Chapter 6: WHERE I REALIZED THAT BLACKMAIL IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE TOOL AGAINST VAIN SCOUNDRELS
I arrived on the planet Aramia and just a couple of hours later the irreparable event happened. That means I only had two hours to solve the issue! And someone told me I had seventy-two hours! Wait! Who told me that…? Why can't I remember? Looks like I forgot something very important! Why couldn't Octagon—that all-powerful alien—help me get here sooner? I flew to that damn Kapuskasing on the other side of the world for two days! If he had let me go through the portal in Japan, I would have had two whole days to prevent this princess swap. Maybe there were no portals in Japan? Perhaps I could have even saved that crazy guy or even the loggers he fed to the monster tree. Or were the loggers just mindless NPCs? And my father and the rest of the development team had no need to make those characters sentient. Unless it was the sick fantasy of a trillionaire who wanted absolute realism, having spent half his fortune on this game? Did these events even happen? How could the aliens allow this fictional scenario?! It's horrible! Using their super-advanced technology, which, as my father used to say, is no different from magic in its effect, to bring this scenario of the demise of all positive characters to life? For the second time! My father loved that Arthur C. Clarke quote about technology being like magic. Could it be that some laws, supposedly intended to grant freedom, were in fact a death sentence for these synthetic beings, in this particular case! After all, the red giants will kill them all! Just plain kill them! If I had gotten here a few months before the catastrophe, I could have come up with a bunch of things—invent gunpowder, cannons, firearms, heavy ballistas, or at least use my knowledge to understand the laws of magic, which are diligently reproduced here by the incredible technologies of the aliens. Somewhere under the crust of this planet or in orbit, I don't know where, there are hidden technologies that allow the locals gifted with magical talent to work wonders. But the thing is, it's a matter of time. The player in Aramia is in a race against time. He has no roundabout solutions. And I have even less! With my initial foolish refusal, I aggravated my situation to the extreme. Even if the princess hadn't been 'swapped,' or rather, even if Beastland's best warrior had won the tournament and married her, creating the necessary alliance for Aramia's survival, the battle with a hundred giants is a terribly difficult task. The red giants are armored monsters with incredible physical abilities. Ordinary magic has no effect on them. Only a few select fighters can fight them. And for simple warriors to win—they need to be united into some highly organized army like the Roman legions and try to overwhelm them with numbers and iron discipline. Aramia, Maramia, Beastland, and a few other small kingdoms and principalities can assemble a ten-thousand-strong army, and if the population is mobilized, a sixty-thousand-strong one, but the chances of defeating the giants even then are very small. A Roman legion could probably handle such a task, losing most of its men, but the local army is not a real, drilled force capable of formation fighting. It's a crowd of synthetic characters dreamed up by screenwriters. Sometimes with some ridiculous weapons. In even more ridiculous costumes, armor, and even with the notorious "armored bras"!
All these thoughts and questions were racing through my head as I walked through the streets of Aramia. The queen allowed me to leave the palace, and I finally saw the embodied world of Kunisada's novel from the outside. To say I was shocked by my surroundings is an understatement. I never thought, reading the manga in my adoptive father's study, that I would see it in real life! I stood at the palace gates for a long time, watching the people and anthropomorphic creatures go about their business, peacefully chatting about something. Carts drawn by horses and lizard monsters. Then I slowly moved into the city, looking left and right. Wow! Only now did I begin to realize how great it was to suddenly find myself in a living fantasy world! There were thousands of real characters here, thinking, feeling! And each of them had thousands of their own stories outside the main one, in which, unfortunately, everyone dies. I wonder what a fantasy world would look like after an apocalypse?
As I passed through the market, people noticed me, but as I understood, it was because of the royal page's clothes. I even caught snippets of their conversations: "What an ugly page they have, couldn't they find someone better-looking!?" "Who's that? Never seen a page like that before. Must be a newbie!" "Do you know all the pages?" "Of course, everyone knows them, the queen has four pages! You're not from around here, you don't know, but we townspeople have seen them all at the festivals and in the processions. Everyone in town knows them!"...
I paid no attention to the words about my ugliness. I wasn't ugly, just an ordinary person compared to the 'drawn' characters of Japanese anime, would be considered as such. They are specifically drawn to be super beautiful and cute. And almost everyone, except for rare negative characters. After a few hundred more steps, I noticed I was being followed. That was to be expected! The queen, of course, sent someone to watch me. Just in case! I ducked into a side street, hid around a corner, and caught the 'tail' following me when he timidly tried to peek around the corner. The tail turned out to be a very young and, of course, charismatic and handsome lad from the royal knightly guard. He realized he had been exposed and, not knowing what to do, did the stupidest thing one could do in such a situation: he began whistling and turned to leave. I stopped him by grabbing the hem of the 'skirt' of his knightly armor. Yes, yes! This idiot was following me without taking off his armor!
