Tilea’s Worries Chapter 18

A circle (サークル；saakuru) in j.a.pan is a term for a common-interest club.

“Tilea-sama! Tilea-sama!”

I heard Pervert(Nielsen)’s loud shouts, early in the morning. As for me, I was in the restaurant kitchen, sighing as I looked at the pot that was boiling over.

“So this is where you were, Tilea-sama. There is grave news! The Demonic Evil Three are――”

“Not, ‘grave news’ d.a.m.nittttt!”

No sooner had Pervert(Nielsen) come had I grabbed his face in one hand. And as though it were an iron claw, I began conspicuously squeezing his face with my hand.

“GUOHHHH! A-, As expect of Tilea-sama… Y-, Your great strength is in good heal, th.”

Despite suffering, Pervert(Nielsen) skilfully praised me.

Hahh~ Honestly, this guy is…

I had instructed Pervert(Nielsen) to “stop the fire when the pot boils”; something that even children in primary school would know. But apparently this idiot had left the pot alone and run off somewhere.
What “Grave news, Tilea-sama!”. I don’t care if it’s Demonic Evils, or Ebonic Weevils, but the shop is more important!

What should I do for today’s training?

And I need to open to the store in about an hour too…

I won’t make it if I need to make the stock from scratch again. Should I just throw Pervert(Nielsen) into the pot and make Pervert(Nielsen) stock?

I’m so angry that it feels like I’ll destroy Pervert(Nielsen). I’ll beat Pervert(Nielsen)’s head in, and then… No good, no good. What kind of crazy things am I thinking about now. I have to hurry up and chant the magic spell!

Pervert(Nielsen) is a chuunibyou so it cannot be helped. Pervert(Nielsen) is a chuunibyou so it cannot be helped.――It cannot be helped.

……
…………
………………

Alright, I’ve somehow got my anger under control.

Phew, can’t be helped. I’ll explain to dad, and explain to the customers that we’ll be opening a little late. I’m cleaning up after Pervert(Nielsen) again. Honestly, I can’t even leave you to watch the pot, can I!

I’ve pretty much run out of anything I think I can entrust to him. I glared at him, saying “Honestly…” with my eyes. Pervert(Nielsen) seemed to have something he wanted to say as well.

He was looking at me with sad eyes like an abandoned puppy desperately appealing to his owner.

…Guess it can’t be helped. Although the possibility is infinitely close to zero, there might really be something terrible happening. I guess I’ll give him a chance to explain why he was ditching work.

“Well? What’s this grave news? I expect that it’s something urgent enough that you neglected your work, yes?”

“Yes Milady. I deserve ten thousand deaths for running counter to your commands. However, it was a problem that required emergency measures. Although it was presumptuous of me, I gave my judgement priority and left the shop to confirm the intelligence.”

Hahh? Is this guy trying to use Sun Tzu’s “A general on the field shall not obey his sovereign.” or something? Are you trying to use that convenient interpretation to continue to skip work!

The anger that I had kept down exploded outwards again.

No, wait. Wait. Maybe I should just listen to the end first. I need to let him finish reciting his death haiku, after all.

“Well then, specifically speaking, what is this problem that required emergency measures?”

“Milady. It seems that Hidler unsealed the Demonic Evil Three. It is likely that they will attack in the near future.”

Goodness. Somebody is coming to complain to Timu yet again…?

Just the other day was Garm, and this time it’s the Demonic Evil Three? And yet again, quite a chuuni-esque name. Honestly, even though I had thought we’d basically solved the problem with Garm’s incident…

But, it can’t be helped. There’s no way to deal with claimants except to talk to them one by one. You might even be able to clear up their feelings of ill reserve by talking to them. Even that Garm guy started off with pranks, but it seems that they made up in the end.

Gyangu, was it?

Apparently Timu was given Garm’s pet. As a symbol of apology, I suppose. If he even gave his beloved dog away, I wonder just how close they’ve gotten.

The Demonic Evil Three…

So it’s three people this time? I wonder what kind of people they are?

