Chapter 623: Gloria Takeout 1
As morning arrived, I asked Hilda to examine Grandpa Bolton’s eyes. I had asked her to do so before I left. We may come here again in the future and Grandpa Bolton is the owner of a large inn. He is the easiest person to take care of. It might sound bad, but doing him a favor and keeping him connected would be a good idea. Well, if the eye problem was manageable……that is.
“Grandpa, were you a blacksmith when you were young?”
“Don’t call me grandpa. I’m only 150. I was a blacksmith. ……I wasn’t very good at it, so I gave it up”
“The damage done behind the eyes at that time seems to be slowly spreading. I’m not sure if it’s the clouding or the……eyes themselves that are getting weaker.
“What do you think, will it heal or not?”
“It can heal, but it can’t completely treat the deterioration caused by aging. If you have the time, it’s best to come to Polka’s miraculous spring”
“I have heard rumors about Polka’s miraculous spring a long time ago. It can heal anything. If that’s true, doctors are losing business”
“I guess it is true. The main problem is that it’s not an easy place to get to”
“……Is that true? Your eyes too?”
“Eyes, too? It’s a miraculous spring that will restore your limbs, head, stomach, heart, penis and everything else back to the days when you were more healthy than humanly possible”
“Have you ever been there?”
“That’s the thing. I’m a resident there now☆”
Hilda-san summarized the diagnosis while talking in a light tone and muttered, 「You’ll lose your sight for about five minutes, but don’t worry about it」 and cast some kind of spell. It’s probably an anesthetic that blocks the senses using illusions or something.
“I, I wonder if it’s really okay? It’s not going to be pitch black, is it?”
“Can’t you just wait a little longer? That’s just messing around for a grown man☆”
“B, But hey……I, I’m keeping my eyes open, right?”
“I’m blocking out the sight so you don’t accidentally close your eyes. Okay, shut up and don’t move your mouth anymore”
“Ngu”
Tetes, who was assisting him, held the old man’s head and chin. Now he can’t talk. In the meantime, Hilda-san is meticulously scratching and stroking the air around the temples with her fingers, chanting spells quickly and applying different magic one after another.
“……Yes, the treatment is finished. This should at least make it easier for you to read at night”
“Seriously? I still can’t see anything”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to see in a little while. You are impatient even for a dwarf”
“Are you saying dwarves are slow? Don’t compare me to some country dwarf who just digs stones in the mines and still has his accent. I’m a city person, so I can see farther……I, I can see vaguely……”
“That’s a claim I can’t imagine coming from the owner of an inn that lets you sleep leisurely during the day and check in at night”
Old man Bolton’s eyes remained wide open for a while and he was slowly moving his hands around in the air, trying to touch something, but at a certain point his vision seemed to clear and his movements suddenly became more stable.
“O……O, Oh, I can see……it’s amazing, it’s not blurry at all. I don’t even have glasses”
“For now, yes. It’ll get weird again in a year or two, because the muscles that help you focus are getting weaker as you get older”
“I see. I don’t want to get old……”
Hilda still laughs at the old man, whose joy is short-lived and who mumbles sullenly.
“That’s why you should come to Polka. You can recover from that kind of decline there☆”
“……With this skill, you can make as much money as you want if you just make house calls in silence. Even if this town is cold to other races, there are plenty of humans who would love to have someone like you”
“I don’t need to make a few coins anymore. I am now a woman who lives for love☆”
It is very cool to be able to say this after successfully healing someone, but it is very awkward when you think about the fact that I am having an affair with this person. Old man Bolton, without knowing the inner workings of such a relationship, muttered to himself as he looked at his hands.
“Polka……when I was younger, I could have said nothing about my health, but when you start to feel tired no matter what you do, you start to get interested in stories like that”
“If you’re interested, you can talk to someone at the Onyx Trading Company and they’ll set it up for you”
“Onyx……ah, it’s not very popular around here, but I think I know someone we can talk to. Are you related?”
