Vol 4 Chapter 12 (2/2)

“The King of Elbe is currently in our treatment center?”

Yanagida could not hide his surprise at Hazama’s words

To think such an important person was so close by If this was true, then this incident could lead to relations between the Elbe Kingdoeous direction

“That… is that true?”

“Ah, it is Just now, Bozes-san contacted us Apparently, she and one of the language students called Suisses-san spoke to him in person There’s no mistake about it They were also quite shocked when they found out”

Hazae students to deterht that Iht to know the royalty of the Eht

And so, Yanagida was headed to the treatment center to visit a certain ward

What Yanagida saas a one-eyed ood appetite for someone who looked like he should have been hospitalized

“Ohhh, you ca, I wrote a letter to the Prince, who’sthe affairs of state in my place However, I doubt he’ll be happy to hear from me He probably thinks I’m dead”

As Duran saw Yanagida, he began explaining the current circu the self-introduction he had steadfastly refused to give until just now

Yanagida seerasp on the situation, so he remained steady Duran then decided to turn his attention to his food instead of him He seemed to have wanted to control the flow of the conversation, but he had lost it instead

Yanagida decided to abandon his tough stance of negotiation No dom was, Duran was still the man who led its army He could not be underestimated After that, Duran decided to co

“I haven’t been too happy because I could not drink, but since the nurses and doctors keep nagging ht onwards, I’ll be able to take-out my food from the canteen and have it here These people of Arnus are eating soood stuff It feels like every day is a feast day That’s the true measure of a people’s happiness”

His tray was laden with fried etables

Although it wasn’t clear what he had eaten, the canteen in Arnus Town should have sold ordinary set redients were flavored with japan’s spices and seasonings, the result was delicious However, it was quite hard to iine that someone as addressed as “Your Majesty” would be so enthusiastic over such ordinary food

However, the hospital food must have been awful He did not know the exact circus, Duranthe same tasteless patients’ meals every day After that, normal food would have tasted several times better than it really was

“Well, the town below is also supported by my country, so that’s only natural”

After praising japan in this roundabout matter, he asked Duran why the prince left behind in his country would be unhappy that the king was still alive

“Ahhh, well, that fellow see further and further away from me every day Life would be much easier for him if I were not around He didn’t seeers”

“Is that so…”

Even if a king approved of aunless the people went along with it It was crucial to let the Elbe Kingdom know that this was not an invasion

“Give these letters to Duke Cremsan and Duke Watt They are my close friends, and their locations are marked on that map”

Duran handed the letters and the hand-drawn ida

“Tell these people to get the useful members of the nobility to help out”

Yanagida did not accept those items Instead, he waved both hands in refusal “How could I? We do not wish to interfere in your fa to do with my country”

“Don’t say that The Elbe Kingdoin with I siet it back for me”

Yanagida frowned at Duran’s request and replied, “It ht be best to ask the Empire for help”

Disappointment crawled over Duran’s face as he said, “I hate the E a deep resentainst them

“Well, even if your Majesty provides us your help, hoill that benefit my country?”

“Well, I can peron How about that?”

Yanagida shook his head Then a wicked expression bloomed on his face

“I would like to send your head to the prince, packed in salt With your permission, of course”

Duran went “Cheh”

“What an annoying fellow You want to pack my head in salt? There’s people who’ll bet their lives to exteron, and then there’s you Which of you comes from Nihon?”

Yanagida replied that they were both japanese, and two people could not represent all of japan All japanese people had their own personalities, and one could not judge them all by the example of just one individual

Their ht for their countries’ interest

Normally, this would have been the job of a diploida knew that if this dragged on, they ained The fact was that the japanese government missed out on a lot of chances because they did not seize them in time, and soida’s daily work, or perhaps because of his personality, he was the sort ould use his cunning intellect to extract as many benefits as he could, however low the chances were

Yanagida understood that this was the difference between hiida to otiations went in a favorable direction

“Then, what do you want?”

