A Secret Talk

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/7/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Hmh. Chris is skilled at sewing. Granny Stella’s has been short of needlewomen.”
“Kira can use magic, I see. I shall leave her with Dominas; have her sent where she can be of use.”

The Demon King’s voice as she sorted us one after another passed in one ear and out the other.
In this town, me. Alone.
Those words went round and round in my head.

In modern Japan, there were about two hundred physicians per hundred thousand people.
In highly specialized modern medicine, even that was said to be not enough.
Even at fifty thousand, the calculation called for a hundred.
In other words, I would have to do the work of a hundred people.
There were limits even to how brutal a workplace could be.

Apothecaries were a rare commodity, so few had likely been sent here.
I had been sent because of that church decree, whose timing I still could not call good or bad.
Perhaps more would come in the future, but for now, it was me alone.

Even with the conditions that the severely ill would be handled with healing magic, and that I would be spared demonfolk and monsters, we were still badly short of hands.

“How did it come to this…” Continue reading →

A Mission and a Resolution

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/6/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Now then. With that, it is settled that all of you will be taken in.
As I said earlier, this country is desperately short of hands, so I must have you work as soon as tomorrow.
I shall assign and sort you, so tell me your origins, your skills, what you did for a living, and so on.”

Just as we had all asked to be taken into the country and things had settled, the Demon King suddenly said that.
The remark left me bewildered; Gerda gave a wry smile; and the aide looked troubled.
After a moment’s hesitation, I raised my hand, a little.

“U-um, Your Majesty, may I ask something?”
“Hm? I do not mind. Speak.”
“Thank you. Then, if I may be so forward…
I understand, of course, why you would wish to confirm our skills and the like… but I had thought this was the sort of thing a responsible official would handle.
I never imagined Your Majesty would do it in person, and I must confess I am rather at a loss.”
“Hmh?
Hmh. I see. That is a fair point, Asha.”

The Demon King nodded, magnanimous, at my frank words.
I thought hm?—and it must have shown on my face, because hers turned somehow amused.
…Was it my imagination, or had Gerda’s wry smile deepened?

“Ku ku. You have a rather quick mind, it seems.
That face of yours is asking, ‘How do you already remember my face and name?'”
“Eeh!? Ah, no, I… I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”
“It is fine, it is fine. It is rather entertaining, if anything.”

I hurriedly bowed my head, and received, as her words promised, a cheerfully given pardon.
That was the thing.
Just now she had been greeted by more than ten of us, and yet the Demon King clearly remembered the face and name of me, who had introduced myself first.
She had said my name as naturally as if we were already acquainted, and that very naturalness had felt off—and it had shown. Continue reading →

A Chaotic Audience

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/5/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

I do not think it was because of my conversation with Kira, exactly, but from there on the walk, talk began to flow with Kira and the other girls as well.
In the waiting room we were shown to before the audience, the mood was so peaceable I could not have imagined it when we first arrived on the island, and Gerda watched us with a look of happiness.
Being looked at that way was a little embarrassing.

Then, as we chattered, the appointed time came, and we were led into the audience chamber.
Under Gerda’s instruction, we waited on our knees with our heads bowed.

“His Majesty Shutraum now enters. All present, compose yourselves.”

A cool voice, apparently an aide’s, rang out, and we straightened our posture once more.
All at once, a tense air ran through us.

Gerda had been such a good person.
The Demon King, it seemed, was different from what we had imagined.
But whether that difference was for better or worse, we did not know, and in any case there was no question that this was a power that could crush the likes of us with ease.
It was tantamount to facing a living weapon of slaughter. Telling us not to be nervous was the unreasonable demand.
Gerda noticed how we were, but even she could hardly speak to us in this situation; she could only send us a worried look.
Well. Her kindness showed even in that.

I was thinking so when hard footsteps echoed: click, click.
Something with overwhelming power—enough that even I, who could not use magic, could feel it—entered.

…Impossible. Continue reading →

The Demon King’s Castle

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/4/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Once she had waited for us to settle, Gerda took up the lead again.
Now and then our eyes met those of people in the town, and we exchanged small, hard-to-name nods.
After we had walked like that for a while, we came out into a somewhat more open place.

“Here. This is the castle of my lord, His Majesty the Demon King Shutraum.”

