Kyou kara Ma no Tsuku Jiyuugyou! Vol 16 Chapter 1

That’s right, animals have a natural instinct, and that is to try and breathe as long as they’re still alive—I’m no exception. Without waiting for my vision to clear, my mouth and nose are already desperately trying to breathe.

Oxygen and seawater a.s.sault my tongue at the same time, and the insides of my nose are stinging painfully, just like how it feels when I fail at diving in a pool full of chlorine. But although I can breathe, it feels like someone is pulling my collar from behind, which is why my constricted throat hurts so much.

What’s the matter? What on earth happened? Oh, yeah, I fell into the sea.

Murata and I fell into the blue-black whirlpool that suddenly appeared between the waves.

Although I nearly drowned, I think I still held on tightly to that important friend of mine that I cannot be separated from no matter what. However, my friend’s body in my embrace keeps flailing about.

“Mn—Hang in there, Murata, your injuries aren’t serious at all.”

Otherwise there’s no way he would still be this energetic, and flailing about non-stop like that.

Hm? Flailing about?

I force my eyes open. I don’t hesitate or hold back with it, instead using so much force it almost makes a shutter sound. But the dazzling sunlight and seawater sure hurt my eyes.

Silver skin and a neat, detailed mesh pattern appear in front of my eyes.

The one I’m holding on to so carefully isn’t Murata, but a large bonito.

“What is this!? Why am I hugging a bonito!?”

“Hm… Although I wear gla.s.ses, I’m not Nakajima[1], y’know…”

I want to look towards the direction the voice is coming from, but my head is fixed in place and can’t turn properly. Even if I want to wave my legs, I can’t move an inch be it forward or backward. And though my limbs can’t move, my whole body is still swaying. I was about to ask why I feel so floaty, then I realize that we’re caught in a fish net, and suspended in mid-air too. No wonder I feel that way.

Other than the bonito I’m hugging tightly, there are silver fish scales pressing on my back, front, left, right, brain and stomach. In conclusion, we’ve fallen into a fisherman’s net together with a school of fish.

We’re hanging in the fis.h.i.+ng net directly above the fis.h.i.+ng boat, looking down on the fishermen underneath us, but they’re grinning from ear to ear at the rare harvest they got.

I’ve only had baseball on my mind for the past sixteen years, so although I experienced batting an out that got stuck in the net, I’ve never experienced being trapped in a fis.h.i.+ng net myself. No, wait a sec! I think I did get successfully caught in a bug net before, but that was just a game between children, after all.

On the other hand, getting pulled upwards together with fish in a net by fishermen is an experience I probably won’t get again in this lifetime. I should say, if possible, I hope I’ll never experience it again.

“Ah~~ How troublesome, if Aniki found out about this, he would definitely look down on me… He would surely say I’m a ‘Human Sunfish’.”

“Sunfish are a docile species of fish, and they get caught even if they noticed the net because they can’t avoid it—Speaking of which, why are you hugging a bonito so tightly?”

“You’re still asking me why?”

My arms are still wrapped around seafood until now.

But there’s a reason I’m holding on so tightly. Not because I’m hungry, but because I must never get separated from Murata no matter what.

Murata and I jumped into the entrance of the Star Tour together from the sailing mazoku vessel. Although I’ve long since gotten used to this kind of commuting, the Star Tour is still a journey to a different world. Maybe I have to ask Ulrike or Miss Anissina to find out what combinations and devices allow us to fly to a different world.

And judging by my current condition, I don’t have any elite humanoid flying robot or guardian fighter jet. Add that to the fact that we’re guided by maryoku, moving in a s.p.a.ce that isn’t Earth or s.h.i.+n Makoku, and the consequences could be irreparable if we got separated from our comrades.

So I have to hold onto him tightly! When we were engulfed by the rapid water, that’s the thought that immediately came to mind.

And besides, I hadn’t planned to return yet, it was Wolfram beside me that pushed us into the sea from the back, so even if it wasn’t of our own volition, in the end we still fell down towards the blue-black whirlpool.

Just as Wolfram said, I know he did it completely out of kindness. He probably wishes I can return to Earth and sleep peacefully, eat Mom’s cooking, then recharge and rest up properly before returning to s.h.i.+n Makoku. But in the end…

“This is very obviously not j.a.pan.”

“I think so too, huh.”

Although that guy made such a decision to give us a push, if he finds out later that we didn’t return to Earth, I sure hope he won’t blame himself too much for it.

