CH 3

Chapter 3: A Little Adventure and a Meeting

My name is Tomoe. I’m the adopted daughter of the former royal couple of Elfrieden, Lord Albert and Lady Elisha, which makes me Big Brother Souma and Big Sister Liscia’s adopted little sister.

Right now, I was in a room in the castle of Sir Mathew, who ruled over the Duchy of Chima. Before leaving this room, Big Brother Souma and Mr. Inugami had given me instructions.

“All right, we’ll be leaving you alone for a little while, but stay put and wait for us, okay?”

“I will return as soon as my work is complete.”

Left alone in the room, I sat on the bed dangling my legs for a while, but I quickly got tired of that, so I jumped down from the bed. Then, quiiiietly approaching the door, I peeked out through the slight crack of an opening.

No one was in the hallway. It was wartime, so maybe they didn’t have enough people.

I slipped out of the room, closing the door behind me.

Big Brother and everyone else told me to stay in the room and wait, but I really wanted to explore the castle.

I mean, while we were studying together, my teacher, Mr. Hakuya, had said, “The experiences you’ll have as a child are a treasure.”

I’d answered, “I want to grow up to be a woman who can help my big brother and everyone else.”

His gentle response: “There’s no need to rush. While you’re a child, with a child’s heart, you should look and listen, and experience many things. The older you get, the more you lose your freedom of emotion. The things you feel with your eyes and ears now are sure to help you when you grow up and become a woman.”

After saying that, he’d patted me on the head.

That was why I wanted to see all sorts of things for myself. Not while being protected by Big Brother or Inugami, either; I wanted to explore this sort of unfamiliar place on my own.

It hurt breaking my promise with Big Brother like this, but I was sure if I apologized afterward, he’d forgive me.

Having come out into the corridor, I looked around the castle. Unlike the castle in Parnam, Duke Chima’s castle felt unrefined. There weren’t many windows, so it was a little dark, even though it was the middle of the day.

Maybe because everyone was fighting down below the castle, it felt like most of the people I passed by were maids, or other people who didn’t fight.

Huh—but our head maid, Serina, and one of the other maids, Carla, could fight, couldn’t they? Maybe one or two of these maids could fight, too.

My teacher always said, “You shouldn’t judge people solely by their appearance,” after all.

Thinking over that as I kept going, I spotted a maid by the window who seemed to be on break, so I tried asking her why this castle was so unrefined.

“Little girl, I think the reason you feel this place is unrefined is that this castle exists purely for defensive purposes,” the maid kindly explained. “Duke Chima usually does his official work at a building in the town at the foot of the mountain. So, when the war came, he took shelter in this castle while we waited for reinforcements. If we first meet the enemy at the town walls, and then fall back here as soon as they break through, we can keep fighting, right?”

“I see...”

It seemed to me that a castle reflected its country. Parnam Castle was built on the plains, and it was also the face of the country, so it was built to be showy. But Duke Chima’s castle was made for defense, so it was unrefined.

It was interesting how you could see the faces of the people who ruled a country like this.

Oh, but recently, Parnam Castle has been...

Big Brother had turned most of his own room into a sewing room, he’d made a restaurant to serve the dishes created by him and Poncho, and he’d even installed something called an “elevator” that used weights to take you up and down floors without using the stairs. It was pretty ridiculous.

Big Sister Liscia had told him off for that, with a frowny face.

Roroa had been cackling with laughter while watching the two of them, though...

If the shape of a country showed up in its castle, did that make the current Kingdom of Friedonia a ridiculous country?

Hmm... maybe it did.

There was the rhinosaurus preserve, the Van Shoujou Army, and even a black ryuu flying around so she could tell everyone the weather.

I was involved when it came to the silly things that involved animals, though.

I walked for a little bit while worrying about it, then came to a stop.

“...Huh?”

Erm... Where was this place again... exactly?

The unrefined way the castle looked meant there weren’t a lot of decorations, so all the hallways seemed the same. The same color of carpet, the same sort of doors, the same sort of candelabras... It all looked so samey, and I’d been lost in thought while I was walking, so I’d lost track of where I came from.

“Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-What do I do now?!”

My eyes darted around.

I remembered going up one flight of stairs... Ah, but where were those stairs now? Because the doors were evenly spaced, I couldn’t find the right one again, even if I looked around the area.

I took off walking at a brisk pace. I was hoping I could ask someone for directions, but wouldn’t you know it: there was no one around when I needed them.

Th-Th-This wasn’t good.

Ohh... I’m going to make Big Brother and everyone else worry...

I couldn’t imagine anything but their worried faces, and it made my ears droop. I just wanted to broaden my horizons so I could help them, but this was doing the opposite.

Ohh... Where am I, really...? Huh?

Reaching the end of the hallway, I realized it had gotten a little brighter.

It seemed to be a door leading outside, and the light of the setting sun was streaming in. If I went out there, someone might find me. Thinking that, I went outside.

Fwah?!

I squinted in the blowing wind.

Looking up, the sky was high above, and looking down, there were cobblestones. It seemed these were the castle’s walls.

Oh, I get it... I did go up a set of stairs, didn’t I?

This might be outside, but it couldn’t be ground level. It seemed that, because it wasn’t very big, Duke Chima’s castle was attached to the castle walls surrounding it.

When I walked along the edge of the walls, I saw something incredible.

Looking north from this castle, which was built backing onto a mountain, I could see the town of Wedan below, and outside the walls surrounding it, I could clearly see the forces of the Union of Eastern Nations fighting monsters. I remembered something Mr. Hakuya had said in history class.

“There are exceptions to this, but taking the high ground will usually give an advantage to your allies. That’s because being able to carefully watch what the enemy is doing means you can prepare countermeasures. Looking at history, there are many examples where the side that took the high ground won.”

I thought that was what he’d said, anyway.

By shutting himself up in this castle, observing the enemy as he fought back, and waiting for reinforcements, the Duchy of Chima had never fallen. This was a new discovery.

