Translated by Refulgent for Four Slimes Translation
Chapter 1 – 13
The King’s Suspicion, and Investigation
[Author’s Note]
It’s reached number 10 in the daily rankings!
To everyone who has read so far, thank you very much.
“Tenma, wanna do it?”
[TN: this entire scene is one big joke]
It was a refres.h.i.+ng morning. Surrounded by a grand breakfast, the king’s sudden question seemed to stop time for an instant.
I stood up from the chair and turned away from the king.
“No, I… I have no interest in that kind of relations.h.i.+p…”
I started to retreat while giving that answer, and time began to flow once again.
Mother hugged me close, in order to hide me from the king’s line of sight.
Father stood in front of me, with his bow drawn.
Gramps muttered “He was never like that before…”
Standing across from the king, Cruyff said,
“Your Majesty, when you told him ‘I like you’ before, I didn’t think you meant it like that… I must report this to Marisama.”
Kris looked at the king with a disgusted expression.
Sigurd said rather sadly, “Your Majesty……”
Jack said “As if a gay relations.h.i.+p isn’t enough by itself, to set your sights on a close friend’s son is just…”
A smile broke out on Edgar’s face, yet his eyes showed he wasn’t actually happy.
All of the men there seemed to be trying to guard their rears while also putting some distance between themselves and the king.
“W-wait a minute! I haven’t even finished talking yet! Ricardo, don’t shoot! Cruyff, you don’t need to tell Maria anything! I’m begging you!”
The king spoke quickly, trying to fix the misunderstanding. For now however, everyone seemed to be in agreement to keep some distance away from the king.
“Ricardo, Celia, it’s about “that”. We talked about it yesterday.”
“Oh, it’s about “that”? Quit saying it in such a confusing way then! If it had gone on any longer I would’ve shot you!”
When the king said “that”, I noticed that mom reacted slightly. When I looked her in the eyes she didn’t say anything though, so I decided not to worry about it.
As father and the king spoke, everyone realized that the king’s “wanna do it” didn’t refer to anything gay at all, and sat back down.
That still doesn’t clear up everything though!
“Dad, what does “that” mean?”
In response to my question, rather than father answering, the king did.
“The truth is last night, we were talking and I suggested that Tenma could serve either my son, or grandson as an Imperial Guard. So, wanna do it?”
After saying it again, the king’s followers seemed surprised, save for Cruyff.
“No, I decline.”
With my immediate refusal, came an immediate shock.
“Boy, it may be a tough job, but the pay is good and it grants you more power than a lower cla.s.s n.o.ble!” said Jack.
“At only 10 years old, it would be the fastest transition from commoner to Royal Guard in generations!” followed Kris.
“If you became an Imperial guard at that age, you’d probably be able to move to a higher position pretty quickly. If that was the case, being appointed to a higher court rank by a n.o.ble wouldn’t be a mere dream!” Said Edgar.
Sigurd seemed to be too shocked and looked overwhelmed.
“May I ask for the reason not to jump at such a chance?”
Just as I thought, it was bad to give an immediate reply to the king’s proposal.
I answered honestly.
“I have no interest in the Imperial Guard. Besides, if I became one, I wouldn’t be able to see my family easily.”
As I said that, mother became misty eyed.
“I see… well, it’s a shame but I guess that’s that. But if you ever change your mind Tenma, you can visit me anytime. I’ll welcome you with open arms!” The king said.
Even if I am the son of one of his close friends, I thought it was a honor for him to say that.
“Now then, let’s finally get to the breakfast that Celia has prepared. It’s become cold by now, but let’s dig in. After that, we leave to survey the village and The Forest of the Elder. Ricardo, we’re relying on you to guide us.”
“Yeah, leave it to me!”
And with that, the king’s schedule was set. I wanted to follow but…
“Tenma look after the house, will you?”
…it was shot down by mom before I could even say a word.
“Celia, wasn’t it you who said it wasn’t good to be overprotective?” Gramps spoke up in my defense.
“If we go together, Alex is liable to do something stupid.”
“I understand.”
Everyone seemed convinced save for the king.
Wait, did she emphasize the “do something” or was it just my imagination?
“anyways, as soon as everything is ready, lets head out.”
As the king said so, everyone resumed their meal.
In order to survey things efficiently, father acted as their guide and lead the king, Cruyff, John and Sigurd through the forest, while mother guided Edgar and Kris around the village.
－－－－In The Forest of the Elder－－－－
“I don’t see anything wrong with this area.” said Alex.
“Because we’re only 30 minutes in, the change here is small,” Ricardo replied.
“That’s true. If the changes around the entrance area were easy to understand, then it wouldn’t be just a rumor." Cruyff added.
“However, Ricardo-dono. What exactly has changed so greatly?”
Although John didn’t think the changes were just lies, he had to ask the question anyways.
“That’s very rude, John-san!”
Sigurd scolded him, but Ricardo didn’t seem to mind.
“This past year, 9 B-cla.s.s monsters, and 2 cla.s.s monsters have appeared. All within 50km of the village.”
“That many!?”
Alex was surprised. Such a thing happening was clearly not impossible, however.
