CH 58

Beautiful black hair and black eyes seemed to be sucking me in as they stared at me.

The girl with her hair in twin tails was beautiful like a Japanese doll.

“Wait! What are you going to do with me!? Let go! Let-go-let go-let-go-let-go~~~~~!” she squealed.

“…………”

Yeah… it was just her looks, huh? She looks very neat and innocent, but when once she opens her mouth, I feel disappointed. As I have her in a princess carry, she flops around and goes out of control, so I decided to put it down for the time being.

“Uuu~~! Who are you!? What are you going to do with me!?” she snapped.

I don’t know what else to do, but… I just knew she was being attacked by a beast and wanted to help her, but that wasn’t necessary either. In this case, I wonder if it would be better to introduce myself first and talk calmly.

“Umm, I’m not a suspicious person. I’m…” I started.

Ah…! Would Floto be better in this case? Or Flora? Since this is House Caan’s territory, Floto would be better? But now I’m not dressed like a knight. I had sneaked out of the office and was still wearing a relatively rough dress. Flora is better then?

“‘I am’ what?” the girl snapped. “You can’t even give your name? I knew it, you’re trouble after all!”

What should I do? It’s the territory of House Caan, so I wonder if it’s better to call myself a lord… there are many cases where it’s better not to call myself Flora after being knighted… but if I suddenly say that I’m the lord of this place, I wonder if she’ll be surprised?

Hmmm…, hmmm… Enough. Floto. I will go with Floto.

“I am Floto von Caan. What about you?” I said.

“Floto von Caan? What a strange name,” she said.

I’m sorry, it is a strange name… I wasn’t the one who thought of that… I don’t know how to explain it even if you asked.

“Well, that’s fine,” she said. “I’m Sumeragi Mikoto.”

“Sumeragi Mikoto?” I asked, the Kanji coming up in my head. 1

What? Japanese people? I don’t know what to do…. wait? She looks like she has black hair and black eyes, but there’s no way a Japanese person could be in a place like this.

As I stared at her in surprise, Mikoto’s annoyed face started to get angry.

“What are you staring at!? This is why humans are…” Mikoto said.

“What about humans? That way you say it, it sounds like you’re not human, Mikoto?” I said.

“Huh? What are you talking about? I’m not a human… Ah! I see… You don’t know. I see, I see,” Mikoto said, muttering to herself as if she understood it all now.

She’s a child who has a lot of self-conceit and can’t hold a conversation…

“Umm?” I said.

“Aah, it’s fine,” Mikoto said. “Don’t worry about it. I see. Floto von Caan, huh? What should I call you, then? Floto? Or Caan?”

I was taken aback by the sudden change of attitude with this girl, but I thought I could finally have a conversation with her, so I decided to start by becoming friends.

“Floto is fine. I can call you Mikoto, right?” I said.

“Yes,” Mikoto said. “My name is Mikoto. And I can call you Floto, right?”

“My name is Floto,” I said.

The order of surnames and first names is similar to Japan. I can understand the language, but it’s hard to listen to as if there is some kind of accent. It feels like it’s a slightly different language, although it’s understandable for the time being.

Is there something like that in Europe? There must have been a lot of languages that were like relatives, such as languages that were divided based on Old XX, so there are words that can be understood to some extent but not completely. 2

By the way, Japanese dialects intentionally changed words to differentiate themselves. If you speak in dialect, people who don’t understand the language, that is, spies won’t understand the meaning even if they eavesdrop, so the risk of information being stolen is reduced. 3 Also, if there are people who do not use the dialect or do not understand it, it means that they are from somewhere else, and it becomes easier to find spies. That’s why they sometimes intentionally created a dialect that only the locals can understand. 4

That’s why there are so many strong dialects in areas where powerful local feudal lords, “daimyo”, lived. Local feudal lords who keep a distance from the central government and the shogunate should not be robbed of information by the shogunate’s spies, or if neighboring feudal lords are at odds with each other, they should notice the spies from their opponents and not be robbed of information. So, they use different dialects.

