Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume4 Chapter4 (section)

=== Part 3 ===

Orba was shut up in what he judged to be a building's underground storehouse. His hands and feet had been bound and he was thrown down among the barrels and the broken farm tools that lay scattered all over the place. Bane appeared to have been taken somewhere else. Orba hoped he was still alive.

Bane was a member of the Black Armoured Division that had attacked the village. He believed that when he had been stationed at Apta, he had taken part in assaults and slaughter within the territories of Mephius. Therefore, if he were to receive retribution here, there was no need for Orba to feel sympathetic towards him. However, Orba currently had reasons for wanting him to stay alive if at all possible.

Not a single ray of light shone into the underground room. Nor did sounds reach it, so he was apt to lose his sense of time. But with senses somewhat like those of an animal's, Orba could vaguely guess that about three hours had passed since he was locked up.

He heard a sound coming from upstairs. Footsteps descended the staircase and with them, the light from a lantern fell on Orba's face.

The one carrying the light was the bandit chief who had fought with Orba. Two men armed with guns walked behind him. The chief's face was still young. Which wasn't surprising as there should only have been about a year's difference between him and Orba, making him seventeen, or perhaps eighteen, years old.

When the chief's eyes met Orba's, his lips curled into a dauntless smile.

"Ho, it looks like you're quietly behaving yourself without getting violent. Or have you realised it's useless and are begging for your life from the imperial family's guardian deity Mephius?"

"Doug, right?"

When Orba said his name from his prone position, the chief - Doug drew his eyebrows in a frown.

"Don't get too familiar, oh my prince. This isn't your country here. It's ours, you could say it was a kingdom just for us. We have our own laws here. In other words, here you aren't crown prince at all. You're just an intruder. And so..."

"What's so funny!" Barked one of the men in the rear as Orba once again flashed a fearless grin.

"You say the same kind of things as in the old days, Doug. This village is my village, so you're the intruders, trampling about with your dirty feet, which is why me and my friends from the village would beat you up. You haven't changed a bit."

When he heard Orba's words, for a second, Doug swallowed his own words along with his saliva. As they watched the situation, the expressions on his subordinates' faces turned suspicious.  

"You, what are you talking about?"

"Have you been taking Black Lily powder? For one thing, it's strange that you came this far from the fortress with just one companion."

"You still don't get it, Doug." Ignoring his subordinates, Orba looked only at Doug and continued talking. "No, you've probably realised, you just can't believe it. Well that's not surprising. You spent six years as you, but for six years, I had to constantly win my own life. And now if you notice, you're a bandit chief and I'm in this position. Of course, six years ago, neither of us could have imagined something like this would happen."

"Six years..."

Doug's leader-like attitude crumbled and his expression reflected only confusion. Like that, his face looked like that of a boy his age. The other men however sneered.

"He's talking gibberish."

"If it's not drugs then he's gone mad from fear. Hey Doug, if we cut off one of his fingers, even he'll stop blabbing on. Then we can send that finger to Solon, as a threat to the emperor."

But because of Orba's attitude, Doug was focussing all of his attention on his face, and didn't appear to hear the noise from his surroundings. Waiting for the just moment when he was about to say something. Orba quickly moved in for the kill.

"Roan..."

"What?"

"Roan died at Apta."

Doug immediately looked daunted. Orba continued to fix him with his calm gaze.

"That's why I came here. Doug, I won't tell you to untie me right now but won't you spare me a little time?"

"Bastard."

Losing patience with the prince who didn't show the slightest hint of begging for his life, the two men's hands sidled up to their guns.

"Leave me to speak alone with him."

When Doug spoke in a hoarse voice, they both opened their eyes wide.

"What are you saying!"

"Guys from the Imperial Court are smooth-tongued. You're being fooled by his gibberish bullshit..."

"It's fine, so go!" Even as Doug was shouting, his narrowed eyes stayed on Orba's face the entire time. "Ten minutes, no, five minutes will be enough. If it turns out he's just talking bullshit, forget a finger, I'll cut off his arm and even have him kneel before us."

Compelled by their young and now pale-faced chief's authority, the men obeyed while grumbling complaints.


The one with whom Orba had never stopped quarrelling with during their childhood. There had of course been many reasons for them ending up in fistfights. Because he had made a fool of him, because he had insulted his family, because he had deliberately collided with him, because he had seemed about to cover Alice in flour...

What he hadn't thought of at the time however was that most of those reasons were Orba's own. His blood had always been thrumming darkly. As it coursed through his body, he would look for any opportunity to vent.

"He fights dirty!" One sturdy boy had complained about him when he was just over three years old. "He never admits his defeat, and he bites and scratches. And in the end after it's over, he'll ambush you saying 'It's not over yet'. He isn't strong, he's just persistent."

