Chapter 171: One Year Later

A little over a year had passed since I gave Count Sandra my bath presentation, and El and I turned fifteen in June.

In another week, our final summer vacation at the academy would begin.

This had happened a year earlier, but we’d finally named the “hole” we put items into “Storage.”

El and I had been talking about putting things away when Marl and Ashera, who were listening beside us, begged us to give it a proper name.

“Put it in your hole,” and “I’ll put it in my hole,” were apparently more than they could bear.

Once they pointed it out, I realized how strange it sounded. On top of that, the “hole” was a secret technique. Anyone who didn’t know about it could hardly be blamed for thinking the brothers were gay.

Gay brothers… Nooo! That’s a double yakuman!

El and I grimaced and desperately thought up a name. We settled on “Storage” almost immediately.

As far as Ashera and Marl were concerned, anything was fine so long as it wasn’t “hole,” and they received the new name favorably enough.

As for our accomplishments over the past year, we cleared one labyrinth during summer vacation and another during winter vacation.

We now had two Miasma Stones. I thought we were going to die during both expeditions, but that’s a story for another time.

El put both Miasma Stones in his Storage.

Using Storage reduced your total mana, so I offered to take one, but El stubbornly refused to put either anywhere but his own.

Not exactly in exchange, but I kept the mithril knife we obtained in the Labyrinth of Claws and Fangs in my Storage.

We replaced our daggers and spare knives with mithril ones using our rewards from the Minotaur and Tigris, but the knife from the Labyrinth of Claws and Fangs alone had an entirely different level of compatibility with ultra-vibration.

Even mithril weapons sometimes broke under ultra-vibration. That knife, however, showed absolutely no sign of doing so.

El might also need it in an emergency if his one-handed sword broke, so I kept it stored as emergency equipment.

Incidentally, I once borrowed an adamantite weapon, but adamantite barely conducted mana at all.

It was fundamentally unsuited to someone like me who relied heavily on magic weapons, so I returned it right away.

If I’d bought it, several divine gold coins would have vanished…

That would be fine for a useful weapon, but spending divine gold coins on one I couldn’t even use… A chill ran down my back just thinking about it.

Over the past year, baths had been installed in Count Sandra’s residence and Chancellor Dunhill’s residence.

Work was currently underway on three more: one in the royal palace and two in noble households.

Count Sandra and Chancellor Dunhill bragged about theirs to their noble acquaintances and the king so relentlessly that inquiries had been pouring in from noble families everywhere.

Serie wore work clothes and bellowed orders at the sites like a butler who had changed careers to become a construction foreman.

Poor Serie. If you’re going to resent anyone, resent Count Sandra and Chancellor Dunhill.

We were charging an extremely aggressive price, yet people were apparently begging us to sell them one anyway.

It was a secret that I felt relieved our magic-tool business had gotten off to such a smooth start.

Rosa’s leg had completely healed, and she now devoted herself to making magic tools even more energetically than before.

Her daughter, Sara, still had no intention of following in her footsteps. Apparently, crafting magic tools reminded her too much of her father.

She was interested in cooking, though, so I sometimes let her help with the things I made.

Her special fondness for desserts might simply be because she wanted to eat them herself…

If she seriously wanted to pursue that path, perhaps I should speak to Grandpa.

The toilet we planned to market after the bath had actually had a prototype completed a year earlier.

Fundamentally, it only needed to produce water and hot water, so the water-heater technology proved extremely useful.

We couldn’t possibly decompose the waste, however, so it became a flush toilet.

That meant making major alterations to the mansion and laying drainpipes. Otherwise, someone would have to walk through the house carrying buckets full of sewage.

A room facing the back garden was hurriedly converted, and after one month of work, one bidet toilet was completed on each of the first and second floors.

That was last autumn.

From then on, every morning became a war. At daybreak, the fight for the toilets began, and no one would use any of the others no matter how many were vacant.

On Grandpa’s emergency orders, more toilets were installed. By year’s end, there were three on the first floor, three on the second, and four in the separate building used by the maids.

That finally ended the morning toilet wars.

It was a secret that Grandpa stood in front of one of them and sighed after everything was over.

There was an aftermath to that story as well. Information leaked through Olivia and Louis of House Sandra, and Gaius and Tifa of Chancellor Dunhill’s family.

Count Sandra and Chancellor Dunhill now bombarded Grandpa with demands for toilets almost daily.

We once tried asking Serie about installing them. The genuine killing intent he released put the idea on hold.

