
I think Kuroki"s room can be considered clean when compared to Zengu"s room. There are no such indecent pictures pasted on the wall of his room.
Even so, I"m sure that ecchi book is hidden somewhere. The matter of sneaking into his room and reading it became quite an amus.e.m.e.nt for me.
Thus, I went into the room.
「Ah, as expected, I found one. An ecchi book」
I discovered a lot of books with pictures of naked female ogres drawn on its cover placed under the bed. It should be s.e.xy pictures, but I feel that the squarish jaw and tusk are far from the aesthetic sense of beauty of males of the human race.
「Shirone-sama. Please do not open this any further」
「Ah, sorry. We"re going to dispose of this immediately, right. The ogre"s just similar with Kuroki for hiding those kinds of books」
「It"s filthy. My dear brother doesn"t have such a book, right Kaya?」
Kaysan nods to Kyouksan"s words.
「Yes, Reiji-sama didn"t have this kind of books. But then… It might be due to the fact that he didn"t need this kind of books」
Kaysan responds so.
「Well, that"s true. My dear brother is different from Shirone-san"s childhood friend, he doesn"t have these suspicious books」
I feel a bit offended after hearing Kyouksan"s words.
「Reiji-kun is amazing indeed, but it"ll make a poor comparison if you compare him to a normal boy like Kuroki」
I reply to defend Kuroki. Moreover, almost all men are poor in comparison to Reiji-kun.
「That might be the case Shirone-sama, but can you even say that he is a NORMAL boy?」
「What do you mean, Kaysan?」
「He won against Reiji-sama. If Reiji-sama is special, that makes him even more special, right?」
「That"s…」
I"m at a loss.
「I never held any strong impression about him whenever you talk about him. But then, it turns out that he is a monster when we fought him before. Are you really sure that he is your childhood friend?」
Kaysan is asking such a question.
「He… is definitely Kuroki. Yup, no doubt about it」
I reply to her. I should never mistake Kuroki for another person.
Kuroki should be spending a normal and boring everyday life in our original world, but he came to this world for some reason.
That Kuroki appeared before us as a powerful opponent. That, in itself, is strange.
Especially for a normal and plain guy like him. He is definitely Kuroki. I don"t know what she means, though.
Kuroki could never win against me. He should be far weaker than me.
Someone like him shouldn"t be able to win against a hero like Reiji-kun.
But, it was definitely Kuroki. My head is in chaos.
「In that case, he was most likely hiding his true ability. I can feel it in seeing myself that his movements belong to someone who trained in martial arts for a long time. Though I train in martial arts too, he"s far beyond me in that matter. No one should be able to reach such heights in martial arts unless they have an extremely powerful drive behind them」
I receive a stronger shock due to Kaysan"s words. I was supposed to be one who understood Kuroki the most. But, it was different in reality.
The time I spent with Kuroki decreased ever since I met Reiji-kun. Did something happen during that time?
And here I am, really vexed to not be able to see that something.
「To be honest, even I don"t know about that. There"s way too many things that…」
I cast my eyes down as I answer Kaysan.
「I see… Well, at least we caught a glimpse of it」
Kaysan is saying so, seeing my state.
I can"t come up with an answer no matter how much I think about it now. Then, I"ll just take Kuroki back and make him spit out the truth.
「That is so, Kaya. Let"s take a rest for now」
Kyouksan seems to want to rest. Yup, I want to sleep, too.
「Certainly, I"m going to prepare the meal after tidying this room. I don"t think it"s a wise choice to eat meat in this kind of place, so I"ll prepare a vegetarian meal. Please take rest for now; the sheet quality is far superior than the human-made one」
I nod to Kaysan.
We tidy up the room with the help of the people who came with us and have a meal after that.
We made good use of the people who came along.
Especially the father whose daughter almost become a sacrifice, he worked with extreme grat.i.tude toward us.
But then, it seems some amongst them are working because they"re scared of us.
I don"t know what will happen to this Koki country after this. The other monsters might come to invade in the absence of the ogre.
But, I can"t do any more than this for this country.
After tidying up the room and having a meal, we send off the people of Koki.
It seems that the ogre that lived in this mansion had some siblings, but they"ll know that we killed their sibling only when they come to this country.
After the meal which was followed by a simple hot bath, we slept.
The sheets of the ogre"s bed aren"t stinking since we used new ones. Though there"s only one bed, it"s enough for the three of us since the ogre bed is fairly large.
Now, I can"t help but think about it. When I"ll meet with Kuroki, I should understand the situation.
Thus, we fell asleep.
◆Ruined Echigos
Someone, please save me.
Even if I want to scream, I can"t talk due to the gag in my mouth.
As soon as we returned, those citizens of Koki only looked at us with pitying gazes.
The same things happened to Daigan who is unconscious with his movements sealed with numerous locks.
Though that woman called Kaya let us live after I led them, she hanged us upside down from the ceiling of the ogre mansion. That woman is a demon.
I was told that those women called Kaya and Shirone seemed to be able to sense my intent to harm them. Thus, I was arrested by them for having wicked thoughts toward them.
Thus, I"m in my current predicament.
The night wind is cold.
Why must this Echigos-sama suffer from this situation? Tears are streaming down from my eyes.
What will become of me?
Someone, please help me!