“Niel. What kind of people are those Demonic Evil Three?”

“They are group with cruel and ferocious natures. Because they were so lawless, Demon King Zorg sealed them away himself.”

“Can I take that to mean that they did nothing but outrageous things and were expelled from the Demon King Army?”

“Indeed. Only, they were not expelled, but sealed.”

“Yes, yes, sealed was it? So why did this sealed group suddenly come back?”

“Starting with Camilla-sama’s secession from the Demon King Army, they then lost Killer, and then Garm. The Demon King Army was continuing in a weakening direction. It was likely an act of desperation on Hidler’s part.”

EH!? Killer-san and Garm quit as well!?

Ahh~ But after all these troubles happened, I guess they didn’t feel too good about it either. Although they made up with Timu, they might have gotten tired of dealing with other people. To begin with, people who quit a circle always do so with this kind of timing.

I see. When Timu left the Demon King Army, all of Timu’s praetorian guard quit together, so the “Let’s pretend to be the Demon King Army” gathering lost a lot of people.

Then Killer-san, and even Garm quit as well, so the gathering was on the verge of being called off. At that point, Hidler-san reluctantly decided to call back the expelled members I guess. But if that gentle Hidler-san ‘sealed them’ by the name of the Demon King, in other words, expelled them from the circle, then they must’ve done something pretty bad.

I wonder what on earth they did.

An image is coming to mind…

『Yo, yo, we’re the fearsome Demonic Evil Three. -PARARIKOPARARIKO-』

『Mama, there are some strange people.』

『Miya-chan, you mustn’t look at them!』

『Geez~ What’s with those guys? They’ll wake up the babies!』

『There are houses around. Don’t kick up so much dust. You’ll get the laundry dirty!』

『Demonic Evil Three; you’ll cause trouble to other people. Please act with prudence.』

『Heh! Get with the act, Hidler! We’re the atrocious Demon King Army, yanno.』

『Yeah, yeah! Let’s go even faster! We’ll touch the skies!
-VROOM VROOM-』

Probably something like that. I think I have a pretty good idea for now.

――So they exist in this world as well! No, of course they do. Those type of people pop up no matter where you go. A bunch that lack common sense and just cause trouble to society…

The Demonic Evil three are delinquents; the so-called ‘DQN'(dokyun).

“In other words, they’re dokyun.”

“Oneesama, what is this ‘dokyun’?”

Oh! At some point Timu joined our conversation as well. Good timing. Since she’s a related party, I’ll explain dokyun to Timu as well.

“You see, in my past life, ‘dokyun’ is what we called lawless sc.u.m.”

“A perfect fit for the Demonic Evil Three, isn’t it.”

“Yep. These troublesome kids existed in my past life as well, and we really didn’t know what to do with them. Honestly, they popped up everywhere.”

“T-, There were that many of these powerful beings in your old world!?”

Pervert(Nielsen) asked in shock. You don’t have to be that surprised. They’re people that pop up in every world, right?

“Yeah, heaps and heaps. There were so many that they popped up absolutely everywhere.”

“As expected of Oneesama! To have battled each day with such powerful beings!”

“Indeed. I am always amazed and in admiration of Tilea-sama’s mighty strength.”

Honestly, they were so troublesome. Late at night they’d loiter in huge numbers around the convenience store. In the middle of the night they’d ride past with their thunderous modified motorbikes. And they’d beat and kick and mug anybody they had an eye on.

Just now much of my Dark Matter funds were lost because of dokyun!

The unpleasant memories from my old life came to mind.

I see. In that case, it is as grave a matter as Nielsen said. There’s a need to make sure of it even at the cost of work. So even Pervert(Nielsen) can be useful on occasion.

“It certainly was a grave matter. Niel, well done in reporting it to me.”

“I am extremely and humbly delighted for your honourable understanding.”

A group of dokyun are coming to complain about Timu’s withdrawal. No, their aim is probably something else. I’m sure that once they found out that Timu was a bishoujo, their real intention was to come start some trouble with her.