As for our equipment, we obtained materials from an Ogre King and a Demon while clearing the two labyrinths, but Borg told us they were inferior to Earth Dragon materials.

In the end, we merely replaced our weapons with mithril ones. Otherwise, little had changed.

I was satisfied with our current armor, so that was fine, but apparently getting stronger through brand-new equipment after every boss only happened in games.

Our techniques also seemed to have reached a certain degree of completion. We hadn’t developed anything new, so this must have been the time to polish the skills we already had.

I also started learning greatsword techniques from Liezas, Louis’s mother.

I felt bad saying it, but she was stronger than Joe, and above all, she was a better teacher.

Lately, Louis and I had been going to the Sandra residence after the academy for lessons.

And where there was Liezas and the Sandra residence, naturally there was Olivia.

The moment Liezas and I finished sparring, Olivia devotedly brought me a towel and fruit water. She fussed over me so much that I almost felt guilty.

According to Liezas, Olivia did it because she wanted to, so I should simply leave her to it…

Just as she’d declared a year earlier, Olivia had learned the cleaning, laundry, and cooking expected of a commoner’s wife, while spending her free time studying estate management and diplomacy.

Honestly, at that point it felt like the outer moat had been completely filled in…

If I refused her now, I’d definitely be the villain here! Nooo!

It was my fault for not rejecting her clearly at the beginning.

I’d already half resigned myself to it, but I intended to have one more serious talk with Ashera and make absolutely certain she was really all right with this.

That covered what had happened over the past year.

Louis and Nero improving at a remarkable pace, and Joe and Noel getting married soon, were mere trivialities.

Once Joe and Noel married, they apparently planned to withdraw to Blue Ring, where Noel’s family lived. She’d already got him under her thumb, so I intended to point and laugh at him next time.

At the same time, Godo and Zeal were apparently bringing their families to Blue Ring as well.

It seemed life after graduation would be fun.

Incidentally, Noel intended to remain a knight until she had a child.

A child of Joe and Noel… That kid would be a lot of fun to tease.

Looking back, both Joe and Noel had done a great deal for me. I needed to think of a wedding present!

It had taken a while, but insoles enchanted with Vernier should delight that muscle-brained couple.

Mithril wires that transmitted mana ran from the insoles to a small box worn at the waist like a pouch.

Place a magic stone inside, and you could use Vernier until the stone ran dry. It was an excellent piece of equipment.

Grandpa ordered that the device be managed under the strictest controls.

Naturally, its workings were a black box. He also said, “If the worst comes to pass, kill them to recover it. Never lend it to anyone you couldn’t do that to.”

That’s right—we were only lending these magic tools. Unless they were returned every three months for a special procedure, their magic circles would disappear.

I thought that was excessive, but Grandpa, Mother, Naga, Joe, and Noel all told me the same thing.

Joe and Noel were definite choices for the wedding gift. With the three-month restriction, however, lending them to Louis and Nero might be difficult…

At worst, I could let them use the insoles until graduation, and perhaps both would even come to Blue Ring.

I’d ask them once.

Incidentally, Mother and Naga took their insoles the moment they were completed.

I often saw the two of them practicing Vernier in the mansion garden those days.

Just the other day, Naga was practicing in a skirt. Granted, it was long, but she gave me a spectacular view… Pink. How youthful.

Ashera appeared from nowhere and immediately shot me with paralysis magic, then whispered in my ear, “No cheating. Ever!”

Where was Ashera even heading…? In Japan, she’d unquestionably be called a ninja.

The next morning—

I thought it would be an ordinary morning, but a visitor arrived despite the early hour.

He seemed to be the head of some noble family, and Grandpa received him.

The nobleman introduced himself as a “royal envoy.” I sensed something slightly ominous…

El and I would normally have left for the academy, but Grandpa ordered us to wait in the sitting room with Ashera.

About an hour later, only El and I were summoned to the study. Grandpa and Father were there, along with a man of around fifty who regarded us suspiciously.

“Aldo, Elphas. You will depart for the Sandra domain as the ‘Royal Shadows.’”

The moment Grandpa spoke, the royal envoy rounded on him.

“Lord Blue Ring! They’re children! You would send children into mortal danger? What are you thinking?”

Grandpa looked as if explaining would be troublesome, but the envoy was driven by righteous indignation and showed no sign of backing down.

“Very well, Lord Rude. I shall show you a small part of my grandson’s power as a Dragon Slayer.”

“A Dragon Slayer? A child like this? Impossible…”

“Aldo, show him Vernier.”

“Understood.”