Then I noticed someone sitting on the edge of the wall.

“Huh?” I said, surprised.

From the look of it, it was a boy about my age.

The thin boy with chestnut brown hair kept looking up and down. When I approached to see what he was doing, it turned out he was drawing something.

There was a piece of paper spread across the board hanging from his neck, and he kept drawing something on it with charcoal, raising his head, looking through the telescope lying by his side, and then drawing something again, repeating the process over and over again. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn’t even notice me approaching.

“Um, what are you doing...?”

“Uwah?!” The boy was so startled that he jumped up.

He shoved on the glasses he’d left beside the telescope, and stared hard at me.

“Who are you?”

“Oh! Sorry to surprise you. My name is Tomoe.”

“I’m... Ichiha.”

Ichiha? He looked about my height, maybe a little shorter. He had a gentle face and thin arms and legs, so I thought he looked a bit like a girl. Maybe it was the glasses, but he looked like he was good at studying.

“Are you from this country, Ichiha?” I asked.

“Uh, yes... Um, how old are you, Tomoe?”

“Me? I’m eleven this year.”

“I’m ten. So you don’t need to be so polite to me...”

Huh. He was a year younger than me. It would feel awkward having an older girl be super formal with him.

“Okay, I’ll talk normally, then,” I said. “You can talk to me however you want, too, Ichiha.”

“Okay... Tomoe.”

“So, what were you doing here, Ichiha? It looked like you were drawing something...”

“Ah!”

When I tried to peak at his drawing board, Ichiha rushed to hide it.

“Ah!” Maybe I was being a bit too rude. “I’m sorry. You’re embarrassed to have people look at your work, right?”

“Ah...! Um... I don’t want to show you it, or maybe I should say it’s better if you don’t see it...”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

If he was going to make a big deal of it like that, I just wanted to see it more.

I stared Ichiha in the eye, making him aware of that fact. “I want to see it.” I wagged my tail, showing off how interested I was.

While I kept staring at him that way, Ichiha folded, and reluctantly held his drawing board out to me. “Let me just say... It’s nothing fun to look at, okay?”

“Eheheh.” I took the drawing board and looked at the paper on it. “Huh? This is...”

Seeing what was drawn there, I cocked my head to the side.

It was drawn far better than I’d have expected from a ten-year-old, but what really caught me was the model. There was a mysterious creature drawn there.

With quick strokes of charcoal, he’d drawn a realistic image of a two-headed dog with bat-like wings.

Come to think of it, Ichiha had been looking through a telescope as he drew this. What that telescope had been pointed toward was... the battlefield.

“Is this a drawing of a monster?” I asked.

“...Yeah.”

There were several layers of drawings on the board, and flipping through them, I found there were drawings of a bunch of different monsters. Each of them was well done, and captured what made the creature unique, but... what was it?

I hadn’t felt anything in particular just looking at one of them, but with several of his drawings in front of me, it felt like there was a sort of special focus here. It wasn’t like he’d just drawn them as a hobby.

“Wait, Ichiha... Do you only draw monsters?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Ichiha’s voice sounded very dry. His eyes quivered with—how shall I put this?—a sort of lonely sadness in them.

While I was still unable to find a way to talk to him, Ichiha let out a self-mocking laugh.

“It’s creepy, isn’t it? That I’m here just drawing pictures of monsters.”

“Um, that’s not really...”

“No need to force yourself. I know well enough what an oddball I am. Father and my brothers and sisters don’t have to tell me, either.”

I swallowed.

When he said that, his loneliness apparent, I was reminded of myself in the past.

Before being discovered by Big Brother Souma, I’d thought I was worthless. As refugees, we had lost our home, and I’d spent every day thinking, I must be such a heavy burden on Mother.

That’s why I...

Slap!

I grabbed Ichiha by both cheeks, and stared right into his surprised eyes.

“Bweh! What are you doing?!” he shouted.

“I think they’re good drawings. I don’t really know much about drawing, but I think you’ve captured the monsters so well that even I can understand what makes them special.”

“Y-You don’t need to lie to make me feel better...” Ichiha’s words were slurred by me pressing on his cheeks.

“I’m not just complimenting you! You have a reason why you draw nothing but monsters, don’t you? I’m sure my big brother would be interested in you!”

Ichiha’s eyes... They felt similar to Big Brother Souma’s, or Mr. Hakuya’s. They were the eyes of someone with their vision focused on something different from everyone else.

It made me want to introduce him to my big brother and teacher even more. Because I felt like they could find the value in this boy that I couldn’t.

I removed my hands from Ichiha’s cheeks, and pulled him by the arm.

“W-Wait, why are you pulling?!” he shouted.

“Ichiha, I want you to meet my big brother. I want you to show him those drawings. If you do... I feel like something is going to change.”

“What do you mean, ‘something’?”

“Something!”

I walked off while pulling Ichiha by the hand... and then quickly came to a halt.

“Wh-What’s wrong?” Ichiha dubiously asked me when I suddenly stopped.

“...Now that I think of it, I was lost,” I admitted. “I was told to stay in our room while Big Brother was talking to Duke Chima, but...”

“Hahhh...” Ichiha sighed and scratched his head.

Oh! That gesture! That felt a little like Big Brother, too.

Ichiha stepped out in front of me, and this time he led me by the hand. “If you’re one of Father’s guests, it should be the reception room, I guess. I’ll show you the way.”

“Really?! Thanks, Ichiha!”

When I hugged him to show my thanks, Ichiha turned a bright shade of red.

“Wait, huh?” I added. “Did you just say ‘Father’...?”

“I’m Ichiha Chima.”

While I stared at him blankly, Ichiha explained with clear self-contempt, “I’m the oddball... who’s the youngest of the eight Chima siblings.”

Ichiha was taking me back to where Big Brother and the others were, through one hallway after another, when suddenly he came to a stop.

“Ah!”

“Ichiha?”

I looked ahead of us, wondering what was up, and I saw three large men coming our way. They were all so muscular that you could see it through their clothes, so it was clear they had to be soldiers.