“My older brother is in charge. He’s been working on a plan for a while now to expand his trade with the elven territory of Polka and beyond, so you should be able to get a ride with the merchant fleet”
“Hou, the family of Onyx’s boss. Thats……”
Old Man Bolton straightened up. Looking at him from a distance, Gloria-san shrugged and looked at me sideways.
“Onyx seems to be the most useful name for Bolton……but this organization is not the best for me
“It would make things complicated……”
I raise a finger to my lips. Gloria laughs sarcastically.
It seems that the former drug patients & Bauu squad, led by 100-manb special duty commander Becker, was able to get accommodation on the main street of the town as usual without causing any particular problems. Thanks to the fact that Laila and Bauz were able to converse with super-hearing across a long distance (even when speaking normally, they could recognize the other party’s voice on the other side of town), we were able to meet up with each other quite easily. Scratching his head, 100-man commander Becker sighed.
“I thought one of you guys would know about the special situation here, since you are so well known”
“Unfortunately, none of us had any business in the East……”
Laila knew about it, but that was a hundred years ago…….
“100-man commander Becker seems to know everything there is to know about the country”
“The Intelligence Brigade does half the work of domestic reconnaissance. It’s not easy in a country that is not monolithic”
“You’ve been infiltrating these places?”
“The Northern Corps HQ is, well, to put it bluntly, a boring job. A bunch of spoiled general candidates gather there instead of going to school. But when you have free time, you never know what people are going to do”
The northern corps is considered relatively safe, with no immediate threats in any of the four directions, due to the presence of the Trot Corps in the north, which has a strong corps mixed in with the Trot troops for weight. The same is true of the Eastern Legion, which is protected by the Blue Snake Mountains and has no fear of large-scale enemy forces. Therefore, general candidates who learn command and military strategy will be placed in the southern corps for counter-piracy and threats from the Southern Great Plains or the western corps for defense against Afilm, while others will be placed in the northern or eastern corps to build up their careers. However, the Celesta Army is characterized by the fact that there is room for local factions and tribalism. It is not uncommon for young candidates for general to form strange ideological groups and to ignore the orders of the central government……the crossbow corps, which was under the protection of Dianne as a special unit, had nothing to do with this.
“I’ve had to pretend to be a great detective many times with rich kids. The general candidates in officer training are usually from wealthy merchant families. You can’t just kill them and get away with it and when it comes down to it, they’ll try to force their way through with money, so it’s really troublesome”
“……My condolences”
“I wish they’d spare me those kinds of missions……but when I’m no longer old enough to go on the front lines, that kind of work will probably become my main job. I don’t want that”
Becker shakes his head. Bauz, who was folding his arms behind him, interrupts.
“Putting the small talk aside, what are you going to do after this? It might be nice to let our women take their time to see the sights, but your female slaves are not going to feel at home in this town. If you leave soon, I’ll have them ready”
“Ah……umm”
I brought them here on my own. I’m not sure if I should give the girls in that group a chance to do some sightseeing. I think that if they stay in the suburban area, we won’t be in so much trouble and it might still be a good idea…….
“I don’t know what to do……”
I was at a loss for an answer when Irina stepped forward and said.
“So, how are your girls doing? Are they itching to look around?”
“No, not really. Many of them seem to feel suffocated. They are not aggressive toward humans, but I guess it’s the atmosphere of the town……”
“Atmosphere……hmmm”
From my point of view, Harmonium is calm and never seems grim. The town is built like a terraced field with the headquarters of the Northern Legion on a gently sloping hill in the center of town and the streets are well populated.
“It’s all too well done, I can feel it”
Irina hides her mouth and squints her eyes.
“Too much?”
“The town’s atmosphere is too well-tuned. The vitality that was present in the backstreets of the other races is completely absent here. ……Perhaps the military’s glaring presence is too strong”
“Ah, that may be part of it, but……it’s the work of the people who run the partition around here”
Gloria-san, who had been silent, opens her mouth. 100-man commander Becker, gestured to me and asked, 「Who is she?」 I introduce herself lightly.
