Interlude 18
◇◇◇
「Thank you.」
Ryūgūin Ouji returns the novel he had borrowed from the otaku boy he had allowed into his group.
The otaku boy, Saitō Eisuke, has quickly become more refined since befriending Ryūgūin and his circle. He’s suddenly gained popularity among the female students with a penchant for shota boys.
「You actually read it! And so quickly too! I only lent it to you yesterday!」
Saitō Eisuke’s eyes sparkle as he realizes his idol Ryūgūin has shared in his hobby. He starts speaking rapidly. When Ryūgūin had asked 「Could you lend it to me?」, Saitō had done so, but deep down he thought it was just Ryūgūin being polite. He never dreamed Ryūgūin would actually read it.
「Don’t you just admire the main character, Kirihito?
I’m really into isekai stories right now, you know, where people get transported or summoned to another world. You can’t help but project yourself onto those protagonists!」
The Saitō Eisuke passionately speaking before Ryūgūin is what you’d call an otaku.
He’s also a gamer who regularly places in the upper ranks of well-known gaming tournaments, despite being a student. He’s a whiz with computers too, making his own Vocaloid songs and doing other things Ryūgūin doesn’t quite understand, like something about programming languages. In short, he’s a boy who excels in fields completely unknown to Ryūgūin.
「Ah yes, it was quite interesting. Being summoned to another world, gaining overwhelmingly powerful abilities, and dominating. It’s fiction, but it would feel good to actually be in that position, wouldn’t it?」
Ryūgūin smiles without showing any sign of disgust, expressing sympathy with Saitō Eisuke.
「Ryūgūin… Status Open!! Just kidding.」
Unable to contain his excitement, Saitō Eisuke starts imitating a character from the story.
「Oh, come on…」
Ryūgūin shows an exasperated face, but then:
「What are you doing… Status Open!!」
He plays along, and the two laugh together.
It might look like a heartwarming scene between two students.
But the reality is entirely different.
For Ryūgūin, nothing is more important than his own benefit. His actions are based on the cold calculation that knowledge in this field might become a communication tool with otaku-type people he might meet in the future.
In other words, for Ryūgūin, all of these interactions with Saitō Eisuke, including this kind of exchange, and all the effort and time spent acquiring knowledge in this area, are nothing more and nothing less than a ruthlessly calculated advance investment.
There is no room for friendship to intervene.
◇◇◇
Ryūgūin wakes up.
He had been dreaming.
A dream of the past.
He looks around with bleary eyes.
He’s in a lodging house catering to royalty and nobility.
While it’s called a lodging house, everything from the building’s construction to the service, food, bedding – everything is top-notch.
Ryūgūin, intending to demonstrate his own competence, had looked for flaws, thinking that services considered excellent in this world wouldn’t be much. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find anything to complain about.
「Tch!」
Feeling dissatisfied with this, he grimaces and clicks his tongue. Checking the time in his irritated state, he realizes he’s significantly overshot the meeting time.
But he quickly rationalizes:
「Well, it doesn’t matter. They’ll probably feel happy just waiting for me, so it’s what they want.」
With that thought, he completely abandons the option of hurrying.
As he gets up, there’s a rustling behind him – on the bed. It’s coming from the two women he spent the night with.
They are the number one and number two courtesans from a recently opened high-class brothel in the area. Ryūgūin had forcibly brought them back using a huge amount of money and flaunting a kind of authority by saying 「I’m the Hero.」
「Wake up.」
His voice is devoid of warmth.
There’s not a shred of intimacy between a man and women who’ve shared their bodies.
His voice wakes the top courtesan, but the other is still half-asleep.
「Hey, you wake her up.」
Sensing danger in his expression, the awake woman quickly tries to rouse her colleague.
「You know-」
The moment she hears his words, she gets a bad feeling, as if by instinct.
「This night was a business transaction between you and me. I’m the client, and you’re the ones providing the service. Yet even after I’ve woken up, one of you is still snoring away. Don’t you have any professional pride?」
He had booked them for the entire night.
They hadn’t wanted to deal with Ryūgūin in the first place, but having no right of refusal, they had reluctantly served him for a long time until they were exhausted.
Due to extreme fatigue, they couldn’t wake up immediately.
The woman thinks to herself, 「You just woke up too,」 but doesn’t say it out loud.
Internally, she curses at Ryūgūin, wishing he’d at least let them get dressed, but he continues his relentless nitpicking, completely unconcerned.