Originally in the Forest of the Elder, a monster crossing over into B cla.s.s was commonplace. However you’d only expect them to reside deep within the forest, 200~300km away from the entrance.
There are a number of theories why, but the most common one is: as you get closer to the Heart of the Forest of the Elder, the magical power is more concentrated. Because there is a lot of easily caught prey in the Heart, B cla.s.s monsters only venture out to the “lightly infested areas” when food is scarce, as it’s less efficient to hunt there.
Up until now, within a 50km range, the lightly infested areas had many E to D cla.s.s monsters, and occasionally the strong ones would be C cla.s.s.
Even taking orcs as an example, there were never monsters like Orc Kings present, and they would only exist in smaller groups of about a dozen.
In the case of B cla.s.s monsters, you might see one every couple of years, wandering out while confused. Even then, most of them would quickly return to the Heart of the forest.
In fact, since Ricardo had stopped actively adventuring, he’d lived here in Kukuri village for around 30 years. During that time he could count the number of B cla.s.s monster encounters on one hand.
“If you think about it, it’s really strange. So what was the A cla.s.s monster?"asked Alex.
“Tenma said he was chased by a group of dragon snakes. Worse than that, there were two monsters from the Fenrir family.”
“What?!” Naturally, the king was shocked.
Monsters in the Fenrir family typically travel in groups of 4 to 5, and even if you had top notch adventurers, it would take at least 2, if not up to 30 people gathered together to take them down with great difficulty. Knowing this, Alex was shocked. If there were two Fenrir, even against 8 dragon snakes there is no way they should have lost.
“They seemed to be a pair, and one was with child. Due to this, her fighting potential had lowered but she was forced to fight regardless. After Tenma defeated the dragon snakes they both died but the female somehow managed to give birth to the pup.” He said this in a very grave voice.
“I see… what became of the Fenrir pup?”
Answering Alex’s question,
“Everyone’s seen him already, right? The little guy that Tenma’s raising,” Ricardo said.
“You mean little s.h.i.+romaru, the one Kris was so concerned about?” Alex said, surprised.
It came out that Kris loves cats and dogs, but since she is an Imperial Guard of the king, she has no time to raise a pet properly.
Even still, it was a very rare period of time that this Fenrir pup was still small enough to be held by people.
The surveying group continued on while talking about such things for a while. Eventually they were forced to return without obtaining much of a result, as time had run out.
－－－－Back at Tenma’s House－－－－
As the king’s party returned home, they started to exchange information with Edgar’s party.
“As expected, even in the village, it looks like there have been abrupt changes taking place.”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
The king listened to Edgar’s report.
“Hm, it looks like these past few years have seen an increase in people being infected by disease. At the same time, people have been witnessing an increase in the number of monsters in the vicinity of the village.”
After that, Kris took over.
“When I asked those involved in treating the related illnesses, they said compared to the previous 10 years, the number of cases have doubled or tripled in these past 5 years. The monsters were things like goblins and slimes, some of which can be found just outside the village," she reported.
Hearing all this, John replied,
“But Kris, aren’t those two things unrelated?”
Kris explained. “We thought so too at first but, because of the fact that many of the people who became sick had either entered the forest, or defeated some of the monsters who had increased, it seemed clear that the majority of the people were those who had had contact with the monsters.”
“Additionally, it was found to be more common in men, and like Kris said, that may be due to the fact that men usually have more chances to come into contact with monsters.” Edgar reported.
“If all of that is true, then the likelihood that the Forest of the Elder having changed into something strange is high… We will inform Hausto Frontier Earldom of this, and with the city’s co-operation, investigate further and work out appropriate counter measures. This matter has troubled everyone. Ricardo, Celia, we thank you for your co-operation.”
“Don’t mention it, this was for our own sake, after all,” said Ricardo.
“That’s right Alex-sama, it’s just as he said. It’s only natural that we would work for the sake of our own village,” Celia said with a laugh.
The disease itself has not been a big deal until now but, if it’s true that the number of people in bad health has increased, we can only pray that the village itself won’t deteriorate.
Thus, the reports came to a close and they finished for the day.
It seems they would depart for the royal capital before noon tomorrow. Along the road, they will surely join in with other people who came to the town (against their will).
I felt sorry for those people affected by the king’s whims, but also thought that refusing the king’s offer of being an Imperial Guard was the right choice.
[Author’s Note]
I wrote it above already, but it reached 10 in the daily ranking today.
Because of that, the number of bookmarks has rapidly increased and expanded to around 1000 already (in fact, it might have pa.s.sed that as I write).
Thank you very much for reporting the occasional typos and grammatical errors.
About the king’s inspection team, originally it was several dozen other people. As they couldn’t bring everyone along to a small village, the king had to refuse them. Only then were they able to travel discreetly with only a few people, and visit Kukuri village. (Because of that, the group of orcs attacked)
Additonally, the Imperial Guard who’s name appeared during the last chapter, Din, lead the imperial guards who were left behind at the capital. He held his authority without doing wrong.
In fact, John was the vice captain.
In this world, the n.o.ble’s social hierarchy is King, Archduke, Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Baron and finally Knight.
I think I will leave it set up like that, but it could change in the future.
I sincerely hope from here going forward, everyone continues to enjoy reading.