MaruMA:Gaiden01:Chapter 3

Day Three

I was suffering from lack of sleep and hunger, but the absolute worst part was that my thirst had reached its peak.

“I haven’t drunk anything since the day before yesterday.”

“Hearing that hoarse voice is making me even thirstier.”

“But if I don’t say anything I don’t know if I’m alive or dead.”

There is still some lemon jelly fluid that those things spit out on the stone floor in front of me. It’s so viscous that it’s not drying out. It’s definitely a liquid though.

“… Hey, if it was a choice between that and your urine, which would you drink?”

“I want some chilled, sparkling wine.”

“No, like I said, it’s either that yellow stuff or your yellow stuff.”

“Malt liquor over ice would be good too.”

“… You’re just naming stuff that’s urine colored.”

Since there are people doing that for health-related reasons even if they haven’t fallen into a dangerous situation like this, there’s no way it would be bad for your body. I should just resolve myself to bite this bullet and use this opportunity to add to my ‘man points.’ In life, everything is an experience.

“Ahh, but I’m not even sweating anymore.”

It’s already too late. Luckily, I had lost my chance.

Things seem to be going well inside the cocoons and about an hour ago I heard some small sounds. Chicks are the ones that crack through their eggshells with their beaks…

“I wonder if you also call it ‘hatching’ when it’s a cocoon.”

“Who is ‘Hatching’? A man?” Wolfram asked with a drawl.

He's pretty tired too.

“Your Majesty.”

It appears that even my ears are starting to get affected by my dehydration. I can hear a voice I've missed.

“Your Majesty, are you there?”

“Am I hearing things?”

“Y-You chea… jerk.” Wolram’s ready to collapse.

There was a commotion above our heads and the footsteps of several groups of people were coming and going.

“Thank goodness! Your Majesty, you fell into the burrow didn’t you. Do you have any serious injuries?”

“Conrad!? Is that really Conrad!? Seriously!? You’re not a counterfeit, right!?”

“I wonder what a counterfeit of me would be like.”

Lord Weller was peering down at us from about 10 meters up. After seeing his usual charming smile, I feel like this whole situation isn’t such a big deal anymore. I even feel like spending two nights in a den of squirming monsters was like sleeping in a stable.

“I apologize. I would have liked to find you sooner, but for some reason the information was complicated. Because you both disappeared together, Günter was running around half-crazed shouting that you had run off to elope. Although, since everyone has recognized your engagement there wouldn’t be any need to elope… Your Majesty? Are you in pain?”

“I-I’m okay. I’m just hungry and thirsty.”

Since I’m so dehydrated I don’t have to worry about crying.

“Hurry up and throw down a rope! The situation is serious!” Wolfram yelled upwards after suddenly getting his energy back. “They’re about to be born!”

“Eh, Wolf you-? No way.”

Lord Weller, you incredible idiot.

“No, I’m not giving birth! Unfortunately neither is Yuuri. We’re both men! These insects are about to emerge. There are some cocoons with cracks in them already.”

Conrad mouthed ‘That’s bad.’ In any case, we’re in a huge pinch and I really want him to lower a ladder down to us. The other men peering down at us are all frowning with the same ‘That’s bad’ look.

“Your Majesty, I have a favor I’d like to ask of you.”

“Okay, I’ll hear it. Ah! Are you blackmailing me!? I thought that you of all people wouldn’t be so underhanded.”

“That’s not it. We’ll send down water and food so can you stay down there a little bit longer until they come out of their cocoons?”

“Sure, if you give us some food and water we can hang out here a little bit… eh!? Why me?”

“They are a very delicate species. The moment they leave the nest is particularly important so if possible, I’d like for you to help them.”

Those things!? Those super huge larvae are a delicate species!?

“But, they sniffed and licked me and Wolf, you know!?”

“That’s wonderful. That’s for the best.”

“Huh!? I don’t want to die by getting eaten while I’m so you-”

“They’re coming out!” one of the men peering down at us shouted excitedly.

Startled, I looked around and saw two or three of the cocoons had broken open and yellow figures inside were slowly standing up. Wolfram and I were struck speechless and we had both frozen in place halfway in raising our hands to point.

“Th-this is…”

“Your Majesty, Wolf, hurry and put these on.”

We promptly picked up the objects he threw down to us and saw that they were reddish brown, knitted caps. They even have tags on them. ‘Made In Gwendal’

“… Made…” The phrasing is wrong if they wanted to say that Gwendal made these, but it’s too late to point that out now. After I pull it snugly over my head, there are ears on top.

“B-Bear ears?”

There are shouts of ‘cute!’ from ten-odd meters above us. Please stop. The third son is hundreds of times more worthy of that than me. He’s the catholic school pretty boy.

With an explosive sound like a huge thud, another one of the mysterious creatures breaks out of a cocoon. The shocked calls above are now ‘super cute!’

