A Heroic Tale Starting From Zero Part 4

A Heroic Tale Starting From Zero Part 4

[???: ──Still, what a stupid thing you’ve done. But it does make our job easier!]

Subaru stopped his cheeks from twitching as the man spit dirty saliva and laughed.

They were in a dim cabin, and the windows were sealed so that they couldn’t see outside. Light only came from the Ragmart light crystal, and it was still only enough to faintly see their surroundings.

A gang he was now familiar with that acted as rough as they looked. That’s how Subaru assessed them.

[???: If you continued staying at the mansion, nothing would’ve happened because of that monstrous maid, but now you’ve sealed your fate by showing up. You got a bit carried away, don’t you think?]

The gang, who were “just like thugs” with a crude aura, altogether consisted only of 8 people, counting the ones that were in and out of the cabin. These people were at the top of the list of men who treated Subaru cruelly with vulgar looks on their faces.

[???: Oh? So cuuuuute. You’re shaking, aren’t youuuu. Go calm her down, Mr. Handsome.]

Next to Subaru, who was acting frustrated, there was a girl faced down shaking her head. Once the man saw that and spoke to him with a mocking voice, Subaru took her hand to protect her from the laughing men.

[Subaru: It’ll be alright, calm down. You don’t have to worry, it’ll all work itself out......]

[???: How brave. As if this is something that’ll work itself out. We were always careful to avoid being found by that maid. Well, as long as we have the woman, you aren’t needed. After we beat the hell out of you, we’ll let you go.]

Seeing Subaru cheer her up, the man cracks his knuckles loudly to show off. When Subaru took a breath, he realized that she held his hand back tightly.

It was a native dress that only covered her body minimally. She looked lonely with her exposed white shoulders, so Subaru hugged her gently to hide her from the men.

She holds her breath, and the men whistle. Then it happened immediately after.

[???: ──Are you serious about getting her back!?]

The door opens roughly along with that voice. The sunlight lights up the room in darkness, and once Subaru squinted reflexively, he saw a person’s shadow out of breath standing while being backlit.

When the shadow came into focus after several flashes of light, Subaru noticed that it was a young man. He was well dressed, and he caressed his hair randomly.

The boy looks around the room, notices Subaru and the others, and widens his eyes. And then,

[???: Oh, Liliana! I finally──wait, who’s that guy?]

[???: He’s someone from the mansion where she hid, and they were caught......Master?]

The eyes of the boy looking at Subaru sharpen, and his face suddenly flushes. Once he saw the thugs acting carefully to not hurt the young man’s mood, he figured that he was their boss──the mastermind.

Subaru makes that judgement, and the young man breathes near him heavily with his nose.

[???: You bastaaard! W─Who said you could touch her like that!?]

[Subaru: Oaah!?]

The enraged boy kicked Subaru into the wall with all his might.

Subaru’s head spins as he got hit with sudden violence, and the thugs around him take his place as they shout.

[???: M─Master, what are you doing!?]

[???: T─T─This guy was getting all intimate with my Liliana!]

The boy, shaking off the men who were holding him back, kneels before Liliana, who he forcefully pulled away from Subaru. He holds his hand out to Liliana, still facing down, and he says,

[???: Ahh, Liliana. We finally meet. It is your servant of love, Kiritaka. When I heard that you were brought to that infamous mansion of the “Demi-human lover”, heart-breaking fear overflowed like spring water. Ah, ah, Liliana......]

The boy named Kiritaka continues speaking to her, acting like he was getting drunk off his own words. Subaru could only frown since he knew his colleague had such a bad reputation that he couldn’t really say that it was a false accusation. While patting her shoulder, he looks back at the thugs and says,

[Kiritaka: Do you all not have any thoughts on working for ‘him’?]

[???: He’s a boss that’s generous with his money. He can have that thin bodied girl, while we take it easy for a while. ‘He’ would probably overlook us doing that for a bit.]

Based off the thugs’ grumbling, it seemed they also knew that ‘him’ meant the boss. Subaru finds out about how they are tight on money and anticipates that he was going to be wrong about all of the fuss around Liliana.

He’d thought that they were surely going for Liliana because of the “Song”, but it looked like she herself was the one Kiritaka, the mastermind, had the hots for.

Expressing love sure may be like paranoia, but the boy couldn’t see what else there was to it.

[Kiritaka: What’s wrong, Liliana!? Why won’t you look at me with your lovely eyes?]

Kiritaka, who had been appealing for love with nothing but passion, knits his brows in response to the girl that continued to keep silent.

[Kiritaka: Why won’t you speak......they must have done something awful when they took you!]

[???: Please let it go, Master! We did as you said. Not to be rude, but there’s no way anybody would think of doing something to a girl with a body this thin......]

