Having spent the night at the Nossentes escort camp, Yuusuke’s group rose early in the morning, boarded a separate escort group’s carriage and started the final leg of their journey towards the ancient capital, named Patrucia Nost.
They exchanged a quick greeting with the escort party when they arrived late last night and then proceeded straight to the preparations for tomorrow’s journey, followed by rest. Without sufficient space to build the house like last time (pls confirm), Yuusuke did not bother customizing the earth and they accepted the tents that the escort party had provided them with.
Ambassador’s party, which expected to be able to rest in a lodging house again suddenly seemed somewhat dispirited and much more tired. However, Yuusuke was able to provide his corps, ambassador’s group, and even the escort party with a pleasant sleep.
“Captain, rather than being on a battlefield, this seems like a high class suite.” (Ambassador)
“Well, yeah. Even I can’t think of us being in battle right now.” (Yuusuke)
The quality of the customization was so high, that the ambassador’s party was able to get a pleasant rest in these comfortable sleeping bags, which had become a trademark of the Darkness God Corps. Even the escort party seemed to be more refreshed than what one would expect from the soldiers on the field.
Soldiers had to rest no matter the harshness of the situation. So the Darkness Corps sleeping bags were the best kind of marching supplies that these soldiers could hope for.
“Where in the world did they get these from?” (Nossentes soldier)
Darkness God Corps-Ambassador’s party were receiving such praises from the escort party as they left the forest and entered the highway, and, come afternoon, they had arrived at their destination.
Compared to the pyramid-like Sanc Adiet, which expanded upwards, Patrucia Nost looked like it was meant to be a huge fortress from the beginning. It was a gigantic castle, build exclusively for the royalty of the white tribe and their retainers. (T.N. Yet it also apparently looked like a mountain)
Structurally, the houses merged together and looked like a single huge building. However, the divine art user’s caste segregation still existed here – the city was divided into five almost evenly sized districts. Because of that the lower class people usually spent their entire lives indoors.
An open plaza spanned over nearly the entirety of the top floor, and the shops and residential quarters were located inside the building(s).
Yuusuke’s party was passing through the palace district where the tallest and most beautiful buildings lined up along the road. The delivery of the letter and the audience with the ambassador’s party was planned for tomorrow, so, after a quick discussion with the ambassador it was decided that Darkness God Corps would split up with the ambassador’s party for today.
The Darkness God Corps also split amongst themselves, there were those that went to rest in the rooms prepared for them, and those that went to walk around the city. Yuusuke of course joined the latter as his original goal of traveling to this city was to procure the necessary medicine.
Vermeer and Shaheed received permission to walk around the city, to inspect its architecture. Meanwhile, Aisha and Isotta joined up with Yuusuke as they wanted to buy cosmetics and some souvenirs for their parents.
Strangely, Fonke, who seemed to want to go out and play in the beginning, stayed in their lodgings to rest. In truth, he probably wanted to rest until the evening and spend the night in the city.
“Mhh, it would be nice if anyone told me of a good place…” (Yuusuke)
While searching for the medicine shop, Yuusuke entered an indoor passage that looked to be an underground shopping district. It did not seem likely for him that he would find what he was looking for if he only wandered around aimlessly and he was slightly regretting that he went out without doing any prior research on the matter. Hence, Yuusuke only sighed, looking at the bustling street, full of people going about their business. As he was restlessly looking around while standing alongside the wall (of some building)—
“Excuse me, is there anything wrong?” a young woman called out to him. Actually, more of the passerby’s than just this one girl, had noticed him looking around like he had lost himself in the city, however his appearance and strange, unfamiliar divine arts aura had prevented them from approaching him.
The arrival of the Fonclanc’s friendship ambassador was well known even between the common people.
Between the whispers about the defeat of their long time enemy, Gazzetta, in the lands of Blue Garden by the armies of Fonclanc, there were some rumors about a hero, who was the leader of the Darkness God Corps. In order to be hailed as a hero, one had to kill a great deal of enemies during the battle.
However, it was not very well known that the same corps were also renowned for the events of the Gearhawk and Deernook fortresses.
Therefore people were staring at the man in black, who was leaning against the wall, thinking that he might actually be that hero, and were afraid to call out to him.
Incidentally, the young woman that called out to Yuusuke was either brave, softhearted, or she was simply an airhead. She looked to be around twenty years old, perhaps even slightly younger than that and had a ladylike atmosphere around her. With her yellow hair tied to her side, and lively, yet quite gentle appearance, she looked to be quite a lovely girl.
“Pheeew, I could really use some help! Would you mind if I asked for some directions around the city?” (Yuusuke)
“Not at all, it would be my pleasure.” (Yellow haired girl)
Having received the directions to the pharmacy, Yuusuke thanked the girl, who walked away after smiling gently to him. Yuusuke, having bought a number of the medicine vials, hurriedly returned to his room in the palace district and performed some quick customizations.
