3 bar menu

Volume 1 Chapter 5 Part 7

「Hm? Ah, yes, you…. you were here. 」

Now that Nobuna seemed to have come back to her senses after being in some kind of a trance, she focused her gaze on Yoshiharu properly.

(Dear god, what is wrong with those eyes of hers? They are sparkling even more than they did before, and what a pretty eyes they are… N-No, it’s not what you think! It’s not live I have been charmed by her eyes or anything! I-I mean, how could I ever fall for such a brutish, totally not cute girl like her?! Y-Yeah, someone like her isn’t my type at all! Not to mention that the good impression of her is ruined the moment she opens up that foul mouth of hers! )

Having recovered from the influence of Nobuna’s charm himself, Yoshiharu shook his head as he thought to himself in his mind.

「Don’t treat me as if I’ve come here on accident! You were the one who wanted me to come here with you, remember?! 」

「Yes, that’s right. I was just thinking back to our previous talk about this globe, the one in which you admitted that the world is indeed a sphere and it is not flat. Now that I think about it, you were also able to accurately pinpoint the locations from which the barbarians came to this country. 」

「Yeah, I did. What about it? 」

「Back then I didn’t believe aby of your words about you being from the future, but in light of recent events I started thinking about it again, and I have come to realize that they might actually be true. 」

「You do? That’s great to hear, but why is that? 」

「First factor in me changing my mind was the moment back at Shotokuji, where you were able to correctly guess exactly what the Viper of Mino was thinking about me at the time. But I do admit that it was either a bluff on your part or that you had more luck than anything else in guessing it correctly, but I thought that it was still not enough of a proof that you actually cae here from the future. But then… well, you know… 」
Nobuna turned her gaze away from Yoshiharu for a moment and murmured something about that him knowing the precise location of the barbarian countries couldn’t have been a coincidence.

「This globe right here is my personal treasure. I got this during my childhood from a person that my father brought along with him to Owari. That person was a missionary hailing from one of the barbarian countries, who arrived in Japan’s port in Tsuda from oversees, and I have to say that I have learned quite a lot of things from that missionary with blue eyes. One of the things that I learned from him was the fact that Japan is not the whole world, like I used to believe before, but that it actually just a tiny set of islands in the scope of the entire earth. It was also from him that I learned that even on this small island nation, my fellow Japanese people were fighting amongst each other, the fact that in the countries that I once thought to be barbaric science and culture were flourishing, inventing many things that I have never seen or heard about them before, such as the Arquebus rifles like the one that I have obtained for myself… but the other thing that I realized thanks to that missionary was the fact that if these barbarian countries continued to flourish and develop in the way they are developing right now, they are definitely going come to our doorstep with the full might of their military power and economic prowess they would swallow Japan whole without even spitting it back, because the rulers of those countries desired to monopolize the resources of what they knew as 「Jipangu, the Land of Gold」. Other than those, there seems to the countries who desire to turn us into their own colony as well. 」

「Well that’s the responsibility entrusted upon Marco Polo, so you cannot really balme him for doing what he was ordered to do. 」

「You know, while I was listening to the words of that missionary and learned as many things as I could from him, that was when I first started thinking that there’s nothing that I’d want more than to turn Japan into a powerful country able to rival the barbarian ones one day. If I could achieve that, then one day I could travel out of Japan and go on a voyage across the whole wide world in my very own big ship made entirely out of steel that would conquer all of the seven seas for me. And you know why I wanted to do all that? Because I wanted to see it with my own eyes instead of hearing about it in stories: everything that this world of ours has to offer that no other inhabitant of Japan has seen yet. That’s why, that person who came from beyond the sea was the starting point of my ambition. 」

「I see. Thank you for sharing that with me. 」

「For some reason, the people who I fall in love with or depend on, all tend to die pretty soon after I realize what they mean to me. It was precisely like that with my father, who was the only one who could truly understand me, and it seems like the same thing might happen to The Viper of Mino, who is now being pressured by the other nobles of the Mino province because of his decision to hand Mino over to me. If the worst-case scenario comes to pass, then he might even be killed because of it. 」

Nobuna gave a smile which seemed especially lonely. It looked like there was something else that she wanted to say to him, but unfortunately, Yoshiharu couldn’t figure out what that something was.

「Hey, Monkey. When I declared that I want to become just like The Demon Lord of the Sixth Heaven, you said that if I killed Kanjuuro at that moment, I would start walking down the path where I would continue to kill those who are closest to me, right? 」

「Ah, y-yeah, I did say that. 」

「I wonder how you’re able to declare it so confidently. There is no way a thickskulled idiot monkey like you could know the inner workings of the heart of someone as noble as myself. 」

(I don’t know why… but I just can’t avert my gaze away from her eyes…)

Yoshiharu started to realize that his cheeks were becoming redder and redder.

(Damn it! Why do I keep getting so worked up over her like that?!)

Thinking like that, he tried to once again regain his composure, and once he was somewhat able to do that, he opened his mouth

「T-That is because I came from the future. Trust me. 」

「If you really are telling the truth and came from the future… then do you also know what my future is going to be like? 」

Nobuna inquired.

「I don’t know anything about your future. But if it’s about a certain Sengoku era daimyo who really resembles you, then I guess you could say I know more or less everything about him. After killing his younger brother who revolted against him, a part of his heart broke, and he lost control of himself. Then, he moved on to… 」

Nobuna stopped Yoshiharu from speaking further by placing his hand on his lips.

「You don’t have to speak any further than that. If you do, I swear that I will kill you. 」

「Why? If you can learn about the future from me, that knowledge could become useful to you further down the road, right? 」

「If I knew about my own future, won’t the meaning of life with all its joys and sorrows and laughs and tears would go away? 」

Nobuna said while laughing.

「That sure sounds like something that a gentle missionary would say. 」

Yoshiharu said while nodding his head.

「Well, he talked in a completely new language that I didn’t understand all the time, which was definitely shocking. Unfortunately, he’s already dead. 」

「Well, like I said,what I know isn’t your own future. I only know the future of a different person who is exactly like you. And even then, that is knowledge that I gained through games and mangas, so I only know about major events, and not about every single detail. 」

「Even then, if you tell me about the future, I will kill you. I don’t want to feel like I am being controlled by you. 」

「I see. I guess it could technically be seen as something like that. 」