How to Use the Lord’s Future Diary-Chapter 46

Chapter 46
My sparring match with Irene.
To tell you the conclusion first—this time as well, I won.
Irene lost consciousness completely and had to be carried out.
‘Damn, how is it that this was tougher than fighting those Delta Force guys?’
Impressive tenacity. She’s a monster in a different sense from a lioness.
The gap between Irene’s and my skills was actually quite clear.
Irene was undoubtedly an excellent knight.
Like Rudick or like me in the past, she was right before becoming a Master, with only one wall left to cross. But at that level, that single wall could feel impossibly thick.
When I, who had fought evenly with Limond, crossed that wall, didn’t I immediately crush him?
‘This is more like my specialty, though.’
Besides, sparring was a type of duel I was extremely familiar with.
Because of the pride battles that always broke out during missions, I had no choice but to get used to sparring.
Westerners looked down on Asians in bizarre ways, and unless I smacked them around, they wouldn’t even listen properly.
So in this situation, I wanted to make her give up after a few serious clashes. But Irene’s persistence far exceeded anything I had calculated.
‘Good! This is the kind of fight I was looking forward to!!’
Even after taking a mega punch to the stomach, she glared wide-eyed and charged at me, to the point I honestly felt overwhelmed.
‘So in the end, I had to switch to a sub-mission strategy, but even that…’
I thought this was too much, so I moved on to a knock-out + restrain plan.
If she got seriously injured at this rate, it would turn into a real disaster.
After all, there wasn’t even a priest in Johnson Territory.
If her nose bone got broken or an eyeball ruptured, it could turn into something truly horrible.
‘But this woman—she clung like a madwoman.’
She used to go crazy for big males.
When I tried to finish her with ground technique, Irene went a step further and rubbed against me like crazy.
I mean, what the hell was that supposed to be?
With that face and that body rubbing against me like that, even I couldn’t easily stay focused on the fight.
Honestly, that was a foul.
If she was aiming for this, then it had to be some kind of genius-level(?) combat sense.
Rudick, who was watching from the side as the referee, didn’t stop her foul play—instead, he laughed so hard he held his stomach and rolled over.
And on top of that—
I don’t know how she trained, but her durability was insane, making her really hard to deal with.
Was it proper Johnson style?
I barely managed to subdue her with a triangle choke, but it was a match that left me drenched in sweat.
And the result—
“Well, you just threw her out like that. Truly an admirable personality.”
“…What the hell are you even saying, you bastard.”
“Boo~ Down with the wicked lord!”
“Wicked Lord, awaken your morality!”
All I got was endless jeering from the knights and Rudick.
I had gone out of my way to wrap things up nicely, but those bastards didn’t spare a thought for my effort.
Well, that was just the kind of atmosphere here, so it wasn’t particularly strange.
“Awake, Sir Irene?”
Irene, who had fainted, regained consciousness about two hours later, after her treatment was finished.
“…Did I lose?”
“That’s how it turned out.”
“Right. I lost. I lost again. Hah, well, fine. Losing this perfectly, I can only admit it, right?”
“You were excellent as well.”
“Don’t bother with that kind of consolation. Actually, it feels refreshing. Lord Iron, you’ve gotten so much stronger than before. Even your movements were different. You’re a Master now, aren’t you?”
“By coincidence recently, I was able to cross that wall.”
“To be a Master already at your age… Truly amazing. That must mean life here has been rough and dangerous, right? A knight becomes tougher each time they cross the line of death.”
“There’s some truth to that.”
“I envy you. Ah, don’t misunderstand, I’m not belittling the harshness of Johnson Territory. Please don’t take it the wrong way. It’s just that I…”
“No, I don’t misunderstand. You too must have fought fiercely in Haken.”
“Well, that’s true. Though I still fall short compared to Lord Iron.”
After regaining her senses, Irene carried a strangely detached air about her.
A bit of emptiness? Or perhaps enlightenment?
It was only natural for her to feel emptiness.
After losing to me once, she had apparently longed for a rematch for over ten years. Yet even in the rematch, the result was the same.
