âWell, then Erichburg is already within your reach, huh?â
âYes, thatâs right. There were a good number of wounded in this battle, but the death toll was low. The potions that Kosuke and Isla made for us have healed most of our injuries, so weâll take a few days to rest and get control of Mayswood before we attack Erichburg.â
Sylphyâs voice echoes back from the golem communicator.
The Liberation Army, which started from the Gamma Fort about a week ago, went northward through the former Merinard Kingdom territory while suppressing villages and towns along the way, and completed its invasion today to the city before Erichburg, which is the key transportation point.
âSo⌠are you okay? Are you sure you donât want me to go? Iâve already built a supply base, so thereâs nothing I really need to do here.â
In fact, thereâs almost nothing left for me to do in the backline, and for the past few days, Iâve been busy mass-producing things that I can only mass-produce, such as Goatsfoot-style reinforced crossbows, aerial bombs for Harpies, ammunition, and parts for bolt-action rifles, and gathering materials for them.
I donât know if I feel like collecting latrine dirt for a while!
âYes⌠Iâd like you to strengthen the defenses of Erichburg once we conquer it. Can I have you head this way?â
âAll right! I will leave tomorrow if possible, the day after tomorrow at the latest!â
âFufu⌠Iâll attack Erichburg before the excited Kosuke arrives here. Thereâs still a good amount of the Holy Kingdomâs army that exists south of Erichburg. Be careful on your way.â
âSylphy, be careful too. Donât get hurt.â
âOkay. See you later.â
âYeah, good night.â
I finished the communication and put the Golem communicator on standby.
âAre we moving tomorrow?â
âThatâs the plan. Isla should justâŚâ
âIâm going too.â
âNo, I mean, what if someone gets hurt or sick?â
âThe potions will work, and we have the former alchemists and apothecaries. So it wonât be a problem.â
âHmm⌠I see. Are you sure about that?â
âKosuke traveling alone is a bigger problem. You need an escort.â
Isla did not change her decision to come with me. Itâs not that I donât want her to go with me. On the contrary, itâs very reassuring. Itâs just that itâs lonely to be alone. No, I donât think Iâll be going alone. Iâm sure the three Harpies will follow me.
âWhat about transportationâŚ? Should I run with Isla in my arms?â
âYou want to bounce around like that? It will make me throw up.â
Isla made a small cross mark in front of her mouth with a look of disgust on her face. Oh, so sheâs going to throw up. Well, itâs not surprising that she got sick. Iâll be moving at a great speed while jumping around, after all.
âWell, weâll take a carriage then. Do we have an extra one?â
âThereâs no problem with one carriage. The purpose is to deliver supplies to the front lines.â
âIndeed.â
The amount of supplies a single carriage can carry is negligible, but itâs a different story with me on board. My inventory can carry a tremendous amount of goods. In fact, I still canât see the bottom of the amount of supplies that can be stored in my inventory. I wonder if I can store as much as I want?
âWhat happens tomorrow will happen tomorrow. Today is just you and me.â
âThatâs true. The sun has already set.â
Basically, people in this world donât work after dark. Itâs inefficient and dangerous to work at night. In addition, it costs money because you have to turn on the lights. Therefore, when the sun goes down, they go home and spend time with their families and loved ones to nurture their bond.
By the way, today we are going to spend time alone together, as Isla said. Rey, Pessar, and Capri are sleeping in separate rooms today. It seems that the decision was made after a discussion without my knowledge.
âIâll be your Onee-san today.â
âOnee-san?â
I parroted back to Isla, who looked up at me. She looked like a little girl. The difference in height between Isla and me is a head and a half⌠no, maybe two.
âIâm actually a big sister, you know. Iâm older than you.â
âThatâs true too.â
Apparently, Isla is thirty-two years old. The One-Eyed race as Isla is also a long-lived species, although not as long as the elves. Iâm twenty-four⌠No, Iâm twenty-five if you include the time I spent here. Since Iâm 25 years old, that means Isla is seven years older than me.
By the way, I checked and found that the calendar in this world is much the same as on earth. I didnât ask about the details such as the number of hours in a day or whether there is a leap year, but a month is about thirty days, and a year is divided into twelve months. There is no problem in saying that they are almost the same.
âSo, what is Isla-Oneesan like, and what is she planning to do?â
âIsla-Oneechan.â
âWhat?â
âKosuke is much younger than me. You should call me Isla-Oneechan.â
âNo, thatâs a littleâŚâ
Calling her Onee-chan at this age is just⌠too much. I donât want her staring at me like that. Iâm not going to give up! Aaaa, donât cry. Aaaahh. I canât! You canât cry, young lady! Thatâs not fair!
âAhâŚâ
âAh?â
âIsla-OneechanâŚâ
ââŚFufu.â
Aah! She laughed at me! She made me say it, and now sheâs laughing!
