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Chapter 241 – It’s Impossible to Ask for Forgiveness
“…You are quite hated, Qubi-kun.”
“It’s unavoidable, given the nature of my mission.”
I feel like complaining to the Marquis Isoth for forcing me to take you on.”
The elf man sitting next to Qubi rubbed the crease between his eyebrows as if he was enduring a headache.
“Er, the situation is that Her Majesty Queen Sylphiel――”
“I have not yet officially taken over the throne.”
“Pardon me for this. I have heard this, Your Highness the Princess. I have heard… Yes, well, unfortunately, even for us, we can’t offer him to you for friendship and a handshake.”
The elf man says this and smiles a slightly twitchy smile. He’s such―He’s a he, isn’t he? I observed him. He is an elf man dressed in the tight-fitting clothes of an aristocrat. He looks like a young man to me, but he is an elf, so he must be older than I am. Many of the elves in the Black Forest have light-colored hair, but this elf man’s hair is dark brown. His skin color is also slightly yellow. I guess they are the same elves but from a different tribe than the elves of the Black Forest.
“Oops, excuse me for the late introduction. My name is Kirilovich, and I am here in the kingdom of Merinard as a diplomat of the Varyag Empire…”
After saying this, Kirilovich glanced for a moment at Qubi, who was sitting beside him and at Sylphy, who was still wearing a severe expression.
“As you can see, the situation is quite complicated, hahaha.”
“How can you laugh in this situation?”
“We have gathered a fair amount of information along the way, you know. There is no way we can resist in this situation against you who can unilaterally slaughter 20,000 of the Holy Kingdom’s subjugation force. We can only laugh about it.”
Kirilovich said cheerfully, without a trace of nervousness, and sipped from a teacup on the table.
“I would like to find a way to find a solution to the problem, but I am afraid that the discussion will not proceed without you, the person concerned, so I respectfully request Her Highness the Princess from the bottom of my heart to ask Kosuke-dono to come to the meeting. I am truly sorry to have asked you to come here, but under the circumstances, it would have been difficult for me to approach you.”
“I don’t mind that you called me here, but it’s very difficult to find the right place to settle things. I’d be happy to blow that damn fox’s head off right now and be done with it, wouldn’t you?”
“Hahaha… as I said before, I can’t just give him to you and then shake your hand.”
“What do you really mean?”
“It’s my job to build goodwill with the Kingdom of Merinard, which is also an enemy of the Holy Kingdom, and I’d like to strangle this man who stands in the way of that and Marquis Isoth who forced this man on me with my own hands, hahaha.”
He is smiling, but his eyes are serious. Kirilovich really didn’t seem to know what Qubi had done to us, or rather to me, until he came here.
“How about we just pretend he was missing before anyone knew about it? Like, he arrived in Merinesburg, went out for a drink at night, and never came back.”
“Well, I don’t want to be held accountable for that.”
When Kirilovich and I started talking seriously about how to deal with Qubi, Qubi raised his hands with a bitter smile on his face.
“All right, all right, I give up. I am not going to let you seriously erase me. I’ll tell you everything I know, but please just spare my life.”
“Aren’t you getting too carried away?”
“It’s a death penalty.”
“Death penalty.”
“Death penalty, right?”
“It’s a death penalty.”
“I’m very sorry.”
Qubi lies down on the floor and shows his belly. Is this some kind of beastman’s prostrate act?
“What do you think?”
“Isn’t the death penalty good enough?”
“I don’t see the sincerity from him.”
“He would just drop his pride and everything and at least beg for his life if push came to shove. As long as he still has his clothes on, he can still afford it.”
“Even if you see him completely naked, your eyes will only rot. No one benefits from it.”
“Although unofficial, I think it’s quite appropriate to show a surrender gesture in front of the head of a country and a diplomat…?”
Kirilovich is a bit taken aback by our reaction, but Melty is right; this guy would throw away his pride and get down on his knees or show his belly to survive. In the first place, a man who betrays his friends cannot be trusted. What is the value of kneeling on the ground or showing his belly?
“Kirilovich-sama, this man has committed the worst kind of betrayal against us. One wrong move, and we would have lost Kosuke. Kosuke is a visitor, but before that, he was Sylphiel-sama’s spouse. When this man betrayed us, Sylphiel-sama and Kosuke were already in such a relationship. In other words, this man is equivalent to a bandit who kidnapped the royal consort of a country and sold him to an enemy country. Don’t you think it’s unreasonable to expect us to pardon a man who committed such treachery with impunity?”
Melty smiles at Kirilovich as she says this. Although she is smiling, her anger and magic power are leaking out in the form of a fighting spirit. I’m fine with that anger because it’s not directed at me, but I’m sure Kirilovich, who is facing that anger, doesn’t feel like he’s alive.
“Ha-hahaha…”
Kirilovich, staring at Melty, smiles vaguely and begins to sweat profusely. Don’t do it too much, or he’ll pass out, Melty.
“For now, let’s get him to tell us why he did what he did. Explain it all. If we’re going to execute him, we’ll at least need to know his story.”
“He won’t talk unless we guarantee his life, will he?”
“If so, I’ll just kill him right now. The more he talks, the longer his life will be. Depending on the content of the story, I may spare his life. However, if the story turns out to be a lie, I will kill him immediately. If he runs away, I will definitely kill him, even if I have to chase him to the ends of the world.”
Sylphy’s eyes were serious. Isla’s eye, nodding at the side, are serious, too. And also, what Isla has been playing with her hands since a while ago is a collar, isn’t it? That looks like the one I was made to wear in the village after I came to this world and met Sylphy.
“Actually, what do you think of it, Kosuke?”
“Me? I’m… Hmm.”
I don’t know if I hate Qubi enough to want to kill him. I thought I was going to kill him while I was being kidnapped and boxed up by that guy, but then I got out of jail as soon as I was thrown in jail, and I met Lime and the others, and as a result, I met Ellen. If I had not been abducted by Qubi, I would not have met Ellen, I don’t know if I would have had the same relationship with Melty as I do now, and I would not have met Grande.
I guess some of my anger has faded with time, but… well, I’m pretty sure I felt like I wanted to kill this guy the moment I saw his face. Though I’ve calmed down a bit now.
I’ve wondered about it since then. He could have killed me if he wanted to at that time, but he didn’t. He went to the trouble of leaving me in the hands of the White Pig Bishop, who was the overseer of the Merinard Kingdom and let me slip through his fingers. What on earth did he want to do? I had always wondered.
“When I think about it calmly, it doesn’t seem like enough to kill him.”
“Hmm?”
“But I’d like to trim all the hairs of his body, for that matter.”
I took out a clipper that I had prepared for this occasion from my inventory and showed it to him. It is a spring-loaded manual hair clipper and can be used with one hand. Then, I saw Qubi, who was lying on his back and showing his belly, shivering and trembling.
“Hmm… first, let’s trim his fur before we listen to what he says.”
“First, let’s mow the inconspicuous parts of his body. Whether or not we should trim the head, tail, and limbs depends on what he says.”
“Shall we go with that?”
“I guess so.”
“Hahaha. I’ve got some clippers ready.”
“Don’t resist, okay? I’ll kill you if you try to resist. I’m not as soft as Kosuke.”
The fun, fun time of shearing began. Kirilovich was a bit surprised, but the deed was done.