Chapter 535 – Arrived at the Royal Capital!
Link: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2710db/
Author: Eguchi Ren
Translated by Gumihou
Edited by Gumihou >_<
Eguchi Ren: The Royal Capital Arc has started~
“Ooooh~~ so this is the Royal Capital?”
From Grandpa Gon’s back, I have a great view of a city that was bigger than any other city that I have ever seen in this world.
“”Hooh~~ it’s big!””
“”Big~~””
Dora-chan and Sui were also leaning forward and looking down at the Royal Capital.
“I can feel the presence of many people. Hmm, some are pretty strong,” said Fer. However, he was reclining lazily on his back, so I guess by ‘strong’ he probably meant ‘somewhat decent’ or at least ‘not weak’.
Still.
“Should we be worried?” I asked as scenes of me being forced into all kinds of troublesome situations appeared in my mind.
“Umu, I expect they must be high-ranking Adventurers or guards in the palace,”
“I see…”
“Master, where should I land?”
“Hmm, I guess that open field there should be fine?”
“Yes.”
Grandpa Gon began to slowly descend.
Eh, now that we’re nearing the ground, I get the feeling that the open field was a tad too close to the Royal Capital gates? Ah, but since the Guild Master already informed the Royal Capital that we’re coming, it should be fine, right?
It was only after Grandpa Gon had landed that I realised that I have a problem in my hand.
“Ahem, Guild Master? Willem-san? We have arrived at the Royal Capital!”
He looked a lot older than me, but he was still a bulky former Adventurer. I could hardly shake him.
“Huh? Mmm… aah, aaahhhh!!! Let me off! Let me off!!!”
[1]
Well, since we already landed…
“Okay, you can get off now,” I said cheerfully.
My unexpectedly ‘cheerful’ voice must have thrown him for the loop, because instead of rolling off Grandpa Gon’s back, Willem-san went deathly still. Then, he peeked nervously down.
Seeing the bright green grassland so near must have comforted him because his entire body went limp with relief.
“I- I- I- ahem, I have shown a shameful side of myself to Mukouda-san,” said Willem-san shame-facedly.
“No, no, you should have heard me scream the first time I travelled on Grandpa Gon, hahaha!”
“Hahaha…”
Fortunately, neither of us was interested in pursuing the topic. When I changed the subject with an ‘Oh look, there’s a long line at the gate, let’s go now.’ Willem-san was very cooperative and quickly answered, ‘Oh, oh, yes, indeed. Ahem, let’s get down now.’
Thus, we slid off Grandpa Gon’s back and landed with a soft thump on the soft, grassy meadow.
I pretended not to hear Willem-san saying ‘Firm ground is the best’. I must respect his dignity after all. Not to mention, I felt that statement to the core.
While Grandpa Gon shrank to a less shocking size and the rest of us gathered ourselves together, I noticed Fer looking in the direction of the Royal Capital, and I looked as well.
“Hm? Guild Master, there seems to be a lot of people in armour coming towards us. Are they… knights?”
Their metallic armour was certainly better than the standard soldiers’, but less gaudy than the ones worn by the so-called Holy Knights of Rubanov.
“Those armour… I believe they are Imperial Knights.”
[1] [2]
“Eh? Imperial Knights as in… knights for the royal family?”
“They must have sent the Imperial Knights out to welcome you. Especially since I informed them that we will be coming via dragon transport…”
“Ah,” I supposed such an illustrious ‘welcome wagon’ was sent out because I brought such dangerous familiars so close to their city? Well, I can’t blame them.
F-for some reason, I felt nervous at the sight of the large men in shiny armour on huge horses riding straight at me. [3] Um, wow, they lined up in such exact lines too. The Japanese in me felt very gratified to see such discipline.
“First Imperial Knight Division is here to welcome S Ranker Adventurer Mukouda-dono at the orders of the king!”
“… eh…” [3] ah, the white-collar worker in me is shrinking with terror at this incredible comment. Me? Mukouda? Being invited by royalty? D-do you know what facing the royalty is like for a person like me? It’s like a lowly convenience store worker meeting with the prime minister! The prime minister, you know!?
“So, it has come to this…” I muttered.
“What are you talking about?” Willem-san said.
“Nothing…”
“Well, the king has been wanting to meet you for a while now. So, even if you haven’t arrived on a dragon, he might have sent the Imperial Knights to welcome you anyway. So, cheer up.”
Gununu, Willem-san sounded too happy for my taste.
Haahhh, I want to go home already…
“Fine, whatever. Let’s go,” I raised my head and called my familiars over, “Hey, you guys, time to go into the Capital.”
When my familiars gathered close to me, the Imperial Knights suddenly broke rank and… surrounded us?!
“Um, this…” I whispered to Willem-san.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s just a little precaution,” Willem-san said with that too-wide smile.
