Volume 3 - CH 13

Act 3-13: Northern Capital 1

In the region closest to Nargol lay Velos Kingdom, a country with the biggest human population in this world. Velos Kingdom was located right at the center of the River of Estuary, which flowed out of the blue forest that spread across the southern part of the Akeron Mountain Range. The Kingdom’s population was around forty thousand people, and since it was a dangerous area with monsters roaming in broad daylight, there wasn’t an outer city.

Though there were so many poor countries in the region, Velos kingdom was different from the rest, which all resulted from their fruit supply.

Velos Kingdom was the biggest supplier of a sweet and crisp fruit, one similar to an apple, which could only be found in this region. The fruit’s flavor was very popular in the region as it was used for seasoning and liquor production. Thus many other countries, even the Holy Republic of Lenaria which was located in the far south of the continent, had a huge demand for it and imported large quantities of that fruit from Velos Kingdom.

After bringing the Hippogriff to this Kingdom’s stables, Shirone and the others went to the Royal Palace.

「If it isn’t Shirone-sama! Welcome to Velos Kingdom.」

A plump, middle aged man in his fifties welcomed Shirone and her companions. His name was Eclas and he was the king of this Kingdom. This was his second time meeting Shirone yet, just as before, he was courteous and a gentleman to Shirone and her companions. He spoke to them in a respectful manner without any displeasure even though they were younger than his children.

As for his appearance, he did hold a resemblance to Echigos, but Shirone felt that only their appearance and names were similar, their personalities on the other hand were the exact opposite of each other.

「Shirone-sama. Is this personage, by chance, Hero-sama’s little sister?」

Eclas asked while looking at Kyouka who sat proudly beside Shirone. If one were to go by custom, they should’ve stood up too when greeting the king since he had done so. However their position granted them privileges that no other human could imagine

「Indeed, this is the Hero Reiji-sama’s little sister, Milady Kyouka. Milady is going to stay for a while in this kingdom. Please make preparations for it.」

Kaya introduced Kyouka with a haughty voice. It was the attitude of someone who held a higher status. It was common sense in this world that the one chosen by God had a higher status than even the king. However, Shirone, who was already a small-time civilian in Japan, couldn’t bring herself to get used to her newly gained status and still bowed in respect to the king.

「Hahaha. That’s only natural. Please stay as long as you want in this kingdom.」

Eclas smiled kindly as he replied, there wasn’t a trace of anger towards Kaya who spoke to him with haughtiness. His attitude was a great contrast when compared to their meeting with Echigos, who was clearly eyeing them from the start

Shirone’s first impression when she met him months ago was that he was a nice man, yet she couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief after seeing that his attitude hadn’t changed. She was relieved that this was his true character.

Shirone and her two companions had chosen Velos Kingdom as their base for gathering information about Kuroki. And though when it came to distance, Algore Kingdom was closer to Nargol, it was still an unsuitable place to stay in since Reiji had caused an incident the last time they visited that kingdom. Thus, they decided to use the wealthier Velos Kingdom as their base.

「Come to think of it, Milady, we’re holding a ball the day after tomorrow, would you care to participate in it?」

「「「A BALL?!!」」」

Shirone and co looked at each other upon hearing Eclas’ remark. Whether it was their home world or this world, elites always liked to gather in luxurious parties. This was especially prevalent in this monster infested world as these balls were also a necessity—humans needed to unite in order to survive.

This cooperation between humans didn’t just apply to the inside of the rampart in each country, it went beyond the rampart, between nations, where it was necessary. That’s why this kind of gathering where nobles and royals gathered was an important event for them. Calling this kind of event as a conference for communication between nations was more correct.

These gatherings could take various forms such as simple meetings, tea parties, or balls like the one they were about to attend. Shirone had participated in several balls and dinner parties during her journey with her comrades. She knew from experience that there were types of balls that weren’t like ones you would read about in fairytales or cinderella stories. These specific political gatherings disguised as balls were more like the dance parties one saw in american movies back on earth, they were also quite similar to Japan’s Bon dance festival.

「What do you think, Kyouka-san, Kaya-san? I think there’ll be so many guys willing to become our dance partners.」

Shirone decided to ask Kyouka and Kaya.