At last, Duran had decided to stop playing the fool, and had decided to get straight to the point in order to hear Yanagida’s requests Duran acknowledged that he had nothing to bargain with

Yanagida decided to honestly say what he wanted

“We want rights to the underground resources in your kingdom Tax-free, of course”

“The gold and copper mines are the source of my country’s wealth”

“Well, I never said you had to give them all to us”

“But—”

“Then, half each of gold, silver, and copper Then we’ll take all the valuable resources other than those three”

“One old mines?”

“Then, half of the newly found gold, silver and copperelse apart from them”

“This is hard to answer…”

“Why is that?”

“Well, first tell old, silver and copper It’s sticking in old, silver and copper in my country’s soil, then why do I not know of them?”

“Well, even if you wanted to knoould I tell you?”

Duran replied as he let his tension go “I don’t want to lose out”

Yanagidahim lose was the point, and then he turned to Duran

“If you don’t know about the thenorance Unless you et the salt ready…”

“I got it, I got it Half of the gold, copper and silver ht?”

Yanagida rose and offered a hand to Duran while saying, “Please don’t forget the tax exemption” Without that, the profits from oil and minerals, as well as all forms of trade, would be subject to massive duties and tariffs

“Cheh, what an irritating fellow Well, I have no choice”

“All right then In exchange, the JSDF will escort Your Majesty back to your kingdoon extermination, we hope you will be able to help as well”

“Fine, fine At this rate, my country will become an ally of Nihon”

“Let’s do that, then Sadly, I a from the Imperial Capital in a couple of days At that time, they will discuss the details with you”

“What’s this? Such an unreliable fellow…”

To Duran, anted to re as that condition was ain japan’s protection

Duran hida paid it no heed

“As long as Your Majesty honors the underground resource agreeood ties between your country and japan”

There was a reason why the medical facility at Arnus was called the “treatulations for the na of medical facilities Those with less than 19 beds were called “clinics “ or “treatment centers”, while those with over 20 beds were called “hospitals”

Arnus’ treatned to accoeneral hospitals in the city However, they were only using 5 beds now According to the regulations, they should only have enough personnel to nated it as a clinic, then in case of an eency, they would not be able to accommodate e wave of casualties would arrive in a co problem

Therefore, in order to get around the limitations of a clinic, they decided to call it a “treath However fancy it looked on the outside, it was still laid out like a temporary hospital in a disaster area

That said, it looked pretty flashy from the outside

There were benches placed near the entrance to the treatirl was seated on one of them

Her name was Noriko

The sky was covered in countless stars

She had come out from her ward in the darkened hospital because she could not s area As such, it was quite coathered at the entrance to smoke

This was not ood spirits did not accu as it was permissible with their current conditions, the doctors and nurses would give tacit consent and allow their patients to smoke

However, there were only five people in this treat them Usually, the oldwould be here to talk to her, as though he did not want her to be bored However, he had not showed up tonight, so Noriko was here s alone and in peace

It was fortunate Just for tonight, she wanted to be alone

Today, under the approval of the doctor and the social worker, they had informed her

That was to say, “We could not contact your parents after the Ginza Incident We fear they er be in this world”

“No way…”

“”

Naturally, Noriko was immediately suspicious, but the doctor could only shake his head, and then he handed her a mobile phone

“What’s this, didn’t you say the phone lines were down? Liar”

As expected, Noriko immediately phoned hos, but the ones who picked up were people she did not know

“Strange Is this phone broken?”

After that, she tried to call her university friends

However, the numbers of her close friends were on herShe could not mentally recall their numbers either, so she could not contact them

The fortunate thing was, she reme in 1111, so she nervously pressed the number pad

After that, the friend was shocked that Noriko was calling After rejoicing that Noriko was fine, the friend told Noriko what had happened to her family after her disappearance Then she promised to spread the news to Noriko’s friends that she was fine, and that none of them could contact her family Finally, she heard that her house had burned down It had been abandoned for several ht fire because of an overheated electrical appliance

When subjected to an intenselike a circuit breaker so they would not feel anything

Right now, the only things she could feel were how tired and how burned-out she was

Although it was good that she did not feel sad, she was not completely without sadness

