Chapter 68: Chapter 68: Resolution

Translator: ShiroiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

It’s one week after my first encounter with Livyatan, the appointed day.

Everything was already prepared… Or so I thought before, as I’m now digging a hole behind the inn.

“I can’t believe I forgot! And so cleanly and completely!”

“Why is it that I have to help you dig a hole?”

My hole digging partner, miss Bella, issued a complaint.

Come on, what’s the problem? You’re in the surplus fighting force anyway.

“Everything is set up inside the inn already, so what’s wrong with helping out? Besides this hole digging work is important.”

“What exactly is this anyway?”

“A bath!”

“Huh?”

“To be more precise, the innkeeper said, “if I can use it as an open air bath later, then you can dig a hole” to give me permission, so…”

“So, what are we going to use this as?”

“As a bath?”

Miss Bella tilted her head a second time upon hearing my answer. It’s such a cute gesture.

She should show that to mister Bhav.

“Why am I part of the surplus anyway? Wouldn’t it be better for me to face her inside?”

Her misgivings are, well, they’re reasonable I suppose.

For the current arrangement, Haster is in our room, fully armed. In the adjacent room is Yig and all of Forest Bear, except miss Bella, on standby.

And in the back yard are miss Bella and I, currently digging a hole.

“Ah, careful miss Bella. We’re going to use that spot for a water pipe, so be sure not to dig too deep.”

“Oh, so sorry…”

I use magic to roughly dig the hole, miss Bella uses a shovel to do the fine details, and I finish it off by firing the surface to give it a coating.

A heavy shovel felt like too much for me to handle; I would immediately feel it in my back.

I suddenly felt like the moon was covered and looked up to see a cloudless night sky spread out before me.

“… She’s here, huh? We have to hurry.”

“Then let’s go to the room!”

“This is more important.”

I pump well water up into the fired bath tub, and confirm that the water flows.

Once I noticed there were no problems, I used [Water Bolt] to immediately fill it with water, and slammed it with a [Heat Ball] to bring the temperature up to a steaming heat.

Normally it’s structured for a pump to fill it with water, and firewood to heat it, but we hardly have the time right now, so I took a shortcut.

Upon completing that, strange voices could be heard from the inn room.

“Fuhahahaha! Phantom Thief Livyatan has arrived! Merely changing rooms could hardly fool me—!”

“There you are! Hey, let’s do this!”

“Agya—!”

“You’re in the way, shrimp, move it!”

She has the skills to move in secret, so why does she so grandly call out her name I wonder? Is she an idiot?

Noisy banging, slamming, rampaging sounds, and clouds of dust came from the room, as well as the occasional breath flying out the window.

Haster stuck his head out the window from the adjacent room, and checked in my direction. I gave a single nod in reply.

“It would make things simple if we could catch her here, but…”

“What are you doing? We have to hurry back inside!”

“Patience. We’re going to stand by here for a bit.”

Livyatan’s target is Yig. If that’s the case, then she shouldn’t be able to harm him.

Even if she had been targeting him for materials, a young dragon whose scales haven’t even hardened wouldn’t fetch a very high price.

She would have to raise him for a few years or it probably wouldn’t be worth it.

“Besides… I can’t see Livyatan harming Yig.”

When we first met her and she amiably pet Yig, her expression didn’t seem fake.

After the disturbance continued for a while, a purple smoke puffed from the room.

“So she really did use a drug, huh.”

“A drug? If it’s dangerous, then—“

“No, it’s probably a sleeping drug. Based on the stories thus far, I wouldn’t put it past her to get caught in it and fall asleep herself, but…”

The most efficient way to make Yig powerless is to put him to sleep.

There have been plenty of stories, from time immemorial, in which dragons are killed by putting them to sleep and launching surprise attacks.

And then Livyatan, holding Yig, jumped out from the window.

“And of course that didn’t happen. Well then, time for a chase. You stay here and wait for Haster please, miss Bella. It’s why I had him wait in a separate room.”

“Eh? Yeah, will do.”

I left miss Bella with orders and leaped into the night sky, giving chase to Livyatan.

~*~

Cutting through the lukewarm summer air, we soared through the sky.

It’s almost like “a scene from an anime” I bitterly smiled as I chased the phantom thief in front of me.

“Okay Livyatan, it’s round two!”

“Hrm, so you came, Yuuri. But the game is already over!”

While still holding Yig, she made a big spin, and threw something towards me with her open hand.

Though I was cautious from her declaration, a few curtains of smoke exploded in front of me.

“Smoke bombs! You even had something like these ready?”

In a somewhat overacted tone I shouted.

Although it’s not exactly strange that she had these ready for her escape. I have to keep this up.

If I know there will be no harm caused, I just have to break through. I flew straight through the smokescreen, and on the other side—I couldn’t find Livyatan.

“Kh! Where did—?!”

Losing her here is definitely bad. It’s way too soon.

I [Detected] the [Transmitter] on Yig, and chased after it.

“Wha… It hasn’t been removed?”

