Chapter 66: Tale of the Chuunibyou hero ( 5 )

Rudeus’s POV

…

A large-scale smuggling operation with thorough preparations. First they employed every kidnapper in the area, lowering the guards of the beastfolk tribes. Then in one fell swoop, they kidnapped women and children from various settlements.

By purposely leaving out the Doldia tribe, Doldia warriors were forced to divide their manpower to assist everyone else, leaving their area unprotected. Then the smugglers send out their elite forces, kidnapping both the tribal chief’s daughter and the Sacred Beast.

With the situation as such, Gustav decisively chose to abandon the children, focusing on bolstering the village’s defence and searching the Sacred Beast. And that was where the story I didn’t know began.

With Ruijerd and Laurel, tracking down the smuggling ships became so easy that it had barely taken a day for them to rescue all of the children. Eris stayed behind to protect them. There were at least fifty of them. Fifty! It was a happy ending… or not.

Zant Port officials claimed it was a serious felony for attacking a ship with important goods. Gustav protested, and that incensed the officials, and then it turned from politics to petty squabbles.

The violation of the treaty between the two was enough to start a war. At Gustav’s command, the warriors were called to Zant Port, and they stood at the entrance to the city in a standoff with its garrison. And that’s where Laurel stepped in.

Apparently, it was said that Laurel sat in the middle of the standoff, but his presence was so extreme that both sides were forced to the ground, ending the squabbles in that instant. The warriors were forced to calm down, while Zanport officials had no choice but to back down and compensate them.

It took about a week for those negotiations to conclude and for the children to be returned to their parents. That was why I was left there for a week in that cell, and that was when Gallus strike. Sadly, before his ambitions were fulfilled, Laurel popped his head like a balloon. Yikes!

...

Gyes had apologised for my mistreatment with the weird belly-up dog pose. I thought it was a prank, but judging from how Laurel simply nodded muttering this is how the world works, it was sincere, so I humbly accepted it.

Eris didn’t. She even delivered a punch to his head and poured water on his head… She never failed to impress me.

“Ghislaine? She’s still alive? She’s a stain on our tribe.”

That was only the beginning of Gyes bashing on Ghislaine. He spoke in human tongue; his voice was full of emotion unfit for an older brother speaking of his younger sister, as he went on and on about what a mistake Ghislaine was as a person.

“Stop.”

Of course, until Gyes was abruptly interrupted by Laurel.

“Hah. Alright. I know that Ghislaine had done a lot of things when she was younger… And I know that you held a lot of grudges, Gyes, but Ghislaine has grown, and so did you. Let it go.”

“Ghislaine is…hic…guh…not someone you can just…”

Eris broke into tears. I was afraid she would start swinging punches, but it seemed that she held back. When I looked over at Gyes, he seemed confused.

“No, I can’t… This is unbelievable…”

Seeing that, I tamped my anger down.

“Let’s stop this conversation here.”

“Wait, is she—is Ghislaine really such an incredible person now?”

Gyes asked, utterly shocked and confused.

“Ghislaine is amazing.”

“At least she’s more patient than you are, Gyes.”

“I respect her, at the very least.”

Eris, Laurel and my own words, respectively, drove Gyes into deep contemplation. Considering what we heard him say, there seems to be a lot of bad blood between them. He boiled with anger at the mere mention of her. Being related by blood made it worse.

“So, could you apologise to us?”

“…My apologies.”

The atmosphere became a bit uneasy after that. Perhaps because it was the second time we’d forced Gyes to apologise to us that day.

As for Ghislaine, I’d completely forgotten about her this past year, but she’d probably been displaced during the incident as well. It was frustrating that we were unable to gather any information during our time in Zant Port.

…

Which leads me to the most important topic.

“Why are you so tall?”

“Why am I so tall? Why are you so short?! You look like a kid!”

“That’s because I AM a kid! Why aren’t you?”

“... I don’t know either!”

Laurel… What the hell happened to this brat? It was one thing that he was tall, but he looked like Paul, as well. And why is he so… Chunni?

I stared at the bastard. He had an eyepatch on his left eye, always wearing gauntlets despite the weather. He had a cane with him, and the worst part is that he kept wearing Gallus’s cloak. Seriously, why?

I asked him once about the eyepatch, but what I got was…

“Why do I have an eyepatch? Truth be told… I secretly sealed the eye of a Evil God. Bwahahaha!”

… So he somehow got a demon eye, I guess? I saw him walking off, but to be honest, it felt like he didn’t look like he needed a cane to walk. That was how smooth he was walking.

And then, there were these whole other weird things to point out. For starters…

“Woof, woof, woof.”

“No, that's—"

“Woof, woof woof?”

“Uh, that…”

Apparently, Laurel can talk to dogs now. I asked Gustav about it, but he simply shrugged and said it was probably because Laurel was the hero…

“... Wait, what?”

“The Sacred Beast had said it was destiny.”

“???”

“There is a legend that one hundred years after the Sacred Beast is born, a messiah will appear to save the world, and the Sacred Beast will supposedly aid the saviour on their quest."

“And the saviour is my younger brother?”

“It seems so, speaking of which, I would like to follow custom and conduct the Sacred Tree ceremony.”

“...”

Ok, maybe my younger brother was more of a bigshot than he appeared to be.