By the time Orba was almost ten, no matter how much older the other children were, when there was trouble related to him, they wouldn't get involved. And so Orba also lost interest. Instead, his partner in brawls became Doug from the neighbouring village.

Doug was a boy with a disposition similar to Orba's. When the neighbouring villages held joint festivals, groups of boys of about the same age would get together and look for fights. The first time he and Orba got into a scuffle was also on the night of a festival.

He and Alice had gone to a neighbouring village and when, in front of a street stall there, Doug had asked Alice to dance, Orba had been the one to refuse.

"This isn't a girl you can touch with your filthy hands. Don't come any closer, you stink."

From Orba's caustic words, it was easy to assume that he was picking a fight. They immediately fell to grappling, swinging their fists and kicking at each other. Brawls between over-excited youths were a staple at festivals. Far from stopping them, the adults spurred them on with their cheering. In terms of physique, the one-year-older Doug had the advantage but when Orba fell to the ground, he picked up a small rock and held it in his fist. With his strikes now packing more punch, he caught Doug on the tip of the nose and from then on things went at Orba's pace.

At that point, a boy who was one of Doug's underlings, seeing his leader at a disadvantage, tried to take Alice hostage. Orba but also Doug, who despised that kind of method, rose together to put a stop to it. However, the boy who was pinioning Alice's arms had his foot sharply stamped on and she caught his cheeks in a slap as his face jerked upwards.

"Right, this fight is over."

As Orba and Doug stood stupefied, Alice stepped between them, grabbed Orba by the ears, and forcibly dragged him away.

That was the first time the two of them got into a fight. After that, they clashed a number of times and no doubt each thought they hated the other.
But that relationship of theirs was also shattered six years ago.

When Garbera's army seized Apta, the area where Orba and the others had lived passed under a different ruler. And so, troops from their previous sovereign country of Mephius burned the villages to the ground.


Once the two were alone, Doug pulled a handgun from his waist. With a quick movement, he aimed it at Orba's head.

"Understand? I'll shoot you without mercy if you keep talking nonsense." He threatened in a low voice. "Just who the hell are you!?"

"Orba."

"Bullshit."

Although he himself had increased the space between them, when he heard Orba's answer, he immediately rejected it and approached him roughly. He pressed the muzzle of his gun directly to Orba's forehead.

"What kind of bullshit is that? How would Orba come back to Apta as the crown prince? Why would he come back to this village with a Mephian soldier? Answer me!"

"My village was burnt down by Mephian troops." Paying absolutely no mind to the gun muzzle, Orba simply continued talking while looking straight into Doug's eyes. "I barely survived, and that was only on the whim of a certain Mephian aristocrat who suspected that I could be of use."

"Of use?"

"My face looks like that of Mephius' crown prince."

"..."

"I was trained to be the prince's body double. But it's a plot that's only known to one of Mephius' nobles, neither the other aristocrats nor the imperial family know about it. The other Mephians at Apta should also believe that I'm the real prince. And so, on the prince's authority, I went to war with Taúlia."

"B-Bullshit!"

Doug shook his head, his face pallid, but Orba continued with his tale regardless.

"Coming here was a good opportunity. I wanted to go back once to my native village, but I really didn't expect to be attacked by people from the same area. Still, your defences are pretty poor. Just by talking a bit with enough people, both the bandits' hideout and their leader's name came to light. When I heard the name 'Doug', I was able to imagine quite a few things. Just as I've lived these past six years covered in disgrace, you've had your own six years. And so I came to check it out for myself."

"I don't believe it." Doug groaned, looking like he was grinding his teeth. "B-But at the same time, I can't believe that the crown prince would know Roan's name. Are you really Orba? It's true there's a likeness but, even if it's been six years, that face..."

"I told you I was trained to be this country's crown prince. That involved various methods."

Doug stood frozen in the same posture for a long time. Then, he took a deep breath.

"You said that Roan is dead?"

"Yeah."

"Then, what about the others?"

"You should know that better than me, right? Keefa, Lulu, Bione, what happened to them?" Orba enumerated the names of the villagers.

Doug would probably have gathered together the villagers who had survived Garbera's looting and Oubary's setting fire to the villages. That being the case, maybe there were some of Orba's acquaintances other than Doug here and he simply hadn't recognised them earlier because of the darkness.
As Orba imagined it, they were alive and had taken to banditry in order to take revenge on Mephius. That would be why they mainly attacked caravans from Mephius.

"There are a lot of people whose fate I don't know." As Orba had expected, once he gave the names of the villagers, Doug's eyes glinted sharply and he lowered the gun. Then his eyes wandered, seemingly at a loss. ".... A-Alice, she, what happened to her?" Doug asked, speaking in a rush.

There was no way for Doug to realise. To realise that although Orba had believed that he no longer held out any hope, when Doug fired off that question, the little that had in truth remained in his heart was crushed and scattered forever.

''I see''.

