TERNLF Vol. 3 Chapter 2 Part 2

The day after we learned the Demon King’s true identity.

After returning to our respective rooms to rest yesterday because it clearly had not been the time for further discussion, we had all gathered in Faura’s room again this morning, this time with Grassa and Cheki as well.

Our current topic was how we were supposed to explain the situation to the elves.

After giving Faura a full account of what had happened in the Dwarf Kingdom, we had concluded that we also needed to tell the elves what had happened in the past.

Just thinking about how those people, who were far more closed-off than the dwarves, would react to that story was enough to give me a headache.

In the silence, Faura finally spoke with a grave look on her face.

“I think the only thing for me to do is apologize with complete sincerity as the leader of the demons.”

She was right. The reason the Eldwa Autonomous District had been destroyed was because Luchimada, one of the demons, had been working behind the scenes.

It only stood to reason that Faura, that is, the Demon King, ought to bow her head.

“That said, it’s not as if the elves were blameless either.”

The reason Luchimada had committed those atrocities in the first place was because elves and dwarves had attacked his village and killed every last villager.

That had happened because some demons had harmed dwarves and elves, but even so, that did not mean they had the right to slaughter unrelated demons in the name of justice.

“If both sides don’t acknowledge their own wrongdoing and move on to the next stage, the embers are just going to keep smoldering forever.”

The demon settlements that had been wiped out by elves and dwarves back then had not been limited to just one.

The demon-side interrogations had revealed that most of those acting alongside Luchimada had been survivors of those massacres.

At the time, it had still been before the demons united under the banner of a Demon King, and each tribe and settlement had lived independently, so there was no way to know exactly how many residents had fallen victim.

But there was no doubt that a good number of demons who had simply been living in peace had lost their lives.

“It sounds like things are somehow going to work out on the dwarves’ side, at least?”

“Yeah. The king said he’d entrust me with full authority over what comes next, so you can leave that side to me.”

Cheki declared that brightly and thumped her chest.

It was true that she stood at the center of this incident, but in all honesty, it seemed like the sort of situation that should originally have been handled by the person in charge on the Dwarf Kingdom’s side…

A diplomat who had come along from the Dwarf Kingdom was helping with the detailed negotiations as her aide, but Cheki too… no, she more than anyone else was the greatest victim in this whole incident.

“I’m sorry for saddling you with such a painful role.”

“No. I’ve done a lot of thinking since then.”

Cheki gave a small shake of her head at my words, then forced a pained smile.

“I still can’t forgive Luchimada. But I started thinking that maybe that feeling is probably pretty similar to what Luchimada must have felt toward the dwarves and elves.”

“Cheki…”

Nikka sat down beside Cheki and gently drew her close by the shoulders.

She probably could not bear to leave her alone when she looked so close to tears.

“You don’t have to carry everything on your own.”

“That’s right. You’ve got us too, so lean on us whenever you need to.”

Following Nikka, Grassa thumped her own chest as well.

“Yeah… thanks.”

At their words, Cheki rubbed at her eyelids with her arm, then lifted her face with a smile.

“Well, I think I can be useful in plenty of ways too. If it comes down to it, I can always beat the hell out of every elf there.”

“What are you even saying? If you go on a rampage, that defeats the whole point.”

“She’s right. Cheki didn’t come here so she could pick a fight with the elves.”

I had meant well, and yet Grassa and Nikka both chewed me out without mercy.

Still, they were right.

Having been raised at the Border Fortress, I had picked up the habit of trying to solve everything with force.

Even though in my previous life, if anything, I had been bad with violence and had always tried to settle everything through discussion instead.

“Calm down, both of you. Toa only said that because he cares about me.”

Cheki’s kindness really sank into my heart.

I was so moved I nearly started tearing up, but then I found myself glancing toward the one other person in the room.

“…”

Faura had remained silent since that first remark.

Her eyes were fixed on the three girls.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m jealous of Lady Cheki.”

There was unmistakably a note of envy in her voice.

“Because Empipi is the only one I have who I can call a friend. I’ve always longed for the kind of ordinary friendship the rest of you have.”

It was true that Empipi could be called her friend.

But that was only because the AI recognized her as its master.

It was still just a machine, not even a living thing.

Everything it did for her, everything it said to her, was nothing more than the AI’s programmed “response.”

Perhaps deep down, Faura herself had already realized that.

That was exactly why she found the relationship between those three so enviable.

“You idiot.”

“What did you say?”

“Were we not already your friends?”

I deliberately put on an exaggerated display of disappointment.