We’re like animals caught in a trap and hanging from a tall tree, the people with hair and eye colors very unlike j.a.panese ones pointing at us from below. Their hair is brown, red-brown, red, even blonde. As for the fishermen’s sun-baked skin, rather than the color of wheat, it looks more bronze.

Although we really hope this is Earth, it seems that wish isn’t likely to come true. The proof is that I can understand what they’re saying. If this were Italy or France on Earth, putting aside Murata for now, I shouldn’t be able to understand what they’re saying.

But after they got over their initial shock, their expressions are now turning to fury, while they yell things like ‘No matter what you’ve gone overboard’ and ‘This is obstruction of fis.h.i.+ng, getting more and more agitated as they go. ‘Obstruction of defense’ or ‘obstruction of base-running’ I hear a lot, but this is the first time I heard of ‘obstruction of fis.h.i.+ng’.

Even so, any fisherman in any world would be disappointed to find something they can’t grill with salt or make sas.h.i.+mi out of trapped in the net they worked so hard to spread. I’m really sorry that today your harvest is made of high school boys.

“How troublesome~~ What if they ask us to pay damages for their fis.h.i.+ng losses and net? The ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying’ excuse won’t work, either.”

“Now isn’t the time to be worrying about that.”

A deep, charismatic baritone sounds from beside my ear, almost making me jump,

“Gwendal!”

That is the oldest of the very similar three mazoku brothers, Lord von Voltaire Gwendal. He really likes the Bando dolphin keychain, but I can’t be sure if he likes living bonito. That Gwendal is pulling my collar tightly from behind with his large hand, no wonder I’m having difficulty breathing sometimes.

“W-why is Gwendal here?”

“That should be my question.”

When I finally turn around while straining my stiff muscles, I find that a frowning Lord von Voltaire is also trapped in the fis.h.i.+ng het. Although hunks like him look handsome no matter what, the seaweed entangled in his hair does cost him a lot of points. Even if I say it as positively as I can, he still looks like a drunk salaryman.

“Watching the king… and His Eminence fall into the sea, which idiot would stay still and not do anything? That’s why I dived into the sea without hesitation, planning to grab hold of you two…”

“But in the end you were sucked into the terrifying water currents? Sorry, it was our fault for dragging you into this.”

“Dragging me into this?”

“Mn—The reasons behind it are very complicated.”

“Let me explain, then!”

Murata says excitedly. I’m glad that you’re so energetic, but our situation now is that moving one hair moves us all, so please spare me. As for the fishermen, they seem to have given up on today’s harvest, so they start steering the s.h.i.+p back to the port, making our situation even more unstable.

“We fell into the sea in the evening, right?”

“Right.”

“But now it’s the middle of the day. See, the sun is way up high in the sky.”

He puts his hand near his face, pointing at the sun above his head,

“Right? This means there’s a time difference, so we’re not anywhere near where we started. Unless we lost consciousness together, and drifted on the sea for a whole night.

For all three of us to be unconscious on the sea from evening to the next day when the sun is blazing—doesn’t seem too possible no matter how I think about it. Putting aside outsiders like Murata and I, Gwen is an excellent fighter, so something like that would never happen to him.

“My conclusion is that although we were preparing to return to Earth, there seems to have been some interference, and in the end Lord von Voltaire came along for the ride to somewhere far away but in the same world as s.h.i.+n Makoku.”

“But, by ‘some interference’, what do you…”

Gwendal clears his throat softly,

“…It wouldn’t happen to be me, would it?”

“Ah~~ I think it shouldn’t be you—”

Murata peels off the algae plastered to his cheek, and even takes a bit from that really salty-looking rim,

“Although it’s just my guess, I think it may have been s.h.i.+nou’s doing. I think there’s a high chance he would do something like this.”

“Eh!?”

A deep voice instantly overlaps with the perfectly-p.r.o.nounced voice. Although I’m really surprised, I didn’t think Lord von Voltaire would be too.

Speaking of s.h.i.+nou, he’s something close to G.o.d to the mazokus.

What should I do? My friend, who may yet live for many years, suddenly said he heard the voice of G.o.d. Since he’s a smart guy, even if the world is destroyed or threatened, there’s no way he would be cheated by a strange cult.

The bonito in my arms seems to agree, flailing about non-stop.

But Gwendal expresses his interest one step ahead of me,

“You two spoke!? You and His Majesty s.h.i.+nou!?”