[Beatrice: ──Annoying squirts won’t shut up, I suppose.]

When Kiritaka and the others started quarrelling, a girl’s low voice interrupts them.

Kiritaka, hearing that with his face lifted, has his facial expression dyed with surprise. He was the only one who noticed it at this time. ──That the voice of the girl in his face was different from the one he sought.

[Kiritaka: W─Who a─are you!? You’re not my Liliana!?]

[Beatrice: I don’t have the faintest memory of being named by you people.]

Subaru puts aside his retort inside of him that was ‘Didn’t they do that halfway through?’, and the girl stands up as her pigtails shook. But unlike Liliana’s hair, it was braided into quite elaborate drills.

[Beatrice: Inside and outside, a total of 9 people. ──An amount I can count on my fingers, I suppose.]

The next moment, inside and outside of the hut, there was the sound of men screaming roughly in a violently blowing storm.

11

Attacking the gang going after Liliana was a simple plan Subaru proposed.

[Subaru: A decoy plan where we try getting caught, since we couldn’t find out where they go after chasing them away, and get taken to the mastermind. Good thing they weren’t an energetic gang.]

[Beatrice: You made me go this far. Of course it was going to go well.]

Beatrice lets out a sigh. She was using the towel Subaru gave her to wipe off her hands and feet.

She wipes off the paint that changed her skin color, and her brown appearance was slowly returning to its usual light skin. Subaru folds his arms while looking at Beatrice, who was wiping her whole body diligently.

[Subaru: Still, the more you return to your usual appearance, the more I feel like something’s weird about that getup.]

[Beatrice: ......And whose proposal was it again to make me look like this?]

[Subaru: I mean, yeah it was my proposal, but......I didn’t think you’d look this pitiful.]

When Subaru shrugged his shoulders as if to lament Beatrice, blue veins showed on her forehead.

Beatrice’s current appearance was a disguise to trick the attackers──in other words, exposing dancer fashion that Liliana would usually wear. There wasn’t a significant difference between Liliana’s constitutional feminineness and Beatrice’s constitutional feminineness, so why did he feel more pity for Beatrice?

It was probably because he knew how she usually looked and that she was someone he was friends with.

[Beatrice: If Nii-cha didn’t ask me and if it wasn’t for that girl’s sake, then I wouldn’t have done this, I suppose.]

[Subaru: Well, by using that as an excuse and expecting it to go well, you surprise yourself with how bad your personality is. ......Still, all in all, you really are simple.]

[Beatrice: I feel like you just made a ridiculously irritating assessment of me.]

[Subaru: I complimented you. It’s the latest trend of signs of moe. Not sure if it’ll stick 10 years later, though.]

Subaru ignores Beatrice’s look as she scowled, and he views the disastrous scene in the cabin. On the floor all over the place, there were the beat up thugs that invoked Beatrice’s wrath. Subaru finds that Kiritaka, the mastermind, was now trapped under the large men, and so he put his hands together and prayed.

There was a condition for the decoy strategy, which was that Liliana couldn’t be exposed to danger. Making Rem be her guard, someone the men were being careful of, was a no. Putting Emilia under the bus would be outrageous, so Subaru and Beatrice had to be the perpetrators.

Therefore, Puck asked and convinced Beatrice, who was hesitant, and she was made out to be Liliana, getting taken away from the girls as they screeched, and the decoy strategy was put into action.

Although, Subaru, the one who directed the plan, didn’t expect it to go this well.

[Subaru: It’s scary how fitting you are with my own plans. But since we’ve met the mastermind, Ram’s efforts were in vain. Now there’s even more of a chance that Ram spews venom when she comes back. This is too depressing.]

[Beatrice: If you have time to complain, you should tie these guys up so they don’t get away, I suppose. The younger sister will be here before long, and we’ll have to take these guys back.]

[Subaru: That’s when they’ll have a scary discussion with Roswaal. He’s in this with us, though he had it coming.]

It was the conclusion of the expression of love that went too far. This basically meant that stalkers were scary no matter what age and no matter what world it was. Kiritaka, who foamed at the mouth and fainted, was the only one who knew what was so great about Liliana besides when she was singing.

[Subaru: Anyhow, that was a disappointing conclusion. If the white clothed guys knew that we captured the boss, they would have surrendered and abandoned ship. With this, I think the case is closed.]

Subaru still felt something was missing, but for the time being he just dropped his shoulders in relief. Then, what he picked up with his hand as he reached out was a Lutta given to them generously that was inside a case. It was an option they brought along after Beatrice disguised herself as Liliana.

[Subaru: It’s undamaged, right? Who knows what Liliana would demand if it broke.]

