Chapter 3

“Stand up, there’s no time to rest.”

He scanned the land to the left and right as he said this. The land was barren of vegetation, and the rugged rocky surface was conspicuous. Like stone monuments, a cluster of white rocks stood erratically on the soft, fine sand. Some of the rocks were over three meters high, while others were less than 30 centimeters in diameter.

When Yuichiro looked up into the sky above him, his eyes widened. The silver-white sky was littered with countless stars of inconceivable size. The stars appeared so close together that the radar was visible to the naked eye, with trails of galaxies crossing overhead like a rainbow.

If this were on Earth, one would never be able to see such a spectacle without an astronomical telescope.

“Where am I?” The words spilled from his lips unintentionally. He wondered if he was dreaming, hallucinating, or if he was in hell.

Seeing Yuichiro frozen while staring at the sky, Temeraire raised his hoarse voice. “As I told you earlier, this is a different world from the one you were in.”

“What am I doing here?” Yuichiro desperately stifled his killing intent-filled voice. Hearing that question, Temeraire averted his gaze as if confused for a moment.

“It is said that when this country is in danger of collapse, a goddess will appear in front of the “Rightful King,” who was chosen by the Hōshu . The Goddess is said to save the country and bring the king victory.”

“No, you are no goddess!” Noah, on all fours and breathing heavily, interrupted Temeraire’s words with a shout. Noah spat out water from his lips and continued with a voice that was on the verge of breaking down in tears.

“I don’t want to be chosen as a king……! You’re not a goddess either!”

“I don’t want my brothers to kill each other like this! I don’t want you and grim reapers like you can go back to your own world!”

Noah’s eyes were soggy and watery with tears as he ranted on and on. Yuichiro approached Noah with a wide stride and grabbed him by his wet hair without feeling an ounce of sympathy for him. When he yanked his hair, Noah’s face contorted in pain.

“Shut up and stop yelling. You want to get killed?”

Yuichiro looked into Noah’s face, and then slowly, Noah’s eyes were burning with hatred again. They are the eyes of hatred for Yuichiro and disdain for the bloodstained throne. Yuichiro released his grip on Noah’s hair and shifted his attention back to Temeraire.

“You call this boy the ‘rightful king?” Yuichiro asked, to which Temeraire replied with a nod.

“About three months ago, the king of Jeweled died. After the king died, a new monarch was chosen by Hōshu. The only surviving lineage of the previous deceased king includes Eduardo-sama, the legitimate son of his rightful wife; Rondo-sama, the son of the second wife; and Noah-sama, the son of the third wife who used to be a priestess. Rather than the two elder brothers, Hōshu had chosen Noah to be the “rightful king.” As a result…”

“Are you saying the two older brothers are furious that the youngest gains the throne, so they are starting a civil war?”

“Yes. ……We are overwhelmingly outnumbered at the moment.”

The word ” outnumbered ” made a smirk involuntarily appear at the corner of his mouth. It is not that he is pleased. He just wanted to ridicule the whole situation. Especially since he was on the losing side of the battlefield.

“Last night, Hōshu specifically told us that the Beloved Child, the Goddess, is on its way.” The Goddess will cross over to this world from another world to save us. That is why Master Noah and I have come to greet you.” Temeraire’s tone was so nonchalant as if he were stating nothing but the absolute truth, which for some reason sent chills down Yuichiro’s spine.

“What do you mean by ” crossing over”? What “goddess”?

For Yuichiro, what Temeraire accepts as a fact of him being a “goddess” was unacceptable to him. Yuichiro then mockingly spoke, “Well, thank you for the welcome, but unfortunately, I’m not. I am different. I’m not a goddess at all. As you can see, I’m not even a woman,” while spreading his arms to show his disdain.

However, Temeraire shook his head from side to side. “It doesn’t matter what gender you are. You are definitely a goddess.”

“On what basis?” Yuichiro sneered.

However, Temeraire looked at Yuichiro’s face as if biting a bitter bug. He then sighed and muttered, “You are beautiful.”

Yuichiro’s mouth was half-opened at this point. He looked at Temeraire, dumbfounded. It was the first time he’d ever been described as beautiful. First and foremost, he couldn’t believe anyone would say such a thing to him.