That’s definitely it. You dokyun b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, I won’t let you lay a single finger on my cute sister!

I need a plan, don’t I. First, I can’t let mum and dad be troubled, so I want to deal with this before it affects the store.

Plan Number 1. Rely on Remilia-san.

Remilia-san is an S-ranked adventurer, as well as the a member of the national public safety force. Honestly speaking, one or two dokyun would be a piece of cake to Remilia-san.
But the main problem with this plan was whether or not the public safety force would even bother with such a small incident. Honestly speaking, it’s probably impossible. If it was a huge incident that affected the country then it would be another matter, but they wouldn’t even listen to an issue about delinquents coming to complain. At best, they would tell me to “go have a talk with your town guards”.

Plan Number 2. Rely on Loser(Bizef).

In my mind, Loser(Bizef)’s stock is on a nose-dive. But Loser(Bizef) is a former adventurer. He’s like the police in this town. Leaving his actual strength aside, his authority is splendid. If he told the dokyun who he was and threatened them with “I’ll arrest you!”, the dokyun might become obedient. But Bizef is a loser. If he fainted before he gave them a warning, it would be completely meaningless.

…No, no. It’s fine, it’ll be fine. Even though it was just an illusion, he still fainted because it was a dragon. He wouldn’t faint to a bunch of delinquents; a bunch of dokyun, right?
Probably. I really want to believe so.

Plan Number 3. Talk it out with the dokyun.

Well, it’d be a frontal approach, huh. Pervert(Nielsen) and I would confront them and negotiate. But a sincere and earnest att.i.tude wouldn’t work on them. On the contrary, showing them that kind of att.i.tude would just get us taken advantage of. We need to show our power while we negotiate. Right. While negotiating, we need to make them think ‘These guys are trouble. We’ll be in for a painful time. I don’t want to get involved with them anymore.’.

In the end, Plan Number 1 is impossible to carry out. We’ll go with Plan Number 2. If that fails, then I guess we’ll go with Plan Number 3. Also, I guess the last thing I need to know is how strong they are? Well, they wouldn’t be as strong as an adventurer, but they definitely have as much strength as the delinquents in our town.

Our war power consists of me, Pervert(Nielsen), Loser(Bizef), and Timu.

First of all, “me”…

I’ve been training my body through cooking ever since I was young. I think that I’d be above average in a one-on-one fight with the town delinquents. Only, I don’t think I’d have much confidence if there was more than one. I mean, my specs are still that of a 17 year old girl.

Next is “Pervert(Nielsen)”…

His enthusiasm is always great, but his strength is on the level of a primary schooler. I’m sure he’ll be taken down in one hit by a dokyun. Since his appearance is that of a dandy old gentleman, I really can’t help but feel regret. Anyway, he can’t be counted on in a fight, in other words. He’s just here to make us look bigger.

Next is Loser(Bizef)…

Recently I found out that he was a joke adventurer. His only redeeming feature is that he was a C-ranked adventurer, and his current position as the chief of the town guard. It would be perfect if the dokyun were scared by his t.i.tle. But if they’re the type that go “The cops ain’t nothin’!” and act cool, then it’d have the opposite effect. And what’s more, if they found out how weak Loser(Bizef) actually was, then the dokyun would get c.o.c.kier and c.o.c.kier. He really wouldn’t be helpful.

Finally, “Timu”…

She can use magic, and she’s pretty fast on her feet too. Among our group, she seems like she’d be the most useful. If we had her hide in the back, then she could fire off magic as a distraction when the time comes.
But I don’t want her to be in danger. I guess it really would be best to have her stay at home, while I go with just Pervert(Nielsen) and Loser(Bizef).

Huhu, what’s with this? Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. Aren’t I the most reliable one right now?

“A general on the field shall not obey his sovereign.”
Basically a saying that states that in a war, the general onsite should be the one who makes the decisions, as the monarch in the capital has already entrusted said general with the task. Accredited to Sun Tzu.