Chapter 9: Promise with Mihai
It was Allen’s first day off in October. After hearing the knight captain’s report the other day, Allen was now in the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains. Specifically, near the upper edge of the foothills. A few days’ walk from there, the angle of the mountain slope suddenly turned steep and the scenery became barren and desolate. Goblin and orc villages filled the forest here, and just a bit further up, armored ants bored directly into the mountain, forever expanding their massive nests.
Today, Allen was going to take on his first goblin village. The chivalric order had planned on assaulting this particular one several days later, so he was here to get ahead of them and grab all the XP before they could. For the immediate future, he would be focusing solely on goblin villages.
Goblin villages were led by goblin kings. They were Rank C monsters, so he did not expect to have any trouble dealing with them. On the other hand, orc villages were led by orc kings, which were Rank B. The memory of the chase-of-death with the murdergalsh was still fresh in Allen’s mind, so he knew it was still too early for him to take on orc villages. They could wait until after he had wiped out all the goblin villages and gained all the XP they had to offer.
The armored ant nests would be quite the challenge too. Allen had been told that each nest was home to at least a thousand armored ants, as well as a queen armored ant which was, again, Rank B. Only after every last ant in a nest was killed could it be repurposed for other means. This translated to fighting a thousand ants on their home turf, a feat naturally considered even more dangerous than attacking an orc village. However, there was good reason to go after these nests: there was a possibility that the armored ants had exposed mithril veins while creating their passages. In other words, if the ants were gone, what used to be a terrifying monster nest would become a mine with pre-dug shafts possibly leading to already-exposed mithril ore. In fact, two of the four existent mithril mines used to be armored ant nests.
Allen had found the goblin village that he was currently standing in front of using Bird Es. Even now, several of them were circling about in the sky, providing him a detailed bird’s-eye view.
All right, it’s time to wipe out every last one of them.
The goblin village was surrounded by a crude fence with a single gate. Manning the gate were two guards.
GO, TEDDYS!
Four Beast Ds burst out from cover and charged at the gate. Of course, they had already been Strengthened and buffed with Splash. The two guards were already dead by the time they noticed their assailants. Rank D monsters were hardly a threat to Allen’s Summons anymore.
One of the goblins that noticed the attack clambered up a watchtower and started ringing the bell, raising a cacophonous ruckus that served as the background track to four giant bears bursting into the village.
Goblins flooded out of houses made from wooden frames and ragged drapes, but the Teddys made short work of them by using Crush over and over. Some of the goblins smartly took up bows, climbing the walls and watchtowers to make long-range attacks now that it was clear they were disadvantaged in close-quarters combat. However, multiple Insect Ds were already laying in wait, and Spider Silk proved extremely effective against mere goblins.
I want to be able to launch long-range attacks too. None of my current Summons are specced for it, though. Ranged attacks and Area of Effects attacks—that’s what I want.
Allen was thankful for getting a Summon type that could cast buffs, but there was truly no beating ranged and AoE attacks when it came to hunting efficiency. He cast a jealous glance at the bows in the hands of the goblins that had been thoroughly trussed up in white strands, then followed his Summons into the village. He stopped right inside the gateway to watch the pitched battle from a safe distance.
There are, what, about two to three hundred goblins in here, I’d estimate. With these numbers, I guess there’s bound to be stragglers.
This was Allen’s very first attempt at assaulting a goblin village. He was trying to do this with the Summons Squad alone, but it was clear now that they were not enough. His aim was to annihilate every last resident of this settlement, but at this rate, almost half of the goblins were going to get away. A lot more Summons were going to be needed to attack a village, so he was going to have to control them in person.
All right, let’s do this quick. Teddys, come out.
Six more Beast Ds appeared, joining the four already in the thick of battle. As the goblins fell by the dozens, a few started retreating toward the back of the village. At that moment, however, ten more Beast Ds burst into the village from the rear. Allen had positioned them there ahead of time and told them to come in as soon as the village bell started ringing. The goblins now found themselves in a pincer attack. This was the greatest emergency that had ever befallen the village. A desperate note could be clearly heard in the incessant ringing of the bell.