Then, perhaps because they had heard me, the three girls stood up and surrounded Faura.

“W-What is this?”

“I see. So you want to be friends with us, Faura?”

“I thought we already were.”

“I guess that means there’s no choice but to perform the ritual.”

Grassa and Nikka exchanged glances as they said that.

“The ritual… You two are really going to do that, aren’t you?”

Watching the two of them, Cheki for some reason hugged herself with both arms and took a few steps back.

Grassa crept closer to Faura with a strange grin on her face, flexing her fingers.

“Got you!”

“What are you trying to do!?”

Nikka swiftly circled behind Faura, slipped both hands under her arms, and lifted her up. The movement was so smooth it was nothing like her usual clumsy self.

“Tickle tickle tickle tickle.”

“Ahyaaaaa!”

“Tickle tickle tickle.”

“Uhyauuugh. It tickles!”

Held fast in Nikka’s grip, Faura’s defenseless sides were exposed, and Grassa’s fingers danced over them.

The practiced way she moved made it obvious she was striking Faura’s weak spots with deadly accuracy, and before long, Faura went limp, gasping for breath.

“Well? What do you think of my finger technique?”

“Hah… huff… I couldn’t breathe…”

“Sorry, Faura dear.”

As Nikka apologized while helping the finally calming Faura sit properly in her chair again, Cheki laughed in delight as she watched them.

“Ahaha. Now Faura’s one of us too.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“The same thing happened to me once before. Of course, I got them back right away.”

Apparently, while I had not been looking, those two had done the same thing to Cheki at some point.

Because Faura looked like a child, it had come across as nothing more than two older girls playing with a little kid… but if the target had been Cheki, then the sight must have been positively yuri-esque.

And with the two girls tickling someone dressed like a boyish youth, just imagining it was enough to make me want to say, “Thank you very much.”

Why had I not been there to witness it?

“Damn…”

No matter how much I regretted it, it was not enough.

As I wallowed in that regret, Grassa, apparently misunderstanding something, puffed out her chest smugly.

“Heh. This is our friendship ritual.”

“They did the same thing to me when I became friends with them back in the village.”

Beside Grassa, who stood proudly with her hands on her hips, Nikka laughed with an exasperated look on her face.

And next to them, Faura murmured in a daze.

“A friendship ritual…”

“Yep. So now we’re friends.”

“Is that truly so?”

Looking around at all of us with a disbelieving expression, Faura received emphatic nods in return from the others.

And then—

“But maybe if you’re the only one getting it, it doesn’t count as a real friendship.”

“Eh, wai—”

Cheki, who had been watching from a little distance away until then, had somehow slipped behind Grassa and locked her arms around her.

“So Faura ought to return the favor too, right?”

“I’ll help too.”

“No, wait, hold on. My sides are really sensitive!”

Now it was Grassa’s turn to suffer through Faura and Nikka’s tickling assault.

“Sorry, I’m sorry! No, really, stop, stop!”

“It’s a friendship ritual, isn’t it? Accept it gracefully!”

“Faura dear, Grassa’s weak spots are around here.”

“You traitor, Nikka!”

“I want a turn tickling her later too.”

“Kyahahahaha! I’m gonna die, I’m dying!”

The girls’ delighted squeals echoed through one of the grandest reception rooms in the Volga Empire.

There was not the slightest trace of differences in status or lingering resentment in the way they played together so merrily.

“Friends… huh.”

Right now, I had no one I could call a friend.

I had lived among many people at the Border Fortress, but among them there had been no one I could call a friend—

Lost in thoughts of the past, I poured the now-cold tea from the table down my throat.

—

The four young maidens lay sprawled out on the floor, completely exhausted from all their excitement.

Beep beep. Beep beep.

That sound came from one of them.

“What’s that?”

“Mmm… Empipi’s calling me…”

The one who slowly sat up and pulled a small box-shaped object from her waist was Faura.

It appeared to be a small communication device. She ran her eyes over the pattern that had appeared on its surface and then suddenly raised her voice.

“What!?”

“Huh!? Did something happen?”

“Eep.”

“What’s wrong!?”

The three girls, who had still been lying there with vacant eyes, jolted upright in surprise.

“Empipi just contacted me and said, ‘An elven diplomat has suddenly arrived and requested an audience.’”

“The elves? We still haven’t informed them about that incident yet, have we?”

“Of course not.”

If that was the case, then they had come over a different matter entirely.

“…Do elves come here often?”

“As far as I know, not once since the Volga Empire was founded.”

“Not once? That’s strange in its own way.”