Kind of like that time we were in Ronkainen? I sent a quick telepathic message out to my familiars ‘Don’t do anything crazy! We’re going to the palace now!’.
“”The palace? Not to the Leviathan dismantling place?””
“”Because it’s only polite to meet the king first! There are orders to these things, you know?”” I was just running my mouth now, but still, it makes sense to greet the hostess or landlord first when you arrive in a new place. So… yes, let’s just think of the king as the ultimate landlord here. I, Mukouda, am meeting with the landlord. I even brought some souvenirs for him.
“”Umu, it’s been a long time since I have met with a King of Men. The last king was an idiot who tried to have me killed. I wonder what this one would do? Kukukuk.””
My face twitched at Fer’s [4] chuunibyou remark.
“”Just… don’t start anything okay? Promise me!””
“”Hmph, fine.””
“”Fine what?!””
“”Fine, I won’t start anything.””
Before I could sigh with relief, Grandpa Gon said, “”The last King of Men I met wanted parts of my body as ingredients for something. I decimated him with my Dragon Breath.””
I could feel myself going white from that casually horrendous remark.
“”Grandpa Gon, you promise too!!””
“”… I promise not to start anything…””
““Good,””
“”…however, I shall finish whatever they started.””
“”What?!””
[2]
In short, it was a very stressful walk. I have no idea what kind of faces I was making. The only silver lining was that neither Dora-chan nor Sui appeared interested in fighting or ‘starting’ anything. They were busy looking at things and going ‘wow, that stall looks delicious’ or ‘so many people~~’.
Hhhaaaahhhh…
Will we be alright, I wonder?
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We are… in front of the door to the audience chamber.
I stared at the massive doors with trepidation while my familiars were… doing whatever it is that they always do. Willem-san was next to me, looking nervous too. Oddly enough, his nervousness calmed my nerves down a little.
“Oi, I forgot to look through your tribute, is it alright?”
That’s right, in the whole rush to come here, I have forgotten to ask Willem-san to check my souven- I mean, my royal tribute to the king. However, it was too late to worry about that now, because the treasure chest had already been taken away by the Imperial Knights to be checked for curses, poisons and other ‘bad juju’. You know, standard security things in this world.
Haha.
“I guess it should be fine? I put in a bit more than usual since I came here in person…”
Willem-san looked at me with dubious eyes.
Hey, do I look like an untrustworthy person to you!?
“Haahhh… I guess there’s nothing we could do about it now,” he muttered.
However, I was too preoccupied to worry about Willem-san’s random comments. The things that occupy my mind now are imperial manners and etiquette. Every time I met with Willem-san, it was all about greetings, walking, manner of dress and other important please-don’t-take-off-my-head stuff. I don’t have a spare minute to worry about the souvenirs. If there’s anything lacking I can just supplement it later. After all, I have the Leviathan, right? I wonder how much Leviathan liver goes for. Do Leviathan even have a liver? Or maybe the heart?
No, no, I should be thinking about other things!
Uh, let’s see. Walk in steadily, keep my eyes ahead, don’t look at the king directly, don’t look around like someone from the boonies… and kneeling! Kneel on one knee and, ahhh!! I’ll just do whatever the Guild Master does!!
Then, the door opened and that was just what I did.
Before I knew it, I had walked down the wide carpeted floor and was on one knee with my left hand over my chest. My eyes stare at the incredibly clean carpet. Wow, do they clean it with magic or something?
“Raise your head.”
So, we raised our heads.
And then, well, nothing much. Because all the talking was done by Willem-san. I kept quiet on the side and did my best not to look behind me as my familiars made comments via telepathy about the room, the king and the situation in general.
Whatever, it’s all fine so long as you guys don’t do anything drastic!!
Then, the heavy doors of the audience room, which had closed behind us just now, swung open again.
[Gumihou: Aaahhh!! I feel stressed just translating this!!]
[1] Adjusted the scene so that it’s more dynamic.
[2] Adjusted the dialogue so that it is less stilted and unnatural
[3] Added some ‘the Japanese in me’ comments because Eguchi-san is too Japanese to know that he is showing his Japanese-ness, but Gumi could see it~~
[4] Eh, might as well throw this in too. Chuunibyou literally translates as Eighth Grader Sickness, it means someone who suffers from delusions of greatness/uniqueness
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Can’t believe he thought about selling the liver aka ingredient for that hair tonic business blunder, why is he thankful for the count for its success again? He didn’t even want to sell it in the first place.
Mukouda is a moron thats why he will be single and alone for the rest of his life. He has the power to destroy a kingdom but he act like a wuss worrying about meeting a king. Grab a pair you wuss.
I’m rolling my eyes here.
Mukoda, as a former whitecollar office worker who did have to rub elbows and suck-up to your superiors, you should be able to muster enough thought to arrange a tasteful obligatory gift/bribe right?
You wouldn’t just haphazardly throw together a bunch of expensive stuff you just want to get rid of, like a box of golden junk, right? You stressed so much about being proper about it.