After a certain number of goblins had died, one with a significantly larger build appeared. Normal goblins were about a meter and a half tall, but this one was over two meters tall and was extremely jacked. It held a giant battle-ax in one hand.
Oh, there’s the goblin king.
The monster pushed through its kin, approaching Allen.
“ROOOAAAR!”
However, a Sucker immediately attached itself to the goblin king and activated its Ability. A Beast D also turned around, launching ferocious swipes with its vicious claws. Before long, the goblin king was on the ground.
As I’d thought. We’re making short work of them.
The sight of the Beast Ds’ furious assault assured Allen of his victory. The goblin king was only as strong as a Rank C monster, and Allen had already killed thousands of them by now, which meant it was no threat at all. The goblin king finally let go of its weapon and breathed its last.
<You have defeated 1 goblin king. You have earned 4,200 XP.>
After killing off the goblin king, Allen’s forces proceeded to wipe out the remaining goblins, herding them into one area and gradually tightening the encirclement. Before long, a Beast D tore off the very last monster’s head with its jaws.
Good, all done. Are there any left inside the buildings? You and you, come with me. Everyone else, gather all the corpses in the middle of the village.
Allen gave out orders, then walked into one of the goblin houses. He wrinkled his nose at the stench while rifling through the structure.
I’d half expected to find goblin children quivering in fear, but all of them seem to have already come charging out like rabid dogs just now.
Allen had been unsure what he would have done had he found frightened immature goblins in the houses. When the battle actually broke out, however, the young and elderly goblins had rushed out too, every bit as feral as the adults. Before he had time to think about it, his Summons had killed all of them in the same way. Apparently all goblins that laid eyes on a human would instinctively fly into a murderous rage.
When Allen walked into the next house, his thoughts were interrupted by a truly repulsive discovery: the bodies of several dead humans. He had no idea where they had been abducted from, but almost all of them had been reduced to bleached skeletons. Not a single survivor remained.
As I’d thought, I really must exterminate them.
Goblins were a precious source of XP. It would not have been strange at all for Allen’s gamer self from his previous life to think it a waste to wipe them all out. However, if he acted on that thought and left these villages alone, the human casualties would only rise. Allen renewed his resolve to destroy every last village while instructing his Summons to gather the human remains in the center of the village too. Then he got to work harvesting the magic stones from all the goblins. The task took him almost two full hours. He needed the Rank D magic stones to create precious Crops of Magic. Naturally, he did not forget to extract the goblin king’s Rank C magic stone as well.
Teddys, gather the materials from the houses.
Obediently, the Beast Ds shuffled over with heavy steps, dragging along wood, rags, and everything else. Allen instructed them to throw everything on top of the pile of goblin carcasses. When they finished, he took out a lit torch from Storage—they remained lit even inside—and used it to set the construction materials on fire. After all, he did not want the knights who would be arriving later on to catch any infectious diseases from the corpses. Soon, the fire grew in size, turning the whole pile into a giant bonfire.
Now, what should I do with the human remains? I could cremate and bury them, but maybe the chivalric order has a different way of doing things. I guess I’ll just line them up nicely for the knights to take care of.
Allen decided to let things be so as to not cause undue trouble.
Well, then. I now know that I can handle goblin villages just fine, so let’s get serious about it. I still have orc villages to tackle afterward.
Thus began Allen’s campaign to exterminate all the goblin villages at the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains.
＊ ＊ ＊
The year turned, and it was now March. Allen checked his equipment one last time. In his hand was his beloved mithril sword, which had not suffered a single scratch ever since he bought it over a year ago following his encounter with a murdergalsh. Because it would get in the way, he was not wearing his mantle—his usual manservant uniform was the most appropriate outfit for his upcoming battle.
Allen looked into the eyes of his opponent, Mihai. For some reason, the atmosphere around the older boy seemed somewhat different from previous years.