What concerned me was that they all looked injured.

One had a head wound, with bandages wrapped around his forehead, while another seemed to have a broken arm, as it was wrapped up and hanging from his neck. The last of them may have had a broken leg, as he was walking on crutches.

The soldiers noticed us, too.

“Huh? What’re some brats doing in a place like this?” the one with the forehead injury said, sounding like he was in a bad mood.

Then, looking down at us from above, he started staring.

“U-Um...” I said nervously.

There was a scary man looking down at us, and he seemed to be in a bad mood, so my legs started to tremble.

These days, I only had nice people like Big Brother Souma, Mr. Hakuya, and all the others around me. Even before that, at the refugee camp, the refugees had all worked together to survive.

That was why this was the first time I’d ever had someone glare at me with such open hatred before. It was really scary. I wanted to run away, but my legs wouldn’t move.

While I was unable to say anything out of fear, the man on crutches started eyeing me. “Is she a beastman from the north? She’s dressed nice, but... I’ll bet she’s one of them refugees.”

“Tch! What an eyesore. Some refugee brat shouldn’t be wandering around the castle.” The man with his arm in a sling spat those words at me with a cold glare. “We were out there fighting, and we got hurt this bad, while some refugee gets to sit comfy back in the castle? It ain’t right!”

“Hey, hey, no need to get worked up at some kid...” said the other soldier.

“Shut up! We oughta throw her off the castle gate and use her as bait for the monsters.” With that, the man with his arm in a sling reached for me with his good arm.

“N-No...!” I squealed.

“Hold on!” In order to defend me as I covered my ears in terror, Ichiha stepped forward. “This girl is a guest of Father’s! Stop disrespecting our guest! Besides, it’s not her fault that you got hurt, is it?!”

“What was that, you brat?!”

With the men intimidating him, Ichiha’s arms and legs seemed to be trembling, but he still desperately hung in there and stared them down. “I’ll bet you got hurt trying to show off to my sister, right? And now, since you can’t distinguish yourselves anymore because of your injuries, you’re taking out your frustrations over losing the competition for her on this kid!”

“You little...! Watch your mouth!” The soldier with his arm in a sling grabbed Ichiha by the collar with his good hand.

Because he was only ten, and small on top of that, that was enough to lift Ichiha into the air. Ichiha groaned in pain.

I came back to my senses and shouted, “S-Stop it!”

“Hey, that’s got to be overdoing it,” one of the other soldiers objected.

“Think what’ll happen if we cause a commotion here,” the third one agreed. “It’ll hurt our position in the United Forces.”

“...Tch.”

With the other two telling him off, the man with his arm in a sling grudgingly let go of Ichiha.

Set free, and with his hands on the ground, Ichiha coughed loudly.

I immediately ran to his side. “Are you okay?! I’m sorry you went through that for me...”

Coughing, Ichiha said, “I-It’s not your fault, Tomoe. I stuck my neck out on my own.” Ichiha smiled at me, though it was a bit weakly. “Besides, if I abandoned you here, my sister would get mad. She just barely told me to get involved with other people, after all.”

“Ichiha...”

“Wait, this kid, he’s the youngest brother of the House of Chima, isn’t he?” the man on crutches said in alarm, looking at Ichiha.

When he heard that, the man with his arm in a sling let out a snorting laugh. “What, the inferior youngest brother? They say all his brothers and sisters are talented, but this runt’s got no gift whatsoever, right?”

“Yeah, I hear that’s why he’s not part of the reward this time,” the man with bandages around his forehead said, nodding.

As the three men laughed mockingly at him, Ichiha hung his head and clenched his fists as he stood there and took it. He must have been frustrated at the humiliation, but he was doing everything he could to suppress his anger.

He probably thought I’d be in danger if things got any more out of hand.

Maybe he was thinking that if it was just him being mocked, that was fine. So long as they didn’t turn their scorn on me.

“Ha ha ha! It must be hard on Duke Chima, having a worthless son,” one of the soldiers mocked.

“He’s got a girlish face, too. It’s too bad... I bet there’d have at least been someone willing to take him if he were a real woman.”

“Guh...” Gritting his teeth, Ichiha endured the verbal abuse.

That’s enough! You don’t have to put yourself through this for me! I thought, and I was about to step forward, when... it happened.

“...Do you have some business with my little sister?”

It was a quiet voice, but clearly filled with anger, and when I looked up, Big Brother Souma, Aisha, and Mutsumi Chima, the woman we had met in the courtyard, were on the other side of the three soldiers.

Aisha and Mutsumi both had angry faces, and while Big Brother Souma was pretending to be calm, his eyes were not smiling.

The three men turned toward the newcomers, and tried to complain.

“Whaaat? Are you this refugee’s—bwuh—!”

Before the man with his arm in a sling could get the rest of his words out, Aisha closed in and seized his face in her right hand. I thought I heard an unpleasant squishing sound.

“...Sire,” Aisha said coolly. “May I?”

“You have my permission.”

It was a short, but disquieting exchange.

Then Aisha, incredibly, proceeded to lift the man up with one hand.

The strength to lift up a grown man was incredible on its own, but that she had the grip to not let go of his face while doing so was astounding.

The man with that grip applied to his face had to be in an unimaginable amount of pain.

He flailed his arms, struggling.

Aisha looked at the man and asked, “How does it feel to be lifted up? You don’t like it? Did your parents never teach you not to do things to others you wouldn’t want done to yourself?”

Ah! But... when the man had lifted Ichiha up, he’d done it by the front of his shirt, not by putting an iron claw on his face...

The remaining two men got angry.

“What?! Who is this dark elf?!”

“Why, you...! Let him go!”

They reached for the hilts of the swords at their waist, trying to draw their weapons.

When they did, Aisha charged them, using the man she had lifted up as a human shield. Seeing the first man groan seemed to make the other two falter, unable to draw their swords.

“Both of you, stop this!” Mutsumi commanded.

