Chapter 14 (1/2)

Chapter 14 – Conditions and Prospects＊

“D-, Demon King…!?”

It seems that when people reached the summit of shock, they became unable to properly speak words.

To Yuumis who flapped her mouth about, seemingly wanting to say something, but unable to get the words out, Luru continued to speak.

“Now this has no proof. All of it is just my own a.s.sertion. That’s why it doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. The important part is that Iris and I were ancient demons, and the part about me being a demon king doesn’t really have meaning…”

However, it seems that Yuumis had a different view.

“What are you saying!? It’s super important! Demon King… Was Luru really the Demon King? Iris-chan…”

Said Yuumis, looking to Iris for confirmation.

As for Iris, she spoke about Luru’s past glory as though seeing a dream, so it seemed that Yuumis completely believed her.

After that, Yuumis began to ask various questions about the ancient demon race, so seeing this, Gran sighed.

“…Well, once Yuumis becomes like that, there’s no managing her. Let’s leave them alone for a while… Hey, Luru. I was surprised about you being the demon king in the past, but… why’d you tell us? The thing about you being an ancient demon as well. Just what do you mean by telling us all this?”

If you had to say, between Yuumis and Gran, it felt like Yuumis bore more of the intellectual jobs whilst Gran carried more of the muscle, but it seems that feeling was a little off.

Gran’s question was extremely composed, and extremely sharp, thought Luru.

It might have been unmistakable that the more knowledgeable of the two was Yuumis, but the one who skilfully held the reins of the party and led it in the right direction might have on the contrary been Gran.

Up until now, Luru had never seen Gran become particularly agitated.

He was the type of warrior who was always thinking, and even in battle he didn’t stop.

If you considered that Yuumis was on the contrary a whimsical person who went with their feelings, then the two of them fit quite well together as a pair.

As for how to answer, Luru wasn’t worried about it.

There was no reason for him to hide anything, and it was also for the sake of keeping good relations with Gran and Yuumis from here on out.

A person who travelled across the world and saw many things with their own eyes was in a sense, a hard to find existence for Luru, and on top of that if their personalities were good, it became extremely obvious that they people that Luru didn’t want to cut ties with.

That’s why Luru answered Gran frankly.

“It’s not really anything too difficult… I wanted to reveal myself and get along better with you two. I… am certainly an ancient demon, a demon king reborn, so I hold a mentality that doesn’t match with my age, but my position in society is still a seven year old child, and there isn’t a lot that I can do. I like to think that the magecraft training I’ve been doing up until now has been okay, but even so, there’s still a long way to go. And my parents have raised me up until now and lived with me. I love them too. And I don’t hate the village. On the contrary, I like it… This kind of peaceful scenery was something that I could have never seen in my previous life, even up to my death, you see. In a sense, my lifestyle right now is basically the dreams I had in the old days, made reality. That’s why… leaving the village immediately isn’t really an option for me.”

Having spoken that far, Gran seemed to have guessed his intentions as well.

Digesting Luru’s words, and then after thinking for a little while, Gran spoke his guess.

“In other words… You want us to act as your window to the outside? That’s what you want from us?”

His guess was correct.

Truly, this role was what Luru was hoping from them.

However, it wasn’t something as cold as the way Gran said it, and Luru wasn’t coldly and calmly seeking this from them.

“More than windows… It’s more like, on the level that I’d like it if you guys occasionally came to the village, and just talked to us about the outside. Since we explored the ruins together, I know what kind of person you are. More than anything, you guys are skilled adventurers. The city is for sure, but you’ve been to other countries as well, right? I don’t feel like leaving the village. But I want to know about the world. I want to search places like the ruin that was near the village… That’s why, for that, I want information.”

Listening to Luru’s words, Gran scratched his head and replied.

“You’re expecting quite a lot from us but… There’s heaps of stuff that we don’t know, and our knowledge isn’t that plentiful, yanno?”

His words sounded like a refusal, but you could tell from his expression that it wasn’t so.

His smile seemed to say, ‘My, my…[/yareyare]’ after all.

“Just that is fine… It’s not like I was hoping for expert level information. I’d be happy just to hear about general knowledge, or the feel of different regions, broad things of that kind of level. In other words, the stuff that you talked about the other day in the bar. …More than anything, I want to talk to you guys occasionally. Is that no good?”

It was close to an entreaty, but it wasn’t as though there wasn’t that kind of reason as well.

The village had very few stimuli.

Just having adventurers come on occasion could make the village lively.

The bar was like that, and children like Rusty were like that as well.

He was also thinking that it’d be nice if they dropped in by the village on occasion, even if there wasn’t anything to do.

Perhaps understanding what Luru wanted to say, Gran replied.

“It’s not like we can’t, but… Geez, you’re being quite straight with me, aren’t cha? If it’s just that much, it’s fine… Or so I’d like to say, but…”

Contrary to expectations, Gran’s words stopped.

Luru tilted his head in confusion.

“But?”

After that, Gran held up a finger and continued.

“We’re adventurers. We can’t just come down here that often. Moreover, coming down here just to talk with no reward at all is, you know? So… I’m thinking of giving you conditions.”

“Conditions?”

While questioning just what kind of conditions Gran could make him swallow, Luru decided to listen for now.

Compared to his time as the demon king, right now he had few fetters of obligations.

As long as it wasn’t anything crazy, he was fine with one or two conditions.

Gran spoke.

“Yeah, conditions… Won’t you enter my clan?”

Clan.

In the adventurers guild, it was one of the types of groupings of adventurers.

Unlike parties, clans had the point of being quite large scale organisations.

Put simply, it was said to be a grouping of a number of parties, and entering one bestowed various benefits.

For example, clans based around people from the same birthplace[/homeland] would proactively take in novice adventurers, and drive knowledge and skills into them to guide them into being full-fledged adventurers existed, and because these were useful to the guild as well, they were acknowledged by the guild.

In the past the guild didn’t have this sort of system, and had nothing but parties, but in those days, it seems the death rate of beginners was a lot higher.

As expected, inheriting skills from experts was something incredibly important.

That’s why being invited into a clan by Gran wasn’t really something you could call a condition.

On the contrary, it was a benefit.

Being invited into the clan was the same as being asked to become an adventurer, but to begin with, Luru was planning to becoming one in the future so he was fine with that.

And he knew that clans weren’t something that strongly compelled you to do anything, so there was no problem with that either.

However, as for the one problem that did exist…

“Gran. I said so earlier, but I’ll be staying in the village for a while. As for registering to become an adventurer, no matter how strong a backer I may have, I shouldn’t be able to do it if I’m below 14. That’s why…”

Gran nodded at Luru’s answer.

“Yeah. I know. That’s why this is for when you turn 14. …Well, having said that though, right now Yuumis and I aren’t in a guild, though.”

“…Oi, then whose clan am I supposed to join?”

“It’s like that. Before you turn 14, we’ll create one… How’s that?”

Asked Gran, with a smile.

To Luru, if they were willing to be that accommodating, he had no reason to refuse.

Saying that they’d go out of their way to create a clan meant that they probably weren’t thinking of tying him down.

Were this a party invitation, Luru wouldn’t be able to move about as freely. Parties had quite some obligations.

However, a clan didn’t have such bindings. When all was said and done, they were just mutual aid organisations, and there was fundamentally nothing that bound the people a.s.sociated with a clan.