After spending three full years at the Academy, Mihai had successfully graduated. Naturally, Cecil, who adored her eldest brother, was overjoyed to hear the news. However, as soon as he returned via magic ship, the first thing he did was summon Allen.
“I want you to fight me in earnest,” he said, his usual smile absent from his face.
“Very well, milord. I shall fight you in earnest,” Allen replied.
He had no idea what the reason for this fight was, but the two were currently facing each other in the garden of the Granvelle mansion. In a marked contrast from the matches of the previous two years, Mihai seemed to be emanating some incredible and great resolve.
Allen called out his grimoire to check his Status one last time. When he had turned ten the previous October, the modifier to his stats had disappeared completely, making the numbers much easier to read.
Name: Allen
Age: 10
Class: Summoner
Level: 34
HP: 865 + 400
MP: 1,340
Attack: 472 + 400
Endurance: 472 + 600
Agility: 883 + 600
Intelligence: 1,350
Luck: 883
Skills: Summoning {5}, Creation {5}, Synthesis {5}, Strengthening {5}, Expansion {4}, Storage, Sharing, Deletion, Sword Mastery {3}, Throwing {3}
XP: 1,490,410/7,000,000
Skill Levels
Summoning: 5
Creation: 5
Synthesis: 5
Strengthening: 5
Skill Experience
Creation: 1,256/10,000,000
Synthesis: 1,820/10,000,000
Strengthening: 2,455,180/10,000,000
Creatable Summons
Insect: D, E, F, G, H
Beast: D, E, F, G, H
Bird: D, E, F, G
Grass: D, E, F
Stone: D, E
Fish: D
Holder
Insect: D x 30
Beast: D x 20
Bird:
Grass:
Stone:
Fish:
Whereas Allen’s aim the last two duels had been to gauge the growth of someone in Normal Mode, this time he was actually trying to win. As such, he had altered the distribution of his cards accordingly, getting rid of all the Grass cards and even disbanding the Summons Squad to dedicate every last stat point to this fight.
“Thank you, Allen.”
“I’m sorry, milord?”
Allen was taken by surprise at Mihai’s abrupt expression of gratitude, but at the same time, he also picked up on how serious his opponent was about this fight. He nodded in acknowledgment, prompting Mihai to draw his sword and assume a stance.
From his position between the two, Captain Zenof, who was serving as referee, asked, “Master Mihai, Allen. Are you both ready?”
Both nodded. As always, the baron’s direct family was in full attendance. They held their breath, waiting for the start of the duel.
“Ready... FIGHT!”
That instant, Allen, whose Agility had finally surpassed 1,400, rushed forward, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. He intended on ending everything with this first blow. Surprise flitted across Mihai’s face, but he still managed to react in time.
Gah, he parried it. No, I’ve still got this—judging from his movements, my Agility is higher!
However, although Allen was convinced that he was faster, he found Mihai calmly dealing with all his attacks, looking unperturbed as if he had already covered them in class. What was more, he soon realized that he was losing out to Mihai in strength. Every time the two swords clashed, it was Allen who was beaten back. Even so, Allen pressed on.
In sharp contrast to his family members’ astonishment, the baron watched with a thoughtful expression.
He’s...matching me somehow. Is he predicting my movements or something? Is my Sword Mastery skill too low?
Mihai was parrying all of Allen’s attacks with what looked like textbook movements. Even though Allen was faster, he found himself slowly losing the initiative. He felt like he was being shown indirectly that all he had going for him was speed and that his maneuvers were far too simplistic. Perhaps it was because of a difference in Sword Mastery level; perhaps it was something else. In any case, it was not long before Allen once again found Mihai’s sword at his throat. He stopped, breathing heavily.
“Match over!” Captain Zenof announced. It was Mihai’s victory.
Ugh, I lost. I know I was faster, but I couldn’t get past his guard. Does he have higher-leveled Sword Mastery boosting his accuracy? Should I have gone with more Agility? Hmm, but the difference between our Attack was way too large—he was pushing me back with pretty much every blow.