“Mn—I’m not sure if we spoke or met.”

“You two met each other!?”

He’s getting more and more farfetched, what do I do now? He actually said he met G.o.d? I patted my friend’s shoulder,

“Murata, it’s best not to talk about that sort of thing with others. Because everyone think G.o.d is unattainable.”

“You don’t have to advise me so solemnly, I won’t sell the news to the paparazzi.”

Such dangerous gossip, I think even ‘Tokyo Sports Paper’ doesn’t publish stuff like that anymore.

“You say you met G.o.d- Wouldn’t that have terrified you--?”

“Please! s.h.i.+buya, it’s not like he’s a ghost.”

Poor Gwendal, this seems to be a test for his previous religion. And his brow is creased even more tightly now, as he murmurs, “To think that other than the oracle priestess, there are others who can hear His Majesty s.h.i.+nou’s voice.” By now I can’t be sure if he truly believes what Murata is saying anymore.

“Poor things, the mazoku have way too many dreams and hopes towards s.h.i.+nou.”

“You can’t blame them, His Majesty s.h.i.+nou’s position in s.h.i.+n Makoku is just like a G.o.d. Like Pele place in your heart… Eh, is it Pele? Or Zico? Maradona?”

“It’s Beckenbauer!”

The fis.h.i.+ng net trapping us tilts and sways. It seems that since the boat is about to enter the port, their steering angle is huge.

“Anyway, not long ago I met s.h.i.+nou, it’s just that it’s hard to explain in concrete words.”

“Please don’t say it in concrete words, I’m really bad at sciences.”

“I think you’re bad at sciences and languages, all the development has gone to your limbs.”

In order to help me understand, Murata explains it to me in the same style as elementary school compulsory reading a.s.signments.

The mystery of the pyramids and the secret of the Boxes.

The bespectacled adventurer Murata Ken, jumped through dimensions from j.a.pan on Earth and into the pyramid. He used the theory that a piece of the Box and the Box itself would attract each other. But back then, Murata Ken had not jumped directly through the dimensions to the pyramid.

“Murata, I think you can use slightly harder words for sixth grade elementary students.”

“In the middle of the journey, I was pulled to the s.p.a.ce he exists in.”

“What does that mean? Isn’t His Majesty s.h.i.+nou dead?”

“He’s not really alive but neither is he dead. He used his own power to create a unique s.p.a.ce, and his soul now exists there.”

“Then he really is a ghost…”

“No, ghosts don’t have the power to change the course of the world.”

“In that case, how would the soul you’re talking about change the course of the world?”

“He’ll send word to the priestess and have the people do his bidding, or he’ll use maryoku to get in the way of someone’s actions. Just like us now.”

So that’s it!

In other words, according to Murata’s speculations, the reason we can’t return to Earth successfully isn’t because Gwendal followed us down into the sea, but His Majesty s.h.i.+nou’s soul used maryoku to prevent us from going back… But what good does it serve him to do that?

“Does His Majesty s.h.i.+nou not want me to go back to Earth?”

A ray of light flashes past Murata’s slightly inaccurately-powered gla.s.ses, and he says solemnly,

“Maybe, that guy seems to be having some funny ideas.”

“Hey hey hey, don’t suspect a G.o.d-like guy just based on your instinct.”

“If you really want to put it that way, what about you who a.s.sumed he was a G.o.d just based on your instinct? How will you explain that?”

“Ugh, hm—”

He’s right.

“Someone in my memory said this, ‘It’s best not to deify His Majesty s.h.i.+nou too much.’ He’s really good at fighting, but although he really loves the mazoku, he’s still a man who won’t be satisfied until he has everything under his control. Such as fame, authority… and also violent power. How could someone as petty as him be a G.o.d?”

“When you put it that way, it does seem like he’s not.”

“And his leaders.h.i.+p charisma is really bothersome too.”

“You would think it’s bothersome! Because he’s a great king and at the same level as a G.o.d, of course it’s good that he has charisma! I mean, it should only be expected, right!? Like me, I’m all troubled because I’m not good enough in that area.”

“It’s bothersome precisely because his charisma overshadows the current Maou.”

My usually cheerful friend hits me over the head with those words, making me especially embarra.s.sed. I have to take the words of someone who met s.h.i.+nou for real seriously. Although I don’t know how he managed to get to his resting place, but this is the era where you could get to an alternate world by being flushed down the toilet, even if your wish to ‘go to an ancient tomb’ becomes ‘welcome to the world of my heart’, it’s nothing to be surprised about.