At the sight of Yuichiro’s gaze, Temeraire again turned his eyes away as if embarrassed. He narrowed his eyes and slightly nibbled on his lower lip. His expression seemed somewhat regretful.

Noah was staring sullenly at Temeraire’s face when suddenly a muffled explosion was heard. Yuichiro immediately held Temeraire’s body in his right arm and laid his face on the ground. At the same time, he also knocked Noah’s head down to the ground, who was on all fours. A bullet was fired into the ground beside him less than a second later. Yuichiro dragged Temeraire and Noah’s bodies behind a rock to hide. Meanwhile, the sound of several gunshots echoed. Noah shrieked at the top of his lungs, “I don’t want to die!”

As Yuichiro held Noah in his arms, he could feel Noah trembling. Looking at Noah, he noticed tears falling from his large eyes. While looking at those tears indifferently, he murmured to himself. “No matter how much we lament that we don’t want to die when we die, we all die.”

Noah stares at Yuichiro with his eyes wide open at the empty words. Without looking at those eyes twice, Yuichiro quickly glanced in the direction where the bullets were flying. A few dozen meters away, he could see the figures of several people. There were no more than ten people. They were probably scouts who were scouting the area. Yuichiro looked around again and opened his lips.

“It’s a single barrel shotgun,” he expressed to himself.

Judging from the frequency of the gunshots, it seems that the enemy is not using a rapid-fire type like a submachine gun but a single-shot rifle, like a flintlock gun . In response to Yuichiro’s comment, as if to affirm this, Temeraire answered, “Yes.”

Yuichiro removed the AK-47 from his shoulder and held it out to Temeraire.

“If the enemy tries to move from your current position, shoot them.”

“—I’ve never fired a gun before.”

“Just pull the trigger.”

“—I can’t kill people.”

A smile crept into the corner of Yuichiro’s mouth as he heard Temeraire’s decisive words. He felt a mixture of scorn and the faintest hint of pity well up inside him.

“I’m not asking you to kill them. I’m telling you to threaten them with this gun and keep them out of here.”

“—However…”

“If you don’t want your Noah-sama to be full of holes , you don’t have to shoot them. After the threatening words, Temeraire finally accepted the AK-47. It was wet but fireable. A gun with a simple structure shows its true worth in harsh environments like they were in.

Yuichiro drew the survival knife from his waist quietly. Noah stiffened a little when he saw the black lacquered blade with a drop of water dripping from the tip.

“Oi, what the hell are you doing…?”

Yuichiro replied to Noah’s strained voice in a brusque tone. ‘It’s my job.’

Yuichiro ran as if he were gliding between the rocks. He hid behind a rock to avoid being seen by the enemy, then Yuichiro slowly made his way toward the enemy soldiers.

Occasionally, the sound of a single-shot firearm would reverberate through the air. He would then hear the sound of an AK-47, a gunshot that sounded all too familiar. He imagined Temeraire’s face as he fired.

[Was he hoping not to kill anyone while firing his gun? [How absurd and vexing.] Incoherent thoughts raced through his head and then vanished. It was always like this on the battlefield. In a daze, without Yuichiro realizing it, he would find himself in the act of killing a man with his hands covered in their blood. Any feelings of fear or remorse were long gone.

As he moved along the shadows of the rocks, he saw the back of a man holding a long, single-shot gun. There were about five opponents. Their hair shone with the same shade of pearly white as Noah’s and Temeraire’s.

Silently but swiftly, he thrust out the knife he was holding in his right hand. Instantly, he could feel the tip of his knife burrowing into one of the men’s flesh through his grip. The man’s strength is rapidly drained from him as soon as the sound of his labored breathing stops. It would have been an instant death since his kidney had been pierced from behind. Before the man knew he would die, he was already dead.

Afterward, Yuichiro snatched the gun out of the man’s hands, with the knife still buried in his flesh. He then quickly aimed the gun at another man’s head, which was furthest from him, and pulled the trigger. Yuichiro immediately threw the gun away without seeing the man’s head explode like a tomato. Right after, he quickly pulled out the knife he had stuck in the corpse and rushed toward the man standing a few meters away.

When the man noticed Yuichiro’s figure, he opened his mouth wide to shout. In the end, Yuichiro was faster than the man could shout. He slid the knife across his exposed throat with a single sideways strike. A fountain of blood splattered into the air and onto the rocks around him.