A small ohh went up as we looked where Gerda pointed.
While Gerda spoke with the gate guards—lizardmen, monster-people like lizards who walked upright on two legs—and saw to the formalities, we stared openly at the Demon King’s castle.
To be honest, it was not very large.
The royal castle of the country I had come from was unquestionably bigger; it might even have been smaller than any royal castle on the continent.
I was probably not the only one making that face. Gerda must have noticed.
When she finished the formalities and came back… she was wearing a proud smile.

“Different from the Demon King’s castle you had imagined, is it not?
This castle of His Majesty’s serves only as a facility for government. That is why it is not built wastefully large.”

At that, I thought, oh?
As for the functions a castle ought to have…

“Um, excuse me.
Does that mean His Majesty does not consider this castle a defensive fortification?”
“Mm. That is correct. …Asha, you are rather sharp.”

Gerda said it with what sounded like admiration.
Well. A girl dressed as obviously rural as I was would not be expected to think that far, so the reaction was only natural.
But in that case.

“…This is only a guess, but.
Because this is an island nation, perhaps His Majesty thinks of the sea as a moat, and the entire island as a defensive fortification?” Continue reading →

The City of Sacrifices

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/3/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Still… you’re quite different from what we had imagined, you demonfolk.
The Demon King, too, I suspect, is nothing like what we think—going by this.”

Once the round of introductions had finished, I spoke to Gerda.
She looked a little tired, but very happy, and she answered with the same pleasant smile as before.

“I suppose so. I can only imagine what you have been thinking… but I am almost certainly different from that.
Well. One could also say that is why you are sent here…”

Her expression clouded, suddenly.
She let out a heavy sigh.

“And that is precisely why it is so unjust that you are sent here.”

We would learn what she meant by that—spoken as if she were deeply troubled—soon enough.

When greetings were done and we had sorted our belongings and taken them up again, we set out for the Demon King’s castle with Gerda in the lead.
We filed through a town of neatly ordered brick houses, already visible from the harbor where we had been put ashore.
To my surprise, the buildings had almost the same atmosphere as a human town.
The brick structures were a familiar size as well. I saw nothing extremely large.
I had been looking around restlessly when something occurred to me.

“…Huh?”
“Hm? What is it, Asha?”

I had let out a puzzled sound, and Gerda looked back.
I pointed, hesitantly, in a certain direction.

“Ah, no, um… I had been feeling eyes on us from all over, and I was wondering… are those people watching from over there… human?”
“Ah. Yes. This area is a human residential district. I imagine they are curious about you, in any number of senses, now that you have been brought here.”

Gerda said it as if it were nothing, and I—we—were too stunned to speak.

“W-we weren’t eaten!?” Continue reading →

The Turning Point Came in Indigo

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/2/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

I had been tossed on the waves for some ten days after the ship set out, I suppose.
At last, I arrived at the Demon King’s island.
I was put ashore at the harbor, along with more than ten other girls who seemed to share my circumstances.
The official from the Demon King’s side who had come to meet us wore a hood, but the shape of the head beneath it was clearly not human.
The moment the sailors had handed us over, they put back out, in a hurry to leave.
They did not want to spend so much as a minute, so much as a second, on this island; I had never seen work done with such impressive efficiency.

The Demon King’s official watched their frantic departure, and the lips visible beneath the hood twisted into a shape of contempt.
For a while the official simply watched the fleeing ship. Then, after a single sigh, they turned to face us.

“Ah… Welcome, after your long journey—I imagine being told you are welcome would be either a bother to you, or a matter of complete indifference.
I sympathize with your circumstances, and I also think I cannot possibly guess at how you feel.
No—forgive me. If anyone took that sympathy for contempt, I apologize.
That is not what I meant. It is simply the only way I can put it.”

To my surprise, the voice I heard was a woman’s.
When the official removed the hood, long indigo hair fanned out and danced in the wind.
A well-formed face. Kind, shining eyes, a deep indigo in the same family as her hair.
Her eyes were a little sharp at the corners, and her face suggested a strong will; the expression on it was a complicated mix of slight bewilderment and sympathy.
Two horns grew from her head. Scales covered patches of her cheeks and the nape of her neck.
A fine pair of wings grew from her back as well—though they were shaped very much like a bat’s.

“…A half-dragon…?”

Continue reading →