“Gloria-san is an artist in the demi-human district. Apparently she’s a sky-blue excommunicated”
Gloria-san’s ears perked up when she heard the word 「Excommunicated」 but she continued on with her story.
“The Springs Company is the one that has the overwhelming control. Almost all the stores and services in this town can be traced back to them
“……Shadow rulers, huh?”
“If you want to make a living here, you’re going to have to bow the knee to them at some point. That’s the thing, aside from the military. It’s a little hard to behave badly when everyone’s living off the coattails of a single organization, let alone the government……”
“I see……”
The main base of human power in Celesta. Naturally, then, there must be big merchants in Celesta, which values commerce. Whereas in Talc, Onyx was the largest, multiple forces kept the town lively by competing with each other, but here one force has it all. For better or for worse, competition brings out the best in each other. Sometimes it is nothing more than mud slinging, but overall it promotes self-cleansing and reform. Conversely, where there is no competition, there is no need to change to something better and neither self-cleansing nor reform is likely to occur. This means that the thinking of the people who live there will be stagnant. They will not look for anything better than the status quo.
“I see. So it’s a suffocating……experience”
“I don’t care if you grew up in the countryside, the atmosphere must be uninteresting to those who are used to a more vibrant place”
Gloria-san spreads her hands lightly.
“Once it gets like this, it’s hard to make a breakthrough. ……Everyone here is satisfied with the way things are”
“Gloria-san, too?”
“I’m not sure. …….We’re treated like outsiders, but we can at least live doing what we love. Just because we’re excommunicated doesn’t mean we can’t reach out here and pursue anything more”
“…………”
Somewhere. There is a sadness in her words as she says them bluntly, self-mockingly and cuttingly. For her, the past of excommunication is a pride that she is living her life as she pleases. It is not something to be pitied any more……. In fact, I guess you can’t hope for any more happiness for an elf who has been excommunicated. So, the feelings I’m having right now are nothing more than unnecessary sentimentality. She is prepared for anything and is in a position beyond the reach of others. She doesn’t want help. If I were to force myself to reach out and touch her, because she is there, it would not be to 「Help」 her.
“I see. ……But aren’t you getting bored of it now?”
“Hmm……?”
“If this place has stabilized and all we have is the same routine as now. If there is nothing else to do but to draw the same as now. ……Don’t you want to see something new soon, Gloria-san?”
“……That’s right. I’m getting tired of doing it all in my head, but I’m not sure I’m ready for this. But for me, this is the place……”
“Let’s go look around together”
I look Gloria-san in the eye and say.
“I like what you paint. And if you’re stuck in a place where it’s hard to breathe, I’d at least like to help you get some good air”
“……That’s pretty pushy. After having sex with me, do you feel any affection for me?”
“Yes, I do”
I honestly agree.
“I’m not going to deny that sex with you was great and I’d hate to let you go”
“I’m waiting my turn”
“I’ll have the others wait for a few months”
“……Hey hey”
“We’re going to a lot of places. With the dragon’s wings, we’ll go to places you’d never imagine from this town. I want to see what you see and picture it”
“……If you’re going to seduce me, isn’t there a way to seduce a woman that will make her heart skip a beat?”
“I haven’t really been good at seducing women myself. ……But I don’t think you’re the kind of person who has to live hiding in a small world”
“…………”
“Give me some time for a few months. Come with me. If you still think it’s best to come back here, I’ll bring you back. I promise”
“……Haa, oh dear. You’re a grown man, but you’re still saying naive things”
Gloria-san laughed bitterly.
“……Okay. It’s true……there’s no reason why I can’t stay here and do the same thing for a few more decades. Let’s take a little vacation, shall I?”
If I were to reach out to her, who is content with her current situation, it wouldn’t be to 「Help」 her.
It would be a determination to 「Have」 her.
……Even so, there was no one to deny that.