I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel

The Individual Tribe’s village was closer to the Lias fief than I had expected.
Even moving a bit quickly, it wouldn’t take more than half a day.
If someone could use magic, perhaps it would take only an hour or two to get there?
Considering that these other races usually keep their distance from human villages, the proximity was incredible.

“Why do you live so close to humans? So that when one place is about to fall, we can help,” came the answer when I asked.
Not only the Individual Tribe but also the nearby elves lived at similar distances, which made me start to understand just how difficult life in Lias was.
How harsh must it be for these other races, many of whom hate humans, to still live nearby?
“We’ve arrived.”

Perhaps because of that, the beastkin village we reached had no special security.
“A cave?”
It was a very large cave.

“Yes. We live in this cave.”
Following Arang’s cheerful laugh and introduction of their home, I walked behind him.
Up to this point, it fit well with the typical fantasy image of beastkin.
But then—
“What is this, some kind of sci-fi world...?”

The cave interior was somewhat, no, very different from what I had imagined.
“How is it? It’s not smaller than human cities, right?”
“…It certainly isn’t.”
Rather than small, it felt even bigger.
The solid stone paths carved inside looked like roads you might find near Leon.
Stairs carved from stone stretched endlessly up and down.
But what was more surprising was—
“What’s that?”
“That’s an escalator. It moves using magic stones. We kept expanding, and the elders kept complaining their knees hurt from regular stairs.”

There were escalators and elevators here, things I hadn’t even seen in the Empire.
“The elders before us struggled a lot to find someone in the Magic Tower who could install these.”
Ah, so only the Magic Tower has those.
Leon’s Magic Tower doesn’t, so I never knew.
Seeing those guys panting while going up and down the tower, I always thought building that tower was just a pain.
Turns out it was just because our Magic Tower lacked the skill.
…A fact I really didn’t want to know.

“Well then.”
Arang exchanged a few words with his warriors and then led us to a small elevator tucked away in a corner.
“It’s a special elevator for guests and official use. It just goes up and down, so don’t be too surprised.”

They even had a VIP elevator.
Leon Kingdom, worse than wild beastkin—can this be okay?
Watching the slowly descending escalator, I started seriously worrying about Leon’s future.
“Did the Individual Tribe build all this?”
For individualists to create this, cooperation would surely be essential.

“This? Us?”
But judging from his expression, they clearly were saying, how could we have built this?
“Then…”
“The pure technology is a collaboration with dwarves. The magical parts get help from elves in the neighboring village.”

Indeed, with the famous fantasy dwarves and elves working together on technology, I had to acknowledge it.
Thank goodness.
Leon wasn’t really below the wild tribes after all.
“But do dwarves and elves really cooperate?”
I’d heard dwarves often broke royal promises.
For such dwarves to cooperate in building dwellings for other races was surprising.

“It’s an ancient pact. Since the old slave hunts, we’ve cooperated…”
He smiled but glanced sideways, so I roughly guessed who was behind those slave hunts.
…Some truly despicable bastards.
Your efforts even brought about the great unification of the other races.
“Ahem. Anyway. Because of those times, several races meet regularly and send manpower where needed. The brown forest folk next door live in similar conditions.”

That was quite a shocking statement.
Elves not living in trees?
But thinking about the name Individual Tribe, it wasn’t so shocking, so it didn’t take long to come to my senses.

“Hmm. We’ve arrived.”
With a familiar rumbling sound, a door opened.
Having descended quite a way, it felt deep underground.
Yet # Nоvеlight # the air quality was similar to above ground, so they must have ventilation or air purification systems.
“Grandma!”

While observing the facilities, Bell suddenly shouted and leapt forward.
Looking there, I saw an old person with pure white hair standing.
“Weak Bell.”
“Even Grandma?!”
Unlike Arang, no dog punch was thrown.
Instead, the old woman smiled kindly at Bell, who looked shocked with wide eyes, and embraced her.

“This is Garang, the Individual Tribe elder who invited you.”
She introduced herself with a slight bow.
And my first impression of Garang was…
“……”

Why does every Individual Tribe name end with ‘-rang’?
I really don’t understand.
That question was surprisingly quickly answered.
“My bloodline isn’t Individual Tribe. I’m a wolfkin.”

Since Arang called him uncle and wolves are canines, I thought we were cousins.
But it turned out that those who have names ending in ‘-rang’ in the Individual Tribe are either wolfkin or descendants with strong wolfkin blood.
“Well, we can tell by looking, but humans probably see us as similar.”
Garang petted Bell, who was whining in her arms, and said.

