Here is the second chapter I promised. It’s pretty short. Enjoy.

The Preceding Hero and the Minstrel

Jean Jack Eustace.

I’m sure that you’ve somehow realized already, but he’s one of the comrades that I travelled together with in my journey three years ago.

He was a noble of a certain country, but, for the sake of his dream, or rather creed, he became an eccentric noble that cast aside his inheritance but……

「I didn’t that we’d meet again in a place like this.」

「Fufu, I could say the same thing. Well, I did hear rumors that you had come back.」

Jean sat in one of the table’s seats that surrounded us.

「Umm……Are you an acquaintance of Yashiro-san’s?」

Seeing my and Jean’s situation, Bernadette asked that while putting up a small hand.

「Yes, lovely young lady. He and I are old friends. We have met again for the first time in several years.」

「You do have a good friend after all, Yashiro-san!」

「So you’re recognizing him as a good person just because he praised you a little.」

You’re a bit too simple, aren’t you.

「Allow me to say it formally. ……My name is Jean Jack Eustace. For my occupation, I suppose you could say it is a minstrel?」

When he named himself as such, Jean rung his guitar with a *bororon*.

「Jean Jack Eustace? ……You couldn’t be, are you the author of that 『Hero Biography Series』, Jean Jack Eustace-san?」

Hearing Jean’s name, Bernadette vigorously stood up and asked in return.

And then, in those words of Bernadette’s, there were some words that I couldn’t ignore no matter what.

「『Hero Biography Series』……Oi, you didn’t, did you.」

「Hahaha, be at ease. Your name doesn’t come up in it.」

This goes for my name and so on, but I’d seriously like to be pardoned from having my black history from being published.

「To think that I’d be able to meet with that Jean Jack Eustace-san! P, please let me have your autograph.」

「I don’t mind.」

Jean pulled a feather pen with ink on it out of nowhere.

Nn? The feather attached to the hat is gone?

「I, I’ll treasure it!」

「Thank you. I’m sure that book also finds it pleasant to be embraced by such a beautiful woman such as yourself.」

Jean wrote his signature with a practiced hand on the front cover of the book Bernadette took out. Ah, the feather returned to the hat. When did that happen.

……Uumu, still, I don’t like it for some reason.

When I see Bernadette being delighted from getting an autograph, there’s some kind of surge of anger in my chest.

「So? You’re going to tell us the way we can meet with Vodan-shi, right?」

「Yes, of course.」

Somehow getting irritated even though I had a surge of anger, I asked that in order to change the subject.

Nodding to my words, Jean extended his hand to a concealed pocket in his mantle, took out a single sheet of rolled up paper, and spread that paper out on top of the table.

「Nn? ……『Galarie Magic Clad Martial Arts Demonstration, Be Io Preliminary Tournament』?」

What was written there was the preliminary tournament of the 『Galarie Magic Clad Martial Arts Demonstration』 that I was looking forward to watching.

「This Be Io is one of the seven preliminary exhibition sectors.」

Saying that, Jean looked at me and had a complacent smile.

……This guy, he’s planning on making me material for his stories, isn’t he!?

With Kuushe, who left her seat thinking this was foolish, and Bernadette, who was in ecstasy with the book in her arms, in a different place, I felt shivers from the self-proclaimed minstrel.