Subaru, with a simple posture, takes out the Lute carefully and plays it with his fingers. He confirms that it can make a light sound, and Beatrice was surprised when Subaru started to play a random tune.

[Beatrice: You can play...that instrument?]

[Subaru: The ropes of it aren’t really that different from an acoustic guitar. I borrowed it from Liliana every now and then in these past 3 days, and I can usually play it if it’s a 70’s folk song.]

When he moved his head to see where the voice came from, he saw a white clothed person sitting. Subaru confirms the bad taste of having pure white from top to bottom, and he was pretty much right about the situation.

He thought they’d caught their boss, but the white clothed people kept acting──so, they were unrelated.

[Subaru: Which means that the Liliana fan and the song are separate matters! This is too complicated!]

[Liliana: I’ve got it. Please listen. ──Liliana: The Name of a Guilty Flower.]

[Subaru: Shut up! This is not the time to be saying that!!]

Subaru roars upon hearing the voice of the girl wrapped in a bamboo mat just like he was.

He wasn’t in a place where he could see Liliana, but at the very least, it seemed she had enough composure to say her usual slightly stupid comments. While feeling relief inside thanks to that, Subaru looks at the white clothed man.

[Subaru: Anyways, would it be safe to say that we’ll be able to talk without you hitting me and kicking me?]

[???: ......Yeah, that’ll make it easier for us too. I should’ve said this earlier, but our top priority is to transport you peacefully.]

[Subaru: You really should have. You’re not very convincing.]

When Subaru made that reply, the man said “You got that right” with a soft chuckle. Then, the man takes off the hood of his white clothing, exposing his unshaven face to the air. It was a middle-aged man in his 40s.

[???: We are the mercenary “Scales of the White Dragon”.]

The man, face exposed as he named his organization, was looking to negotiate. While feeling the shaking of the cart platform, Subaru also felt like there was something off about his attitude, which was relatively rational considering how he roughly kidnapped him.

[Subaru: Hey, I think I’m going to feel sick. Can’t you sit me up before we talk?]

[???: If I do that, you’ll then want to lean against something, so it’ll be too much to deal with. I got carried away and tied you up too tight, practically like a pole, so it’d be a pain to make you stand too. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to lie down.]

[Subaru: I’m going to vomit once I hit my limit. All I have is mayonnaise inside of me. Feel the horror of my white vomit.]

He only ate the minimum amount of food this morning because of the decoy plan──he had only slurped mayonnaise he reproduced in the different world, so if he did throw up, that would be the only thing to come out of him.

Then, when the man gave up and threw his hands up upon hearing Subaru’s reply, a different voice came into the conversation.

[Liliana: Is this not a dragon carriage, but a brave ox Farrow carriage? Feels like you’re using a pretty outdated animal. It’s antique now.]

[???: I don’t care if you’re trying to shock me, being sarcastic, or trying to praise me with that, but nothing good will come out of doing any of that, so shut your mouth for a bit.]

Subaru tilts his head as much as he could, and at the corner of his eye he sees someone’s feet caught. It looked like Liliana was laying down facing the opposite direction of Subaru, and she was moving her tiptoes repeatedly.

[Subaru: I wouldn’t really put it as one disaster happening after another. Maybe more like experiencing two disasters and still not figuring out what’s going on.]

[Liliana: The success of the careless decoy strategy completely backfired! I wonder what Mr. Maid has to say about this as the one who proposed it.]

[Subaru: If I can just smack you for acting like you’re not a part of this, I won’t even care what happens anymore.]

Somehow Subaru was keeping calm thanks to Liliana managing to act the way she usually would.

They were actually completely in the palms of the white clothed people’s hands.

Just like Liliana said, they went to an insecure place after the decoy strategy’s success, and they were attacked. The situation had the two groups cooperate, even though they hadn’t even planned to do so, and the groups led them around by their noses.

[Subaru: Now’s about the time when the ones in the mansion should’ve probably noticed that we aren’t there......]

The fact that he had only a few people dedicated to pursuing meant that it was going to be difficult for them to get immediate help.

Even out of the little personnel he had, Ram was out of the mansion to investigate. There was no way Emilia and Roswaal would act directly, and whether Beatrice would help or not was unknown.

Which would mean that the only one who could surely do something was Rem.

[Liliana: And she has to guard the others too, so I’m guessing we can’t count on it?]

[Subaru: ......Yeah, that’s right.]

Those words hit Liliana where it hurt, as if she had predicted Subaru’s thoughts.

If he didn’t have much options with his forces and the situation, then how would he guarantee their safety──

[Subaru: We won’t rely on anyone else, and it’ll depend on our own negotiation.]

As ready to talk as to act, he carves the path to release them, one that wouldn’t incur the anger of the person they were dealing with.

