"Boss, there's a thing called Murphy's Law."
In the incomprehensible world that Mel and my comrades came from, there existed all sorts of eccentric laws.
Some of them helped strengthen my monstrous strength, but most were useless.
Like slapping grandiose names such as gravity or universal gravitation on an apple falling.
'That the ground pulls things toward it is a matter of course.......'
This Murphy thing felt much the same.
"Murphy, what sort of scum is that now?"
Summoned by the royal household, we had just passed through the royal castle's gate.
Petty kingdom or not, a royal castle divides into an outer and an inner castle, and procedures for entering the palace naturally follow from that.
A little further along the garden from here, the place to step down from the carriage would appear, and then we would enter the main castle.
Once inside the castle we would wait in a drawing room until Mel's investiture began.
Wasn't it, in its way, an important moment?
"It's the law that matters more than Murphy, though......."
Of all times, it was then that Mel recited an ominous law.
"Um, when you line up at the supermarket, your line moves the slowest....... Put that way you won't get it, huh, Boss? Hmm~. Ah! When you line up to collect mercenary paperwork—."
"I never stood in lines to begin with."
"Right, we never had to line up. Hmm, hold on!"
Mel tilted her head as she searched for a fitting comparison.
Something felt strange.
And in a bad way.
"What bullshit are you about to spout now?"
The moment knowledge from the incomprehensible world came up, negative words would spring out of me first.
In fact, much of what I had experienced had been negative, so it was an entirely natural reaction.
Laws, in particular, are of a piece with the power that defines a world.
And realizing a law—a world—of one's own was a condition of being an archmage.......
But these bastards always brought it up in bad situations.
"Murphy's Law isn't some grand thing like a mage's world or a law that actually applies in this world."
Across both my past life and this one, this was the first I had heard of the scum called Murphy.
Even if my comrades had mentioned it before, I swear on my monstrous strength that not once had anyone explained it with such emphasis.
Mel's explanation, recited with a meaningful look, raised any number of questions in me.
"It's a law that means whatever's going to happen will happen in the end. It's just something you shrug at."
Mel said it was nothing much, but hearing it, this scum's law went far beyond ordinary.
Named: the scum called Murphy.
That scum had made a law out of preposterous ravings, as though he were the god of fate himself.
"What sort of bullshit is that?"
It was an outrageous statement, hard to grasp in one go.
"Do you remember when you first brought me along, Boss?"
When I first met Mel, the one who hired me was a count of the Empire.
That bastard tried to have me assassinated rather than pay my fee, so I turned around, killed the count bastard, and collected by force.
In the course of it, Mel, who had been the count's prisoner, became the first member of the Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company.
"Wow! Don't you remember it more vividly than I do, Boss? And after that?"
For me it was an unforgettable memory.
And so was what came after.
"How could I forget wandering the fiercest battlefields?"
As it is for everyone, my start was as a nameless, greenhorn mercenary company.
A time when the members were only me, the Boss, and Mel, the strategist.
With no credit or track record as a company, no one would give us work.
Far from a battlefield to display my martial force, there wasn't a soul who would listen to Mel's strategies.
"Do you remember when we started getting a bit famous?"
"Do you mean when we gained our epithets?"
"Yeah!"
We sought out the fierce battlefields everyone else avoided.
For unproven warriors like us, it was the only choice for raising the worth of our names.
I was treated as Monstrous Strength Mercenary No. 1, a man with no connections whatsoever, and Mel was the ominous strategist with a brand set into her forehead.
But—.
"How could I forget those days, crossing between life and death daily and steeped in the dead blood of undead?"
We survived the fiercest battlefields.
We killed every enemy before us and won.
Because the battlefields we joined were the cruelest places, where mercy must never be sought, news of our victories became famous in many ways.
"Is that Murphy's Law?"
"No, think about what came next!"
War against undead legions without a trace of human scent.
War against cannibals who relished human flesh.
Having built my renown wandering such places, I wanted to find a somewhat easier battlefield.
But.......
"Strangely, even after that, only the ghastly battlefields ever called for us."
Even a battlefield that seemed a little easy would turn into a hellscape like clockwork the moment we arrived.
Out of nowhere a dragon would appear and make an inferno; or a Mystery would suddenly turn up, drawing in every faction and swelling the war's scale.
