Diary of a Middle-Aged Sage's Carefree Life in Another World: Volume 7 (eBook)

Kotobuki Yasukiyo (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-7396-9 (ISBN)

Infos

After spending the last week supervising the local orphans on their first hunting trip, Zelos is nearly back in Santor. He's had to deal with another crazy carriage driver along the way, as well as a party of heroes, but now he can finally look forward to some peace and quiet.

Meanwhile, Ado's group is on a mission in beastfolk territory. Along the way, he meets an oddball reincarnator with a fanatical devotion to the beastfolk and butts heads with an invading hero.

Both Zelos and Ado's encounters with heroes give them an idea of what's really going on in the Holy Land of Metis. And the heroes, too, are forced to confront some hard truths that make them rethink their relationship with the powerful theocracy.

Back in Santor, Zelos's peace and quiet doesn't last long before he's once again whisked away-kidnapped this time, by some short, stout acquaintances with a penchant for building. But he just may discover a whole lot more than a few new construction methods...

Textauszug

Zelos had killed seven wyverns back in the Far-Flung Green Depths. And while he’d sold about half of the loot, he’d gotten so much of it that he couldn’t have sold the rest. Not without risking a market crash, at least.

Maybe the consumers would’ve appreciated that, but the businesses buying the loot from him obviously wanted to sell it for the highest price they could. No distributor wanted to deal with a price collapse—that much was true in any world.

And so, out of consideration for the merchants, Zelos had kept about three wyverns’ worth of loot to himself.

He’d shared any meat he couldn’t eat himself with his neighbors, so he only had about one wyvern’s worth of meat left. But even that was far too much for one person to get through alone.

That was why he was smoking it to try to preserve it. Jerky wasn’t exactly the easiest option to have started with, though...

He had to get both the aroma and the flavor right; if either were too strong, the jerky wouldn’t pair well with alcohol.

I’d love to have some of Mr. Nakanoya’s beef jerky right about now, he mused, staring vacantly into the distance as he thought back to how his favorite jerky had tasted back on Earth.

“Hmm... That reminds me, I wonder what those two heroes are doing at the moment. Not that it’s my problem, mind you...”

Perhaps trying to distract himself from his growling stomach, Zelos cast his mind back to the two heroes he’d met just the other day, on his way back to Santor.

In an attempt to get some information out of them and the priests who’d been accompanying them, he’d told them all sorts of things, mixing fact and fiction, to arouse their suspicions about the Faith of the Four Gods. And it had worked.

By the time he was done, the heroes’ party hesitated to return to the Holy Land of Metis. As far as Zelos was concerned, though, that was nothing but a plus. He was, after all, putting together a plan to get revenge on the Four Gods someday.

He’d journeyed alongside the heroes’ party back to Santor, but he wasn’t exactly confident they’d be able to survive on their own. And it was a similar story for the priests who were with them. Now that they’d learned some inconvenient truths, their lives could be at risk when they eventually got back to their homeland.

“I wonder if they’ll manage by themselves...? Especially that Tanabe boy.”

Zelos cast his mind back to the events of a week ago...

* * *

It had happened on the way back from the hunting trip.

Zelos and the others turned from the Far-Flung Highway onto the Santor Highway, and they were just about to enter Santor proper.

Katsuhiko Tanabe, a summoned hero, plodded along, feet heavy and back hunched. “Ugh, I’m beat...” he groaned. “C’mon, let me in the carriage!”

“Whiny young man, aren’t you? Come on, tough it out!”

“It’s not fair! We would’ve hired a carriage too if we weren’t broke, okay?!”

Zelos’s group was heading to Santor with the heroes’ party—it had kind of just ended up that way after they’d met along the road—and it hadn’t taken Zelos long to realize that this boy had no stamina. Or...well, he had the physical stamina, but not the willpower.

Besides, he wasn’t the only one walking. Luceris, the children, Ichijo, and the female priests rode in the carriage, but their male counterparts traveled by foot.

They’d been taking breaks along the way, of course, but apparently that wasn’t enough for poor little Tanabe to recover.

“Why do we have to walk, anyway? Shouldn’t heroes get special treatment?”

“Now you’re going to trot out the ‘hero’ title? Oh, you are a funny one. If only you’d been thinking this whole time about what it meant to be a hero, you might’ve been able to prepare for a revolution by now...”

“Must be nice being one of the girls. They always get treated better...”

Zelos sighed. “Don’t you think that spoiled attitude of yours may be why you get taken advantage of? In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Metis specifically tries to summon people who think like that. They’re the perfect targets to manipulate. Hmm—maybe people are easier to brainwash before they become adults...”