But she didn’t seem angry or bitter. Having fought to her heart’s content and lost cleanly, it seemed no regret or resentment remained.
‘Honestly, was this supposed to be such a big deal?’
I had only met Irene once before.
But that one meeting must have carried deep meaning for her.
Perhaps it had become something like a trauma?
As for Iron, he just thought of that incident as an embarrassing memory and erased it from his mind. Maybe that was too irresponsible of him.
Even if I had known about her situation back then, there wasn’t really anything I could have done for her.
At least it was fortunate that, as she said, she now seemed quite relieved.
Mental problems weren’t something I could help with anyway. All I needed to do was treat her normally.
‘She’s more normal than I expected—surprising, actually.’
Indeed. She had seemed like a completely insane female.
The funny thing was, during the duel I thought she was some crazy bitch, but after talking with her, she actually seemed to have a decent personality.
It looked like the Lord of Haken hadn’t completely failed at raising his daughter.
Sometimes you’d see people who were fine normally but went insane the moment combat started. Irene probably belonged to that category.
‘Well, it’s a world where you can’t survive without being a bit crazy.’
Still, it seems to have worked out reasonably well.
In any case, the Diary had guided me to the right answer once again.
Of course, it wasn’t anything of great meaning, but good was good enough—this much was fine.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“…Huh? You’re right. I am hungry.”
“I thought so. Let’s eat first. I’ve had something good prepared.”
“Great. I can look forward to it, right?”
“You won’t be disappointed.”
With my duel against Irene—an event that had been weighing on me—wrapped up decently enough, it was time to move on to the next stage.
‘Promotion. I’ll have to do it, won’t I?’
Unlike the Lion Tribe, who were familiar with Horned Rabbits, for the people of Haken they were quite an unfamiliar creature.
That was because they only lived around this area.
In the end, Irene had come here to trade Horned Rabbits, and from my side as the seller, it was my duty to prove the value of our product.
So that we could hand over Horned Rabbits at a good price.
‘Heh, now it’s time to smash their stomachs.’
Johnson Territory’s special sausages, and perfectly aged Horned Rabbit roasted over firewood.
Just thinking about it made my mouth water.
And on top of that, we had another secret weapon.
‘With this on the side, the game’s over.’
The Ribella Peninsula was a typical wheat-based culture.
Bread or noodles made from wheat were the staple.
It wasn’t that rice didn’t exist, but it was secondary. To get a proper meal of rice, you had to go across the sea to the Maritime Alliance.
As a Korean from a rice culture, it was a regrettable thing.
Even though this was a wheat-based region, they still had chili peppers and garlic.
Vegetables resembling cabbage were salted, then flavored with garlic, herbs, and chili powder, making a vegetable salad that Johnson Territory residents loved as a side dish.
Just from the description, you can probably guess.
It was basically a downgraded version of kimchi.
For someone like me, from a rice culture, it had been extremely helpful in adapting to this world.
‘And the timing is perfect.’
While Irene had been unconscious, noon had long passed, and after all the rough exertion, hunger had risen up to the top of their heads.
If I served a Horned Rabbit combo in this state?
If they didn’t burst into admiration here, they weren’t human.
In fact, since I didn’t know when Irene would wake up, I had originally planned to serve the others first.
But they flatly refused, saying they wouldn’t eat anything until she woke up.
That really was what you’d call a disciplined Knight Order.
So now the others had also been waiting on empty stomachs. Honestly, it wasn’t a bad setup.
Horned Rabbit, eaten while hungry, would leave an even stronger impact.
“This is…”
“It’s Horned Rabbit. The product we’ll be trading from now on.”
“I see. Hah, this texture! It’s so tender!”
“Is that so?”
“This is incredible. It feels like all the meat I’ve eaten until now wasn’t even real meat.”
“I’m glad it pleases you.”
“And this salad—it perfectly balances out even the slightest greasiness.”
As expected, Irene couldn’t resist the dazzling temptation of Horned Rabbit and was completely won over.
Horned Rabbit barbecue plus special sausages after a duel, on an empty stomach?
Even I had to admit, this was practically cheating.
‘No way Irene had ever eaten meat like this before.’