And that sort of thing is called—.
"That's Murphy's Law."
The scum called Murphy made a law.
I couldn't understand it at all, but.......
"Isn't that just bad luck?"
"When the bad luck keeps repeating, it becomes a law. It's a statistical thing......."
"Enough—."
I had never lived in the incomprehensible world where Mel had lived.
Nor had I any desire to learn more about it.......
Even so, there was one thing I could be certain of.
'The humans of the incomprehensible world are endlessly feeble.'
They couldn't trust themselves, nor could they trust others.
Wasn't that why they made so many laws and tried to regulate themselves?
The scum called Murphy even made a law out of 'rotten luck' in order to console himself for having none.
In the end, wasn't it just a weakling's attempt to find comfort?
"In that misfortune we built our renown. Mel, don't let yourself be swayed by the words of such scum."
I spoke to Mel in a heavier tone than usual.
But why was it?
"Hmm. Won't you understand too once you've lived a while, Boss?"
Even at my heartfelt advice, Mel showed no particular change.
Perhaps this was.......
'To think Mel had a side to her I didn't know.'
Just as Veil had worshipped that big-eared bastard.
Mel too, it seemed, worshipped the scum called Murphy.
Hearing what came next only strengthened that conviction.
"The way I see it, Murphy's Law means that whatever's going to happen will happen in the end."
There was something meaningful in it.
—Ep. 08 That Scum Called Murphy.
Mel and Jack arrived at the royal castle.
Mel narrowed her eyes and watched the royal household's treatment of them closely.
"Hmm?"
Since Duke Robert had been pulling tricks, she had thought they might play some laughable game from the very start, but.......
"The investiture will begin shortly."
Contrary to her concerns, the royal household treated them with great courtesy.
From a splendid drawing room fit for a margrave to stay in, to a servant's guidance explaining the various procedures.
"As this is your first time receiving the margravial title, the pre-ceremony proceedings will run as follows."
No interference at all before the ceremony?
That meant only one thing.
"So they're planning to do it out in the open at the ceremony, huh?"
Which meant they intended to humiliate her properly before the king.
"Before the king?"
"They've got solid backing, after all."
The Ten Great Knights of the Continent.
And the commander of the Bloody Retribution Mercenary Company.
On top of that, Duke Robert was known to be fairly strong himself.
Jack had come to the same thought.
"The Bloody Retribution commander is one thing, but adding the Stalwart Knight might be a bit difficult."
But here Mel had to encounter one of Jack's peculiar notions.
"Regression is a great power. But it's got the fatal side effect of resetting my body's strength."
It was an absurd claim that regression had side effects.
"Isn't it weird to call that a reset? We just came back as the versions of us from this time, right?"
Mel spoke in a tone that asked why he was questioning the obvious, but somehow Jack's face was not ordinary.
An expression that looked full of complaints.
"Mel, didn't you get two eyeballs and lose your brand too? You can even learn mana now, so for you regression is a power that gave more than it took."
But from Jack's standpoint, the grievance was real.
Mel had gained a great deal, while Jack himself could be seen as having lost quite a lot.
"My Spirituality went from a hundred to one, and isn't even my monstrous strength down to a tenth?"
"No....... if you think of it that way—."
Mel was flustered, at a loss for how to explain this.
"Heh heh heh, I'm joking. It's only natural that coming back to the past makes the body younger and the strength weaker—. That dumb look on your face is pretty entertaining."
This time it was Jack who had played the prank.
Mel burned at having fallen for such a prank, yet a snort of laughter slipped out at how unchanged he was from the past.
Only then did Jack come to the point.
"Mel, don't be so on edge."
"Was it that obvious?"
"Very."
In truth, Mel had been quietly tense.
This stage called the Kingdom of Alton was a perfect blank page she had never experienced in her past life.
The Boss's martial force was there, but this place was as good as enemy territory with no guaranteed safety.
And unlike in the past life, there was no Mystery to escape with—.
"Even if that Ten Great Knights guy and the duke bastard came at us together, protecting you alone wouldn't be a problem."
Jack gave Mel that assurance.
Those words granted her complete relief.