Right now, she probably looked like a wreck If this were a TV show or an ani into her pillow until it was all wet With that in mind, she should probably show an expression on her face that matched her current condition That would be a sad face, in this case However, no matter what she did, she could not make that face All this felt like it had happened to so suddenly felt very laughable

NoIf she hit so hard with her hand, it should have hurt, but now her hand felt like it was unassociated with her There was pain, but it was not her pain Perhaps she could say she could not feel herself She felt light and floaty, as though her body could not settle in one place In the bed, in a chair, watching a tree, punching a wall, hitting her head, none of them worked

And then, Noriko realized it “It feels like I’m not myself anymore”

When she thought about it, it made sense She had no idea what happened to her lover as kidnapped with her She thought about him every day, and after her rescue, she found out her entire family was dead, and she did not even have a house any ed

Noriko’s mind came to that conclusion

Right, it’s only natural to change As Noriko thought about it, she decided to try and steady herself down by walking to the treatarette

She spat her cigarette out as she exhaled, and then she thought

“I ht now”

To think she had actually said that, and in such a casual tone She wondered why she would even think of such a thing She tried to think of the way she would die, so she would shudder, but in the end even that did not happen Just—

“So, you want to die? That’s good,” a wo tone

Fortunately, she had learned the language of the Special Region after being kidnapped in order to survive That was how Noriko could understand what the voice’s oas trying to say

“Who’s that?”

“Speaking of which, are you called Noriko? It’ll be troubling if you’re not…”

A Warrior Bunny stood in front of Noriko She was dressed in a frightening disguise, and the fe air

“Frankly speaking, if you didn’t want to die, I wouldn’t want to kill you, but since you want to die, yes I can help you”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Mm There’s a reason for it”

“I see… I’ to die…”

Noriko stood before the woman as cloaked in the shadow of death Yet, her heart did not falter There was no fear, no disgust, not even joy All she could feel was ‘ah, so that’s how it is’ Therefore, Noriko looked the woman in the eye She silently watched ould happen to her body

The Warrior Bunny drew the soot-blacked blade at her waist and held it like a billiard cue, ai it at Noriko’s throat

“I’m sorry I’m really sorry It may hurt a little, so please bear with it It doesn’t hurt as much this way”

“Which way do you mean? I don’t like pain”

Then, she felt so her throat

“Argh I don’t kno toyou die as quickly as possible Would that be all right?”

“How fast is “as quickly as possible?”

“Ahhh, what a pain What should I do?”

The Warrior Bunny seemed quite troubled about this

“I expected you to resist or run because you did not want to die, and I was prepared to chase you down and kill you, but I never expected you to tell me to do it”

She see fro the back of her ears

For some reason, this movement reminded Noriko of the other Warrior Bunny she had seen before, and Noriko giggled

“Heh For some reason, you look just like Tyuule”

The na made the other woman freeze up

“You… whose name did you just say?”

The sword pressed against her throat stayed there, without ain and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Just then—

“You over there, what are you doing?!”

The Warrior Bunny moved on reflex

Yanagida aier three times, without hesitation However, the Warrior Bunny’s niida expected She soida’s bullets, and then she swung her sword down at him

He evaded the swing by sheer luck

While following the target ju around in his field of vision, he lost his balance The half step he took backward saved his life

The razor-sharp tip of the sword sliced past his chin and stabbed into the tip of his boot Yanagida ai Warrior Bunny, as about as high as his belly The steel caps on his boots qualified as a lethal weapon However, the Warrior Bunny back flipped out of the way, and then kept just out of sword range from him

Yanagida trained his pistol on the Warrior Bunny again, but he could not keep her in his sights She evaded his aih she could not outrun a bullet once fired, the person holding the gun was a human, and she could move faster than he could take aim This was a technique that was possible for a master swordsman

“Cheh—”

Yanagida kneould not hit, but he fired anyway

To avoid his gun’s round, and then darted forward at Yanagida, ai her blade at his waist

Because she was attacking froida could not react in time

It was hard enough just trying to twist away, and he felt so in his waist

“There you are!”

The ier But fortunately, hisat his opponent’s back Yanagida did not need to ai even after his azine was empty

He kept pulling the trigger until he passed out