Chapter 56
"So, how'd it go?"
"It was... kind of a mess."
I slipped out through a window in the mayor's office, which had been left in such utter disarray that I couldn't make sense of it anymore, and met up with Enrique in a nearby back alley.
"Huh. Did the negotiations fall through?"
"No, he just shouted the name of his own guild and passed out."
The moment he heard that, Enrique's expression turned awkward.
"What the hell was that?"
"Don't ask me."
That's the thing about madmen—you never know how their minds work.
I answered, at a loss for words myself.
"I just don't get it anymore."
◆
Anyway, long story short,
Enrique and I had returned to the Randall estate in Lyon.
Honestly, it was already morning.
I was completely exhausted.
I wanted to go to bed.
"But that's the end of it, right?"
"Yeah, we're fine. At least for now, the Bright Night is practically wiped out. It'll take them a long time to get moving again."
"I see. Well, I doubt he can exactly go around announcing that the young master nearly wiped out an entire guild by himself."
Right.
As things stood, that scumbag mayor and I were at a stalemate.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—we both held fairly prominent public positions.
"If he makes another suspicious move, we can just do the same thing again."
In other words, all I had to do was make sure they never had time to grow their organization.
Gregorio and I would probably keep each other in check from a cautious distance like this.
"Looks like your reputation as head of the family is safe, too."
"Yeah. Those idiotic nobles might still be asleep at the party venue, but it'll do them good. Fortunately, I sent Father and Mother back to the estate partway through, so no one will say anything about them."
"Then the Order should be all right, too, huh?"
"Yeah," I replied.
The Order would probably just arrest Baldo, the battered man who'd promptly turned himself in, and call it a day.
And Hafen Village, where the tragedy was supposed to unfold... Well, I guess things turned out all right there, in their own way.
Though I'll never go near it again for the rest of my life.
And then,
as we walked, a rather large estate came into view.
It was the Randall estate.
"Ultos-sama!" someone called from above.
I looked up and saw Liera leaning out of a third-floor window.
"Oh. That maid's been up this whole time, huh?"
"She's got a lot of grit," Enrique said thoughtfully beside me.
"Well, I'm heading back to the estate. I want to sleep."
"I've finally made it back into town after ages. Booze, booze."
I said goodbye, then turned away from Enrique.
"By the way," Enrique called from behind me.
"What are you going to do from here, young master?"
"Hmm..."
What was I going to do now?
I thought about the original story's plot from here on out.
The protagonist, Sieg-kun, would rise from defeat and begin training to prepare for his upcoming entrance to the academy.
Iris would steadily continue to grow stronger, too.
As for Gregorio... Well, whatever. He's competent, so he can focus on politics as long as he keeps it from affecting me.
And once Sieg-kun, the village failure, enrolled in the academy, fate would begin to turn.
As he trained alongside all sorts of cute heroines and formidable enemies, Sieg-kun would do his best.
I'll admit it. Sieg-kun's school romantic comedy does sound fun.
—But still.
Honestly, I had absolutely no intention of trying to stand up to the monsters who'd show up from here on out.
It was a deranged world where powerful people, including S-rank adventurers, popped up all over the place.
The Order's headquarters had even more terrifying resources, and the central nobles in the royal capital were an even more vicious lot...
And eventually, there were things like a legendary dragon and a demon god sealed away 20,000 years ago.
Why is there a monster sealed beneath the academy along with a dangerous sealing formation, anyway...?
Are the teachers all insane?
Or do they just not know the word "safety"?
I just don't get it anymore.
And, to put it another way, the village boy Sieg-kun, who could beat all those monsters senseless without a problem, made even less sense...
I pulled myself together.
"I have no obligations left to fulfill."
I said that to Enrique.
Well, finally. At last.
I'd made it through the events in Lyon. No death flags, and no scummy behavior left to make amends for.
I had no obligations—no more 'oblige'—left to fulfill.
That's right,
I could finally—
"return to an ordinary life."
And just then,
I heard a burst of laughter behind me.
Enrique was laughing like he was having the time of his life.
"No, come on, young master. That's never gonna happen. You're stuck like this for life."
I stepped through the estate's gate.
"Just you watch," I replied without looking back.
"From now on, it's a stress-free mob life."
That's right.
My plan, 'Kuzulesse Oblige,' had finally come together.
All I had to do now was take it easy, hanging around somewhere just off to the side of the protagonist,
and say whatever I pleased, like, "G-go get 'em, Sieg!" or "I always knew you'd pull through!"
while sipping tea—
I heard the heavy thudding of someone running down the estate's stairs.
Liera seemed to be rushing to the entrance, too.
The sun had finally begun to shine.
In its light, I felt a premonition of the brilliant mob life that lay ahead—
or so I thought. But life wasn't nearly that simple.
It would be exactly three days later, on a sunny afternoon, that I realized my 'Kuzulesse Oblige' plan hadn't advanced even a millimeter—in fact, it had taken about four steps backward.
――――――――――――――――――――――――
'Kuzulesse Oblige'
→ A shoddy plan, about as well thought out as an elementary schooler declaring, "This year, I'm gonna finish my summer homework early!"
Enrique
→ "... (This is a joke, right?)"
Liera
→ A beautiful maid who waited so devotedly. Not very athletic.
'Lasaka'
→ You can flirt with beautiful girls, and there's plenty of combat content to sink your teeth into. You can even get involved in power struggles. But the difficulty in the latter half is simply brutal.
※ I hope I can post the finale sometime today... (dead-eyed)
→ To all my readers: I'm sorry. Overtime killed me, so I'll post it around noon tomorrow (2023/02/03/22:32).