You yourself have greased the wheels with gift sets (the horns and jewelry) before (even back in Japan) so you should have some idea of what to at least match stuff together, right?
That a thoughtful gift would probably be more appreciated than randomly chosen shit, right?
Who am I kidding, he always ends up becoming an idiot when it comes to situations like this.
you are right. Mukouda being Japanese should have been ingrained in giving gift tradition (which he has shown with cakes and such) so it would have been odd that Mukouda would make such a blunder with this one. In the past (previous gifts) he seeks out advice and give appropriately, and like previous interaction, so far it has been positive. So Mukouda (per the previous action and how much the Guild had helped him) would have consulted with Williem before heading out.
I mean honestly, other than cooking three meals a day (it is a lot of cooking so I can relate) but with Mukouda’s skills and “job/title” it is “child’s play” when it comes to cooking so he should have plenty of time.
I guess you guys didn’t notice but Eguchi isn’t exactly a skilled story teller. The story concept is good but his skills as a writer are amateur at best. The world building, the story consistency, the character consistency, the character development, he falls short / non existent in all of it. Mukuoda will literally become as spineless/moronic/brave/genius as the story requires.
Let’s not forget Williem even said “5 days” so Mukuoda had a huge amount of time. We should admit we’re not really reading Tondemo for Mukuoda since he’s designed to be subpar in everything (intelligence, wit, guts, etc) lol
Although I admit him being a “nice person” isn’t a bad trait as I’ve seen some trolls mention. Fer woulda thrown him off a cliff long ago if he wasn’t a nice person.
But all of that doesn’t matter because story concept is very nice and the glutton quartet carry the brand.
Whenever my friends ask me about Tondemo I tell them 10/10 for entertainment. 1/10 for quality. Honestly without Gumi’s localization touch, the story would be a pretty atrocious read.
To add, in a way, Mukuoda’s mediocrity/idiocy is pivotal to how he’s not corruptible. Blessed by basically the entire pantheon of gods and contracted to the Reset Button Ancient Dragon and a Fenrir that could wipe the human race (stats mean nothing in this story it seems, btw since Mukuoda is consistently a weakling that’s can’t lift anything despite having a “strength” stat. Or maybe that strength stat is fake but to be fair, most stories that put in number statistics leave this huge plothole lying around)
He’s basically just a reality show entertainment for the gods because they have nothing better to do.
Imagine almost any other person in his shoes. They’d get a bloated head or become a snob (eating food, daily, nobles would sell their children for, having treasures that could exchange for entire kingdoms and sponsor a village full of women that fit his harem criteria, magical weapons that could literally cut buildings in half)
I was thinking about that “lifting” I think the Magic Sword Caldarron -sp- is the one weapon he cannot “lift” well. It might be more of does not know how to use it (ie. sword is top heavy?) Mukouda does not know how to use a weapon and it is funny that he never asks anyone to train him (he could ask his employee to teach him or spar with him)
I think the others are just fine. I think Mukouda has to lift/put away the stove (which is pretty heavy) or the tub/mob drops without much issue.
Now the trope of “weak back” is a bit overused since his stats are higher than most people (except for Heroes) so he should have a higher constitution. I think it is more of a mental thing 😉
Mukouda would rather not think about fighting at all, if a training montage suddenly happens, I might just have to drop the story…
I’m completely with you, except one thing, Mukouda was never brave or a genius. Not. Even. Once.
Gift giving is generally not done for superiors, but more for peers and juniors. Even then, you can just walk into a department store and buy some ‘local product’ at a certain budget rate in Japan. If you’re giving something to a superior, there’s a section for that too, generally it’s an item that follows a certain ‘value’ rather than ‘thoughtfulness’ since everyone technically knows how much the item is worth because it could be easily bought from the department store.
Mukouda’s sense of what’s valuable and what’s not is broken by Fer and the rest of his familiars. So, he mostly tend to err on the side of too many valuable shit rather than too few.
Fairly sure the amount Mukouda brought as tribute is enough to purchase the kingdom.
Purchase the kingdom a few times over probably.
Thanks for the treat.
The pearl Tiara alone or the Azure Diamon (one or the other) would be enough to do it 😉
Whale whale whale, if this meeting with the king was going to be without issues and “interesting” events, would it even require so many chapters? Of course something juicy has to happen, else it would be too boring. Bring out the fun, and medicine for Mukoda’s stomach, heart, and head, cuz he’s gonna swim in concentrated stress.
Thanks for the chapter and the triple release! Awesome translation! May God bless you!
The safest person in this castle is Mukouda 😉 I am sure NOTHING will be able to harm him with all the “backing” he has 😉
Mukouda, kill the king! Thanks for the TL!
“….surrounded us”
I’m sure it’s for safely aka make sure no one, nothing will bother the legend and ancient beast and their master…