The self-proclaimed hero boy must have had a high level, but the environment he’d been in had left him a truly pathetic figure. In fact, it seemed like the priests were handling the trip better than he was.

“Looks like the rest of you are decently fit, though, eh?”

“We’re often sent from place to place to spread our beliefs, so we’re used to long journeys like this, really. Unfortunately, our hero here has indulged himself on this particular trip, leaving our budget rather...”

“Ah. You reap what you sow... It sounds like you’re the one at fault here, hmm?” Zelos turned back to Katsuhiko. “If you’d budgeted properly, you would’ve at least had the money to hire a carriage.”

“Ugh... Dammit! Why am I such an idiot?!”

But their money was gone now, and they wouldn’t be getting it back. No use crying over spilled milk.

Ultimately, the hero party was walking because Katsuhiko hadn’t thought things through. Zelos couldn’t even bring himself to pity the boy.

“Couldn’t you just say you’re ‘going off to find the Dark God’ and use that as an excuse to escape Metis for good? If you go back, I’m fairly sure they’ll just keep using you. And then, ultimately, they’ll get rid of you. It seems like that’s how it’d go.”

“I want to, but I don’t have the money. Plus, the Inquisition would be mad—and they’ve got no problem forcing their way into other countries. They’re crazy.”

“Why not just...work? Start up as a mercenary or something, earn some honest money; it’d at least get you enough to live off. Or do you seriously not intend on actually working?”

“Uh...no. No way.”

Having grown accustomed to a life of luxury, Katsuhiko probably wouldn’t have been able to tolerate the rough lifestyle of a mercenary. Zelos hadn’t actually expected that response when he’d asked his question, but hearing it only made him all the more certain: This boy couldn’t make ends meet if his life depended on it.

He’d spent so long looking away from cruel reality that he’d become useless.

“Is there... Is there no other way? Why’d it all have to end up like this, anyway? Why?!”

“Pfft... You pampered little boy.”

“Can you not right now?! Just stop! I’m feeling crap enough already!”

“It sounds like you heroes are getting screwed over by your own youthful indiscretion. I can see why you wouldn’t want to admit that, but...that’s what they call being an idiot.”

“Is it really that much fun to watch me suffer? Why do you even hate the heroes so much?”

Honestly, Zelos was just teasing the boy to pass the time.

With Katsuhiko’s pathetic figure still lingering in the corner of his vision, Zelos looked up to the sky, and his mind started to drift. I’d love to be fishing right now... He really was a free spirit.

“Sir Zelos...” one of the priests started. “What sort of religion is the Church of Creation? We’ve never known anything but the doctrine of the Faith of the Four Gods. I’d like to at least know a little bit about it.”

“For the most part, it’s not far from animism. It says the God of Creation made the world—but now, God watches over the world, never interfering in its affairs. It tells people to appreciate the joy of life; to show thanks for your food and for being born. Oh, and it encourages diversity. All different kinds of people coming together, regardless of race. That sort of thing. Sounds like a pretty peaceful set of beliefs, really. Nothing terrible in there.”

“When do they say the Dark God and the Four Gods were born, then? Honestly, we don’t know much about that ourselves.”

“You know, I read something interesting about that. From memory, it was like... ‘The time approaches for the God of Beginnings to ascend and leave this world behind. First, it created a new god to maintain this world in its absence. This creation was pure but hideous, and so the God of Beginnings sealed it within the earth. In its place, the God of Beginnings made four spirits into proxies, and granted them the power of gods. But those four are nothing but simpleminded hedonists. They wreak havoc on the land, and threaten to plunge the world into chaos.’ Something along those lines, I think? Apparently, it was carved into a stone at some ancient site. People have found similar things in other places too. And I hear there are a lot of cultures that have passed stories like that down the generations.”

“B-But that would mean—”

“Are you saying that the Four Gods shirk their obligations? That they do nothing but cause havoc?!”

It was a truth the priests didn’t want to hear.

But it was the sort of thing that happened all the time. History was written by the victors; the losers, and their truth, were completely erased from the records over time.

...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.8.2025
• Reihe/Serie: The Diary of a Middle-Aged Sage's Carefree Life in Another World
• Illustrationen: Kotobuki Yasukiyo
• Übersetzer: Kotobuki Yasukiyo
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: gamer hero • harem gamelit • Isekai • Light Novel • LitRPG • older protagonist • overpowered main character
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-7396-1 / 1718373961
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-7396-9 / 9781718373969