“You really are incredible, Allen,” Mihai said, interrupting Allen’s thoughts. He was quite out of breath too. “I’m glad you are Cecil’s personal manservant.”
“Thank you, milord.” Huh? No handshake this time?
At the end of the previous two fights, Mihai had approached Allen to ask for a handshake. This time, however, he was apparently forgoing the gesture.
Everyone then headed back inside. Soon, it was dinnertime. Allen was on serving duty today.
Suddenly, the baroness, who had been left dumbstruck after the match earlier in the day, said appreciatively, “I had no idea you could fight that well, Allen.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Allen replied. “However, I am still greatly lacking in comparison to Master Mihai.”
“Oh, I know!” Cecil clapped her hands, a barely suppressed grin on her face that looked like a combination of both delight at her beloved brother’s return and pride at the fighting prowess displayed by her personal attendant. “How about asking Mihai to give you sword lessons tomorrow?”
“If Master Mihai has the time and so wishes, it would be my honor to receive his instruction,” Allen responded, bowing in Mihai’s direction.
However, Mihai, who had lowered his gaze at the word “tomorrow” from Cecil, looked up and said, “I haven’t told you yet, Cecil, but...”
“What is it, Mihai?”
“I have royal service for the next three years.”
“What?” Cecil froze in shock. She had been under the impression that Mihai was back for good.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier.”
“But...! When will you be leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
Cecil was so shocked now that even words failed her.
“Don’t worry, I’ll write you letters.”
Nothing Mihai said was registering in Cecil’s head anymore.
Royal service? This somehow reminds me of what Viscount Carnel said that time.
The lord of the neighboring fiefdom had dropped by before, seemingly to rub in Baron Granvelle’s face the fact that his daughter had been pronounced Talentless. Allen had deduced from this that there was likely a troublesome form of mandated service tied to graduating from the Academy. And sure enough, after working so hard to graduate, Mihai now had to leave home for three years to fulfill this so-called royal service.
While Allen was eating breakfast the next morning, Sebas came into the servants’ dining hall and informed everyone that Mihai would be leaving at 9 a.m. and that they were to see him off. Allen normally headed upstairs at 8 a.m. to get Cecil’s things in order, so he had to hurry to finish everything in time.
While cleaning her room, Allen shot a look at Cecil, who had already finished getting changed. She was clearly still feeling depressed. Three years was quite a long time. What was more, as Mihai had explained last night, royal service did not come with long breaks like the Academy’s spring break, so Cecil’s contact with him would truly be reduced to mere letters.
In the blink of an eye, 9 a.m. arrived. There was a carriage already parked in front of the mansion’s entrance, and the front gate was thrown wide open. All the servants had gathered at the entrance hall a bit earlier and were now standing in two rows on either side of the carpet that stretched from the main staircase to the door. As the newest member of the manservants, and therefore the one at the bottom of the hierarchy, Allen’s position was at the very end, right next to the door.
Heavy clanking sounded as Mihai emerged at the top of the staircase and began his descent. He was wearing a full suit of armor and had a sword at his waist. The other members of the baron’s family followed behind him.
Is he going to show up to the royal family’s service in that armor?
When the family reached ground level, Mihai reached over to Cecil, who had been looking down the entire time, and gave her head a few gentle pats.
“I’ll be waiting for you to come home, Mihai.”
“Mm. I’ll see you again, Cecil.”
After exchanging his final goodbyes, Mihai started walking toward the door.
Farew— Huh?
Instead of making for the carriage outside, to Allen’s surprise, Mihai headed straight for him. Allen watched his approach in bewilderment. Then, without any prior warning, the older boy who was a head taller enveloped him in a hug.
What is this...?
“Allen, I leave Cecil in your hands. Protect her,” said Mihai.
Despite being completely mystified, Allen managed to reply with, “Y-Yes, milord.”