“On the other hand, this child is wolfkin but carries more of the Individual Tribe blood.”
No wonder she plays solo so well.
“That’s why her name doesn’t have ‘-rang’ in it.”
“Exactly.”
“Humans tend to ostracize those like that a lot.”
“Unlike humans, once you’re family, you’re family forever. Since this child is wolfkin, she’s forever a wolf.”
Bark

At Garang’s words, Bell roared proudly.
Once a wolf, always a wolf.
It sounded pretty cool, but… for someone who acted like a dog even in my room.
Well, I have to keep it secret at least for her dog—no, Individual Tribe privacy.
“By the way, the letter from the wolfkin said two men saved this child…”
At the questioning looks wondering why it was one man and two women, Bell answered for me.

“The other male lost the male competition!”
“……”
Lost?
If someone really wanted to push, it wouldn’t be Prince Ellen losing but me.
“Hmm, is that so?”

But seeing them nod at that explanation, they really were a wild tribe.
“That’s not it.”
I explained why I brought Daisy and Violet here instead of letting them speak for themselves.
I said I had heard the ancient relic that only the saint of the church could unlock was here, so I brought the saint and her guide.
Garang’s eyes grew suspicious.

“This place is where we’ve settled for a long time. Even if it looks like this, it’s land we’ve protected for thousands of years. Do you think we didn’t know about such a place?”
So they’d lived for thousands of years. No wonder all the houses looked remodeled.
“I don’t distrust my benefactors. But the one who first said such a place existed wasn’t my benefactor but someone else. Can you give me reason to believe you?”

In other words, he wanted proof.
Violet, who was whispering with Daisy, quietly stepped forward.
Then—
“That’s a shaman’s mountain.”

“Oh.”
At that one phrase, Garang immediately nodded.
…What was that?

Shaman Boradori.
Shamanism felt like an ancient magic.
But since mostly practitioners were black magicians, it carried a bad image in the human world.
Races like elves and dwarves also have a close history with humans and mostly use magic.
Of course, some high elves who guard the World Tree use shamanism, but they don’t leave the tree.
Therefore, in the original story, including Silence, only about a dozen characters use shamanism.
Of those, only four were not villains.
Of course, if counting those only mentioned but not appearing directly, there were a few more.
But only four appeared directly in the original story.
One was a high elf who came into the human world because the World Tree was half dead, and the other three were beastkin.

That’s right.
Beastkin still use shamanism instead of magic.
Due to shamanism’s unique traits, few can use it unlike magic, but—
Precisely because of that, shamans were highly respected among the beastkin.
In other words, I was a very valuable asset from the beastkin point of view!
And since I was human, who lost the shamanic lineage, if I wasn’t a black magician, I could gain very high favor.
“……”
“……”
So I stepped forward confidently, but the back of my head tingled.
I knew exactly who was giving that look.
Probably thinking: What the hell is going on here? Did you know? And you didn’t tell us?
And so on.

But it couldn’t be helped.
I planned to tell everything.
So I explained everything quickly!
But wasn’t I treated too badly each time information leaked?
To be honest, not lending Prince Ellen?
I understood Adam’s position well enough to accept that.
But if I wanted to live, we should have lived together.
I still couldn’t forget what happened in the Holy Nation.
And I even know what will happen next.
It wasn’t for nothing that Boradori Bald kept talking about the curse of knowledge to the Steel Man.
…After hearing Boradori so many times, I hate myself for thinking of him as Boradori Bald.

Anyway, honestly, the future I knew was scarier than the unknown school trip to Lias.
Even if I wanted to avoid it, damn office boss Adam was eager to throw me there as an intelligence agent!
Therefore, to raise my value, I had to sell information at a high price.
Of course, I told them all the important things… when the incident was right at the doorstep!
For other side events, I had to hide what wasn’t absolutely necessary.
And present it all as very important.
Because if they realized it was unnecessary, they’d abandon me again!
At least to make them think they needed me, I had to be around.
So I was verified by the Individual Tribe’s shaman Garang while trying to keep a neutral expression.
But maybe it was just my imagination.
Why did the tingling at the back of my head double?
Cold sweat ran down my spine as I glanced sideways.
“……”

I saw Adam squinting his eyes.
“……”
And when I turned my head the other way, Daisy had a similar expression to Adam’s.

…Wait, why are you like that?!
“He really is a shaman.”
“Then if he stakes his soul, we can trust him.”
“Yes.”
In the meantime, I was accepted as a shaman.
Thanks to that, the Individual Tribe looked at me with trust and faith—but—

Zzzzzzz—
I couldn’t help but frown at the distrustful looks burning at the back of my head.