Vermillion

On the next morning Kei heaved his sluggish body up on the bed, tormented by a hangover.

“Ugh… I drank too much…”

“You’re so weak to go down from so little, Kei.”

“You seem quite lively on the other hand.”

Aileen, who was laughing at him while all dressed, had stayed up late into the night, having fun with Kei, but she did not seem tired at all.

Is it just my imagination that Aileen seems to be much stronger when it comes to fundamental stamina or vitality?

If Kei were to be honest, he wanted to spend some quality time with Aileen since he had obtained a good amount of cash as a prize for his victory, but considering the citizenship procedures, he could not act so carefreely. He had to finish everything while the tournament’s heat had not died down and the officials still remained motivated.

“…Oh, good morning…”

As they headed down to the dining room, they saw Jamie cleaning with the eyes of a dead fish.

“…Morning.”

“Morning!”

“…Ugh.”

For some reason Jamie was already down for the count, but seeing Kei and Aileen show up so happily together gave her the rest. She started staggering and used her broom to prop herself up instead of a cane.

“…Are you okay?”

“Uggh… I am. I am. It’s nothing…”

“I-If you say so…”

Kei had drunk a lot last night, but he was the type to retain his memories no matter how much he drank. So naturally, he clearly remembered her attempts of hitting on him, but the person concerned was apparently pretending that it never happened. He was perfectly fine with that too.

Served by her who was acting like a zombie, they had their fill of fruits, vegetables, and a soup made from the leftovers from last night’s party.

After that, they ended up wasting the entire day dealing with the citizenship acquisition procedures.

First, they headed to the resident administrative bureau in the city’s east with the victory certificate of the tournament.

Since they went there first thing in the morning, the bureau was not packed with people, allowing them to enter without any problems. Everything would be finished easily once he handed over the certificate—or so Kei had hoped, but unfortunately, or perhaps, as expected, this was not the end by far.

What Kei was requesting was the “honorary citizenship” of Urvan. It had “honorary” attached to it, but it was fundamentally the same as a normal citizenship. However, the formal procedures and the juridical responsibilities were somewhat different.

The achievement of winning the martial tournament, the ability to pay taxes, and the prepayment for various other procedures—he had met all those requirements, but the most essential part of it, namely, the official handling it, was not used to dealing with special procedures like the acquisition of honorary citizenship, so it took even more time.

After he and Aileen listened to explanations about rights and obligations for an hour, and he was almost done signing the documents, the official in charge said, “I do not know how to format a certain special document.”

The official took several dozen minutes to confirm the regulations, and after that long wait, returned with a depressing ‘it can be substituted with a normal document’ answer. And just as he finished signing that document, it turned out that the procedure somehow exceeded the jurisdiction of the residents’ administration office, resulting in Kei and Aileen being told to head for the municipal office instead.

At that point, it was already almost noon, so there was a big line in front of the municipal office. They lined up and after close to an hour, finally reached the counter, only to discover that there was an exclusive counter for handling honorary citizenship requests. Realizing that they had wasted all the time waiting for nothing, the two got pissed that no one had explained it to them in advance.

Even after that, Kei had to fill out several documents, and had to go to the guard station to get a certificate proving his clean criminal record. Then they found a flaw in the documents so they had to trek back to the residents’ administration office. After running around in Urvan for a while, it was already getting dark by the time they finished all the procedures.

And yet, the ID would not be issued right away. First the officials would inspect the documents on the next day and following, and after an interview and some more procedures, his ID would be officially issued. The honorary citizenship procedures were prioritized over normal ones, so it would take three days at most for everything to be concluded, or so was expected.

“…So yeah, today was tough.”

“That’s what you’d call red tape I guess… Quite unfortunate for you.”

Kei and Aileen were complaining while having dinner together with Mandel at HangedBug.

Tonight’s dinner also served as a farewell party. Mandel was staying at a different inn, but he apparently planned to leave Urvan by tomorrow. Holland was heading to Satyna just then too, so with Kei’s referral, he would be accompanying him as a guest.

“By the way, Mandel. Have they approached you in regards to government service?”

“They have. The military authorities were saying something about making me the commander of a squad consisting of hundred archers. I rejected it, though.”

“Oh, so they have. And you rejected huh, expected as much.”

“Yeah. You can’t retire so easily once you get employed by the military, and I would have to move to Urvan too. Being a hunter suits me better.”

He shrugged without a care.

“Of course, the pay was tempting. But still…”

“You prefer Tahfu, huh.”

“…Yeah.”

“Having a lot of money certainly doesn’t guarantee an enjoyable life,” said Aileen while shoveling the salad into her mouth.

“Yeah, just between us, if you asked me whether I preferred Tahfu or Urvan, even I’d choose Tahfu. I only stayed there for like two days though.” Kei declared emotionally.

The small rural village surrounded by the greenery of forests and grasslands was still vivid in his memory. Thinking back, though Kei and Aileen were currently in Urvan, their journey had begun at that village. Kei believed Tahfu to be far more comfortable, compared to the exclusive Urvan, albeit with the exclusion of getting attacked for revenge by bandits.

“That village is easy to live in, in various ways. It’s richer compared to other villages too. Speaking of which, what about you, Kei? About government service.”

“So far as it goes, they visited me as well. They wanted to hire me as an archer just like you. However, they did not offer me the commander of hundred post like you.”

“Huh, I see… That’s weird.”

“Even though you won, Kei. I was like, As a civilian? Are you serious? I wonder if it was discrimination or something.”

Aileen frowned, looking rather displeased as if this was about her. Kei did not plan to enter government service, regardless of the post offered to him, but being treated unfairly still did not sit well with him.

