Ugly Guy, Hardcore Fighter-Chapter 88: The Sloth King (Patreon)

-Thank you DCRangeRange, Dean Dexter and CannedbreadFollow me on Patreon via Linktree https://linktr.ee/Mnotia-

“I couldn’t stop Ria-san.”

After we returned to the branch, Seika-san said the same words three times.

“No. The one who set this up was King Abel.”

Seiji-san gave the same reply three times as well.

Reia-san remained standing by the wall, fists clenched.

Reia-san was the only one who had been bathed in Abel’s light and had nothing happen to her.

That was all we knew for now.

Kato-kun had been turned into a black office desk.

Ria had been turned into a music box.

Both of them had just defied Abel.

But nothing had happened to Reia-san, who had drawn her scimitar and attacked him.

Seika-san stared intently at Reia-san’s sunglasses.

“I’ve got it! Reia-san didn’t look at the king’s eyes!”

She was full of confidence.

Are you Medusa or something?

“I see, that’s Seika for you! Then next time, we just close our eyes the moment the light comes!”

“Thank you, Reia-san! I might be able to become a great detective too!”

And then you beat him with mind’s eye, right?

That’s a strategy that’s been worn out even in shounen manga.

“I’m sorry, but I believe that possibility is low.”

Rizu quietly cut in on Seika-san, who had been puffing out her chest.

“King Abel unhesitatingly fired his light at Reia-san, whose eyes were covered. If eye contact were the activation condition, he should have made her remove the glasses first, or at least checked.”

I see.

I hadn’t looked at it that way.

Seiji-san wrote the three names on paper.

“What about the difference in actions? Kato-kun voiced an opinion, Ria-san tried to use Magic, and Reia-san drew her scimitar.”

“From Abel’s perspective, all of those would count as defiance, wouldn’t they?”

“It’s not a difference between men and women either.”

Kato-kun is male.

Ria and Reia-san are female.

Sex isn’t relevant.

“Gratitude precision?”

Reia-san asked.

Seiji-san added the numbers that the parrot had read out at the meeting.

Kato-kun, 64.

Ria, 31.

Reia-san, 44.

“If lower numbers are unaffected, that doesn’t explain why only Reia-san was unharmed and not Ria-san.”

It wasn’t Gratitude precision either.

There had to be other differences.

But if we added too many guesses, we’d lose sight of what we could see.

“Let’s stop here for now.”

I stood up from the chair.

“Where are you going?”

Seika-san asked, and I looked outside the window.

“Seika-san. How old do you think this country is?”

“Huh?”

“That’s abrupt. Are you asking how many years since its founding?”

Seiji-san also tilted his head.

“No. I mean, if you compared it to a human.”

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently Abel carried out reforms, but I was wondering what it was like before that.”

“What does that have to do with the country’s age?”

“To put it bluntly, this country seems to use the words 『thank you』 to cover up all its problems.”

“It looks that way to me too.”

Seiji-san quietly agreed.

“But whether it’s a country made out of malice or just unfinished is another matter. To me, this country looks like an infant not even three years old. It’s finally just starting to walk on its own.”

“A baby...?”

“It doesn’t know why it fell or why it’s hungry. But it thinks that if it says 『thank you』, it can stand up.”

I remembered the man who had hung his head at the Gratitude Trial.

“Do you think Dario-san is really a bad person?”

Seika-san shook her head.

“He did do bad things. But I think he’s someone who worked hard for his family.”(TL Note: yeah, I dont really think buddy is a bad guy. He stole medicine and food to make sure his family doesnt die.)

“I figured. Looking at those thick arms, you can tell he’s not a man who never worked.”

“Even so, he couldn’t make a living...”

“So he committed fraud. What we can’t overlook is that. It’s not just whether Dario-san is bad. A person who worked honestly couldn’t support his family without committing fraud. It’s about when this country became like that.”

The new Selenoa uses gratitude as its signboard.

But beneath it, the waterways from the previous king’s era remain.

“Let’s go look at this country’s history.”

＊

Beyond the old iron door behind the branch, it was pitch black.

It was the door I had gone in and out of when I repaired the waterway supports before.

When Seika-san raised her staff, a faint orb of light was born and illuminated the wet stone walls.

The passage was only wide enough for one person, and black water flowed at our feet.

“Doesn’t it get smellier the further underground we go?”

When I asked, Reia-san held her nose.

“Don’t ask. Once you acknowledge it, you lose.”

You’ve already lost.

I pinched my nose too.

Only Rizu didn’t change expression at all.