The red bottle, full of healing liquid, was an expensive medicine and cost nearly three red shoukas. Hearing the amount that Yuusuke asked for, shopkeepers could not believe his ears. By the way, if one bought the medicine in some other country, considering transportation expenditure, its price would become even higher. (Might delete last sentence as it was already said in the last chapter..)
“I guess, I will start by trying to leave the healing rate the same while adding a divine arts amplification and a physical strength recovery.” (Yuusuke)
Trying to customize stronger recovery effects into the medicine, Yuusuke felt that he could make the medicine fit a range of possible uses if he tampered with the various healing effects.
When Aisha called for Fonke the next morning, the guy seemed to be dead tired after having just returned to his quarters after spending the entire night in the city. At the same time, Yuusuke was about to test the customized medicine to see if it’s effect mirrored those of the water arts.
According to Yuusuke’s customization menu, the medicine was at the level that was simply impossible to create from mere water, thus he was convinced that the medicine will be pretty useful.
“Hey, I don’t want to be the experimental rat.” (Fonke)
“Well, I know that it will not be dangerous. I just want to see whether it will be effective or not.” (Yuusuke)
While trying to persuade Fonke that there is nothing to fear, Yuusuke somehow managed to get the guy to take the stamina restoration potion into his hand.
“I always was a loyal subordinate.” Fonke said in a pleading voice.
“I know. That’s why I am expecting you to drink this.” (Yuusuke)
“… Th- these people…” (Aisha)
As opposed to Fonke, Aisha was feeling down since morning and would have been a perfect candidate to test the mood lifting medicine. (kanji read [tranquilizer])
If they were to hand over the personal letter during today’s audience, the first stage of the mission of the Darkness God Corps would be over and they could leave the rest to the ambassador’s party. Between some small meetings the members of the corps planned to spend their time sightseeing around the city and leisurely await for the day they were supposed to return to their own country.
At the time that Fonclanc’s ambassador’s party had a meeting with the representatives of Nossentes divine parliament, the other members were monitored in their quarters or during their time in the city to prevent any intelligence leaks or misconduct. At the same time as the meeting, the divine parliament was gathered in the divine halls to discuss the means to entice Yuusuke to join their side, the movements of Gazzetta, and the current situation in Fonclanc.
“It seems that Volmes’ unit was destroyed.”
“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted an outsider with this task.”
“Our biggest problem is that guy is Fonclanc’s prisoner now.”
“We can get the aristocrats at their side (that are loyal to our cause) to take care of him, now let’s discuss the matter of the Darkness God Corps and the Evil God.”
Yuusuke and the rest had not yet received the news regarding the incident at the port town. Even the ambassador’s party was just informed about these recent events. The information has been delayed for the sake of hiding the espionage power of Nossentes and make the actual number of spies seem not as great as it actually was.
The city had a protection from transmission type wind arts so one had to get permission to send or receive a transmission. Even Isotta had ceased using her wind arts and their safe arrival to Nossentes was reported to their home country by the capital wind arts users. Isotta was feeling uneasy about that, but since they were guests of another country, to disobey the rules would mean raising doubts about them, thus they had no choice but to comply.
When she reported it to captain Yuusuke, he only muttered “Yeah, it would be the best to contact them by ourselves, but this would certainly be for the best.” Isotta only replied with “Yes it would.” Dealing with Nossentes only brought feelings of uneasiness for them.
Nonetheless, these were the rules of the country they were staying in, so Yuusuke did not worry much about it and was about to go out into the town today to, again, look for medicine.
“Oh, if it isn’t Yuusuke-sama!”
“Ah, he’s an acquaintance of your’s sister?”
“Hm?”
Yuusuke heard this exchange as he was walking towards the medicine shop and turned his head towards the voices. He saw two people there, one girl seemed to look familiar to her, while he had seen the other in the town before. One of them was a beautiful young girl with light blue hair and eyes, the other – a girl that had given him the directions around the city yesterday, who had yellow hair that was tied up to her side.
“Rashanasha-san, and the girl from…?” (Yuusuke)
“Ah… hello”
“Oh! It really is Yuusuke-san!”
[“That’s right, we’re leaving back for Fonclanc soon”], thought Yuusuke, meeting unexpected people in unexpected places and was reminded of something Rashanasha told him earlier.
“Thinking about that—are you her younger sister?” (Yuusuke)
“Eeh, the younger sister that you were talking about earlier?” (Yellow haired girl) (T. N. Apparently Yuusuke had told her of Rashanasha.)
“Ah, hello, my name is Razsha.”
“Thank you for yesterday. I’m Yuusuke.”
Razsha quickly lowered her head and Yuusuke responded with a prompt Japanese greeting. Rasha’s vigor reminded Yuusuke of Violet, gentle demeanor – of Sun, the way she panicked – of Isotta, and the clear way of talking – of Aisha.
Figures, watching Yuusuke and the girls from the shadows, reported in to their superiors through a secret/hidden/covert wind arts transmission.
[“–Honeybee contact confirmed.–”]
[“–Roger. Continue tracing the target.—“]