[Blood is red in this world too]. A fleeting thought crossed Yuichiro’s mind.

Then the two remaining men looked at Yuichiro and yelled something. Their voices, however, are almost inaudible due to their state of panic. Yuichiro saw the muzzle of a gun pointed at him and quickly bent his upper body down. He felt a bullet grazing over his head at the same time he heard the gunshot. He then lunged forward in a single motion toward his gun on the ground, which was emitting a cloud of smoke, and tossed it away.

[Guns are not suited for close-range combat].

Such advice may not have been necessary for the man in front of Yuichiro, especially one with a knife embedded in his heart. After kicking the man with trembling lips to the ground, Yuichiro then shifted his sight onto the last remaining enemy.

Yuichiro noticed the man had already dropped his gun and was kneeling on the ground, hands raised in surrender. At first glance, he appeared to be a veteran of warfare. Yuichiro could see hardened calluses on both of his palms due to constant fighting and weapon handling. He then deduced that the man in front of him was the unit commander of the troop he was currently dealing with. Yuichiro approached the man, blood dripping from his knife. “Please, please don’t kill me!” screamed the man, his voice shaking in fear.

“But if I let you go, you’ll call for reinforcements, won’t you?”

“I won’t call… I swear on my life. I swear on my life. Please don’t kill me!”

“Too bad I don’t trust you.”

Yuichiro quietly held up the knife as if to comfort the man. At that moment, a screeching voice was heard.

“You don’t have to kill him!”

Before Yuichiro knew it, Noah and Temeraire were standing there. They were hiding behind a rock and staring at Yuichiro. Yuichiro opened his lips slightly as he returned his gaze to Noah’s terrified eyes.

“Maybe you don’t need to kill him, but you don’t need to keep him alive either. Right?”

“What do you mean you don’t need to keep them alive? No one has the right to decide whether to keep them alive or kill them…” Noah muttered in a terribly feeble voice.

“Yes, I have no right.”

“—Then…”

“You don’t get to choose to let this guy live, do you?” Yuichiro said it succinctly with a condescending tone straight to Noah’s face.

Yuichiro continued, “It’s just that you can’t choose because you’re afraid of killing.” The moment these words fell, Noah’s face distorted as if he was about to cry like a lost child.

Suddenly, Yuichiro saw something move in the corner of his vision. He turned his attention to the man kneeling on the ground. In a flash, the man drew a dagger that he had hidden behind his back. The tip of the dagger is pointed at Yuichiro.

“Argh!”

Yuichiro had wanted to warn the man not to move, but before he could, an arrow had already pierced through his throat. It was an iron arrow that looked like a gigantic nail. Looking closer, it resembled a bow gun’s arrows.

As he turned his head in the direction of the arrow, he spotted a man standing there holding what appeared to be a bow gun in one hand. His grey hair, which had grown all the way down to his back, was flapping about freely in the air. He looked somnolent and carefree, probably due to the drooping corners of his eyes. An impish, loose smile was forming at the corners of the man’s mouth.

He lowered his weapon, suggesting he had no intention of attacking them. Seeing the man’s smirk, Temeraire uttered a surprised voice.

“Goat. Why are you here?”

“Of course, I’m here to rescue the king and the goddess.”

The man called Goat answered with a grin on his face. Goat raised his hand loosely to signal behind him, and some men emerged from the shadows of the rocks. Apparently, a small group of men had come to Noah’s rescue.

Noah was stunned as he stared at the lifeless enemy soldier when he was approached by Goat. Then, Goat lifted Noah’s body onto his shoulders as if he were scooping him up.

“Ugh, drop me Goat!”

“Let’s withdraw quickly. By the way, who is this guy?” Goat looked at Yuichiro and tilted his head to the side.

When Yuichiro kept silent at Goat’s curious gaze, Temeraire opened his mouth, “It’s the Goddess.”

Goat immediately widened his eyes, and a loud burst of laughter erupted.

Translator’s Notes

I kinda like the new character Goat in this chapter now. He’s sassssyyy! Anyway, this chapter introduces more about Yuichiro’s personality and how his principles conflicting with Noah’s. I’m not sure if Noah is king-material at this point, but I think we’ll probably see his character development later on. And…. I’m confirmed by now that Temeraire is definitely one of the MLs in this novel. What do you all think? I would love to hear your comments below!