I don’t know if the European language has evolved into different dialects because of that, or if it’s simply that over the years, differences have emerged in the languages of regions with little interaction with one another. All I can say is that I understand Mikoto’s words, but I feel like I’m hearing a dialect that is very difficult to understand in this country.

“Say, Floto…” Mikoto said. “What were you doing in a place like this?”

Isn’t that my line…? Why a girl like Mikoto was alone in a place like this is more of a mystery.

“I could ask you the same, Mikoto… why were you alone in such a deep forest? How did you get here?”

“Huh…!?!” Mikoto gasped. “That’s… umm…”

She was confused by my counter-questioning. She used magic to defeat a wild boar-like beast a while ago, so I know that she can use spells more advanced than that. The question is where did she come from and what was she trying to do? Since this place is my territory, wouldn’t you need my permission to hunt?

“W-What about you too, huh, Floto?!” Mikoto snapped. “What’s a girl like you doing in a place here all alone?”

Oh? Trying to turn it on me this time? Listen to my answer and then add her answer. Something bad is going to happen…

“I’m patrolling my territory, you should know?” I said.

“Huh? Patrol? A girl alone? Deep in the forest like this?” Mikoto said.

Hahn…! Mikoto snorted with a snobbish snicker. Her facial expressions change all the time and something about this girl is interesting.

“You’d also be a girl alone deep in the woods, too, right, Mikoto?” I said.

“I’ll be fine. Just look at that. I did that,” Mikoto said, pointing.

I follow and unsurprisingly, there is the beast laying dead. It’s not like I doubted Mikoto’s power, either. Does she have the strength to come this far?

But Mikoto doesn’t look so travel-weary. I used buff magic until I got here, so it took me quite a short time, but if I walked normally from town, it would take a considerable amount of time even from the nearest Carruzan or Caanburg. It would be difficult to come all the way here without getting dirty.

“Where did you come from, Mikoto?” I asked. “You look rather clean for someone who just trudged through a forest, don’t you?”

“Ugh! I told you that’s… hey! You don’t look too dirty yourself, Floto!” Mikoto snapped.

“Because I’ve been running like this,” I said.

I casually cast a buff on myself and demonstrated its power by flying and running. If you can run this far, you will understand that it doesn’t take much to get here from the town.

“Im-Impossible…!” Mikoto cried. “How can a human cast such enhancement magic!?”

Mikoto looks surprised but apparently knows something about buff magic as well.

“So why did you come here, Mikoto?” I said.

I finished my performance and landed in front of Mikoto, Mikoto seemed to have regained her composure and returned to a bullish face like before as she backed off a bit.

“Fu-Fuhn…!” Mikoto huffed. “Don’t feel good just because you can do that! I came flying like that, too!”

“Oh…?!” I said.

After that, Mikoto floated slightly off the ground. For a moment, she…

“… Huh? That’s all?” I asked.

“Hey! That’s can’t be it! Look at me! Ei…!” Mikoto cried.

Mikoto continued to slide over the ground as if floating. It’s likely that she’s using short-duration floating magic only before and after jumping and landing. It’s like jumping or running like the bouncing shoes worn by the doctor who claims to have invented the floppy disk.

Despite her appearance, the distance and speed she jumps is quite good, and she doesn’t look tired. It might be an unexpectedly quick and easy way to get around.

“We-Well?” Mikoto panted. “Haa haa… with this…, zeeh-zeeh… you understand it, don’t you?”

No… scratch that… somehow, this girl is really tired… isn’t it better to run normally?

“I don’t mind how you got here, but… I’d like to know where you came from and why you came here?” I asked.

Yes. What I want to know is not how she got here. What was she doing and where did she come from? That’s what I want to hear.

“That’s… wait… get out of the castle for a change…” Mikoto mumbled.

“Hmm? Get out for a change?” I asked.

I can’t really hear her because she’s muttering, but she said she just came out for a change, didn’t she? Could this girl have escaped from somewhere without permission?

“Tha-That’s why I’m fine being out here!” Mikoto cried. “What about you, Floto!?”