“But instead of leaders.h.i.+p charisma, s.h.i.+buya wins by his pa.s.sion and justice, now that’s not too bad either, is it? And anyone can tell that you don’t have any ulterior motive.”

“…it sounds like you’re saying I’m a catcher with no calls at all…”

If I really look like I have no plans at all for the rest of my life, that’d be really bad. No one would want to follow an empty-brained king.

“What’s so bad about that? You look like you’ll do exactly what you say, at the very least you’re much better than that guy who collects dangerous items for his own interests.”

“Baseball cards aren’t dangerous, y’know.”

“Not baseball cards, Boxes.”

Having gotten everything off his chest at once, Murata sighs heavily, his expression spelling out ‘to think my own people are being idiots too, at this rate the problem won’t be easy to solve’.

“By ‘Boxes’, do you mean that!?”

“That’s right. That guy, in other words His Majesty s.h.i.+nou is planning to collect all the Forbidden Boxes. Although he can’t do it.”

“Don’t tell me His Majesty s.h.i.+nou really wants to—to the Forbidden Boxes!?”

Completely confused, Lord von Voltaire can’t help but interrupt as well,

“His Majesty s.h.i.+nou’s plan is to gather all the Boxes in s.h.i.+n Makoku?”

“Strictly speaking, he wants to keep them by his side, he hopes to control all the Boxes and Keys. Because he’s a man who will only rest when he has everything under his control. Those Boxes could be called the proof that he sealed the soushu, to s.h.i.+nou they’re like trophies showing off his past achievements. Although they’ll cause a disaster if they’re opened by accident, even though to us they’re terrifying and low grade souvenirs, to him they’re toys that make people tremble in their boots. He wants to make it so they can be activated at any time, and then keep them by his side.”

“Collect? It can’t be, right?”

My friend wants to wave away my muttering, but he can’t move because his fingers get hooked on the net,

“No, in order to protect his reputation I must admit, he doesn’t plan on using the Boxes, that will really tick him off. Because he wants everything to be in his control.”

“But Ulrike didn’t…”

“That’s right. As long as the oracle announces the sacred decree of the G.o.d-like His Majesty s.h.i.+nou, all the people of s.h.i.+n Makoku would most likely obey that order. If he ordered to gather all four Boxes in this country, even if their hearts are full of questions, they would probably obey anyway. The fact is he didn’t make his intentions known, so forget ordering them to be gathered, I even wanted to bury the Forbidden Boxes.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t mention this to the oracle, or to anyone at all. In other words, to him, the current situation at least is beyond his expectations.”

“Does he think it’s easier for people to find the Boxes based on their own imagination? Or could it be because…”

Maybe it’s because I swallowed some air together with my saliva, so my throat makes a strange noise.

“…I wanted to throw away the Boxes?”

“Maybe. I don’t know, maybe it’s not just because of that.”

Murata shakes his head lightly,

“But you don’t have to do according to his wishes.”

The fis.h.i.+ng vessel successfully enters the port, and I hear the heavy sound of the s.h.i.+p going across the surface of the water. That sound incites my imagination—‘If the Boxes that breed disasters were to sink into the sea, would they make that sort of noise?’ But that’s just the sound of the s.h.i.+p setting anchor at the jetty.

Sorry, but I still want to throw it away.

I murmur to myself, telling the absent His Majesty s.h.i.+nou.

I want to sink that to the bottom of the sea.

“You just have to do what you want to.”

Murata nods lightly,

“But if you want me to give you a suggestion, each Box has a ‘resting place’ suited uniquely to itself.”

“Resting place?”

“Mn, you could see it’s a place to keep them, or to throw them away. In any case, it’s a place where the soushu sealed inside will lose their power forever. Even if the best course of action now is to sink them to the bottom of the sea where no one can reach them, I still hope to bury them in those places in the end.”

“But Murata, do you know where those places are?”

“The hints are right there in their names.”

The names of the Boxes are ‘Wind’s End’, ‘End of the Earth’, ‘Inferno in the Tundra’ and ‘Mirror’s Depth’, separately.

“It sounds to me like none of them exist.”

“I think so too. There isn’t a place in this world where the wind stops, if the planet of this world is round… it shouldn’t possibly not be round… In that case we won’t know where the ends of the earth are either, and there can’t possibly be a tundra where an inferno burns.”