As Grandpa ordered, I walked three steps through the air inside the study.

Lord Rude, a middle-aged man about Grandpa’s age, stared at me blankly with his mouth hanging open.

“Lord Rude, this must remain confidential. As Royal Shadows, they will depart at once to save the Sandra domain from its crisis.”

“U-under… stood…”

That was all Lord Rude could manage.

After the envoy left, Mother, El, Ashera, and I heard the full explanation.

It was simple.

Apparently, the Sandra domain had a monster territory like Blue Ring’s Demon Forest.

Monsters had overflowed from that territory and were attacking the Sandra domain.

Unlike the goblin incident, they did not seem to be specifically targeting Sandra. The damage was spreading outward in concentric circles.

Worse, one of the elven villages under the protection of the elven nation lay within the affected area, and it too had requested aid.

The kingdom and the elves were still officially hostile, but both sides had been searching for common ground.

Then this happened.

If the kingdom’s Sandra domain saved the elven village, restoring diplomatic relations would be easy.

But that required actually saving it.

Sandra lacked the strength, while even a rushed deployment of the kingdom’s army would take two weeks to organize.

And so they turned to us—the people who had repelled the goblin army, and the Dragon Slayers.

“That is everything. I want you to travel to the Sandra domain and eliminate the threat…”

“Father, forgive me, but what exactly is the threat?”

“Monsters…”

“What kind?”

“We don’t know…”

“Then how large is their force?”

“Sorry. We don’t know that either…”

“…I see.”

“If you show these, you should receive all the information and support you need as Royal Shadows.”

He displayed two excessively ornate daggers.

“What are those?”

“Proof that you are Royal Shadows… A proclamation about them did circulate roughly six months ago.”

“What did it say?”

“‘Those who bear these daggers are to be treated as equals of the royal family,’ if I recall correctly.”

“Equals of the royal family… That’s extraordinary treatment.”

“Yes. They certainly aren’t making light of you or Elphas. They probably want to make one of you Lord of Blue Ring and draw the other into the royal family…”

“I see…”

“The royal family’s intentions are irrelevant for now. I need you to depart for Sandra at once.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll immediately arrange a carriage with no Blue Ring crest.”

“Wait.”

“What is it?”

“Sandra is closer to Blue Ring than to the capital.”

“Ah, yes… That would shorten the journey by two days.”

“Yes. We should arrive in four days from Blue Ring.”

“Very well. This is urgent, so I’ll come to Blue Ring with you.”

“Understood. You three heard him. Gather your equipment and meet in the antechamber outside Ao’s Room. Aldo, prepare food for everyone. We’ll be taking your secret preserved provisions too.”

“How did you know about those…? Understood…”

How did the Ice Witch know…? Well, she meant the pickled plums, so I didn’t mind bringing them…

I packed preserved provisions and food in the kitchen, then hurried to the antechamber outside Ao’s Room.

I thought I’d be the last to arrive, but Grandpa wasn’t there. He had apparently flown to Blue Ring ahead of us to make preparations.

We opened the door to Ao’s Room immediately.

I sent mana into my ring and summoned Ao for the first time in a while.

“It’s been a while, Aldo. What is it?”

“It has, Ao. Please send everyone to Blue Ring.”

“Understood. Here we go.”

At Ao’s words, we felt a momentary floating sensation, and everyone was transported to the Ring Room in the Blue Ring domain.

Grandpa and Father were waiting at the entrance.

Grandpa traded places with us and flew to Ao’s Room in the capital.

“Joshua, how are the preparations?”

“Father told me everything. They’re underway now. We should be ready in another thirty minutes.”

“I see. What are you sending?”

“One carriage and four mounted horses, all without the Blue Ring crest.”

“And the people?”

“Beret, Tamei, and Gar. Tamei will drive the carriage.”

“Understood. Load as much food as possible on the carriage.”

“All right. Is that food in your baggage, Aldo?”

“Yes. It also contains preserved provisions we’re testing, so I’d appreciate it if those could be kept separate.”

“Understood. I’ll tell them.”

Father took the luggage from me and started up the stairs.

“What is this weight…? This isn’t an atmosphere where I can say I can’t carry it… Come on, me!”

Father muttered under his breath, but every word was perfectly audible.

Without saying anything, I quietly took the luggage and carried it to the top of the stairs.

From here, we would make for the Sandra domain at top speed. Count Sandra, Louis, Olivia, Liezas—all my acquaintances should be in the capital.

I didn’t know the scale of this monster disaster, but we needed to finish it quickly and get back to exploring labyrinths.