“Bearbees are really cute!”

“Aaaah, bearbees are.so.cu~te!”

Bearbees? Standing in front of the two of us with our caps with ears was some strange creature whose upper half of their body and their legs and feet were like a teddy bear and their feelers and abdomen were yellow and black like a honeybee. It’s like a real… no, this thing is a real creature too, but… it has a build like an Asian black bear in the mountains and it has transparent insect wings on its back. With a body like that, can it really fly with those thin wings?

“……….”

Stepping up to the two of us who are still speechless, the bearbee swings its right arm around.

We’re gonna get eaten! My emotions almost synchronize with salmon hunted by brown bears, but it didn’t try to attack Wolfram and me. It stands with its right arm raised as if swearing an oath and its round and cute eyes glisten.

“Nogisu!”

“Eh?”

Nogisu is a type of caliper, right… this isn’t an engineering room so there aren’t any here. But wait, is that the sound it makes!?

“L-like Grave of Nogisu?” Maybe they’ll let us off with a good pun?

As Bearbee #1 walks around to the other cocoons with a boing-boing sound, it passed right below the hole in the ceiling. And then, after giving one last regretful look behind it, it raised both of its hands to the sky and flew away. Of course, it didn’t say ‘whoosh!’ as it went. The spectators started clapping and it suddenly became tumultuous applause. Some of them were so overcome with emotion they had started crying and there was snot dripping out of their noses.

Meanwhile, the cocoons were steadily breaking open one after another and Bearbee #3 and #4 came to greet us. By the time Bearbee #8 took up his pose, the two of us had gotten used to the situation and were laughing and saying things like ‘Good morning, nogisu’ and ‘Have a nice trip, nogisu.’ The very last one was the cocoon we had to give emergency medical attention to. The capsule broke open with a low-key noise and Bearbee #12 stuck its face out.

“Whoa!” A shout of joy rose up from the peanut gallery and everyone started whispering to each other.

“It’s a queen bearbee.”

“I never thought I’d see a queen bearbee.”

“What an elegant design. Yeah, she’ll live a long time.”

Well, with my aesthetic sense, it just looks like a teddy bear that was cobbled together with random scraps of cloth. And an all-pink patchwork at that.

The queen bearbee gracefully makes her way to us, slowly raises her arm and says, “Thank you, nogisu.”

“Hm? Uh, you’re welcome, nogisu!”

After that, she pushed Wolfram and I down with all her might and rubbed her wet nose all over us before flying off.

Construction sites and her butt are probably the only things that look good in yellow and black stripes. Around her sexy waist…

“Ah! The marriage registration form is stuck to her.”

I finally managed to get to the next floor after shakily climbing up a ladder. I had to stay sitting for a while from dehydration and dizziness, but I could mostly taste the drink that was handed to me.

“Hah… But it was good we didn’t get eaten.”

“Bearbees are not carnivorous,” Conrad said.

“But there were bones in the corner of the… huh?”

When I peer over the edge of the hole, I see that the skulls are clinging to the broken cocoons.

“Those are Flying Skeletons on the brink of death. Bearbee cocoons are full of calcium so they do that to replenish their energy.”

“Wow… It looks like a painting of Hell at first glance.”

After drinking an entire tankard, Wolfram gives a low groan and leans against the wall.

“I’d never have thought that the things living in the guest housing were phantom bearbees.”

“Phantom?”

“When I first heard that bearbees had laid eggs in Blood Pledge Castle I was also surprised. They are a species that some say are extinct, after all. That’s why we said that they were monsters in order to keep poachers and collectors and other unsavory types away. Even so, right after the eggs were laid the parents died.”

Ah, so that’s why they mistook us for their parents and sniffed and licked us. It’s lucky that larvae have bad eyesight. If we were found out, we’d definitely have been smothered to death.

After he saw off the researchers who were steadily thanking the king and former prince, Lord Weller presses his nose against my shoulder.

“Like I thought.”

“What?”

“The deciding factor was smell. You used paint from Duboss, right? The one with the horrible smell.”

“Wolf definitely used it. You’re not saying that that excrement is…”

“Something like a mineral can be extracted from the feces of adult bearbees. It’s a rare and unprocurable, top-quality product nowadays. But Your Majesty, thanks to Wolf a new queen bearbee was born and, since they’ve eluded complete extinction, we might be able to make that paint in our own kingdom next year.”

I heard something I couldn’t ignore in that mini-speech so I hurriedly voice my concerns.

“They’re coming next year too!?”

“Yes, that’s a given. Once they go around to several places and areas with ideal climates, they return to the same place after a year and lay their eggs. In this case, that queen will definitely return since she believes her parents are here in this castle.”

“Parents?”

After giving us a good-guy smile that you absolutely can’t criticize, Conrad points at me and his little brother.