âYouâre so cute. Come here, Onee-chan will spoil you.â
Isla smiles at me with an excited face and looks at me gently as she opens her arms and prepares to accept me.
âNo, thatâs just too much.â
âYou donât want to be spoiled by Onee-chan?â
Isla gives me a sad look. Isnât that cheating?
âThatâs not how it was supposed to be.â
âCome here.â
ââŚYes.â
I had no room to resist.
âAaaaahhhh!â
I woke up in the morning and rolled around on the bed, screaming. Last night, I was carried along by Islaâs pace from beginning to end. I canât help but feel like Iâve made a tremendous mistake.
âGood morning, Kosuke. Breakfast is ready.â
âGood morning, Isla.â
âIsla-Oneechan.â
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âSpare me.â
âFufuâŚâ
Isla doesnât say anything; she just smiles, approaches me on the bed, and uses magic to clean the bed and me. I think magic is really useful when you see it like this. I would love to use it if I could.
âAfter breakfast, we will move quickly. It will take three, maybe four days to get to Erichburg from here by carriage.â
ââŚOkay.â
The breakfast Isla made for us was a kind of barley porridge. Iâve had a lot of opportunities to eat barley porridge since I came here. I donât mind it. Itâs not as bad as I thought.
After finishing the meal, I dismantled the temporary accommodation and prepared to leave.
âGood morning! Eh, huh? Youâre cleaning up the house. Are you going somewhere?â
Just as I finished dismantling the temporary accommodations, a brown-feathered harpy Pessar swooped down from the sky.
âKosuke is going with me to the front line. Sylphy has approved it.â
âI see! Then Iâll go tell everyone!â
Pessar flew off in a hurry. I havenât even said good morning to her yet.
âLetâs go to the warehouse.â
âRight.â
I havenât heard of any food shortage on the front lines, but Iâm sure thereâs plenty of grain and potatoes that can be stored. If so, we can sell them to fund the military.
I explained the situation to the former internal affairs officer who was in charge of the warehouse and threw more and more of the preservable harvest into my inventory, except for the immediate necessities. We had already completed two harvests at this food production base, and the empty warehouse was now filled to overflowing with grain.
âIâm going to the front, so itâll be a week after the next harvest.â
âYes, I understand. But still, itâs an extraordinary harvest rate.â
âRight?â
If I plow a farmland block and plant a seed, the crop will be ready to harvest in three days. If I did not plant the seeds, the crops would be ready to harvest in a week.
And the experimental field that I just plowed up from the forest soil takes a week after I plant it. If someone other than me planted it, it is expected to take twice as long. Itâs still growing, though, so I canât be sure.
I walked around the warehouse with Isla, who was silently watching me work, and when we got out of the warehouse after collecting the supplies as instructed by the manager, we saw two carriages parked in front of the warehouse. The one sitting on the driverâs seat was Qubi.
âHey, I heard youâre going to the front.â
âAre you going too, Qubi?â
âIâll be escorting you, escort. There are still a lot of Holy Kingdom troops on this side of Erichburg.â
Qubi says this while waving his hands in the air. And the other carriage seems to be operated by a human man, not a subhuman, and inside the carriage are about eight soldiers of the Liberation Army armed with crossbows and swords. They were mostly human men, with only two subhumans.
âThere are a lot of humans here, arenât there?â
âDidnât I tell you before? I used to be involved with humans in the royal capital of the Merinard Kingdom. Thatâs what I learned back then.â
âHmm.â
Iâve heard that he wasnât originally a soldier, but what kind of background does Qubi have? Itâs a bit of a mystery after all this time. I have a feeling that heâs a former member of the underworld, but I donât think I need to go to the trouble of digging up his past.
As soon as Pessar and the others who were not present flew in, the hastily organized supply transport unit departed the supply production base and began to head towards the front lines.
âThis new type of carriage is great; my ass doesnât hurt even though Iâm the coachman.â
âThe ride is good, too. The old carriage was terrible. I thought I was going to break my ass.â
âYour ass is already broken from the beginning.â
I wonder what a subhuman ass like Qubiâs would look like? I donât know. Iâve never really looked at a manâs ass. Iâve seen Sylphy, Isla, and the Harpies naked, and their hips are the same as humans.
As for our route this time, weâll spend the day running between the production base and the Gamma fort and then head north along the same route that the Liberation Army took.
We could have started from the production base and gone north, but that would have been risky because we would have passed through some villages and towns that the Liberation Army had not yet conquered. So we decided that it would be safer to take the same route that the Liberation Army had taken, even if it meant taking a slightly longer detour.
âHopefully, nothing will happen to us.â
âDonât worry, if we take the same route that the Liberation Army took, there wonât be any trouble.â
Isla, do you know that? Thatâs called a flag.
While thinking about Islaâs words, I checked the contents of my inventory and made preparations to deal with any problems that might arise.