Though there were many types of balls, the type that was the most popular was still the one which required a man and a woman to form a pair to dance. It was most likely the type of ball Velos Kingdom would use, which deeply troubled Shirone.

Truthfully speaking, she was required to attend the ball.

Though Eclas also couldn’t force them to participate, they couldn’t just flatly refuse his invitation for them to attend the party either, they were already indebted to him for allowing them to stay in Velos after all. Yet, although Shirone felt bad for Eclas, she had zero interest in attending the ball because attending a ball without a partner indicated that they were looking for a marriage partner.

Shirone and her female comrades, who had come to this world with Reiji, had received several marriage proposals from the men before. Some of them came from princes and others came from nobles. If they were normal citizens, receiving such marriage proposals would’ve been such an honor; however, Shirone didn’t feel an ounce of happiness from these proposals—all those men were far weaker than her.

With her superhuman strength, she only needed to put a little bit of her strength into her grip to break a normal man’s bone. That’s why she had to be very careful in controlling her power if her dance partner was a normal human of this world. She had zero interest in receiving a marriage proposal from a man who couldn’t even dance properly with her.

In the first place, with her strength alone, she could easily topple any monarchy and usurp any kingdom without having to marry into royalty. A prince’s status wasn’t that interesting to her.

It was really troublesome when many people suddenly proposed to her and her comrades. It was for this reason that Rino had stopped coming out altogether. Nao had no interest in these things from the very beginning and Sahoko couldn’t handle crowds (unless in work mode), so they also never attended these balls. Naturally, the same thing applied to Shirone, she didn’t wish to attend this ball.

The only people who attended these balls were Reiji and Chiyuki. Since it was bad if none of them made an appearance, the responsibility had fallen on them. They would attend these gatherings in their comrades’ place.

Shirone then looked at Kyouka. She was also frowning, seemingly having zero interest in attending the party.

Kyouka was an extremely beautiful girl, as long as she stood silently. Shirone had known for a long time that she was popular among men, even back on Earth. In fact, the number of people who tried to woo her far surpassed Shirone’s. As a result, she ended up being fed up with all those attempts of courting her. That’s why Shirone had already expected that Kyouka would refuse the offer to attend the ball, and Kaya who always put Kyouka as her top priority would support her master’s decision too.

「Understood. We’ll attend this ball. You also agree with this, right Milady?」

And yet, Kaya’s remark betrayed Shirone’s expectation.

「Kaya! Why are you replying as you please?!!」

Thus, now it was Kyouka’s turn to get flustered.

「Oh my, Milady, aren’t you actually rather interested in this?」

Kaya spoke with a tinge of sadism in her tone. Shirone smiled wryly upon hearing her. Kaya had spoken with the same tone back in the ogre’s mansion. It was true that the one who said she was interested in the ball was Kyouka.

「T-That’s…」

「Well, at least dance with a man. You have to learn at least that much before we return to our home world. This is a good opportunity.」

Kyouka was completely at a loss for words upon hearing Kaya’s remark. She was always a prideful girl, but she was never able to oppose Kaya. The nature of their master-servant relationship was something that Shirone could never understand.

（I feel bad for doing this to Kyouka-san, but she’s in the most suitable position for this kind of occassion as Reiji-kun’s little sister…）

And then, Shirone recalled Kyouka’s dress.

「Haa… I understand, Kaya…」

Kyouka agreed with reluctance.

「Hahaha, the ball will become more lively with your participation.」

Eclas laughed merrily at their response. It was in this manner that Shirone and her comrades participated in tomorrow’s ball.

◆

After a long horseback journey, Omiros and Parsish had finally arrived at Velos Kingdom. They had left Algore early in the morning but had only arrived at Velos in the evening.

Velos was a big kingdom, it did not just consist of an urban area, but even enclosed a part of the forest inside the rampart. The trees of the forest were the ones that produced Velos’ best commodity, an extremely sweet fruit called the Velos’ fruit.

Omiros looked up at the rampart. He could see that every part of it was adorned with ornaments. Maybe because Algore was originally a fortress made to fight monsters, it had a bulky and boorish design. Velos’ rampart was completely different from Algore’s one. In fact, its design clearly showed their wealth, which abided by their reputation as the wealthiest kingdom in the region.

