Vol 4 Chapter 41 – Even Patience Has Its Limits【Vol 4 – Stop Shion’s Fabricated Engagement】

Half a month had passed since we arrived at the imperial capital, Gaspañol.

Frankly speaking, our investigation had made almost no progress. All we kept hearing were bad rumors about the current royal family and the crown prince, with absolutely zero concrete incidents or anything resembling evidence.

And the content of those bad rumors was nothing but complaints that couldn’t remotely be called leads. For instance, that the current royal family bought the throne from demons, or that they dabbled in black magic. That the current Crown Prince Vacanamessh specialized in forgery, fabrication, falsification, and power harassment. That they kept imposing special taxes, but those special taxes were never abolished, so taxes just increased forever. That he was good at propaganda, so it was frustrating that he had decent popularity among citizens who didn’t know any better. That the crown prince was definitely a breast man. …Setting aside that last one, just how much underhanded stuff were they doing?

Yuna-san and Nagisa’s progress wasn’t going well either. Regarding the matter of marrying Shion, the general perception within the royal castle seemed to be “that rotten scoundrel of a new crown prince used his power to forcefully claim the world’s most insanely hot, huge-breasted royal princess.” As for the marriage pact, all we heard were rumors like “With that royal family and the new prince, it wouldn’t be strange if it’s forged—no, they definitely did it, though there’s no proof.”

“We’re not hearing anything concrete that connects to the motive or evidence of forgery…”

“That’s right. Even regarding the reason for the forgery, all we hear is stuff like ‘because the crown prince is scum’ or ‘because Shion is a beautiful girl.’ Plus, I fully understand that the crown prince is scum now.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. That idiot crown prince propositioned me to become his mistress.”

“Bwha!?”

“I almost seriously punched him. Somehow I held back.”

“No no, if you hadn’t held back, Yuna-san, war would’ve been guaranteed!”

Yuna-san’s serious punch could blast a hole clean through the back of even a trained knight’s armor in one hit. A wimpy crown prince like him would be guaranteed minced meat from just a graze. And if a female knight from a small country killed a crown prince from a great power, no matter how rude his words were, war would be unavoidable. We discussed various other things after that, but ultimately found no useful information.

“Hmm… we still don’t have enough information…”

“That’s right. We should probably investigate more carefully, but… even Shion’s patience has its limits…”

“That’s a difficult position…”

And so, without any particular progress, that day’s information exchange came to an end.

While exploring the royal castle daily, I found someone who caught my interest, though unrelated to our original purpose. One evening, in an inconspicuous spot at the edge of the castle grounds, there was a girl training alone.

“What the—she looks just like Shion…!?”

Yes, she was a dead ringer for Shion. Moreover, for the old Shion. From the time when nicknames (?) like “filthy brat,” “mountain monkey,” or “dumb kid” fit her perfectly—she was practically identical to the Shion who trained with me in the mountains every day until we were covered in mud. Her chest was flat as a board, and while her face was refined, it was almost indistinguishable from a boy’s. I could only tell she was a girl because she wore a skirt with her military uniform. And as for her talent…

“…That girl looks like she has talent on par with Shion…”

Ever since childhood, Shion had overflowed with extraordinary talent. So much so that I, who had no intention of taking disciples at the time, ended up making her my disciple. And the girl before me had talent that could rival Shion from back then, at least in terms of raw potential. But probably, judging from her movements, she showed habits suggesting she’d been entirely self-taught. Her age was likely a bit older than Shion when we parted—around twelve or thirteen, perhaps.

Naturally, at first I intended to just watch quietly. Think about it—an incredibly talented girl training all alone in a corner of the royal castle, right? No matter how you looked at it, there had to be some complicated circumstances. Plus, if that girl turned out to be an important military figure and my careless contact ended up exposing us to the empire, it would be disastrous.

So for days after that, I didn’t call out to her. I just watched over that girl training in the corner of the royal castle every day—

“—Ugh, I can’t take it anymore!”

“Wahyaaaa!?”

Unable to bear it any longer, I found myself leaping out in front of the girl before I knew it.

Vol 4 Chapter 42 – Guidance and Discipline【Vol 4 – Stop Shion’s Fabricated Engagement】

Facing the wide-eyed girl, I fired off words like arrows.

“Your movements are sloppy! Your patterns are monotonous! You’re not watching your surroundings!”

“U-um…? A suspicious person…!?”

“Practicing techniques is fine, but you’re not thinking about opponents! That’ll make it hard to use them in real combat, you know?”

“Y-you’re just a suspicious person acting all high and mighty…! But I can’t argue back—twitch, twitch…!”

“More importantly, you have incredible talent but at this rate—”

“…Wait, who are you?”

“Oh, I’m just passing through, so don’t worry about it. What matters now is you!”

“O-okay.”

“You have incredible talent, and being devoted to training is good. But see, I can’t approve of training like what you were doing just now, okay? If you keep training like that, all you’ll get better at is hunting small fry—it won’t work at all against opponents stronger than you, you know?”

“…B-but… I’ve never met anyone stronger than me before…”

“Hmm.”

Now that she mentioned it, that made sense. As evident from how I couldn’t help but butt in, this girl who looked just like the old Shion was currently—while not matching Shion or Yuna-san—clearly stronger than, say, the Vice Commander of the Succubish Kingdom’s First Knight Order. Even at her current level, this girl alone could probably annihilate some second-rate knight order. When you actually get that strong, it’s hard to find opponents stronger than yourself. Thinking about it that way, Shion had been fortunate. Even after I, her master, left, she had General Yuna of the First Knight Order, who was stronger than her.

“Well, it’s probably a pitfall that happens when you have too much talent.”

“U-um…?”

“Ideally you’d have a master or rival, but you seem like a soldier, so drastically changing your environment… but letting this talent go to waste would be such a shame…”

“—U-um!”

“Whoa, what’s wrong all of a sudden?”

“…Want to make a deal?”

“What do you mean?”

When I asked, the girl gulped.

“You’re a suspicious person. Perfectly, marvelously suspicious. So you should be arrested immediately.”

“That would be troublesome.”

“But I’ll specially overlook it. …Besides, I don’t think I could arrest you anyway…”

“Um… should I say thank you for that?”

“I-in exchange!”

The girl leaned forward.

“Suspicious person, you’ll be my master! And teach me, your disciple, with guidance and discipline—!”

The girl stared at me with determined eyes. A manifestation of strong will to never let this chance to get stronger slip away.

—In reality, the girl probably didn’t think this was a real deal either. After all, until I called out to her, she hadn’t noticed my presence at all. When my voice suddenly came from right beside her, she’d jumped in surprise. If this were real combat, I could’ve struck any vital point I wanted. The difference in our abilities was all too clear.

But even so, the girl called it a deal. That was the same as bluffing that teaching her would benefit me. She put up such a front just to secure me as her instructor. Greedily willing to do anything to get stronger—that too was a manifestation of talent.

—So my answer was already decided.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“R-really…!?”

“I don’t plan to stay in this country long, so we’ll be a limited-time master and disciple, but if that’s okay with you.”

“Y-yes——!!”

I couldn’t help but smile at the girl clenching her fists tightly. Even these small gestures were just like the old Shion. Still, this was some kind of fate. I’d called out to her on impulse anyway, and she looked just like the old Shion, so maybe I’d play at being a master as a break from the investigation.

At the time, I was thinking such carefree thoughts.