“Besides, the one that’s like a mirror isn’t the water’s depth, but the surface, right? Exactly, it’s precisely because those are four places that couldn’t possibly exist, that’s the only way the Boxes can lose their power.”

“In other words, no matter what we have to find these places?”

“Don’t worry, I already have some ideas.”

Murata looks very happy, but Gwendal hasn’t said a thing the whole time. He’s very intelligent, and extremely experienced too, so he should contemplating things even further after that.”

“But as for the danger right now…”

My friend narrows his eyes behind those lenses,

“It’s the possibility that your cute Lord von Bielefeld might be a Key.”

“Wolfram… I remember now, you said before not to let Wolf approach that Box, right?”

“That’s right, didn’t I mention it? The Keys to the Boxes will show up on someone in those four clans respectively. Well, instead of clans, I should say on close blood relations. Because it may also show on their relatives from their mother’s side.”

“Do two of those Keys belong with the current Weller clan and the Voltaire clan?”

Hearing Gwendal’s angry question, Murata retorts instinctively,

“How did you know?”

“Because there was that incident with Conrad’s arm, and someone related to me by blood also lost an eye to one of the Boxes.”

“That’s right, and unfortunately these people were all very close to the real Keys, as in they may have been born just a few hours apart. We’ll know if we just investigated their birthdays, but unfortunately…”

Gwendal narrows one eye and forces out the words, as though it was his face that was burned,

“Because mazoku don’t place any importance on birthdays, we don’t keep detailed records.”

“That’s right, and that’s a bad habit as well, y’know!”

No wonder Murata would sound so upset.

“That’s why we can’t predict exactly who the Keys are, and the only one with all the information is that calculating s.h.i.+nou. If you had the habit of recording births in detail, we could look at the day the previous owner of the Key died and choose a child that may have that person’s soul.”

“Hm? In that case, the moment the previous owner of the soul dies, the next person will use that soul again?”

“In theory if no one else tries to keep the soul somewhere, that’s how it goes. But if the Box doesn’t do anything, most of the people who were chosen to be Keys would live their whole lives without knowing their own importance. And then among the two remaining Keys…”

“Is the Bielefeld bloodline, right?”

Gwendal frowns,

“As I thought.”

“Eh? That means all three of you brothers are!?”

“Calm down a little, s.h.i.+buya. That just means that the bearer of the Key was born in their clan, it doesn’t mean that all three of them brothers are Keys. Only, unfortunately, Lord Weller… seems to be it.”

I think back to the time when Conrad’s arm ‘almost opened’ one of the Forbidden Boxes.

“But in one sense of the word, it’s lucky he’s aware that he’s a Key. And he would try his best to make sure he didn’t get too close to the Boxes, so he might even be able to control the power of the soushu when push comes to shove.”

“Just ‘might’?”

“Then I’ll switch it to he can control it properly. As long as he still keeps his senses at that time.”

“And he even has to keep his ‘senses’?”

But when faced with such an insane threat, I think no one would be able to keep their senses.

“You could say we were lucky that time in Caloria, because not only was the Key different from the Box, the Key itself wasn’t whole either, so it all ended in an instant, and the damage was kept at such a minimum.”

“That’s right, I mean, that can’t be right. Didn’t you say that if it’s the first Key, even if the effect doesn’t match, it will still affect all the Boxes?”

“I did say that.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just as I said, the triggering mechanism is very simple. Because it’s simple, it can open all of the door slightly. But even so, it can open slightly. Add that to the fact that it’s just the arm of the wielder, and that’s why it would burn out in an instant. No, it didn’t really burn out. But think about it, that was left arm. As a part of the body, isn’t that a considerably simple and easy part to use?”

Then who does the left arm Conrad is using so freely now belong to?

Asking ‘who’ seems strange, because after all someone else’s arm shouldn’t be able to become your own. Although I can’t understand the overly complicated things, but without the most advanced medical techniques to perform a transplant, that shouldn’t be possible, right?

In that case, could it be a prosthetic limb? Or a convenience store item that operates with convenient majutsu? But Conrad doesn’t know majutsu, the possibility that it’s a ma-powered device isn’t high.

Just like that I’m stumped, and I can’t ask him either. Because Murata’s next words weigh down heavily on our hearts.

“If it’s just the arm, you won’t have to worry about losing your life.”

“Don’t…”

I have no choice but to take a breath before continuing,

“Don’t tell me the other Keys are even more dangerous?”