With that, the men came to their senses and removed their hands from their hilts.

Oh! That was right. Come to think of it, Ichiha had been saying these men had dropped out of the competition over Mutsumi. In other words, it would be bad for them if Mutsumi came to hate them. They must have been riled up and not noticed Mutsumi’s presence before now.

“Aisha, you too... I think you’ve done enough,” Big Brother Souma said, looking at the two men who were now settled down.

“Yes, sir!” Aisha said promptly.

“Whoa... Ow!”

Suddenly having been released by Aisha, the man with his arm in a sling landed flat on his behind.

While the other two shrank away in front of Mutsumi, the man with his arm in a sling must have still been mad about getting humiliated, because he glared at Big Brother Souma with his anger not going down. “Why, you...! Who do you think you are, butting in like this?!”

“Who do I think I am...? A king, maybe?” Big Brother Souma said as if it were nothing.

He’d only said the truth, but the man apparently thought it was a joke, because his face warped with even more anger.

“You think you can mess with me. I’m gonna kill—”

“Stop it! Do you have any idea who it is you’re picking a fight with?!” Mutsumi said, standing in front of Big Brother. “Who do you think this man is?! This is Sir Souma Kazuya, the king of the great nation of the south, the United Kingdom of Elfrieden and Amidonia, you know?!”

The three men were suddenly in a panic.

“Wha?! Then this man... no, this gentleman... is the King of Friedonia?!” one of them shouted.

Judging by their attitude, these men might have had significant status inside the Union of Eastern Nations. They could have been rulers of their own countries, or entrusted with command of entire armies. But there was an overwhelming difference in power between a country in the Union of Eastern Nations and the Kingdom of Friedonia.

Big Brother was someone these people could not afford to get angry, and now that they realized they had been picking a fight with him, they didn’t know what to do.

As for Big Brother...

“I don’t think I’ve gotten to do this sort of Mito Koumon stuff in a while...”

...he whispered to himself with a wry smile.

What’s a Mito Koumon? I wondered.

Whatever it was, the men were thoroughly deflated as Mutsumi yelled at them.

“Madam Tomoe who you see there is Sir Souma’s little sister! If you have been rude to Madam Tomoe, do you mean to confront the Kingdom of Friedonia?! If you intend to cause a diplomatic incident with the great nation of the south, the other countries of the union won’t keep quiet about it!”

“““N-No, ma’am! We’re truly sorry!””” The men got down on the ground.

Then they bowed their heads repeatedly, not just to Big Brother Souma, but to Ichiha, too.

They clearly thought a diplomatic incident might put their positions at risk. They were desperately begging for forgiveness.

If no one did anything, the way they were going at it, they looked like they might start rubbing their faces on his boots soon enough.

That was apparently a bit much even for Big Brother.

He sighed. “That’s enough. Be off with you.”

The three men left, bobbing their heads desperately as they went.

“Honestly, what a bunch of troublemakers,” Mutsumi said indignantly. “Ichiha, are you okay?”

“Y-Yes, Sister!”

Walking over to Ichiha, Mutsumi put a hand on his head. “It was good that you protected a girl. But it’s not good to be too reckless, okay?”

“...Yes. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not angry. I’m happy you showed your manliness.” With a soft smile, Mutsumi patted Ichiha on the head. “Now then, Sir Souma, it seems we have found your little sister, so I will be on my way now. In regards to those three, I will have my father issue a formal complaint to the countries they belong to.”

“Oh! Sure. Thank you.”

Mutsumi bowed to us before leaving.

While I was feeling relieved to have been saved, suddenly a shadow fell over me.

Hesitantly, I looked with upturned eyes, and there was Big Brother with a serious look on his face that I could read no emotion from. Next to him was Aisha, who looked like she wanted to help me, but was holding it back.

Big Brother crouched down, looking me straight in the eye. “...Tomoe.”

“Y-Yes?”

“You know what I want to say, right?”

“Yes... I’m sorry for running off alone and making you worry about me.”

When I quietly bowed my head, Souma let out a little sigh.

“We’re the ones who forced you into the position of being our little sister. So I won’t tell you to ‘comport yourself in a way that befits your position,’ or anything stuffy like that.”

He wasn’t shouting at me, just speaking calmly. In some ways, that stung worse.

“But as your big brother figure, I’m beside myself with worry whenever I think something bad might happen to you. Aisha’s the same. The reason she got so mad was because it looked like they were frightening you. Well, I guess the reason I didn’t stop her was because I was pissed, too...”

“Everyone was worried, you know? I’m sure Sir Inugami is still running around looking for you.” Aisha’s voice was full of concern, which only made me feel worse.

I wanted to become someone who could help Big Brother and everyone else, but I had ended up causing them trouble instead. This was no good at all.

And yet, even after what I’d done, Big Brother told me, “If anything were to happen to you, it’s not just us: Big Sister Liscia, your mother Tomoko, your little brother Rou, and your adoptive parents Sir Albert and Lady Elisha would all be sad.”

“Yeah...”

“From now on, when you want to do something, bring someone along to protect you, in order to secure your own safety. You can use Inugami for whatever you want, so, please—you’re a child. Rely on others to help you.” Big Brother looked straight at me.

I bowed my head again, swallowing. “Okay... I’m sorry.”

“Watch yourself from now on...” he went on. “Phew. Well, from the look of those drooping ears and tail, I’d say you’re actually reflecting on what you did, so that’s enough lecturing.”

Big Brother stood up, placing a hand on my head.

“Well, when we first met, you were so shy and hesitant about everything. So, as your big brother, seeing you so active does make me happy.”

“Big Brother...” I murmured.

“Is it Big Sister Liscia’s influence? If so, well, I can understand why you’d want to be a little mischievous, but... everything in moderation. Those times when you just have to do it, rely on someone. Okay?”

“Okay!” I said energetically.

Big Brother patted me on the head.

Then he walked over to Ichiha, who had been silently watching how things were unfolding, and knelt down so they were at the same eye-level.