Horned Rabbit was more than competitive as meat.
The most sought-after meat of this age was undoubtedly pork.
After the Great Cataclysm, the density of mana rose sharply, and beasts too were affected by it.
Overall, fat content decreased and muscles developed, making the texture somewhat dry.
That was why pork, which had the most fat, was welcomed.
But Horned Rabbit was even more tender than pork, with absolutely no gamey smell, making it universally appealing.
‘Good. With this reaction, I can definitely get a good price.’
Watching Irene and the knights enjoy themselves, I secretly clenched my fist.
It felt like I had climbed eighty percent of the mountain.
Now, only opening formal trade remained.
“That was a fine meal. Lord Iron, on behalf of everyone, I want to thank you.”
“I’m glad it pleased you. Then shall we move on to the main topic?”
“Yes. Could you give me just a moment?”
“Hm? Ah, well. Sure.”
Just as I was about to begin serious trade discussions after the meal, Irene asked me for some time.
Then she ran over to her warhorse and rummaged around, pulling something out.
“Here, take this. It’s a Mana Communicator.”
“Mana Communicator?”
What she held out to me was a bead about half the size of a palm.
A newly developed product—it allowed conversations with people far away through this orb.
For now, it could only support 1:1 communication, but they were improving it so that someday multiple people could talk at once.
“So, you mean it’s a two-way communication tool?”
“That’s right. For now, it can only be used 1:1, though.”
“Wow, something like this already. Then who has the other one?”
“Yes, it’s my father, the Lord of Haken. He said such deals must be done after speaking directly. He also has things he wants to say himself.”
“So that’s how it is.”
No wonder I had thought it odd that Irene, who didn’t seem particularly related to merchant affairs, was the one representing here.
Turns out the Lord of Haken had intended to sit at the contract table himself from the very start.
Well, of course.
No matter if she was his daughter, business like this wasn’t something to leave entirely in Irene’s hands.
Then did that mean Irene came to our territory solely to fight me?
And the Lord of Haken had sent her here knowing that?
From Irene’s perspective, it was a duel she’d been waiting twelve years for. But the Lord of Haken—what the hell was he thinking?
If it were me, I’d never have sent her.
Was he perhaps more of a free-spirited type?
More likely, that female charged in like a maniac until she forced her way through.
‘Ah… could it be that the delay in contact from Haken was because Irene had been stubborn?’
It sounded like a pretty reasonable guess.
“How do you use this thing?”
“Ah, do you see this groove here? Place your finger in it and push in just a little mana. Be careful not to put in too much, or it’ll break.”
“Got it. Let’s see.”
As I followed Irene’s instructions and infused mana, the communicator lit up, blinking brightly.
It blinked for a moment, then went out. And then—voices came through.
The other side must have infused mana into their orb as well.
-Ah, ah. Can you hear me?
“Can you hear me?”
-I am the Lord of Haken, Uldea Haken. Lord Iron.
“It’s been a while, Lord Uldea. I am Iron Johnson.”
-Hahaha, long time no see. How have you been?
A Mana Communicator, huh.
Truly an impressive device.
Here I was, directly speaking with someone all the way in Haken.
‘This is better than I thought. Is this magical engineering?’
Before the Great Cataclysm, there were even greater things than this.
Nowadays, we’re only barely restoring fragments of that era.
‘True. But if something like this already exists, then it means even greater things will be coming soon, doesn’t it?’
Civilization had fallen below pre-Cataclysm levels because of the meteorite that struck the royal capital of Level.
All the magic towers of the Ribella Peninsula had been in the capital.
Not only high-ranking magicians but most magic books and research materials were lost, and when monsters appeared right after the impact, whatever remained was further destroyed, sending it all crashing into ruin.
The Empire, the so-called home of magic, had been hit even harder.
I had thought the development of magical items would be quite slow.
‘But to think something like this is already out…’
It seemed the world was moving much faster than I had imagined.
It made me uneasy, like we were falling behind the times.
‘Trade with Haken is more important than I thought.’
That was why safely finalizing our deal with Haken was the top priority.
So for now, I had to focus on this matter.