Velos had already developed into a central hub for industry and trade in this region. Its population was also more than double that of Algore, and it was at least ten times wealthier than Algore. It was this Velos Kingdom’s royal family that had gathered the royals and nobles of their surrounding countries in this ball.

Naturally, Omiros was one of those invitees.

The ball would be held the day after tomorrow but they had a reason to come earlier. Omiros and Parsish were both really bad at dancing. It made sense since dance wasn’t a necessary skill to survive in this world.

Though Omiros received proper warrior training, he never got the chance to receive dance training. The one who would learn such a troublesome skill was the prince, and he wasn’t a prince back then. In this regard, Omiros really wanted to file a complaint against his father, Montes. It was his father who should have been here to attend this event, but he had pushed that responsibility to Omiros since he hated dancing.

（Algore’s future depends on this ball. This is an important mission…）

Omiros heaved a sigh.

Because of the previous king, Quips’, stupid deeds, Algore ended up getting isolated by the surrounding countries. To cancel that isolation, they had to fix their relationship with Velos Kingdom, the biggest country in the entire region. And since the royalties and nobilities of the other countries gathered in this ball, there was no better stage than this.

If things went properly, he could give a nice impression to the other nations. That’s why, even if he hated the idea of attending the ball, he couldn’t avoid it.

「Don’t worry, we’ll enjoy the ball, prince Omiros.」

Parsish, who stood by Omiros’ side, said with excitement. Unlike Omiros, Parsish seemed to be looking forward to the ball. Omiros wondered why he wasn’t as nervous as him since he couldn’t dance as well. In these balls, being unable to dance means that you were useless.

That’s why Omiros intended to ask king Eclas to introduce them to someone who could teach them how to dance. No one in Algore knew how to dance, so they had to master this skill as fast as possible here in Velos.

It was already evening, but it should still be possible to request an audience with the king. Thus, Omiros headed towards the Royal Palace with that kind of thought. After arriving, he let the gatekeeper know that Algore’s prince had come. Yet, once again, he couldn’t help but feel some slight resistance in him at being called a prince.

The palace guard of the Royal Palace then came to guide him.

「Ooh, welcome Prince Omiros and Parsish-kun.」

King Eclas welcomed them the moment they entered the audience chamber. He was none other than the prince whose fiance was stolen by Algore’s previous king, Qupis. It was for that very reason that Velos and Algore could never get along during Qupis’ reign. Omiros wanted to seize the chance of Qupis being dethroned to improve Velos’ relationship with Algore.

「Thank you very much for inviting us to this ball.」

「Don’t mind it, it’s the natural thing to do. I also want to take this chance to get along with Algore.」

Eclas spoke merrily to them.

From the very beginning, Eclas had already forgiven the fact that his fiance eloped with Qupis, but the same couldn’t be said to the surrounding countries; they were so enraged that they had cut all diplomatic relations with Algore.

That’s why Omiros wanted to use this chance to fix the broken relationship.

「Nevertheless, I’ve never expected for you to arrive this early. The ball is still the day after tomorrow.」

「The truth is, we have a request for you related to the ball.」

「And what is it?」

「The truth is, both Parsish and I can’t dance. That’s why, will you introduce us to someone who can teach us how to dance?」

King Eclas was laughing merrily upon hearing Omiros’ honest answer.

「Wahaha, you’re really honest. I like it. Okay then, I’ll introduce a dance teacher to both of you.」

「May we ask for a beautiful teacher?」

Parsish spoke shamelessly.

「Parsish!!」

Omiros was flustered. He didn’t wish to incur king Eclas’ wrath.

「Don’t worry about it, we’ve got a lot of them here. Let me introduce a transcendent beauty to you two.」

Contrary to his expectation, Eclas still replied with a smile one his face. Omiros felt relieved upon seeing that.

「Beauties huh. I’m looking forward to meeting them.」

Parsish laughed merrily.

Omiros could only heave a sigh upon seeing Parsish’s antics. He could only pray that nothing bad would happen this time.