"If I just throw you over my shoulder and run, like I did once on a battlefield, who could ever catch me?"
Jack's monstrous strength was truly the best in the world.
And in flight as well, it boasted the very best.
'The Boss is a sly old snake on the quiet.'
He was a powerhouse who subdued everything by force.
And for all that, he had the knack of running without a backward glance when it was time to withdraw.
That was why he was a mercenary.
"Of course, there'll be no running from scum like them!!!"
Mel snorted a laugh at Jack's hearty words, and just then a messenger arrived from the royal household granting them entry.
Now it was time for Mel to act as strategist.
The Kingdom of Alton, a nation that had perished in the past life.
She intended to draw a new shape for this country.
***
"——Therefore, We bestow upon Mel Kranel the standing of von and appoint her Margrave of the Kingdom of Alton."
A setting where she received the margravial title directly from the king in the audience chamber.
The king's pronouncement ended along with the empty formalities.
Now, with a simple rite and the granting of the middle name 'von,' Mel's investiture would be complete.
But.......
"Your Majesty, I, Duke Robert, have counsel to offer in all loyalty!"
No sooner had the king finished speaking than that duke bastard from before impudently raised his voice.
To do such a thing at a ceremony conducted by the king himself was no different from injuring the king's dignity.
As expected, the king's brow began to knit subtly.
But.......
"Your Majesty, your son joins in this entreaty."
Abruptly, the Second Prince stepped forward.
At that, the king's expression began to change subtly.
It was 'interest.'
'Does he enjoy watching his children run the country into the ground?'
The king's conduct was strangely odd.
'Not that I'm sensing anything from him.'
I spread my senses with monstrous strength and read the mood of the place.
From naive nobles tilting their heads in confusion to bastards rejoicing that 'at last, it has come!'
I could feel a great deal of movement.
Of course, the most actively moving things here were Mel's eyeballs.
'She's got a lot on her mind, it seems.'
Based on what unfolded here in this place, Mel would paint a picture on the drawing paper that was the Kingdom of Alton.
And the result would surely favor my Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company most.
As I was thinking that, the king finally made his decision.
Instead of rebuking the duke's discourtesy, he granted him the chance to speak.
"Speak—."
King or not, it seemed he could not overcome a duke's plea and a prince's entreaty.
The ministers' stares that followed had surely played their part as well.
And once the board was laid out for him like this, the duke bastard began to rampage without knowing his place.
"Your Majesty!!! Mel Kranel stood accused of heresy. And yet, does no one know what became of the inquisitor who was interrogating her?"
The duke framed us in the most obvious and most efficient way.
A tale of the inquisitor and the church.
Could this small petty kingdom ignore the might of a great church that divides the continent in three?
"Was that not a false charge?"
"And who was it that proved it false?"
Mel's fake father had investigated everything and reported it to the king.
Hadn't he even shown himself hale for a full day through my Spirituality and formally recognized Mel as his successor?
A document stamped with the Margrave's seal, and eyewitness accounts.
I had judged that would be enough, but that was my misapprehension.
The duke raised a question.
"Is there anyone present who actually witnessed the previous Margrave?"
There was no chance that nobles of such a petty kingdom had been in Mel's territory at that time.
This country's intelligence amounted to nothing more than informants relaying eyewitness accounts by carrier pigeon.
They all began to look at Mel with suspicion on their faces.
"I submit it would be right to detain Mel Kranel at once and first investigate the inquisitor's whereabouts."
Such was the duke's proposal.
Pointless slander and conniving.
Laughably, in places called royal courts and imperial courts, such things often led all the way to the execution ground.
'The Ten Great Knights of the Continent.'
I looked at the greatest variable in this place.
At the enormous knight standing behind Duke What's-His-Name.
He had been a wall in my childhood, yet that bastard of the Ten Great Knights looked endlessly small to my eyes now.
'He really is small.'
A frame smaller even than mine, and I was still growing.
The energy he gave off was intense, but not enough to overcome my monstrous strength.
Around the time I finished my rough estimate, the king looked at Mel with the face of a man who had decided.
And asked:
"Mel Kranel, is there room for any defense? Speak—."
A solemn investiture had somehow turned into a savage interrogation.
This was the tiresome side of political strife.
And I knew how to resolve it head-on.