Fortunately, the person had intentions of talking with them. Subaru had no choice but to come up with a solution they both would agree with, and struggle so that they could be released safely.

[Liliana: Do your best, Mr. Maid.]

[Subaru: There’s a higher chance it’ll work if you don’t say anything. I’m not going to repeat it again, so just keep that in mind.]

[???: Are you two just about done talking?]

The man who had been waiting for Subaru and Liliana to stop talking gets in Subaru’s eyes again, perhaps thinking that this would be a good time to do so. The man sinks down onto the cargo platform and sat cross legged.

[???: So I’ll introduce us again.......we are the mercenary “Scales of the White Dragon”.]

[Subaru: Sorry, but I just left my hometown so I don’t really know much about the rumors here. That woman probably doesn’t know about it either, seeing as she’s a bard that goes wherever life takes her, a rootless wanderer. Plus, she’s a bit dumb anyways.]

[Liliana: Hey, Mr. Maid!? Why’re ya callin’ people stupid?]

The conversation was going to stop moving forward, so Subaru ignores Liliana’s complaint. The man with an unshaved face also treats Liliana the same way, ignoring her voice as he felt his chin.

[???: Even if you aren’t familiar with it, I can’t do anything about that. Even in Lugnica only one area knows this name, and it’s already been almost 10 years. We can’t push ourselves as much as we did back then, too.]

[Subaru: Back then......did you guys reform or something? If you’re going to be naughty, you should consider how old you are.]

[???: We neither broke up nor retired. Though, there was a reduction in activity. This is because there’s a final job we have to settle. We won’t throw in the towel until it’s taken care of.]

The unshaven man says that with a low voice, determination in his eyes.

A strict aura, and a hint of a tragic man. Subaru guesses that he had some uncommon circumstances, and he sighed while lying down.

[Subaru: What is that last major task needed for you guys to throw in the towel?]

[???: Our mercenary group’s safekeeper took every single bit of what we owned and betrayed us. We’re going to get back what he stole. We won’t stop until then.]

[Subaru: ......? What does that have to do with Liliana?]

Liliana couldn’t possibly be the betrayer, considering their ages.

[???: You see, that damn backstabber built a mansion at our town. That’s where he went on a spending spree and lived the good life. ......We found his tracks. We were going to get our money back immediately and make him pay. But, that bastard!]

[Subaru: ────]

[???: The bastard noticed that we found out where he was, hid the money in a cave, of all places, and sealed it from the top with a “Metia”. The key to remove that seal is the “Song”.]

[Subaru: The song......! So that’s how it’s related.]

As Subaru heard the unshaved man’s angry voice, “Song” ran through his mind like thunder.

The old man that welcomed Liliana and taught her “the song that shouldn’t be sung” ──that person was the safekeeper that betrayed the “Scales of the White Dragon”. The song wasn’t hiding how the old man built a fortune. The song itself was the “key to the seal for the treasure the old man hid”.

The old man forced Liliana to take care of the key, who happened to pass by, and he drove her out of town to keep her away from the seal. The “Scales of the White Dragon” noticed that Liliana knew about the song, and so they tried to capture her. Kiritaka was just an idiot. Just noise that complicated the situation.

[Liliana: So the one who betrayed you was Warwar’s rich man. Do you want revenge?]

[???: It’s too late to bear a grudge against that guy who betrayed us, so we don’t care about that. What we want back is the treasure...all we want is a significant amount of money. We have to get it back.]

The man facing down had a serious look as he lowered the tone of his voice.

For some reason, they needed a large amount of money. They also didn’t have time to waste.

[Subaru: Do you know where the cave with the money is?]

[???: I do. So all we need is the song to remove the seal. In other words......]

[Subaru: You’d be extremely happy to have Liliana remove that seal with the song.]

The problem was solved, and Subaru and her were released safely.

Subaru looked very cheerful since he found a common ground and a way for them to be released safely. He calls out to Liliana, who shook her tiptoes, to get her approval.

[Subaru: Hey, Liliana. You were listening, right? As long as you sing that “Song That Shouldn’t Be Sung No Matter What” in the cave, the problem is settled. So......]

[Liliana: ──Fuse]

[Subaru/???: What?]

The foolish voices of Subaru and the unshaved man overlap.

It was because Liliana’s answer was so unexpected that it made them speak in unison unintentionally.

Liliana stretches her tiptoes firmly. It was almost looked like she was saying that she wouldn’t change her mind──.

[Liliana: I don’t sing to open the seal to caves, nothing like that.]

[────]

[Liliana: Songs are...songs aren’t replacements for stuff that will eventually disappear, like treasure and gold. I refuse! Songs, stories......bards, don’t you dare look down on them!]