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The City Called Ishka
On that day, an emergency notice was issued to the entire population of Ishka in the joint names of Ishka’s government office and the adventurers’ guild.
In that notice, it stated that a swarm of monsters that overflowed from the Titis forest is flooding towards Ishka.
As a result, the adventure city, Ishka, entered a state of high alert, and its streets were enveloped in a rowdy atmosphere.
However, there’s probably only a fraction of citizens who really felt threatened by the situation.
If you live in Ishka that’s famous as an adventure city, the presence of monsters will come into your daily life whether you like it or not.
Monsters appeared here and there, so and so subjugated the monsters- topics like those come up every day. Even the citizens being issued a warning like what happened this time is nothing rare.
However, there has never been a case where a large group of monsters actually destroyed the city walls or climbed over them and forced their way into the city.
The damage Ishka suffered from the stampede that started at Mount Skim happened before the construction of the city’s walls. After the construction of the walls, Ishka was impenetrable.
The more the people know about that, the safer they feel.
They are optimistic. They believe that the swarm of monsters will never get into Ishka. And even if it happens, it’ll be no more than an extremely minor thing, as they are sure that everything will be immediately taken care of by the soldiers and the adventurers.
After I came back to my residence from the guild, I thought up to there and curled my lip.
I have no intention to insult the people’s optimism by saying they are idiots who take peace for granted.
The reason why the City of Ishka can still function normally in this state of emergency is because the citizens believe that “things will surely work out somehow”.
It’s precisely because they are used to dealing with monsters and they believe in the soldiers and adventurers who are protecting the city that they are able to behave calmly without going into a panic. That’s undoubtedly a strength of the city called Ishka.
――And that is why it feels really ironic.
If you ask what I meant by that, it’s ‘cause I now understand what Elgart was protecting by kicking me out of the guild. He did it for situations like this.
If I had exposed 『Falcon Sword』’s shameful behaviors like I wanted…Once the fact that “Some adventurers made another civilian into a decoy to escape” had spread, it would affect the citizens in this time’s incident as well.
The people would question if the adventurers are going to make the people into decoys to save their own ass while they escape from Ishka.
If that happens, things would be a lot worse than they are right now.
When I look at things like this, Elgart’s response at that time was correct――While it’s vexing, at least he wasn’t wrong.
「It’s sure annoying though」
Inside my room, I exhaled through my nose with a “hmph”.
Whatever, we have our own perspectives and we make our own decisions. Even though Elgart wasn’t wrong, that’s not a reason for me to stop resenting him for writing me off.
Once the monsters are driven back to the Titis forest, I’ll put the last part of my “A way to peacefully pick a fight with the guild ” plan into action.
Better yet, I could get Sergei(The royal capital’s guild master) in on the plan and pull Lidelle out of the guild. It will probably be out of the question in a normal negotiation, but if I whisper into her ear that “Your decision will protect the guild master”, the chance of success won’t be zero.
That receptionist doesn’t really show it in her expression or attitude, but she’s as hostile and wary of me as Miroslav in the past.
While I thought about those things, I got ready to depart.
The first place I’m going to is…not the Titis forest, but the “village that’s upstream of the Kale river” where the epidemic resurfaced.
There’s no way all the monsters that overflowed from the Titis forest will head toward Ishka. It makes sense to think that some have also headed for human establishments that are closer to the forest.
Soldiers and adventurers were set to head to such villages as soon as possible, but since I can ride on a dragon, there’s no one who is more mobile than I am.
I had accepted Elgart’s request for assistance without hesitation. Not only is this a good chance to raise the reputation of my clan, but I’m also interested in the poison that the jiraiaooks fruits don’t work on.
I mean, the antidote that’s circulating in the vicinity of Ishka is made by “Union”――the slave-trading organization――using the fruits of the jiraiajooks tree. To put it simply, it’s a diluted version of the fruit.
Is it the “antidote” that is no longer effective, or is it the “jiraiaooks fruit? That’s something I should quickly confirm.
If it’s the former, we can do something about the new poison still, but if it’s the latter, then we will need some drastic measures.