Oh…, this girl is trying to push me out with a reversal play…

“I told you, I’m patrolling my territory,” I said.

“… Your territory?” Mikoto asked. “This place is…? Yours, Floto…?”

“That’s right, so what?” I said.

It shouldn’t be a mistake. It’s not clear how far east I can go, but I was told that the west will be ceded to my territory up to the northwest mountain. I can’t go southwest, but the northwest is my territory up to the border of Ploiss.

“Hmm… I see… Is that so…?” Mikoto mumbles, looking down with a scary face.

This girl has been like this since the beginning, but her expression is scarier than ever. Did I say something wrong?

“Mikoto?” I asked.

“Floto von Caan! We’ll meet again soon! Until then, wash your neck 5 and wait for me!” Mikoto said.

“Huh? Oh…!” I cried.

With that, Mikoto hopped away again. But it’s on a different level than the joke-like hopping just now. She left insanely fast. Was she serious then? I wonder if the bouncing she showed me earlier was a joke.

I wonder what that was… she was doing something I was very curious about, but… I can’t stay in a place like this forever, so I have to go home. After looking back one last time in the northwest direction where Mikoto left, I returned to Manor Caan.

The next day I woke up and couldn’t move. My whole body hurts like hell. That was it. It’s like having a bad case of muscle soreness.

The cause may come to mind. It’s probably because of the buff magic. Buff magic is certainly magic that strengthens the body and draws out more power than usual, but the body itself does not become stronger. In other words, it’s like forcibly drawing out more than normal power with magic. 6

Naturally, the reaction will hit the body, and it’s hard for me to move from laying down is probably the result of that reaction.

Muscle soreness is caused by muscle tearing. Excessive load on the muscles breaks the overworked muscle fibers. You don’t feel it if it’s just a little tear, it’s only a pain that doesn’t bother you, but if you do a lot of muscle training and tear a lot of muscle fibers, even if each one is a small pain, it will become a big pain as a whole.

And when the torn muscles recover and weave back together, super recovery occurs. For a while, it’s thicker and stronger than it was before it was torn. Since it will return to its original state over time, the super-recovery itself is only short-term.

However, what you call “muscle training is to repeat the super-recovery by applying more load to the muscle, tearing it, and super-recovering it again. Then, by repeating the super recovery and increasing the muscles, it becomes a buff, macho body.

Right now, I used too much buff magic yesterday, so my muscles were overworked and torn. That’s why it’s in the same state as muscle pain.

I finally realized the danger of buff magic. No matter how much you strengthen your body with magic, if your body can’t keep up with it, you’ll end up falling asleep like this. It’s still good if it’s just a muscle pain level. However, overuse of buff magic may lead to muscle ruptures, tendon ruptures, blood vessel ruptures, and in the worst case, even broken bones. I realized that it’s not good magic to easily fire off in rapid succession.

That’s probably why knights use boosts so little. You can only use a little when it’s needed. Otherwise, if you continue to fire off, your body will collapse. Even adult knights who train normally are like that, so it’s not hard to imagine that if I, who has the body of a girl, push myself too hard, there will be a serious backlash.

Today I’m still a little sore and it’s hard to walk without my muscle strength. But what if you use it more often? What if I cast a stronger spell?

Even if you can instantly show the power of a superman or an ultra man, the price will always come back to you. If you want to live with full mobility and satisfaction in the future, don’t overuse it. Don’t exceed your limits. You have to keep that in mind.

Wouldn’t it be nice just to know that…? No one is immune to failure. I used too much buff magic yesterday and failed. And I realized the danger before it became irreversible. That’s fine. I’m glad this happened before I lost a hand or a leg.

I can’t move much today, or rather I don’t want to move, so I’ll just do some office work at Manor Carruthers. I am in no condition to go to Manor Caan. I can walk, but I have no strength, it hurts, and it’s hard.

It took me a long time to get to the office as I was shuffling slowly. Isabella and Helmut were worried about me, but since I couldn’t tell them what happened, I managed to deceive them and went to the Manor Carruthers to do some clerical work and rest early.