Chapter 17: How about cross-dressing….?

How about cross-dressing….?

I left the monster corpses as they were and headed back to the capital, but there was some kind of dispute at the gates.

“Why won’t you let us in!?”
“Even if you say that… I can’t admit a slave whose master isn’t present because it’s the rules….. I could allow you entrance if it was only the blue-haired girl but……”
“Nes- our master is inside the capital! Besides, I can’t let this child search for him on her own!!”
“Although you’re saying that… ”

The one arguing was a red-haired girl and she had brought along a brunette and a girl with blue hair.
I feel like I’ve seen that combination somewhere before, but I call out to the gatekeeper so I can enter.

“Err… Can I go in….?”
“Ah!! Yes, go ahead.”

I had spoken to the man when I was leaving, so he let me in without any problems.

“N-nest!?”

Then, for some reason, the red-haired girl called my name.

“Certainly I’m called Nest, but who.. are……”

I was about to ask who she was, but the girl I just passed was someone I already knew.

“Eh, what…? Aura?”
“That’s right!!”

In that case, the other two should be Lily and Tré.

“Huh, why are you guys here?”

As far as it goes, I had left them a message telling them not to worry before I left.

“…………were worried….”
“Eh, what did you say?”

Aura mumbled something but I couldn’t hear it clearly.

“N-never mind, you idiot Nest!!”

She yelled at me for some reason but people started looking at us so I decided to head back to the inn first.

“Ah, Mister. I’m the owner of these slaves so they’re allowed to enter now, right?”

Saying that, I show him the verification given to me by the slave merchant. The gatekeeper confirmed the verification and granted us passage.
We returned to the inn and I heard the details from Aura and the others.
It seems they were given a lift on a peddlers wagon but were stopped at the gates, and that’s when I came along.

“Seriously, you were suddenly taken away so we were worried. Lily and Tré were at least.”
“And you weren’t!?”
“Huh? But Aura-oneechan also had an extremely panicked fa- Mmph!!”

Aura covered Lily’s mouth before she could finish her sentence.

“Lily? You don’t have to mention that, okay?”
“K-kay.”

Lily was lead to a corner of the room.

“Speaking of which, why was Nest called to the capital…?”

Tré inquired while Aura and Lily were occupied.

“Er.. It seems that the king’s daughter and wife fell ill and he was looking for someone to heal them.”
“So Master healed them, right…?”
“N-no? I thought that it would cause a lot of trouble in the future if I did, you see?
“Eh, you’re not going to heal them….?”

Tré had looked at me with a gaze full of reverence, but it changed as if she received some kind of shock.

“N-no, I am going to heal them! It’s just that it would be bad if I exposed myself so I was planning to sneak in tonight.”
“A-as expected of Master…!”

Tré appeared to be deeply touched, but Aura and Lily returned at that point. It seemed like they had been listening to our conversation.

“But how are you going to sneak in? It’s the King’s castle so there should be a lot of guards…..”
“Th-that’s true…… But couldn’t I just force my way through while using Heal?”

I thought I could do it that way but does that seem a little excessive?

“I think that would be difficult. I don’t know how this castle is, but there were quite a lot of people with guards following them back at my castle.”
“S-seriously? Maybe I should just give up on healing them then.”
“Ehh…….”

Tré looked at me with a hopeful gaze as if asking “that’s a lie, right…?”, but it would come to nothing if I was caught when healing them.

“If I could at least make it into the castle then it might be feasible, but….”
“If you’re wondering how to deal with the door guards then how about using sleeping drugs?”
“But even if sleeping drugs were okay, how would I get the guards to take them without arousing suspicion?”

While brainstorming methods to deal with the door guards together with Aura, Tré spoke up timidly.

“M-master, I.. I’m good with cosmetics so how about cross-dressing…..?”

Tré unexpectedly proposed an idea, but that sounded a little difficult.

“Um.. Tré? As expected, that’s a littl- “That’s it!!” Eh?”
“Nest can just disguise himself as a girl and seduce them! I’ll lend you the clothing so use that to penetrate the castle!!”
“N-no wait, I’ll be quickly exposed if I wear female clothing as a guy!”

But in the end, my resistance was futile and I was forced into cross-dressing.

And after dozens of minutes, I was adorned with cat ears and paws. Viewed from the vicinity, I totally looked like a cat-girl.

The cat ears had been bought by Lily for some reason.

――――――[King POV]――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

In my hand right now was a report from the garrison in the outskirts of the capital.

[A large number of dismembered monsters were discovered in the outskirts of the royal capital…. There were no traces of them being dismantled so it’s believed that a terrifyingly brutal monster has materialised outside the royal capital. We would like the palace guards and knights to form a collaboration and stay vigilant. Furthermore, there have been reports of a fiend with long, dishevelled hair who wields a mysterious cylindrical bladed weapon? (A sharp scythe?) We have temporarily named this individual <Tosatsu Majo> (Witch of Slaughter).]

Even though I’m already preoccupied with my wife and daughter, work continues to pile up for me as the king.

“Witch of Slaughter…… What a good name……”

I decide to give a small reward to the guard who wrote this report.