"Let me go, sir, I am a lieutenant of the royal guard! It is punishable to detain a royal knight on duty."
His voice was trembling, and he was desperately trying to sound composed.
"And what duty are you performing?" I asked suspiciously.
"I-I..." he began to stutter, trying to come up with an excuse. "I was sent..."
"What's your name?" I asked, deciding not to torture him further; after all, he was just following the queen's orders.
"Zolm Drikherst, sir!"
I chewed my lips, thinking. Well, yes, German-sounding names and surnames are a common trick of Japanese novelists and mangakas. Another world with a fantasy setting just has to look like medieval German towns of the 18th century, and the inhabitants must have corresponding names. Suddenly, an idea came to me.
"Listen, Drikherst, you don't have to follow me..."
"But, sir! I..."
"You can come with me and show me the city. I'll have a hard time getting around.
His face immediately brightened.
"Yes, sir!"
Zolm Drikherst was incredibly pleased that he could both carry out the queen's order and avoid my anger. The palace was surely full of rumors about my strange naked invincible sorcerer. Drikherst was clearly afraid of me, as people are always afraid of the unknown and incomprehensible. And the queen had probably given him a talking-to.
"Where are we going?"
I thought for a moment.
"Do you know where Beastland's Lightning is?"
His face changed at the mention of the Beastman. Apparently, this type was not well-liked in the royal guard.
"He's about to leave. He may have already left," he added doubtfully.
"After the incident with the princess? How did he find out?"
Yesterday I tried to hide the "failed" swap of the princess, but nothing came of it. Apparently, the Beastlanders had their spies in the palace. Which was not surprising, many of the servants were beastmen. And the time lag wouldn't have let me do it.
"I don't know. Spies, probably."
Drikherst shrugged guiltily, confirming my suspicions.
"Where is he staying? Take me to him."
"But..."
"But what?"
Drikherst hesitated terribly. I had the urge to just shake him to get the answer out of him.
"Well, he was in the hall when you... uh, appeared, so to speak."
I slapped my forehead. Right! When I landed naked in the middle of the table, it was the dinner in honor of his arrival. How could I not have guessed? It's in the book! The dinner scene.
"Who cares! Whether he saw me naked or not. Take me to him, if you don't unite your countries' armies, you'll all be killed! Got it? Kiiilled! By the Red Giants! Terrible armored monsters from the past!"
"But that's a myth, isn't it? Grandmother's tales."
I really shook him, despite his armor I even managed to lift him up.
"Idiot! Why do you think I ended up naked on that table? Do you think I would have done that willingly? You'll all be killed if you don't help me stop all this!"
This argument, despite its ridiculous sound, somehow had an effect on him. He nodded in agreement to my demand:
"Alright! I'll take you to him, Master Sorcerer. They're in the summer residence on the other side of the palace. They should be, if they haven't left yet."
"They?" I asked.
"Well, yes. There's a whole delegation. You don't think, Sir Sorcerer, that a man as important as the Prince of Beastland would come on a visit alone!?"
"I don't. Stop talking and show me the way."
I unceremoniously pushed him and we set off for the summer palace. A rather large building almost at the edge of the city wall. Nearby was a palace park and a small coliseum for games and tournaments, from where the noise of soldiers training in the arena could be heard...
The Prince of Beastland turned out to be a disgusting guy. Kunisada described his character as quarrelsome, arrogant, proud, vain... and on top of that, the game developers probably added something else—something bad. The beastmen prince was an absolutely unbearable type. He refused to see me. "I don't talk to some naked half-wit sorcerers who suddenly appear on the dinner table." This was relayed to me by Drikherst, who had gone into the building where he was with his entourage and mistresses. Unlike the manga, where there is too little information about this character, the light novel I was now consulting had a whole paragraph about his "harem." It was not surprising that Rosalinda did not want to marry him. She herself was a spoiled and capricious princess, but compared to Beastland's Lightning, she looked like a quite decent, innocent girl. Angered by his refusal to see me, I sat down on a bench and began to think. I couldn't just shout at his window—you half-wit yourself—and leave. This beastman was incredibly fast and strong, and could at least kill one or two fire giants. What to do? What to do? The question was spinning in my head. I had come to this world too late. But even with all the factors, I can't convince this vain prince to marry the princess, since he has refused. It's clear that the prince was looking for an excuse to refuse this marriage, but victory in the tournament automatically meant that he would get her. The princess as a prize. And most likely, it was the victory in the fight that interested him, not the bride herself. I glanced with a frown at Drikherst, who was standing there shifting from foot to foot, not daring to speak to me. And then suddenly something clicked in my head. Why does he have to marry the princess? If he's interested in fighting, then he would probably enjoy fighting the red giants. You just need to... need to... yes! Find some dirt on him in the book!