*
Mihai let go and walked several steps away to stand in the doorway before he turned around. With the carriage at his back, he declared, “I shall now go and fulfill my duty on behalf of House Granvelle.”
After leaving behind those words, he boarded the carriage as everyone saw him off.
Huh? Was he shaking?
Allen could not tell for sure through the armor, but he thought he sensed the other boy quivering during the hug.
In this way, Mihai once again left the mansion, setting off to fulfill his royal service.
＊ ＊ ＊
Two months had passed since Mihai’s departure and it was now May. Allen was currently at the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains.
In the seven months that had passed since he had first attacked one last October, he had managed to completely eradicate all goblin villages along the length of the mountain chain in the area within the Granvelle fiefdom. That had come to a count of fifty-two villages—with there being around two hundred goblins at each, that was a sum of roughly ten thousand goblins. The chivalric order had assaulted a few settlements, but the ones that Allen had taken down made up more than eighty percent of the overall total.
As there were no more goblin villages, Allen was going to attack his very first orc village today. The goblin kings that had led the villages were only Rank C, so he had been able to kill them quite handily. The orc kings that led their villages, however, were Rank B. Today was also going to be Allen’s very first attempt at killing a Rank B monster.
According to the feed from a Bird E using Hawk Eye, the chivalric order was still quite far behind. Their great numbers made it hard for them to move swiftly. They would likely arrive at this village tomorrow, so Allen wanted to finish everything within the day.
His plan was to go with a pincer attack, the same strategy that he had used against the goblin villages. That meant placing five Beast Ds and one Insect D on standby at the back of the village. Allen would attack from the front gate, and then have those on standby charge in ten minutes later.
All right, let’s begin. Come out, Teddys, Spidey, Belly, and Brons.
Six Beast Ds, one Insect D, one Fish D, and two Stone Ds appeared. One thing that Allen was doing differently today was introducing the Stone Summons. Just as the goblins did, he expected the orcs to throw spears and shoot arrows. However, the same tactic being used by orcs was much more of a threat than when used by goblins. The longer the battle went, the more chances there were for a projectile attack to reach Allen.
This was why he now had two Stone D Summons taking up defensive positions in front of himself. Just how useful would these bronze statues carrying two-meter-tall shields be? Today was, among everything else, also a test drive for them. Allen was never one to let an opportunity for analyzing his Summons go to waste.
Without ado, Fish D used its Ability, Splash, on the entire group. Although Allen had called out all his Summons in an area that was a blind spot from the village’s gate, there were so many of them that the sentries on the walls might spot them regardless. Allen decided to launch his attack before he lost the element of surprise.
Here goes—the first orc village assault!
The plan leaped into motion. Just like in the goblin villages, there were two orcs standing guard at the gate. When the Summons all burst from cover, roaring fiercely and shaking the ground with their pounding, shock ran through the orcs on the walls and in the watchtowers. The village bell started ringing cacophonously, signaling an emergency.
The Beast Ds at the very front Crushed the two gate guards to death. These giant bears, after being Strengthened, could more than hold their own against orcs one-on-one.
As I expected, the orcs’re shooting a lot of arrows at me.
The two Stone Ds held their shields high up, protecting Allen from the projectiles. However, there was no such cover for the Beast Ds, which were gradually being turned into pincushions. Currently, Allen had no way of checking the Summons’ HP. If he did not pay careful enough attention, his Summons would suddenly disappear on him, dissipating into bubbles of light.
Not being able to see how much HP my Summons have left really is inconvenient, since it’s pretty sudden when they die on me in the middle of hunts. Hmm, maybe I should add more Spideys. Come on out.
In order to lessen the amount of damage the Beast Ds were taking, Allen Summoned two more Insect Ds. Naturally, he was keeping a record in his grimoire of the adjustments he was making to serve as reference for future attacks.
Three giant spiders clambered over the watchtowers and walls, spitting Spider Silk everywhere. When the Teddys finally burst through the gate, a crowd of roughly two hundred orcs came into sight.
Nice, nice, all the XP’s been gathered. I’ll be helping myself, then!