“With the exception of a very small few, most of them think the other races are no different from beasts. We may send envoys from our side, but even when it comes to their reply, we have to go and hear it ourselves, or they will not give it to us.”

I had already thought for some time that the elves were impossible to reason with, but I had not realized their communication skills were that catastrophically bad.

“Then if they’re requesting an audience this time, it must be something serious.”

“Then shouldn’t we hurry back to Empipi?”

It was possible that word of what Luchimada had done had reached the elves through some route unknown to us.

If so, the natural conclusion was that an envoy had come from the elven nation to lodge a protest.

“That makes sense. If Empipi is calling for me, then it means it is important enough to require my judgment.”

Something Faura had told us in today’s discussion came to mind. The duties of the Demon King were apparently handled by Empipi’s AI making its own judgments.

Among those matters, only the important cases were decided after consultation with Faura.

So ordinarily, even if Faura was absent, Empipi alone was capable of dealing with the key figures of the nation.

Incidentally, that recent uproar over the false report that the Demon King had died… had happened because Empipi had gone into maintenance mode.

Normally, whenever it entered maintenance mode, Faura was careful to forbid anyone from going in or out and to shut the doors tight. This time, though, she had happened to forget. On top of that, the misfortune of her returning later than planned had piled on, and that was how things had snowballed into such a major incident.

“Then we should get moving.”

At any rate, I urged Faura on.

“I know. For now, I’ll have Empipi buy us some time.”

Faura operated the communication device in her hand, then slipped it back into her pocket.

After that, she took a few steps toward the hidden door in the room, then turned back around.

“Toa, I have a favor to ask.”

“What is it?”

“Would you come with me?”

“Huh?”

That request was definitely not one I had expected.

“I’m not involved with the Volga Empire, you know. There’s no way an outsider like me can sit in on a diplomatic meeting.”

“Th-That’s true, but…”

And given my current position, I was more than just an outsider. As far as the elves were concerned, I was accompanying an envoy from the dwarven side, their sworn enemies.

If the elves’ purpose turned out to be something disadvantageous to the dwarves, then for me to learn of it would be bad in more ways than one.

“I don’t really understand elves.”

“I don’t understand them either.”

When I had first learned, after being reborn into this world, that elves truly existed, I had been so happy I could have jumped for joy.

But after I found out that the elves of this world were hostile toward humans, and especially after I had actually fought them at the Border Fortress, I had gradually come to want as little to do with them as possible.

“But Nikka told me you have an elven mentor.”

Damn it, Nikka. That was unnecessary.

“It’s true that I have an elven mentor named Lentret, but she’s far too unusual even among elves.”

Lentret, who worked as an apothecary at the Border Fortress, had taught me how to compound all sorts of medicines.

As far as I knew, the knowledge of the woman I secretly called the Herb Elf ranked among the very best in this world.

The various potions she had given me as a farewell gift when I left the fortress were so effective that they could not even be compared to the ones sold on the market. Selling even one of them would have made me a fortune.

Of course, if I sold something like that, I would probably end up entangled in trouble later, so I had no intention of doing so.

Faura tilted her head curiously at my reaction.

“Unusual or not, she’s still an elf, isn’t she?”

“She is, but she seems to have left Landriere long ago to begin with, so it’s better not to think of her as the same as the elves of today.”

Landriere, the nation of the elves deep within the Elf Forest.

It was said to lie in the depths of an impregnable forest protected by illusion magic that rejected everyone except elves and those the elves permitted to enter… but no one knew its full extent.

That was because no one other than the elves of Landriere had ever entered the heart of the country.

Even diplomats from other nations were only allowed as far as the guest house built before its borders.

And from what I had heard, despite the word “guest house,” it was not luxurious in the slightest and possessed only the bare minimum of functionality.

What was more, even in such a place, visitors were only permitted to stay for two days. If they could not settle their business in that time, they were literally thrown back out of the forest.

“Anyway, you’ve had more contact with elves than I have, so there’s no problem.”

“There absolutely is.”

Beep beep.

Beeeeeeep.

The summons sounded again from Faura’s pocket.

But this time, the sound was louder and longer than before.

“Wah, wah, wah! Empipi says I need to hurry! Stop arguing and come with me!”

Faura grabbed my sleeve and tugged me toward the hidden passage, anxiety plain on her face.

Apparently, that summons just now had been a fairly urgent one.

“Alright, alright. I’m coming. Go on ahead and wait for me.”

Left with no real choice, I quickly told the others, “I’m going,” and then leapt into the hidden passage after Faura.

—