“I’m sorry,” Souma said. “It seems my little sister troubled you. Thank you for protecting her.”

“Oh, no... I was too weak to do anything...”

“But you stood up for her, right? I know how scary it is to stand in front of men with scary faces when you’re weak and unable to do anything. I’m impressed you could do it at your age.”

Having said that, Big Brother stood up and extended a hand to Ichiha.

“I’m Tomoe’s big brother, Souma Kazuya. Nice to meet you.”

“Ah...! I’m Ichiha Chima.”

Ichiha timidly took his hand, and they shook hands.

Big Brother, who was so good at finding people that he was called a recruitment maniac, was shaking hands with Ichiha, who seemed to have something unique about him that nobody praised him for.

Seeing the two of them shake hands, I felt like something was about to begin to move, and I felt my heart race just a little.

The boy was thin, wore glasses, and looked a little on the weak side, but he had the same attractive features as Madam Mutsumi, so he was going to be the kind of beautiful and literate young man that girls would go gaga for.

He was wearing the sort of sleeveless outfit that was typical of this country, but I felt like the lined kimono and hakama of a Meiji Era writer would have suited him. We were from a different country, so I couldn’t make those for him, though.

Maybe because the basic concept of the clothes they wore was the same, when he stood next to Tomoe, they looked like a pair of dolls.

Aisha smiled and said, “They both look so cute.”

“Um, is something the matter?” the boy in question hesitantly asked.

It seemed I’d been staring.

“Ohh, sorry,” I said. “I was lost in thought. Er, Sir Ichiha... Wait, it sounds weird calling someone Tomoe’s age that. Can I just call you Ichiha, like she does?”

“Uh, okay. Whatever you like.”

“Okay, Ichiha. Outside of official venues, you don’t need to call me Sir or Lord, either. You can refer to me the same way you would refer to Aisha.”

“O-Okay... Souma,” he said hesitantly.

I shook Ichiha’s hand again.

Ichiha seemed gobsmacked by everything that had just happened. He looked over at Tomoe, blinking. “You were a princess from Friedonia. Um... I’m sorry. I may have been being rude to you.”

“Princess?! No, no, not at all. I’m no one special, so it would be nice if you could just act the same way as you have been. That’s what I want, actually.”

“S-Sure. Okay...”

The two children were fumbling awkwardly. Aisha and I watched the two of them with fond smiles.

“The way they interact is kind of cute,” I said.

“It is, indeed,” she agreed. “It puts me in a bittersweet sort of mood.”

I placed a hand on Tomoe’s head. “So, Princess Tomoe?”

“Ah! Not you, too, Big Brother!”

“Did your rambunctious little adventure bear any fruit? Did you find anything interesting?”

“Ah! That’s right, Big Brother!” Tomoe shouted as if she’d remembered something. Then, circling around behind Ichiha, she pushed him toward me.

“W-Wait, Tomoe?!” he yelped.

Ichiha dug in his heels to fight being pushed forward, but maybe because Tomoe was a little older, or perhaps because girls were slightly stronger at their age, he was unable to resist as he inched closer and closer to me.

What in the world were these kids doing? Was this some unorthodox form of wrestling?

As I looked at them with my head cocked to the side, Tomoe took on an incredibly serious expression.

“Big Brother, would you look at Ichiha’s pictures?”

“T-Tomoe!” the boy cried.

“Pictures?” I asked.

Now that she mentioned it, Ichiha had a drawing board hanging from his neck, and there were a number of pieces of paper attached to it.

I used paper all the time back at the castle, but in this world, the stuff was pretty expensive. The technology for making it was established, and it wasn’t out of reach for the common people, but it was expensive enough they wouldn’t waste it blowing their noses. If he was being given paper to draw with freely, that really showed he was the son of the head of a country, even if it was a small one.

In order to avoid intimidating Ichiha, I crouched down and matched my eye level to his. “So, uh... Those pictures, can I see them?”

Ichiha may have been embarrassed, because he bobbed his head up and down, his face turned downward. He handed me the drawing board, and Aisha and I took a look at once.

“Is this... a picture of a monster?” I queried.

“Ohh, it’s quite well drawn, isn’t it?”

The drawing was a charcoal sketch of a monster. It was a bat-winged cerberus... no, there were only two heads, so an orthrus. It was drawn in a highly realistic manner. It seemed to capture the different parts of the creature’s body well. It was hard to believe this was the work of a child around the age of ten.

Still, it was only good “for the work of a child.”

I didn’t have much... or any... education in art, but I could tell that while this drawing wasn’t a piece of art, it still was well done.

Despite being drawn in a realistic style, there was no sense of movement, like I was looking at a picture from an encyclopedia. If this was all he was capable of, there were plenty of people in our own country with this level of talent... Wait, what kind of eye was I looking at a child’s drawing with?

It was probably because of my perpetual search for human resources, but I’d developed a tendency to look for any unique gifts people had when first meeting them. That habit was rude to the other party, though, so I really needed to fix it.

Thinking that as I flipped through the pages...

“Huh?”

That was when I noticed something.

There was another picture of a monster under that first picture of a monster; several of them, in fact. But the pictures underneath had a number of square frames drawn into them.

Taking a closer look, it seemed the parts of the monsters’ bodies were surrounded with frames.

Going back to the bat-winged orthrus, there was another picture beneath that was likely a drawing of another individual.

In that picture, there was one frame around the wings, one around the body, and one around each of the two dog heads.

In the picture beneath it, of an ogre with a festering body (a zombie ogre), one frame was around its whole body, with diagonal lines running through it.

The two-headed ogre beneath that had a frame around its whole body, and then one around one of its heads.

Could it be...?

The speed with which I flipped through the pages increased. I went back and forth, comparing drawings. Looking at the drawing of the orthrus with frames from before, on closer inspection, the body was not that of a dog. It had hooves on its feet, so it might have been closer to a serow. The body of the orthrus above was canine, like you’d expect, so that made it clear it was a different individual.

These frames... No doubt about it. There are rules behind them.

