Published: March 21, 2026
The moment Akira won the duel, King Igusamu was visibly shaken.
"Impossible... A Human race beat the Beastmen? That can't be!!"
Ria didn't break her expression — perhaps because she'd seen Akira's strength in the Brute Labyrinth — which only made King Igusamu's agitation stand out more.
"Why are you so upset? Akira even beat my younger sister. He should have won that easily. And you already knew about our movements. Then it would be strange if you didn't know about Kirika as well."
Silence from King Igusamu made me certain the hypothesis I'd been forming was correct.
"All the information you knew about us was connected to the Beastmen... Care to explain?"
I'd secretly heard what Akira had told them: the bandits who attacked in Elf territory bore Uruk's crest.
Gram seemed to be the ringleader, and if there were crests on the swords, it's possible those soldiers belonged to here.
I didn't want to believe King Igusamu had ordered his own people kidnapped, but if Akira was in danger it changed everything.
No matter if he was a king or even a god, anyone who interfered with Akira had to be dealt with.
King Igusamu left the balcony, sank deep into a sofa in the room, and settled down.
"Alright. Sit over there. Ria, I'm sorry, but could you fetch drinks for everyone?"
"Yes, stepfather."
After Ria left the room, I sat in the chair opposite King Igusamu.
"First, how much do you know about Gram?"
"You said he was your sister's child, doted on because the royal family has trouble producing heirs. He got cocky, abusing his royal privileges. Even after he became guild master he didn't stop, and he eventually even took to drugs to the point that even I couldn't stop him."
I summarized what I'd heard from Ria on the ship. King Igusamu frowned and nodded.
"That's right. With our current forces, we can't beat mercenaries enhanced by Gram's drugs. The bandits who attacked in Elf territory were our soldiers too, but they've been driven mad by those drugs. I'm thinking about separating soldiers who are drugged from those who aren't, but we can't tell them apart. I'm at my wits' end. That child was cunning even from the start."
"Then why did you hire an Assassin to go after Akira? If you didn't trust his strength, why not use the royal family's own assassins?"
If you truly want someone dead, you can assign royal assassins. Every nation has dirty work to do; they must have one or two assassins on retainer.
"If it fails, they'll use that as an excuse to push back. That must be avoided. Compared to that, that man — who knows where he came from — isn't even from this world, right? If he fails and dies, it won't become an intercontinental problem. Isn't that the best use of him?"
I couldn't agree with him, but I understood that rulers sometimes make such choices.
Understanding and accepting are different, though.
"Akira will never become your tool. But what if Akira returns to his original world? From what I hear, the country he came from is far more advanced than this one. If we end up in conflict with them, we might be destroyed."
"Ha—hahaha!!"
When I said that, King Igusamu burst into loud laughter.
"Just from his mannerisms, it's not hard to imagine what kind of place he came from, but that's absolutely impossible. Such a future will never come."
If I recall correctly, King Igusamu's profession is scribe. He shouldn't be able to see the future, yet he spoke with total certainty.
I tilted my head. He twisted his mouth into a sneer.
"Impossible is impossible. They live in this world and will die in this world. They won't return to their original world. ...Well, chasing a dream can be beautiful in its way. All the more so if it's unattainable."
I'd only met this king when I came with my father, so we weren't close, but now I felt I finally understood him.
It made sense that a villain like Gram would be part of the same family.
To put it simply: his character is rotten.
"He took you out of Elf territory, didn't he? You should decide how you'll conduct yourself soon. You may think of it as a game now, but you're the next queen of the Elf race."