If she has “Peerless Magic” too, then she should already have noticed the [Transmitter] placed on him.

Yet she escaped without getting rid of it; it’s almost as if she’s asking me to follow after her.

“What sort of intentions does she actually have I wonder…?”

Anyway, I’m grateful that I don’t need to rely on ‘that’ to chase after her.

It would seem she’s taking the drains over to the port. There were plenty of warehouses lined up over there.

I’ve heard that because this city is near the shore they’ve installed a large drainage system as a countermeasure for huge waves. She must be taking advantage of that.

Using my own advantage of flying through the sky, I head her off a number of times to disrupt her movements and buy time.

And then, after deciding that I had bought enough time, I lost sight of her.

~*~

“Or so I say, but since she didn’t cancel out the [Transmitter], chasing after her isn’t particularly difficult, but… Seriously, what is she thinking?”

While hiding around a corner of the warehouse town, I put my doubts to words.

The [Transmitter] is still continuously sending back a reaction, and the reaction from ‘that’ was there again, so there should be no mistake she’s hiding in the warehouse in front of me.

And then the trailing Haster and company caught up.

“Sorry for the wait, Yuuri.”

“Think nothing of it. Were you and the others okay, mister Jack?”

“As you imagined, the smokescreen was a sleeping drug.”

“Sleeping medicine is a classic set-up for dragon slaying, after all.”

“What the hell, if you knew then you could have said so.”

Yig isn’t some object. That means stealing him requires making him powerless.

If she was going to steal him alive, then the only possibilities I could think of were anesthesia or a sleeping drug.

“I would actually rather ask why you didn’t realize it yourself?”

“Grrrr….”

“And so you had sir Haster wait in a separate room.”

Miss Bella said with a slightly flushed face. Yeah, whatever, just get away from Haster already, you boyfriend have-er.

“I think it should be fine at this point, so… Haster, I leave it to you.”

“Yeah, off I go.”

He proudly walked towards the warehouse directly from the front.

Of course if she’s watching from inside, then she’ll probably notice, but…

After a short while, he came back holding Yig.

He opened the door, and used a [Ventilate] spell to air out the room. And then he continued on and flew back towards the inn.

“H-hey… Is that okay?”

“It’s totally okay.”

After he went away, we infiltrated the warehouse.

Inside was—Livyatan alone, agonized and in heat.

“Haa, haa—What’n blazes is thiiis…”

“Uwoah?! Is this paradise?!”

“This is poison to the eyes.”

The agonizing Livyatan had excited mister Jack and mister Kale.

These bastards seriously have no sense of delicacy!

Uhh, okay yeah, I stole a few lusty looks at her too.

“I put some orc’s fluid onto Yig’s scales.”

“Why the hell do you have something like that with you?!”

“The necessities of research compelled me.”

Yes, the reason I kept the ‘women,’ miss Bella and myself away from Yig is to elude the influence of this fluid.

The reason I bought time was to make sure Livyatan had thoroughly fallen under its influence though.

“Then that bath is…?”

“It’s to wash Yig in. If we used the room’s bath, the smell would stick around and cause something horrible to happen.”

“Sounds like you have some kind of dangerous story about it?”

“It was amazing…”

Yeah, I really never expected I would push a man down myself.

Putting that aside!

I quickly placed our restraints on her. The gift sealing shackles were already set.

Upon doing so, her face, which we couldn’t perceive before, perfectly matched miss Levy’s. My mind made me feel like it’s strange I didn’t recognize her before.

This is the effect of the “Recognition Blocking” gift.

“Anyway miss Bella, use [Antidote] on her. At this rate we won’t be able to ask her anything.”

“Guess so. Besides, it’s quite the poison for the men’s eyes, huh?”

She stealthily brought her hand behind mister Bhav and pinched his butt.

Surprisingly, she’s quite jealous.

“The men can go outside. Go on, shoo.”

“Aww—, come on, just a little—“

“[Wind Bolt]”

“Uwoah?! Ooow!”

I sent the men off with weak [Wind Bolt] chastisements to chase them out.

During which miss Bell finished the [Antidote].

While doing so I and miss Bella herself also took an [Antidote].

The lingering smell aside, I used the fluids effects to chase after her, so it was getting just a bit dangerous.

I don’t want to know what would have happened if I was hit by the fluid and got excited.

“Whew, this truly is a dangerous product.”

“Right? I think the adventurer’s guild should raise the danger level on orcs a little higher.”

The redness disappears from miss Bella’s expression, and she returns to her usual cool beauty self.

But I’m pretty sure mister Bhav is in for quite the evening tonight.

“They’re idiots, so we managed without incident, but women can’t really deal well with this.”

“Maybe I should take this opportunity to develop something like a gas mask?”

Upon trembling at the danger it presents to women, an idiotic voice resounded through the room.

“Uwaaah! I can’t be a bride no moooore~”

It would seem Livyatan came back to her senses too.

Well then, I wonder if we can take her back to the inn for some interrogation time?