I was staring so intently at the drawings, Aisha got worried. “Um, sire? Is something the matter?”

“Ohh, sorry. I was focusing on the pictures.”

“Did something about them catch your attention?”

“Yeah. Hey, Ichiha. Do you have any more drawings of monsters like these?”

Ichiha blinked in surprise and tilted his head to the side. “I have lots in my room. Do you want to come see?”

And so, in the room Ichiha led us to, my eyes went wide with surprise again.

“Whoa...”

The walls were mostly plastered with drawings of monsters.

Intimidated by the sight, Tomoe hugged my leg tight. Fair enough; depending on how you looked at this, it could be an unsettling sight. But for me, right now, I was intrigued by the drawings.

In each of the drawings on the walls, square frames had been drawn in, just like on the ones I had looked at before. In addition, the ones on the walls had been sorted by body part type.

One section focused on monsters with bat-like wings, while another focused just on monsters that were festering like zombies.

Looking at this scene, I became confident. “Ichiha, you weren’t just drawing monsters, you were categorizing them by their body parts and status, weren’t you?”

Ichiha nodded. “Right. This country is close to the Demon Lord’s Domain, so a lot of monsters show up. Watching them from up on the walls, I noticed some had similar body parts. That made me think I could sort them by parts, so I drew them.”

I knew it. Those square frames were separating the monsters into parts.

If there was a bat-winged orthrus, it could be separated into four parts. The frames with diagonal lines indicated an individual with festering flesh. The frame inside a frame on the two-headed ogre indicated an unnecessary part stuck onto another individual.

Ichiha had divided the monsters by their unique traits, creating a categorization system from that.

“Tomoe, it was wrong of you to sneak off without saying anything, but... finding Ichiha may have been a major accomplishment,” I said.

“Big Brother?”

I placed a hand on Tomoe’s head. “This picture here is a treasure of mankind.”

“N-No way, you’re exaggerating.” Ichiha was flustered and shook his head, but I fully believed that these categorized pictures had that much value.

By the standards of this world and its people, monsters were aberrant beings. No matter how a monster looked, it was “befitting a monster,” so no one thought deeply about their aberrance. Even I hadn’t. This was a world of magic, so I had complacently accepted that it wasn’t all that weird for there to be monsters.

However, seeing the drawings of monsters hung up in this room had changed my thinking. Even the monsters that looked like random aberrations were, in fact, following a system of rules.

If I studied the pictures in this room, I might be able to learn what monster parts came with which abilities. If we knew the abilities each part had, we might be able to identify which monsters could and couldn’t fly, as well as roughly how agile they were, just by seeing the shape of them.

It wouldn’t just be useful in combat, either.

What we had learned in the Kingdom of Lastania, that monster meat was edible, could be defined more specifically. For instance, if we knew which parts were edible, and which parts were dangerous or toxic, we could make decisions about which monsters could or couldn’t be eaten. That would expand the range of edible monsters beyond the flying tsuchinoko.

Monster parts had uses beyond just eating them, too. Genia the overscientist’s inventions often used monster parts.

Monster parts came in complicated and weird shapes, so up until now, we had only had whatever happened to come into our possession, which tended to make those items valuable because of their rarity. However, if we knew the applications of each part, the rate at which those parts would be collected after defeating a monster would go up.

If adventurers like Juno and her party raised the rate at which they collected parts they would previously have left in the dead bodies of monsters killed in a dungeon, the supply to the market would rise, and the price would fall.

It would be good to spread this knowledge to the adventurers’ guild and the merchants’ guild. Up until now, they had only collected parts whose value was obvious, but if there were prices on everything, that would help fill the adventurers’ wallets, too. That would in turn enable them make the decision to avoid hitting rare parts with their attacks.

Basically, these pictures Ichiha had drawn secretly harbored the potential to influence many things in this world, including public order, food culture, science and technology, and the economy.

Seriously, this is an incredible find...

It was frightening just to imagine how valuable these categorized drawings might be.

There was more to it than that, too. The one who had drawn these pictures, and who had found a sort of order in the chaotic mess of monsters, was merely a ten-year-old boy.

That was terrifying.

If I left him in Hakuya’s care, what kind of monster would he grow into?

He was the unicorn of the Union of Eastern Nations. I could only sigh in admiration.

I want this kid for our country. I’d welcome him with favorable conditions if he’d just volunteer.

My instinct for quality human resources was screaming at me to buy in early and recruit him before he fully ripened.

“They say every one of Duke Chima’s children is excellent... and it’s true,” I said. “Ichiha, you’re probably the top, by far.”

“N-Not at all! I don’t get counted as one of the talented children!” Ichiha seemed flustered and waved his arms about wildly.

“You don’t? Then you’re not included in the reward?”

“Yeah. Because I’m weak, and they say I’m an oddball...”

“Seriously?” I said incredulously. “How can they be so blind?”

If I could’ve had Ichiha based on my contributions to the war, I would’ve shoved that Fuuga guy aside and gone for the glory of first place.

If that hadn’t been recognized, I might have resorted to wielding my privilege as a great power.

No, wait. If he wasn’t part of the reward, didn’t that leave all the room in the world for negotiations? Oh! I wasn’t so sure about suddenly pulling such a young kid away from his family, but... still...

“Sire,” Aisha put in. “You’re frowning incredibly hard. Is something the matter?”

My grunting and agonizing over the question had ended up making Aisha worry again.

“Ohh, no,” I said quickly. “I’m fine. Just fine.”

Well, worrying about it here wasn’t going to do any good.

First, I had to sound them out and see if there was room for negotiation.

“Ichiha, I’d like to ask you some more about the details,” I said. “Would that be all right?”

“Huh...? Uh, sure... If you think it’s worth talking to me...”

“Oh, I know! Let’s talk about it at length over the fried sweets that Poncho gave us as we were leaving!” I gleefully led Ichiha out of the room.

Aisha and Tomoe looked at one another, not sure what to make of me acting so strangely because I was excited by this unexpected discovery.