I have an idea just in case as well. My special trait that Lunamaria told me about before――The thing about how the women who slept with me became stronger.
From what I know, I can assume that my body fluids have an effect on other people. If that’s the case, we should be able to expect a drastic change in the antidote’s effect if we mix my fluids in the antidote――Although I don’t know if that change will be a good one or a bad one.
「And so, I’m going to leave that to Miroslav」
The reason I asked Miroslav to do this kind of experiment instead of Lunamaria was that I thought that this magician would be better suited for it.
Since Miroslav and I already spent some nights together, and she has experienced the ability boost from my fluids as well, she nodded to my words without confusion.
「Understood. I will definitely meet your expectations, master(leader)」
「Yeah, I’m counting on you. Lunamaria, Ciel, and Suzume, you guys will move the food in Clau Soras’s stable here」
The stable outside the walls will become unusable because the monsters will be coming to attack. And regarding a wyvern flying over the city’s walls, I’m supposed to have permission from Ishka’s governing office through Elgart.
Luckily, since my current residence is unnecessarily big, there’s enough space to take 1 or 2 wyverns in.
However, if I just leave Clau Soras in the garden, he will probably sulk, so I’ll need to provide a roof for him too. I decided to entrust that task to Lunamaria as well.
「I’ll let you decide if you need to hire people for it. Use as much money as you want」
「Yes. Please leave it to me, my master」
「……I’m not your master anymore though」
「…My darling then」
「Just call me master please」
I was frightened by the elf who said that with a quite serious expression on her face, and then I immediately took back what I said.
Well, even though she was obviously just joking, Lunamaria’s smile is strangely menacing. Is she actually feeling threatened or something since Miroslav joined us?
It’s true that after Miroslav joined us, the number of times I had Lunamaria keep me company at night had reduced by half…… Nono, no way. Lunamaria isn’t that type of person.
Although if I was asked “what type of person is she then?”, I’d have trouble answering that.
Ciel also gives me appealing looks every night…somehow things took a strange turn.
I wanted to increase the number of people I could eat souls from, but it makes me feel a bit uneasy when things go too smoothly. It’s like something is going to go wrong sooner or later.
「…Well, I guess no matter what kind of repercussions come, I’ll only have myself to blame」
I lightly muttered to myself in a voice no one can hear.
No matter what happens, if I think of it as I’m the one who is responsible for all of it then I won’t have any complaints.
I nodded to myself and put a lid on the uneasiness in my heart.
◆◆◆
After that, I got on Clau Soras and went north as planned. What I saw first was the defense line that soldiers of the Canaria Kingdom formed.
Three layers of trenches and fences were constructed that blocked the road. They even built a simple tower there. They’ve done all that way too quickly for it to be done by hand, so they most likely used magic to do it.
When Clau Soras passed by them from above, the soldiers below looked up at the sky in shock, then they cheered after a short moment.
They probably weren’t cheering at me, but at Clau Soras who is really popular amongst the people.
――Even though I know that, I naturally got hyped. I mean, I have never experienced being cheered on by so many people like this ever since I became an adventurer.
As we advanced further, clouds of smoke that were rising in the air up ahead became visible before long.
The occasionally shining red lights are explosions from fire magic. When I looked closely, I could see people under the cloud of smoke waving their weapons around.
From their nonmatching equipment, I can tell that they aren’t soldiers. They are probably adventurers who Elgart sent out. There are quite a few of them, so perhaps Elgart was expecting something like this to happen.
It looks like they are using magic and arrows to thin down the number of monsters as they gradually fall back. They are fighting a battle to buy time, but this would be hard even for a well-trained army. I can see that the adventurers are in a rough battle.
Seeing that, I sneered.
「Here we go, Clau Soras! We’re going to do this while we’re at it!」
When I raised my voice to not lose to the sound of the roaring wind, “puiiii!”, my dragon mount gave me a reliable reply.
Looks like he also got excited from the cheers earlier.
With the two of us, master and servant in sync, we became a gust of wind that dashed in the midst of the clouds of smoke.
TLN: Changed the spelling of the forest’s name to Titis