Chapter 102 Speak

"Hand over the silvers, now, would ya? …Uh, ma'am." Crap. That probably didn't go out as intended. But it was right. If, as I had reasoned, we were here to trade heads and silver coins, well, now she needed to hold her end of the deal and pour some silvers on me. That wouldn't happen.

Now, the Warlord Orc finally had gotten his revenge on the evil humans, as he had told me. After it had done so, crushing many mountains and soldier enemies, on the 2D map, it also managed to shake off most of the soldiers of the platoon, and all the wooden figurines tumbled to the side, as if dead. After the warlord orc bounced everywhere around the battlefield, it destroyed everything and calmed the enemy army in less than a minute. Way less than that.

The ogre's dream had come true. I mean, it was too bad that just happened on the strategic board, though. Too bad the Warchief also was dead, huh. I'm sure the orc team should have liked to see it happen for real. And that's how entertaining such thoughts, I promised that one day, I'd definitely do it myself, crush the many soldiers to death under my power and make them all tumble down to the side, lifeless. That was a promise, but I didn't feel like doing it right now, so it would have to wait.

And she ignored it all— "I'm so… sorry? W-What do you mean, you're not a monster?" I was glad she could ignore my blunder with the orc head, but why would she ask the obvious? Like I'd tell her I was in fact a monster anyway. I decided to act as naturally as possible.

"This is my orc head, by the way," I said, imitating the business-like smile she gave me earlier.

"S-Sure… As I would expect from you: this head should belong to a general enemy."

"I know. So powerful, right?"

"Y-Yes."

After a long moment of silence—I stared at her with confidence and a smile, and the girl kept switching between meeting my eyes or looking downward—she spoke again.

"So… You, what should you mean by saying you're not, in actual fact, a mon—"

"Not a monster." I cut herself short.

"B-But, I believe you—"

"You got the wrong person." And I kept my business smile plastered on my face.

"N-No, but…"

"No buts, only butts, ma'am." Did I have to say that? Absolutely not, but man, I was nervous too, now. Should I be adding "the ladies', of course," like the general from earlier had said?

"You… are a monster."

"YES, GODDAMN IT, ONLY THE LADIES'!" I yelled from the top of my voice, slamming both hands on the board and frowning at the royal lady. "I mean, c'mon! No I'm not! Who says I am? You're… bizarre, ma'am." For once, she wasn't so afraid.

"B-But it is the reason why I brought you here, monster! What should I refer to you as? D-Do you have a name…?"

"Look, now," I sighed. "I don't know what you're talking about." I was pretty intent on denying it to the end, even when it was totally clear she knew about my identity. "But do you have proof?" I shrugged. She couldn't have proof, heh. It wasn't like she could measure and quantify my monster-ness in any way, right?

"I… could… but will it be necessary? I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to m-m-make it look like I'm... exposing you or anything, but…"

I shrugged again, saying if she couldn't prove it then why even accuse me of such a crime. Ironically, today, I was the one exclaiming the idea that being a monster was a crime in and of itself, and that one should be punished by death for it.

"M-Monster! I do have an Identification Crystal Stone." Narrowing her eyes, the lady said she could prove it, but then added that it really wasn't necessary for me to deny my condition that much. But I wouldn't have it.

"You…" I laughed. "Ha-ha-ha! You just made that name up, didn't you?" I was so confident she did make that Identification Crystal Stone thing up just so I'd confess it was funny. Flashing a grin at her, I inadvertently told her she wouldn't catch me red-handed. She would never. Ahem, well, she actually already did, but let's ignore that part.

This is a sponsored line break announcement. If you are not reading on nOv(el)bin(.net) then the content is stolen. Support the creator on nov(El)bin(.net) and check out their other works.

What followed surprised me so much my grin was wiped off my face at once. The royal lady did indeed possess some device she called an Identification Crystal Stone, and thanks to it, she could see my level, stats, race, job, and age. Thanks to that device, she could tell I was a monster. She could tell how mighty I was and stuff, and she mumbled it was weird my age displayed zero-year-old but it must have been an error.

I cursed under my breath. So she knew, huh. In my younger days, I only realized it then, but of course she knew. "Pardon me?" I said it was nothing, then decided to ask her a question or two about that Crystal Stone thingy. Less worried, she answered me, and I learned that such devices were normally located at, for example, the gates of a city.

Thanks to the device, you could control what people went in and out of town without much trouble. It did just that, after all—identify people. When I asked her whether she had another of these magic devices on her, she told me no. With the same business smile, I asked her to hand it over to me so I could see whether I really was a monster or not (I still tried to deny it).

When she did, I placed it in front of me, looked curiously down at it, frowned, smelled it, bit it, whacked it—the royal lady asked me the hell I was doing—and finally, after I placed it in front of me again on the wooden board, I gave it the strongest punch I could muster and broke the thing.

That was a curious device in that the way it displayed some really basic info could have been likened to the System's way of producing quests and stuff, but after a good beating, ain't no fella just walking from me, not even that Crystal Stone thing.

"Oh, well, ha-ha! So it was broken, after all, wasn't it, ma'am? It explains it all, ha-ha. As I said, you got the wrong person." Call me stubborn if you want, but to my youthful and inexperienced mind, if people knew I was a monster, it meant I was going to die since they would want to kill me.

When my punch hit the Identification Stone, the royal lady jumped in genuine fear and made silent apologies to me. What cowardly royalty now that I think about it. My elven princess wasn't so weak when she fought her elf guardian. Oh, but then again, Cetha knew I wouldn't hurt her, so…

"My apologies, truly."

"Now, what? …Ma'am."

"R-Regardless of whether you are…" she cleared her throat. "Regardless of your condition and given your circumstances, I-I-I would like to make you an o-offer…"

That was right. I realized it too late, but what was her reason for bringing a monster in, hm? I mean, at first it was obvious to me we should be trading loot for silver, but if that wasn't the case, then what was she up to? Something to do with recruiting some "powerful soldier" because her good life at the palace depended on it?

I had no idea about that. All I knew was that she brought a monster in: did she want to die? If that's what she desired, she was doing so well thus far. I just had to stand up and jump at her if that's what she wanted. But no.

As I said, I only realized it too late, but there must have been a reason for which the precious third princess of the Roerden Kingdom would risk her life and "talk it out" with a monster. Her story was basically the story of a royalty trying to live a good life at the palace, but I didn't know yet. In the details, of course, it was more complicated than that, but I trust the summary of her story was the gist of it.

I frowned. The lingering tension, that was so far kept hidden and neglected, was now as clear as daylight. From now on, I decided to stop messing around with her in hopes that she would stop, too. Come to think of it, she didn't even mess with me, however. She simply surprised me with her words, since I was ignorant she knew I was a unique monster, but hey, that wasn't her fault, was it?

I made up my mind, and maybe I could hear the girl out while I was at it. There was also, as usual, the fact that the System guided me here, to do this particular quest, and so I should probably follow my System's instructions. It never failed to surprise me in a good way, after all.

"Speak," I coldly ordered.