“His Majesty always seems most animated when he meets an interesting person, doesn’t he?” Aisha said. “This reminds of the time he first discovered Sir Poncho.”

“Hee hee. It looks like I was right when I thought something might happen if I brought Big Brother and Ichiha together.”

“You aren’t His Majesty’s little sister and Sir Hakuya’s number one apprentice for nothing, huh?” Aisha gave her a pat on the head.

“Tee hee hee!” Tomoe giggled bashfully.

“Now then, shall we get going?” Aisha asked. “They’re leaving us behind.”

“Right!”

With wry smiles, the two of them chased after us.

It happened as I was leading Ichiha back to the room that had been prepared for us.

I saw a small figure walking in our direction from down the hall. As we approached, I realized it was a girl of about Tomoe’s age, maybe a little older.

When the girl noticed us she went, “Ah!” and rushed over. “A black-haired young man with a female dark elf warrior as his bodyguard. Just like the information said.”

She was about the same height as Tomoe, so did that make her twelve, maybe thirteen?

Wearing light blue clothing in the nomadic style, her deep blue hair tied in twintails, she gave off the impression of a strong girl with eyes full of vital energy. If I were to compare her to someone I knew, she was maybe the same type as Liscia or Naden. She would grow up to be a different sort of beauty than Tomoe in the future.

The other distinctive thing about her was the wings I could see over her shoulders.

“Would you happen to be the Sir Souma Kazuya that my brother was talking about?” the twintailed girl asked me, eyes full of fire. They were like the eyes of a hunter that had found her prey.

The staring made me feel awkward, and I scratched my cheek as I responded. “Well, yes, but... Wait, brother?”

That was when it hit me. Those wings, that hair color, could it be...?

“Are you Fuuga’s little sister, maybe?” I asked.

“My name is Yuriga Haan. I see... You must be the Great King of Friedonia.”

Great King, huh? It’d been a while since I’d been called that. The colossal squid and giant isopod both had Great King in their Japanese names, so it reminded me of gross-looking creatures, and I didn’t much like it.

Yuriga started staring at me again.

“You look weak for a ‘great king.’ My brother is much stronger,” she said bluntly.

It was a fact, so I shrugged it off. “Sure, if you’re going to compare me to Fuuga...”

“Hold on—Yuriga, was it? Don’t you think you’re being rude to His Majesty?” Aisha said, standing in front of her with a forced smile.

Oh, she was smiling, but, yeah, she was pretty pissed. She probably realized it would be immature to get seriously upset at a child, but her smile was getting stiffer.

Under pressure from our country’s strongest warrior’s smile (of rage), Yuriga faltered. “Ah...! Um... Er...”

Where had her spunk gone? Yuriga now looked completely terrified. She tensed up like a deer in the headlights and was unable to say another word.

This was kind of bad, wasn’t it? If we made her cry, it was likely to cause problems.

“Aisha, she’s just a kid... okay?” I said, trying to mollify Aisha.

I wasn’t fussed about what she’d said, and I didn’t want to start a fight with one of Fuuga’s relatives out of concern for how I looked as king...

Fuuga suddenly appeared and brought a fist down on Yuriga’s head. “You brat!”

Bop!

“Owwwww!”

The man was a warrior whom Aisha had described as stronger than her, so he must have been holding back, but it had still apparently hurt, because Yuriga was crouching and holding her head with tears in her eyes.

“You were told to stay put in our room!” Fuuga scolded. “You’re always running off.”

“Oww... But staying in the room is boring!”

“You’re the one who decided to tag along! What were you thinking, just deciding to contact the king of another country on your own?! We aren’t on the steppe here!”

Then Fuuga moved to stand in front of me, bowing his head and making his sister bow her head, too.

“Sorry for my sister. She’s a troublesome little tomboy. If she did anything to offend you, I apologize. Go on, you too, Yuriga.”

“Ah... I’m sorry...”

“Uh, no, you can raise your heads,” I said uncomfortably. “She wasn’t that rude, and she’s just a kid. My own little sister was just up to the same sort of mischief anyway.”

“It helps to hear you say that,” Fuuga said, raising his head with a smile. Noticing Tomoe behind me, he added, “Is that the little sister you meant?”

“I-I’m Tomoe.” Tomoe bobbed her head.

Seeing that adorable gesture, Fuuga grinned. “I see she knows her manners, unlike our cheeky little girl. Ah! I know! Hey, Souma. Since I’m already imposing on you, I’ve got a favor to ask...”

“A favor? Of me?”

“Yeah. If only for a little while, could you watch Yuriga for me?” He thrust his younger sister toward us.

Indignant at being treated like a cat or something, Yuriga loudly protested. “Wait, Big Brother?!”

However, Fuuga laughed, not seeming to care in the slightest. “Duke Chima’s asked me to go around to all the camps on the battlefield, letting them know that reinforcements from the Kingdom of Friedonia will be arriving. It’ll raise morale.”

“I see...” I murmured.

“So, that being the case, I’d like you to look after Yuriga while I do that. It looks like you’ve got someone around her age with you, so it’ll be less boring for Yuriga than staying in the room by herself.”

“I don’t mind, but... don’t you want to leave a bodyguard with your sister?” I asked.

Fuuga patted Yuriga on the head. “She’s the type who’ll shake her bodyguards so she can do as she pleases. Seeing as she’s my sister and all, everyone spoils her, so I figure she’ll be better behaved if she’s with outsiders. Besides, Souma, you don’t look like the type to mistreat a child someone’s entrusted to you.”

“It doesn’t feel bad to be so trusted, but... You’re a king yourself, aren’t you, Fuuga? That makes Young Miss Yuriga a member of the royal family. I don’t know about suddenly taking responsibility for some other country’s royalty...”

“Don’t be so stiff about it,” Fuuga said. “I’m just asking you to baby-sit. Or, what, are you the type that lusts after children?”

“Hell no!”

“Ha ha ha! Well, that’s a relief. It’s just for a little while. Okay, I’m counting on you.”