Orba closed his eyes for a single moment. And he swore to himself that he would lock away all of his hopes and feelings into that one moment.

''I see. Somewhere, I still believed. Foolishly. Pathetically''.

As Orba remained silent, Doug, his emotions bursting out, shouted,

"Oi, what's wrong? Don't tell me you don't know if Alice..."

"Did you think she was still alive?"

"W-What?"

"I did too, but if you don't know anything about her either, then – then she's probably no longer living. Just like my brother. I'm such a fool, simply believing that they were still alive even though there was no evidence. There's nothing left to do except give up."

The two of them fell silent. Although united in that silence by the same pain, neither looked at the other.

"... ''Orba''."

After a while, Doug called out his name for the first time.

"Yeah."

"You said you became the crown prince's body double. Where's the real one? If he's in Apta, couldn't you bring him here?"

"If I brought him here, what would you do?" Unintentionally, Orba almost laughed wryly. "Are you thinking that you've wasted your time since I'm an impostor? You're being stupid."

"What do you mean?"

"In the first place, capturing the crown prince was only creating a burden for yourselves. What were you going to do with me when you believed I was the prince? Kill me?"

"N-No. Take you hostage..."

"Take me hostage, and then what? What would you have gained from it? Furthermore, who would you have negotiated with? Mephius itself? Your opponent is far too big, you'd have been crushed in the blink of an eye. And of course to kill you all, Mephius would only need to set fire to the villages claiming it was in retaliation. Because of you, any number of the just-rebuilt villages would disappear into ash all over again. Besides, I doubt that loosing Prince Gil would cause Mephius the slightest harm as things are now. Even if you were planning to take revenge, it would have been completely pointless."

"... You..."

Although it was different from earlier when he had doubted Orba's real identity, Doug looked at him as though he were seeing a different person. Engrossed in what he was saying, Orba however didn't notice.

"Doug. More importantly, Oubary is at Apta."

"What?"

"Oubary of the Black Armoured Division. When our villages were burned down, he was the ringleader."


After dawn, Doug gathered the main members of the gang in the village's meeting hall. Originally they had been farmers, people who made a living by catching fish in the rivers, blacksmiths and so on, but for the past six years, they had had been attacking caravans of Mephian merchants and distributing their spoils among the villages. They had exchanged gunfire and crossed swords with hired mercenary escorts more than just once or twice.

Several of them had suffered indelible wounds to their face or body, and not only their appearance but everything in their demeanour exuded unmistakable menace.

All of them were older than Doug, but no one had objected to making the eighteen-year-old their leader. He was quick-witted, knowledgeable about geography and above all, he received overwhelming support from the hot-blooded youths. They who never knew what the next day might hold preferred to follow the safest methods, so none of them were angry at following a boy.

"What did you say!?"

But although they had so far held their nerve, when they heard that Oubary was at Apta, their expressions changed. All at once, a thirst for blood broke free.

"Damn it! How dare he come back to Apta?"

"With the right information, we could have ambushed him..."

"No, it's not too late even now. We'll lure him out with the prince as hostage. We can threaten to kill the prince if he doesn't come..."

A great many of them were galvanised into furious speech. Doug however rejected their suggestions.

"An admirable stratagem but have you thought about how villages within Mephian territory will be burned down?"

"Then what do you want to do with that prince? You can't be thinking of sending him back unharmed?"

"Since killing or threatening the prince are both pointless, we'll use a different way to lure him out."

"A different way?"

"Yeah." His expression sharp, Doug looked at each face in turn. "If this plan works then it won't just be Oubary; the Black Armoured Division that murdered our families, we'll be able to throw most of them to the flames."

As Doug unfolded his plan, they listened first dumbfounded and stunned, then leaning forward in excitement. When he had finished talking, Doug once more looked at each member's face and said,

"If a single one of those predictions is wrong, the whole plan will be ruined. Even so, I'm thinking of going for it because we'll never get this chance again if we let it slip by us. What do you say, shall we do it?"

One by one, the main members of the gang of bandits nodded, their eyes ablaze.

"Whatever road we choose, now that Apta has gone back to being Mephian territory, I didn't think we'll be able to continue long as bandits."

"One way or another, we'll get the women and children to escape to the villages around Birac. We can give them all the money we have to hand."

"Ah, it will be a pleasure. The only question is, who's going to get to kill Oubary. And don't all of you say that you want to do it yourselves!"

Doug unintentionally smiled at that hasty remark.

"That's absolutely out of the question." He announced gravely.

"Understood. You're saying that you want to do it yourself?"

"Right, you lost your parents, your grandparents and your younger brother, so..."

"No, it won't be me." Doug said clearly and pointed to the entrance at the back of the meeting hall. As they saw the figure walking through it, the men's voices rose in a 'Ah!'.

"The one who will kill Oubary," Doug continued to look grave, "is ''him''".


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