“Twenty meters ahead. The water gate is half-open.”

Almost simultaneously with those words, a sound that resonated in my stomach occurred.

The chain of the water gate snapped.

From the depths of the darkness, a wall of water surged toward us.

“Get back!”

Seika-san pointed her staff and created a translucent wall.

The torrent crashed into it. The wall of light creaked, and her shoes slipped on the stone floor.

Unable to withstand the water pressure, even the stonework supporting the wall began to collapse.

I slipped my hand into the wall from an angle where no one could see and held a stone that was about to come loose.

Even if Seika-san’s Magic held out, it would be meaningless if the whole passage collapsed.

At times like this, supporting stone is easier than supporting people.

“There’s an inspection path to the upper right!”

Seiji-san shouted.

On the right side of the wall, a little above waist height, a rusted grate was set.

Reia-san drew her scimitar and slashed the grate away.

Rizu jumped in first and checked that the depths were safe.

Reia-san followed.

“Shigeru-san, you go first!”

I let go of the stonework and rolled into the inspection hatch.

Seiji-san entered next and reached out to Seika-san from inside.

“Seika-san, come this way little by little!”

While maintaining the wall of light, Seika-san slowly edged toward the inspection hatch.

She kicked off the floor on the last step. Seiji-san grabbed her arm and pulled her into the inspection path.

Immediately after, the wall of light shattered.

The muddy torrent filled the main waterway and passed below our feet with a roar.

“Shigeru-san, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It just stinks.”

We had underestimated the underground.

The old waterway was a maze.

It passed under the royal palace, branched off to the market wells, and extended to the edge of the farmland.

Along the waterway there were many side paths for inspection, most of them sealed off with boards. Rusted tools had been left at the entrances, and old inspection charts still hung on the walls.

At the end of the inspection chart hanging on the wall, an unfamiliar date was written.

『Season of the Sun, Day of the Rainbow』

“This is a notation treated as the old calendar in the Principality of Valeria.”

Seiji-san traced the date with his finger.

“However, in Selenoa it was probably still commonly used at the time. Converted to the current calendar, it’s last summer.”

“That’s relatively recent.”

“It almost overlaps with when King Abel ascended the throne.”

“Could it be that inspections stopped from the day he became king?”

Further ahead, a light was visible.

That spot alone had a lived-in feel, so much that you wouldn’t think it was a waterway.

A small stove. Dried fish. Stacked books. Using an old crown as a pot holder, an old man lay on a lounge chair.

“I’ve been waiting.”

The old man said with his eyes still closed.

“Did you know we were coming?”

“No. I just wanted to say it once if a guest came.”

“No matter who came?”

“No matter who came. If I say this, I’ll seem like a king who sees through everything.”

So it’s meaningless.

Reia-san put her hand on the hilt of her scimitar.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the former king. My name is Olfen.”

We all lost our words together.

The former king was taking a nap in a groundwater channel with a terrible stench, using his crown as a pot holder.

“The people called me the Sloth King, though.”

The old man finally opened his eyes.

“Does King Abel know you’re here?”

“I don’t know. It’s been made out that I left the country the day I abdicated. I yielded the throne and disappeared from public view. Taking a nap isn’t rebellion, after all.”

“Why are you called the Sloth King?”

“Probably because I’m lazy.”

The former king looked at the stove fire.

After a short pause, he added quietly.

“At least, that’s probably how it looked to the people.”

“Is that okay?”

“It’s fine. No one expects anything of me.”

When we introduced ourselves, the former king added a piece of firewood to the fire.

“Do you know Dario Basque?”

Seiji-san asked.

“I know him. Since he was young, he carried cargo through the waterways. His handwriting was poor, but he remembered which water gate fed how many households.”

“At the trial, he was called a fraudster who forged gratitude.”

“That’s probably true too.”

The former king flipped the fish over.

“If a person does one bad thing, do the twenty years they worked until then disappear?”

No one answered.

“Abel saved those who were suffering. He did a great deal of what I couldn’t. He gave children who were hungry that day’s bread. He delivered medicine to the sick. That’s why the people chose him.”

The stove fire lit the old man’s cheeks red.

“But you didn’t neglect making that bread and medicine.”

“Oh? Pig-dono, why do you think so?”

Pig again, huh.

“It’s this waterway. Inspections have stopped, but it’s still running water to the city. Would something like this remain in the country of a king who did nothing?”

“I’m not the only one who built this. It’s been since my grandfather’s time—no, since long before that.”