After a while, the top courtesan realizes something.
The man before her is spouting meaningless jargon about 「business」 and 「clients,」 but essentially, he’s getting some kind of immense pleasure from lecturing and asserting dominance over them, who are considered first-class in this city.
After all, despite having done the deed many times from last night to early morning, his breathing and his… were becoming more excited as his lecture dragged on…
Realizing Ryūgūin’s poorly concealed abnormality, the top courtesan shudders.
She quickly gets dressed along with her colleague who has finally woken up, hastily compliments Ryūgūin, and they both leave the room as naturally as possible the moment his attention is diverted.
◇◇◇
Ryūgūin is meeting with the three members of the Hero’s party. The location is a room in the Lemone Guild.
He has borrowed a room within the guild facility.
It’s an odd arrangement to rent a room within the facility, but disregarding such concerns, he had made a contract allowing him to do as he pleased whenever he was in this city, without even paying.
Although it was an outrageously one-sided contract, Balen, the Guildmaster of the Lemone Guild, had tearfully agreed to it under pressure from Ryūgūin.
However, Ryūgūin thought this was only natural. In fact, he even thought, 「They should be grateful that the Hero leading these heroes is using their place.」
Well, he certainly has a thick skin.
However, despite the grand pretext of 「to strategize for conquering the Newly Constructed Most Challenging Dungeon」 that he used to wring this room out of Balen, sadly, it was hardly ever used. If used at all, it was only a few times when consultation with party members was necessary.
◇◇◇
Ryūgūin opens the door to his guild room(?).
There, without even sitting down, are three people fidgeting and eagerly awaiting his arrival.
Satisfied with this sight, he breaks into a broad smile and says,
「Did I keep you waiting?」
He runs his fingers through his hair as he greets them.
Nothing could have been more pointless than those words.
They had already been waiting for a considerably long time, having arrived well before the exact meeting time, which had already passed by three hours.
However, in response to Ryūgūin’s question,
「No, we just arrived here ourselves.」
「Me too! I just got here!」
The women show consideration and smile.
Their transparent lies excite Ryūgūin, once again hardening the front of his pants.
These women are trophies to him.
And not just any trophies, but the highest grade ones.
The three of them are heroes admired by everyone in this world, objects of aspiration.
And here they are, genuinely adoring him and catering to his mood.
Just thinking about it makes him feel like his 「head is going to explode.」
Still, somehow managing to suppress his excitement, Ryūgūin shows superficial consideration:
「Well, it’s not good to keep standing. Have a seat.」
「Oh my, the Hero is so kind!」
「As expected of the Hero!」 The responses from the two women further improve his mood, but seeing the sword saint girl next to them looking somewhat absent-minded dampens his excitement.
「This is why muscle-brained shorties are such a pain,」 he spits out with a frown.
Ryūgūin feels somewhat vindicated as Eris hangs her head at his words. Regaining his composure, he begins:
「Anyway, the reason I called you here today is-」 and starts discussing today’s topic.
It’s all so carefree.
At this very moment, the Chancellor’s anger in the royal capital is about to reach its peak.
If he had acted with a bit more modesty and thoughtfulness from this point on, the story might have taken a drastically different shape.
◇◇◇
The topic of today’s discussion is straightforward: why the sword saint Eris Gladius didn’t use the Holy Sword.
「It’s not that you ‘couldn’t use it,’ but that you ‘didn’t use it,’ right?」
Ryūgūin grabs the chin of the dejected Eris and forcibly lifts her face.
「Something becomes impossible because you give up halfway. If you hadn’t stopped trying to draw the sword, it wouldn’t have been impossible.」
It’s a mentality reminiscent of the teachings of a malicious black company.
「Draw the Holy Sword now.」
「I… can’t.」
「Just draw it already.」
「Hero, I really can’t draw it!」
「I, the Hero, am being nice! Draw it while I’m still being gentle!!!」
After Ryūgūin lets out a high-pitched shriek, he gestures with his chin to the other two.
「Eris, it’s the Hero’s order. We have no choice in this matter.」
「That’s right, it’s simple. Just draw it. Even if something happens, we’re here, so there’s no problem,」 the two increase the pressure on Eris.
「Uu, uh…」
Groaning and trembling, Eris grips the hilt tightly. She makes up her mind and:
「Ah, a, aaaaaaaaaaah!!!」
With a scream, she suddenly draws the Holy Sword – and immediately loses consciousness, her nose bleeding and on the verge of coughing up blood.
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