“I wonder. Perhaps they immediately saw through your lack of experience. I did work my way up to commander of ten in the past, so perhaps they judged it based on that record.”

“Oh, really?”

That was unexpected for Kei. He had not known that Mandel had been enrolled in the army.

No wait, Kei reconsidered. When they were recovering the bandits’ possessions back in Tahfu, only Mandel was not affected by the sight of the gruesome corpses. Apparently Mandel might have participated in that military campaign a decade ago.

“But that was it, Kei? Someone as skilled as you should be in great demand.”

“Oh, on a private level, several people did call out to me. Stuff like being a bodyguard of a whimsical noble, or escorting caravans, also some warrior from the eastern border invited me to join his clan. Though I rejected everything for the time being.”

“I see… By the way, what kind of mercenary clan was it?”

“If I remember correctly… it was called something like… Bronze Rose, I think.”

“Ohh, Bronze Roze! That’s a pretty major clan, you know? They were known as a great clan that rivaled the Giant’s Wings during the military campaign, though I guess you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about.”

“No, well, I can roughly imagine. No wonder they looked so surprised when I turned it down. So they were famous, huh…”

They continued their idle chat and grumbling related to the government service, military, and such, and then, when they had had enough to drink, the farewell party came to an end. It seemed that Mandel would be leaving early in the morning, and he also said they did not need to see him off, so this was their parting for a while. Kei asked Mandel to pass his greeting to the Tahfu shaman, Anka, the Cronen couple, and the arrow craftsman from Satyna.

I wonder when we’ll meet next.

Kei pondered while wasting time together with Aileen in their room.

Meeting Mandel during this tournament was already unexpected.

This world had no simple means of communication or movement. Their next meeting could happen in a few months, a year, or maybe…

†††

Three days had passed.

He had had an interview with Urvan’s mayor, and he also had to fill out more papers and other bothersome things, but he finally obtained the ID.

It had a palm-sized rectangular shape, and was made out of tough parchment. Above Urvan’s seal was an exaggerated statement about the honorary citizenship rights of the individual known as “Kei,” and it also had the mayor’s signature. On the backside was Kei’s personal information, a portrait for identification purposes, and a section for his own signature.

The signature did not mean you needed to be able to read—what they wanted was something that was hard to imitate by others. After a lot of deliberation, he just decided to write Nogawa Keiichi in kanji. For the residents of this world, it would be extremely difficult to decipher or imitate it at a glance.

“Finally the day has come, Aileen…”

“Yeah. I feel like we waited for a really long time…”

The two walked along the first rampart wall with empty looks in their eyes.

One month passed since they were turned away at the gate when trying to enter the first-class district to go to the library. It was hard to tell whether one month felt like a lot or too short, but either way, it was quite moving for both of them.

While feeling strangely proud about the ID in his pocket, the two finally reached the gate’s guard post which they had visited last time.

“Ohh, it’s you two.”

“We watched the tournament. Congratulations on your championship.”

The young and the old guard were the first ones to call out to them.

“Thanks, thanks. But yeah, I got my citizenship.”

He took out the ID out of his pocket and handed it over to the elderly guard. He raised the visor of his helmet and, apparently suffering from farsightedness, held the ID away from himself, scanning it.

“…I see, Nogawa Keiichi, it is certainly you. You may pass.”

He returned the ID with a smile.

“Oh, only the owner can pass with that ID, so that girl…”

The younger guard suddenly interjected.

Indeed, the owner of that ID was Kei, and its effect did not extend to Aileen.

In other words, Aileen had no right to pass through the gate.

Having said that, Kei was not flustered.

Do you know how much time I spent dealing with those annoying procedures…!

He had expected for this to happen from the start. And he had also come up with a solution.

He slowly embraced Aileen’s shoulders and declared.

“—She is my wife.”

A married man. If a citizen owning an ID was the family head, his wife, as long as there was only one of them, would be promptly granted the citizenship rights and obligations, even if they were not the Urvan citizen.

In other words, if Aileen was Kei’s wife, she would share the same rights.

Aileen folded her arms with a blush at his declaration.

This was merely a means to pass the gate this one time, however…

I want to hold a proper ceremony someday.

Kei thought. Aileen still had not decided whether to stay in this world or not, so he could only wait, but he wanted them to have a proper marriage someday.

…But I wonder how marriages work in this world.

He wondered. This world had all kinds of elemental Spirits existing as if it was normal, so the religious conceptions were quite weak. Perhaps they thought about it like Japan with its myriad gods, but at the very least, it was certain that their way of marriage was not the you absolutely have to swear before the god type of thing.

…Oh right, maybe they are holding the marriage ceremonies at the Water Spirit’s temple in Yulia. I’m guessing brides wear a dress here too…

Imagining Aileen in a wedding dress, his cheek muscles loosened naturally.

He started grinning as he imagined Aileen’s future bride appearance, who was blushing with both hands on her cheeks.

The young guard had a dejected expression hidden beneath his helmet, while the older one was smiling wryly.

“…Well, okay. If she’s your wife, then the rules certainly say that she shares your rights.”

Kei and Aileen nodded in satisfaction at the old guard’s words.

With this, they would finally, finally, be freed from the bothersome procedures—

“So then…”

The old guard held out his hand. Kei almost took it, thinking he was asking for a handshake, but then he spoke those devastating words:

“Please show me your marriage certificate.”

“……”

And Kei howled.

——————————————————————————-

Sasuke: “We haven’t had a turn lately.”

Suzuka: “Right.”

Sasuke: “He’s supposed to be a mounted archer.”

Suzuka: “Right.”