The former king added another piece of firewood to the stove.

“This country is sandwiched between two great powers. Every time a war broke out, it was made into a passage. If we tried to win, the country would vanish. If we sided with one, we’d be burned by the other.”

Could a mere sloth govern such a country?

Perhaps appearing to do nothing was the only way to keep this country alive.

“Abel seems to be issuing national bonds called 『thank you』 and releasing what you all have accumulated.”

“An interesting expression. Pig-dono.”

The former king silently gazed at the stove fire for a while.

Only the sound of water flowing underground could be heard.

“I tried to protect tomorrow’s meal and couldn’t fully save those crying today. He used even tomorrow’s meal to save those crying today.”

The former king dropped his eyes to the water flowing at his feet.

“I don’t know which is right either. But this waterway must be repaired even if no one is grateful. The fields must be plowed even if no one thanks you. A country is that kind of troublesome thing.”

Seika-san also followed the former king’s gaze.

At our feet, water flowed slowly.

“Why did Abel-san make a system where collecting gratitude lets you buy bread?”

“Gratitude makes people work, and that work creates someone else’s gratitude. He probably thought the country would circulate that way.”

The gratitude circulation system, huh.

The idea is interesting. But in practice, it was full of holes.

“But why did everyone go along with such a reckless system? Weren’t there people who opposed it?”

“It wasn’t in its current form from the beginning.”

The former king shifted the firewood in the stove.

“It began with distributing bread to the hungry. Next, we recorded the gratitude of those who helped others. We made it exchangeable for food and medicine. The people were pleased. Because each change made their lives look better.”

He didn’t suddenly remake the country.

He stacked up one right thing at a time.

By the time anyone noticed, a country had been completed where no one could live without gratitude.

“Even so, if it were me, I might leave the country because I couldn’t keep up with rules like these. Did no one abandon the country?”

“There were those who abandoned it. But where would you go, leaving behind your fields, family, and ancestors’ graves? Abandoning your country isn’t as easy as passing through a single gate.”

“Didn’t Abel-san stop people who tried to leave the country?”

Seika-san asked.

“I don’t know. For that matter, I don’t even know if the people think they need to escape.”

“He’s the king who gave them bread on days they were hungry. The people won’t immediately doubt him just because they’re a little hungry. By the time they realize tomorrow’s bread is gone, the debt of today’s favor has grown heavier.”(TL Note: ahh! So no ones complaining about the next day because the day before they got what they wanted. It's that idea of 'Oh, this'll get solved cause it got solved last time.')

“Then why are you here?”

Seiji-san asked.

“Not to seek asylum, nor to defy King Abel. I’m asking why you remained in this country even after yielding the throne.”

“Because the people chose Abel.”

The former king answered readily.

“I yielded the throne. But yielding it doesn’t mean I can turn a blind eye to whatever happens and run away. The people who chose him as king, and I who handed over the throne, have a responsibility to see it through to the end.”

“Is that how you truly feel in your heart?”

“Who knows. Maybe I’m just using the word responsibility because I don’t have the courage to run.”

This old man hadn’t done nothing.

He had continued to choose to do nothing.

Even while being mocked as the Sloth King.

I don’t know if Former King Olfen’s judgment was correct.

But at least he knows what he failed to protect.

“There’s one more thing I want to ask.”

“Oh?”

The former king tilted his head and prompted him to continue.

“If a foreign trading company opens a branch in Selenoa, can it be closed without the king’s permission?”

Seiji-san looked up as if struck by realization.

He immediately took a copy of the branch contract from his luggage.

I see.

The fact that he had brought it meant Seiji-san had also noticed the line I was suspecting.

The former king accepted the contract and, after reading it only once, pointed to the closure clause.

“It can be closed. For your organization, by your own decision. You don’t need the king’s permission.”

“Even after Abel became king?”

“It’s the same under this country’s old law and the new registry.”

“Even though kingdom approval is needed to start, it isn’t needed to end it?”

Seika-san asked.

“Do you think a foreign merchant would open a shop in a country they couldn’t leave?”

The former king yawned.

“In exchange for the country permitting trade, the merchant obeys the country’s laws. But that doesn’t mean handing over the right to withdraw to the king. That’s been the rule since long ago.”

“What if the government office says the king’s approval is necessary?”

“In that case, just show them this contract. At least at the time the contract was made, no royal permission was needed. Even if the law is changed later, they can’t make a contract that was already made obsolete.”

The former king lightly tapped the contract with his finger.