“I’m not sure which one she thinks is which, however.”

The Great Demon Kingdom bearbee father.

The Great Demon Kingdom bearbee mother.

“Eh?”

At that moment, an image of a patchwork teddy bear or knitted bear or whatever putting on a pair of special insect wings and dancing a line dance pops up in my head. Of course, Lord Wolfram von Bielefelt and I were in the center with ostrich wings.

“EHHH!?”

“Yuuri, you ended up with yet another child you’re not related to. This is why I call you a flirt!”

“Shut up. You’re a mom or dad too you know!? But you know, I wonder which one is more awesome – a mother bearbee or Mother of Ultra? I guess it’s Mother of Ultra since she protects the universe…”

And that is how Yuuri and Wolfram became the parents in spirit of the rare and protected species the bearbees, tosa.

“This doesn’t mean you can just live in my room you know!? Stop drawing shigaraki tanuki and saying it’s me. Oh, and stop arbitrarily giving me B-cups!”

With an unbecoming blush painting his cheeks, Lord von Christ closed his eyes as if seeing a dream. He’s probably imagining his master frolicking with bearbees.

“Ahh, His Majesty and those bearbees that are always at the top of the voting polls of rare creatures you want to hug and go to sleep with. It is a scene so adorable that it seems as if it is not of this world…”

“Certainly. It-certainly-is-very-adorable-however.”

Showing that his comment was from the heart, the editor leans his body forward over the table. While Günter was talking, there were a few parts where the editor nodded with exquisite timing and made appropriate comments and he listened with great interest until the very end.

“If we wrote down such a heart-warming anecdote as this, it’s assured that the ladies who are normally weak against pretty boys and animals will be writhing in joy. There will definitely be a wild enthusiasm for bearbees amongst the ladies! Although…”

“Although?”

Günter was suddenly brought back to reality at Badwik’s last word. He had been picturing a delusion five times wilder than reality with a queen bearbee flying off into the sunset and Yuuri’s profile with eyes wet with tears he wasn’t aware of. The credits were just about to roll.

“I-believe-that-a-story-loaded-with-charm-will-please-the-audience-and-heal-their-hearts-and-whatnot-however. But-you-know-but-you-know, I feel like they are yearning for something a bit different.”

“Something besides charm?”

“That’s right. We in the industry believe that the women of this kingdom are a bit tired of the same old things being repeated every day.” Badwik clasped his small hands together and brought them up to near his mouth in a feminine manner.

“I understand that peaceful and stable days are the best of blessings. But lately, there are times when I roll over and look at my husband and say ‘oh, he’s an old man too.’ Yeah yeah, my boyfriend is the same way. He wasn’t like that before.”

What a bizarre way of speaking. Günter was sucked into the mood, unable to close his mouth.

“I don’t feel that spark we had when we first met, yeah yeah, there’s no spark. I feel like things are hopeless when I think that these boring days will go on forever. What’s that thing? Something like a thrill I’ve never felt before. Yeah, that’s it. I don’t have enough excitement. I want to experience a burning love where I put my life on the line just once! That’s right, a love affair with a passionate and dangerous partner. A sad love story like in a coming of age play. I’d want to experience that even if it’s just a fantasy…. Something-along-those-lines-however.”

Quickly reverting back to a capable editor from his sudden solo performance, he knocked on the goat leather book with his fist.

“They want to experience a thrill that commonplace, everyday life can’t give them even if it’s just in a novel. Falling in love with a dangerous and attractive partner different from the mediocre spouses and how it would feel to be extremely sought after. The-Central-Literary-Institute-of-The-Great-Demon-Kingdom-and-I-believe-that-we-can-gain-the-female-reader’s-support-by-simulating-that-pleasure-for-them-however.”

“… I wonder what a dangerous, attractive and passionate partner and burning love that you risk your life for is… like… wait, are you asking me to write that!? Please wait, I am not Lady Celi, you know? I have no such things written in my diary…”

“To-be-honest-a-commonplace-plot-is-fine-no-a-classic-format-is-just-fine. But-you-know-the-problems-is-how-much-the-reader-can-empathize-with-the-characters’-personalities-and-actions-however.”

A gleam sparkled in Badwik’s eyes that was so clever it couldn’t be seen as a salesman’s weapon. Feeling as if he was being begged by a child, Günter starts digging through the shelves of his memories.

“… A classic format with a dangerous and attractive partner and a passionate love… was there anything in my diary like that..? Dangerous and attractive, risking your life… oh!”

The search in his brain ended and all of the matching data strings were extracted. The tutor turned almost-novelist slapped his knee and stood up enthusiastically to search the bookshelf behind him.

“Here it is, here it is! It is a somewhat old story, but it is the perfect tale. It is from over ten years ago so it is completely different from what is in the diary, however…”

Well it is a related data string. It can’t be helped if it’s a little old.

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