“That’s right. Because they were designed to be even more closely tied to the soul and body. Maybe it’ll be easier to understand if I explained it according to the process.”

Even though he’s the one speaking, Murata might also be feeling the pain, because his gaze moves downwards,

“When we created the first Key, we also repented on it. That’s why the other three Keys had to be more closely tied to the soul and life. That’s also why, the relations.h.i.+p between the Box and the Key, as well as between the Key and the power became tighter, and in the end only one Key would react with one Box. Theoretically, at the same time the disaster is released, it can be controlled.”

“That was what the ancestor of your soul and s.h.i.+nou did.”

My friend raises his solemn face, staring at me steadily. His gaze on me is full of confusion, as though I said something weird.

“That’s right, isn’t it? Did I say something wrong?”

“…You didn’t say anything wrong. That’s right, it’s just as you said. It wasn’t me, but my soul… the person who owned my soul a long, long time ago who did it, ha~~”

The reason the end of Murata’s sentence sounds weird is because the net trapping us sways violently from side to side, and our bodies move in tandem. Being suspended in mid-air and swinging violently makes us so unstable we can’t help but scream.

“Waa-yea! Waaaaa!”

“Ahaha—It feels like we’ve become prizes in a claw machine!”

“Then what about the last Key?”

I didn’t think Gwendal would stay so calm, pus.h.i.+ng Murata to continue talking even under these circ.u.mstances.

“Who is the last Key?”

“The last Key? Oh—It’s Wincott! But you don’t have to worry about that now, because ‘Mirror’s Depth’ isn’t in this world!”

When Murata says that in a manner as though yelling, the bottom of the net that had been wrapping us tightly suddenly gives way, so the three of us end up flying through the sky. Although we brace for impact, either luckily or unluckily we land on a heap of fish, so our bodies don’t hurt, but we’re covered from head to toe in silver scales and sticky slime.

My friend closes one eye as he wipes away the scales sticking to his lenses with his hand,

“It was sent to Earth. The first owner of my soul betrayed His Majesty s.h.i.+nou.”

“Betrayed His Majesty s.h.i.+nou?”

I ask carefully. Because according to the prime minister-c.u.m-my royal instructor Lord von Christ Günter, did the ancestor of Murata’s soul, the Daikenja get along very well with His Majesty s.h.i.+nou?

If he betrayed His Majesty s.h.i.+nou, then aren’t things really bad?

“Their opinions differed, plus both of them were very childish, so it became a situation where neither would give to the other.”

“In that case, it’s not so bad. The problem is you said that great character who wouldn’t give in to G.o.d is very childish, now isn’t that going a little too far? They were the great people who established the mazoku country, after all.”

“There’s no such thing, the two of them aren’t as great as people think. I don’t know how the descendants exaggerated things, but I hope you’re not too scared.”

Murata finishes saying those words that would definitely make Günter faint, and then tosses his head vigorously, shaking loose a ton of fish scales and water droplets from his long-ish hair.

In any case, we’ve escaped the fis.h.i.+ng net. I glance at Gwendal, trying to figure out what he plans to do next, but he’s just sitting there motionlessly in the fish pile, pressing his index finger to his brow, which is even more creased than usual.

Even though he’s cracking his head over me, the rookie Maou, I figure he’s long since gotten used to that, so it should be the new Earthling he just met that brought him too much excitement. It’s no wonder, after all the brat that he’s facing now actually treats s.h.i.+nou, the one who’s treated as a religious symbol, like a friend. Since he’s naturally strict, he must really be at a loss now.

If I told him now that Murata is only sixteen years old, I wonder how he would react. Although Murata keeps talking about all these ancestor stories, his own life experience is only sixteen years long, like mine.

“Waa—But my whole body reeks of fish~~ I feel like cat food—”

“On the other hand, Murata, I wanna ask you a strange question.”

“What question?”

“Does s.h.i.+nou look a lot like Wolfram?”

“Does he look like Lord von Bielefeld? About that… How should I put this~~”

Murata’s expression is saying ‘what kind of a question are you asking so randomly’ as he takes off his gla.s.ses and considers. As for me, I just want to know what kind of an impression he gives off to people, so I can prepare myself in case we meet one day. But this is also because of your ‘don’t be too scared’ line just now.

“I think Lord von Bielefeld is a lot cuter than him—”

“Is that so?”

At least now there’s a lower chance of the danger that I would s.h.i.+rk away in fear when facing a pretty boy that’s too pretty.