Chapter 5 - King Sidney, Crown of the Grand Kingdom, Lord of Death, Axe of Inevitable Justice
I am king now.
“Huh!”
What should I do next? A king should be wise, right? And ask lots of questions!
Right. I can do that!
I raise my hands to quiet the crowd. I can hardly hear myself think with all this racket. It’s like the worst executions when everybody’s screaming bloody murder. Don’t they realize this is serious business? I’m not an entertainer!
The little boy at the back keeps screaming out new names for me, so I stare at him until he shuts his mouth. He faints afterwards, but that happens sometimes.
“So… uhh… right! We have a new hero!”
“BEEP!”
“A hero is more important than a king, so let’s hear more about her!”
Everyone is quiet. There isn’t even a beep.
“Oh! I suppose that’s my job!” says the crazy old spirit.
“Yes, oh, please and thank you! Can you tell us more?” I urge him to take the spotlight off of me.
“By all means! Allow me to introduce Truck-chan! She’s quite powerful. In fact, she’s killed more people than … me.”
I don’t want to say it, but that still isn’t that many people. Sure, it is half this throne room, but so far, I still have her beat. After all, I’m an executioner. But, I am not one to brag about my career choice. No point really. Only madmen and idiots want my job.
“Did you have any other questions?” The wizard asks.
Uh oh… everybody’s looking at me again.
“Ah… yes! Yes I do!” A good king is wise and asks questions! That’s what my mum said, so it’s definitely true.
“Which are… ?”
“Let’s see…” I could treat this like it was my mum interrogating me after I stole some cookies. “Why did you choose Truck-chan? Is Truck-chan good at … what she does?”
It appears that I have the old man stumped. After a short pause, he shakes himself off and raises a finger into the air, “Just a moment. I’ll be back with my AV equipment.”
“AV equipment?” I ask, but he’s gone. I wish I could do that!
Then, he’s back, and he has a load of stuff under his arm. He looks around and sets it all down against the wall. We all crowd closer as he fiddles around a bit, and then suddenly a picture appears. Not just a picture, a moving picture.
I peer at the strange device to see a green countryside with a heavily armed horseman.
The old man points at it to explain, “See this fellow here on the horse? That’s a fully armored knight from the late medieval period in what is now Germany.”
I lean in closer to see, squinting at the image.
“This man was chosen as a hero. So…”
An all-too familiar beeping noise rises out of the moving picture, and I see the strange chariot chase down the knights’ horse, squishing it beneath its awful round feet and killing it outright. The knight, unafraid, stands up with his sword but the chariot rolls over him too, trampling him under.
“I see. So Truck-chan can beat a mounted knight. Though, I see no weapons. Does she have arms? How does she open doors?”
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“Doors? Uhh… well… she DOES have hands. Allow me to demonstrate with another video.”
This ‘video’ he refers to must be a different scene within the moving picture?
This time, his ‘AV equipment’ shows a strangely armored warrior with a curved, two-handed sword. His armor is scaled like a fish, he has a demonic mask, and what looks like a beetle’s pincers rising up from his helmet.
He stands in an open field with the moonlight behind him. Facing him is Truck-chan, unarmed, but ready for battle. As they charge at each other, I can distinctly hear the armored man cry out the word, “Te!”
In response, Truck-chan voices her usual roar, “BEEEP!”
After they cross paths, I see the two wait in the moonlight, facing away from each other. Then, the man slowly falls over. In contrast, Truck-chan is wounded, but turns to watch over her enemy’s dying breaths.
“You were … showing us something about doors?” I ask.
“Yes! As you see, the samurai there called out the word ‘Te’, which means that he was aiming for Truck-chan’s hand! Which means she DOES have hands!”
“Really? Where?” I look back to Truck-chan, but she only gives a soft “Beep?”
The wizard goes to pat one of the protrusions sticking out from the side. “Although this is a side-view mirror, it does look somewhat like a limb does it not?”
I purse my lips. I don’t want to look foolish. Even so, everyone else seems to be nodding, so I’ll let it pass. “Do you have any other examples?”
“Of course… for instance, in this case, Truck-chan was asked to get a hero with some divine magic.”
I look again into his strange scrying device. This time, I see what is clearly the inside of a temple. There is a robed priest up on a stage with a big hat. In front of him are two people. A man in a black suit and a woman in a white dress.
Suddenly, the front doors are smashed apart and Truck-chan comes racing down the middle aisle.
The congregants scream in terror and scramble out of the way. The priest does the same, but he is too late. Truck-chan smashes him bodily against the rear wall, and his blood spatters up onto the stained-glass windows above. His life ends with the same strange, “BEEP” sound.
“That is…” I don’t want to say what I’m thinking. Is Truck-chan a vile murderer?
“Oh! Here’s another video! This time we wanted a magician.”
I look again. In this case, a young man in a black cloak is gripping his right arm and screaming out some clearly magical phrase. I can almost sense the immense, unspeakable power that he is holding back. Truck-chan appears with a beep and then both are whisked away out of sight.
“But what about…” I object, but he isn’t done.
“Oh! This is one of my favorites! Take a look!”
This time, a group of green-clad men with helmets are riding inside an airborne carriage. Above them an insect’s wing whirls around, somehow keeping the whole thing aloft. This is powerful magic!
One of the men hangs out the door with some sort of siege weaponry. As I watch, there are explosions and lancing fire that spring forth from his weapon. A battle-mage? With a weapon? Some sort of alchemical apparatus? I am left mystified by what I see.
Suddenly, there is the familiar “BEEP!” and Truck-chan comes flying up out of the jungle beneath. How? Did she jump?
She collides into the door of the flying coach. The whole thing explodes and then falls in chunks to the ground. Truck-chan, apparently undamaged, rolls away unscathed.
“I see. She’s pretty strong. And she can fly?”
“No, no. She used a catapult. She’s pretty clever if she has time to set things up.”
“A catapult? She catapulted herself?”
“Yes.”
“She’s very … dedicated!” I was about to say brave, but it didn’t really fit.
“She always gets the job done!”
“But she fights humans? How will she deal with goblins or slimes?”
“Hmm… Oh! I think I have one example.”
I watch as he plays with his apparatus again. The picture shifts several times, and I see a young girl wearing a scandalously short skirt run out the front door of her house. In her mouth, she has what looks like a piece of bread topped with jam.
“BEEP! BEEP!” Truck-chan appears from nowhere and smashes into her.
“But, that was another human! Was it not?”
“Well, yes. That was a human. But, my point is that Truck-chan shows no remorse. No one and no thing is safe from Truck-chan.”
“I see. Mmm… I’ve seen enough.”
Truck-chan is scary!
The old wizard smiles at me as I collect my terrified thoughts.
“Has Truck-chan ever been beaten?”
He purses his lips. Clearly displeased by the question. Across the room, I see Truck-chan turn to look away.
I wait. I am patient. This is an important question!
“Only once.”
“Only once? What beat her?”
“It was a man. A man named Niwa Shido.”
“Niwa Shido. I see.”
Who is this man? How can someone be stronger and tougher than this monster? He must be some sort of combat junkie! I commit the name to memory. We may need his help!