Giving us no time to respond, Fuuga took off running down the hall.

He shows up out of nowhere, pushes his little sister off on us, then leaves... He really is like a passing rain shower.

No, given how heated he could get, was he a sudden torrential downpour?

I glanced over at Yuriga. “He’s always in a hurry, huh?”

“You can’t blame him. That’s just how my brother is.” She was probably used to this kind of treatment, because Yuriga just shrugged.

Well, now that the guy who left her with us had run off, there wasn’t much point standing around in the corridor forever.

“Should we head back to the room?” I asked.

In the guest room allotted to us, which seemed to be a little more nicely furnished than the rest, Aisha, Juna, Naden, and I were munching on the ginger snaps Poncho had given us as we listened to Ichiha’s story.

“Oh, that happened...?” (Munch, munch.)

“Yes. That’s right.” (Munch, munch.)

The House of Chima was a nine-person family consisting of one father and eight children, their mother having passed away when they were young. The other brothers and sisters were gifted in martial arts, strategy, and magic, but compared to their fame, Ichiha with his weak body had felt out of place.

He wasn’t on particularly bad terms with his siblings, but he had a complex from being compared to them. He was also considered strange for drawing pictures of monsters.

It seemed Mutsumi alone had tried to encourage Ichiha, but even she had apparently been unable to understand his gift.

“I dunno, it just seems like such a waste,” I said disappointedly.

“This area is thick with schemers, so only those with martial ability or strategic thinking are respected,” Ichiha explained. “Warriors who can achieve results on the battlefield, or strategists who can obtain an advantage in negotiations. I didn’t have anything like that.”

“Well... values change depending on where you live,” I admitted.

That was why no one had noticed this boy’s talent, huh? Not even his own family.

I felt bad for Ichiha, but when I thought that Tomoe had been the first to recognize his gift, I felt proud of her. It made me want to brag to everyone about how great my little sister was.

Of course, from the perspective of information secrecy, I was going to have to keep my mouth shut about it.

“Stop smirking,” Naden said. “It’s dead obvious what you’re thinking, okay?”

I slapped my cheeks. Had it been that easy to tell?

Looking over at Aisha and Juna... they blatantly averted their eyes.

...Apparently it had been. Well, that was no good.

Then I heard a bold voice. “And, honestly, that’s why my brother is just amazing, isn’t he?”

“O-Oh, yeah... I see...”

Next to us, Yuriga was regaling Tomoe with tales of her brother.

“So, after my brother took to the field and slew the enemy tribe’s brave warrior in an instant, the enemy’s warriors were terrified,” Yuriga went on. “They immediately broke ranks and fled. The temsbock cavalry ran them down, of course, so the enemy commanders all lost their heads.”

“U-Uhh... Wow...” Tomoe seemed a little put off, and she was listening with a polite-but-forced smile.

If someone was going to brag on and on about their family to her, yeah, that was probably the face she’d end up making.

Still, Yuriga didn’t seem to notice, so she went on telling the tale with glee.

“The flying tiger my brother rides is called Durga. I hear my brother met him when he went into the Demon Lord’s Domain alone. When he saw him fighting pack of monsters alone, my brother went to help. They became fast friends, and they’ve been together ever since.”

Fuuga had been into the Demon Lord’s Domain alone, with no bodyguards?!

No matter how far off the charts his strength was, that had to be reckless. That went beyond having guts and passed right into stupidity.

Also, that white tiger he rode was called a flying tiger?

“Hold on, it was a creature from the Demon Lord’s Domain?” I murmured, looking at Ichiha. “Could it be a monster?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen a creature like that before, either. Even if it was a monster, it would be a very unusual type. It’s the first time I’ve seen a creature that can fly without wings.”

“Really?” I glanced over at Naden. “There’s one closer to you than you might think, you know?”

She turned away peevishly, as if to say, Don’t look at me when you say that.

At first, I thought she was sulking because I’d treated her like an unusual creature, but then she added, looking mad, “Don’t lump me together with some tiger that can’t even assume human form!”

Was she feeling a sense of hostility toward Durga?

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Yuriga pinching Tomoe’s cheek. “Geez, you’ve just been smiling and nodding this whole time, Tomoe. Are you even listening?”

“Ahm lishning, ahm lishning!”

From the look on Tomoe’s face, it didn’t hurt. I was glad they weren’t fighting.

When Yuriga let go of Tomoe, she crossed her arms in front of her and puffed out her chest. “Well, I suppose you’re still too young to understand my brother’s greatness.”

“Murgh... How old are you, Yuriga?”

“Thirteen.”

“You’re only two years older than me.”

“It’s a huge difference. In another year I’ll be (just barely) able to marry.”

“Mugh...”

It seemed marriageable age was low in this world.

Though, even by the standards of this world, fourteen would be considered early. Yuriga was mostly talking out of vanity, I’d assume. Besides, if they were competing over age, that made both of them children.

I looked over to the women in the room. “Is being old enough to marry something girls compete over?”

“...You’re asking us that?” Naden asked incredulously.

“Thirteen is still an infant,” Aisha replied. “We dark elves can’t marry until we’re thirty.”

Well, they were from long-lived races, after all.

And both of them were stubborn about not telling me, so I didn’t know either of their real ages.

“Marriage is a major event in a woman’s life, after all,” Juna said with a smile.

In conclusion, in this world with its wide range of lifespans, there was little point in comparing age, but maybe girls were still concerned about it.

Whatever the case, in just one day, Tomoe had made two friends (?) she could talk casually with. As her big brother figure, I had to be happy for her.

“He rides a tiger!” Yuriga exclaimed. “A tiger! My brother really is special, you know!”

“B-Big Brother rides a ryuu!”

“What, are you trying compete with me?!”

“Yes, I am!”

Perhaps they were getting mad, because I could swear there were fireworks going off where their eyes met.

...Maybe I needed to have a talk with Tomoe about choosing her friends more carefully.

It was a hard call.