“Don’t throw it away. When a king starts changing laws for his own convenience, a single sheet of paper can sometimes be stronger than a sword.”

To start, the king’s approval is needed.

But to end it, only our own decision is needed.

I rolled those words around in my head once more.

“Shigeru-san?”

“No. It’s still not enough.”

“Did you figure something out?”

“I’m only starting to understand. It’s too early to decide.”

On the way back, the former king stopped me.

“Pig-dono.”

“What is it?”

“Do you hate Abel?”

I thought for a moment.

“I don’t understand him well enough to hate him. So it’s 5.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a personal matter.”

＊

When we returned above ground, a new sealed letter was wedged in the branch door.

An invitation to the second meeting.

The participants this time were Seiji-san, Seika-san, Rizu, and me.

Rizu and I, who had been excluded last time, were included, and only Reia-san’s name had disappeared.

She was excluded because she drew her scimitar. Normally, it would look that way.

But come on.

You shouldn’t write the answer on the invitation itself.

『Limited to official members of Visbridge』

“Bingo.”

“Could it be, Shigeru-san, that what you asked Former King Olfen earlier was...”

I gave a small nod at Seiji-san’s words.

“Shigeru-san, what’s bingo? Do all of you understand? I’m the only one who doesn’t.”

“I don’t get it either. Explain it a bit more carefully.”

“Ah, sorry.”

I thought for a moment, then turned to Seika-san.

“Seika-san. If some old man you don’t know suddenly told you 『kneel』, would you obey?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Would that count as defying his order?”

“Huh? No... There’s no reason I’d have to obey in the first place.”

“That’s what this trick comes down to.”

An order doesn’t become valid just because it’s spoken.

Only when the one giving the order has the authority and the other is in a position to obey does the relationship of “defying an order” come into being.

“At least, that’s how it is with Abel’s ability. You first have to be in a position where you have to obey his orders.”

I put the invitation on the desk.

“Kato-kun and Ria are Visbridge employees. Through the branch established in Selenoa, they had entered Abel’s jurisdiction. So the moment they went against his will, it was judged as 『defied』.”(TL Note: oh shit, thats actually pretty cool. Its like a 'Domain' type thing.)

“But Reia-san...”

“Right. Reia-san doesn’t have one. A connection to Abel. Because she isn’t an official employee here.”

Seika-san looked at Reia-san with a startled expression.

“No matter how many times I invited her, she refused.”

“I just took a detour.”

Reia-san answered with her usual words.

“She’s not an employee. She doesn’t belong to the branch either. In other words, Abel wasn’t Reia-san’s king.”

That’s why, even when she drew her scimitar and attacked, the light couldn’t change anything.

That wasn’t rebellion.

It was just an attack from an outsider.

And on the second invitation, the answer was deliberately written.

『Limited to official members of Visbridge』

Seiji-san nodded slowly.

Rizu quietly closed her eyes.

Visbridge had officially established a branch in Selenoa.

Our names were also listed in the kingdom’s registry.

“With only the invitation and Reia-san’s single case, we can’t prove it yet.”

“Exactly. This is still a hypothesis.”

Special Notes aren’t an unconditional, one-sided power.

The stronger the power, the more conditions there are for activating it.

The previous enemy was like that too.

To absorb power, they first had to see through a lie.

If Abel is the same, it makes sense.

He puts 『those who defied him』 into a 『cage』.

But not anyone can be put in the cage.

He can’t make even someone who wasn’t in his jurisdiction from the start into 『someone who defied me』.

“By establishing a branch in this country, we put ourselves into a place where his power reaches.”

To start, Abel’s approval is needed.

But the right to end it remains with us.

Otherwise, this wouldn’t be a contract.

It would just be a trap technique.

Even so, it’s still not enough.

If we close the branch, can we really prevent the light?

Will Kato-kun and Ria, who have already been turned into objects, return?

That part, we don’t understand at all.

“How will you confirm it?”

Seika-san asked.

“We don’t need to go confirm it.”

I tapped the four names lined up on the invitation with my finger.

“At the next meeting, he called only official employees. He excluded Reia-san, who the light didn’t affect. Even though Rizu and I are disliked, we were called because we’re employees.”

“Then if we see what he demands next...”

“He’ll tell us the answer himself.”

We won’t play the card of closing the branch yet.

We won’t even let him realize it can be played.

Abel.

Your armor—from here on, I’m going to peel it off, one plate at a time.

-Thank you DCRangeRange, Dean Dexter and CannedbreadFollow me on Patreon via Linktree https://linktr.ee/Mnotia-