How could I forget that I have Kunisada's 'magic' book? There must be some information about him in it. There must have been something in there that could get to him. I immediately took out the book.
"What are you doing, sir?"
Drikherst finally asked, continuing to watch my manipulations with the book, not understanding my behavior. He probably thinks I'm crazy. Of course, he didn't know about the book. Only the queen and Tibius knew about it.
"Looking for dirt on this insolent fellow!" I answered without looking up from the light novel. "It was somewhere, it was somewhere," I hummed to myself, quickly flipping through the pages. "Ah, here it is! Found it!"
According to Kugisada's narrative, Beastland's Lightning was a lolicon. A hidden one. He liked little girls and small women. He was also Kitsundina's lover. And everything would have been fine if Kitsundina wasn't a tall, red-haired goddess of unearthly beauty. Beastland's Lightning cheated on the goddess Kaya while being her lover. Aha! One of the surviving goddesses of Cunning! This story never actually happened but was a memory implanted during the programming of those characters, but they didn't perceive it any less for that. Kitsundina didn't know that Lightning had deceived her. Being a goddess, she was sure of his loyalty and devotion. And Beastland's Lightning's biggest fear was that she would find out about it. I knew what I had to do. My lips twisted into a wicked smile. Blackmail? So what? It's for a good cause! Besides, he's a scoundrel and a narcissist. I looked up from the pages and glanced at Drikherst.
"I'll write something, Drikherst, and you'll pass it to him. Got it?"
Drikherst swallowed nervously and nodded affirmatively, looking like a victim of a boa constrictor.
...
Just a minute later, after receiving the note, Beastland's Lightning rushed out. With a sword, only dressed in his underwear. Without warning, he attacked me. He was, indeed, like lightning. Fully living up to his nickname. If it weren't for the system, he would have split me in two. The protection from the Galactic Union prevented the fatal blow, but the recoil from the furious fantastic strike with a magic sword did not disappear. Beastland's Lightning was thrown back a dozen or so meters, breaking through the fence around the guest mansion, and on the way, he collected all the dust from the street on the other side. Unfortunately, this first attempt to kill me did not cool his ardor at all, and he jumped to his feet and rushed at me a second time, utter surprise written on his face. And this time he tried a cautious stabbing thrust. With the same result. Then again, then again... I waited patiently. This beastman had an ocean of stamina and life energy.
"Finished?" I asked him when he seemed to be getting tired of trying to break through the invisible layer of protection surrounding my body.
"You! You! Cursed impenetrable Mage! I'll kill you! Kiiill you!"
That was all he could say. I was even a little surprised by such a violent reaction. Is he really that afraid of her? Kitsundina, according to the novel, was a virtuous goddess, a strict but fair patroness of the Demihumans. And she didn't seem cruel or vain. What would she do to him for cheating? She already knows that he cheats on her with demi-girls right and left, right? Is it because a goddess is involved here? Apparently, cheating with another goddess completely changes the matter in her eyes. Cheated with a competitor, like!
At the end of our strange negotiations, I got his word that he would arrive at the Giants' landing site with his squad in a month. Plus, he was incredibly happy when he realized that I was not going to force him to marry the princess through this blackmail. His fascination with flat-chested underage girls was beyond my comprehension. I saw a picture of Kitsundina in the novel. This demi-girl was the goddess of the hunt and forest beauty, the Artemis and Aphrodite of this world at the same time. And she had large female attributes, as my adoptive father used to say, by the way. If you know what I mean.
After this incident, my authority in Drikherst's eyes rose to an incredible height. When we returned to the palace, he obligingly opened all the doors for me, beaming with importance. The guards glanced at him, not understanding the reason for his joy. When we entered the throne room, where the queen was waiting for us. He immediately reported to her about our successful mission. Shocking her. Half an hour later, at a ceremony, I was presented with a medal and the scepter of the queen's advisor. Or the king's hand. I became something like the person in charge in a world on the brink of destruction. Which, in general, did not make me very happy. I was rapidly turning into the main scapegoat if I failed to save this world.