Allen pressed forward in high spirits—but soon realized that the sheer number of orcs was making it hard to make as much headway as he wanted. So, as the Beast Ds continued wading through by spamming Crush, the Summons that had been positioned at the far side of the village as reinforcements charged in. The new force of Beast Ds and Insect D caught the orcs in the back by surprise.
Around thirty minutes later, just as the number of remaining orcs had dwindled to around half, Allen—who had his eye on the battle line—noticed a burst of light several ranks behind.
Hm? That’s... It’s fire! Brons, use Defend!
The next instant, several red flames appeared high above, then quickly turned into fireballs and flew directly at Allen. He promptly ducked behind the two Stone Ds’ shields and ordered them to activate their Ability.
BOOOOOOMM!
That was magic! Are my Summons...okay, they’re still fine. Wait, there are more incoming!
There were several orcs wearing fluttering clothes and holding staves standing deep within the group. More fireballs appeared in midair, mercilessly raining down on Allen’s forces.
Damn, there are ones that can use magic too? This is my first time encountering monsters that can use magic. Ah, the Summons on the other side have all been wiped out. Gotta keep sending out more.
As the precise number of Summons out in the field was the key to Allen’s way of fighting, he was keeping a constant eye on his Status to monitor the quantity of each card he had. Whenever a number went down, he immediately Created a replacement, Strengthened it, then Summoned it out. The pages of the floating grimoire flipped at a dizzying speed.
In this case, I should probably get more Brons out. But first of all, you! Die!
In the midst of everything else he was doing, Allen took out an iron ball from Storage and threw it at one of the magic-using orcs with all his strength. It pulverized the monster’s face.
Awesome, that’s one down. I’ll increase my own defense while making it a priority to kill the ones that can use magic. Huh, where’d they go?
The moment they saw their fellow get killed, the other magic-using orcs had shifted position so that Allen could no longer see them from behind Stone D.
Shit, they hid. They’re smart enough to hide! Hawkins, show me where they are!
This whole time, Allen had been Sharing the vision of several Hawkins that were circling the village from up in the sky. Thanks to them, he knew exactly where the magic-using orcs were. However, the Stone Ds blocking his line of sight to them meant that he could not throw iron balls at them, and they were standing too deep within the orc forces for Beast Ds to get at them easily.
As the fireballs aimed at Allen had been deflected by the Stone Ds’ shields, everything in his vicinity was now on fire. Both the village’s walls and towers were eventually engulfed by flames, turning the scene into one of hellish pandemonium.
Okay, my strategy’s completely fallen apart. So now I can only brute force this using sheer numbers. I know I can’t lose, but still...just you all wait and see!
The surprise appearance of the magic-using orcs had made Allen lose his initiative. The cleverness of the orcs that could use spells had also been something he did not see coming. However, after two and a half years of hunting, he now had over twenty thousand Rank D magic stones in Storage. In other words, he could actually Create twenty thousand Summons. Although it would drag on for a while, his victory was only a matter of time. He decided to focus on killing the orcs in front of him one at a time, ensuring that he himself remained protected from the magic attacks in the meanwhile.
The dogged fighting continued. After the death of a few dozen more orcs, one that looked markedly different from the others burst out from even further back than the magic-using orcs. It quickly made its way toward Allen, unceremoniously shoving aside all the orcs in its way.
Aaand there’s the orc king.
This monster was clearly on a whole other dimension than the others. Not only was it twice as large, it was also wearing armor and holding a gigantic halberd. It gradually picked up momentum as it charged forward.
“GUMOOOOOHHHHH!”
With a deafening cry, it swung its weapon and instantly reduced two Beast Ds to bubbles of light. Allen hurried to Summon more, but he was having trouble matching the orc king’s speed. The thirty Teddys that he had called out in expectation of a protracted fight started going down one by one.
Should I retreat?
Just as Allen was about to give the command to pull back, more fireballs came hailing down. The Stone Ds blocked them with their shields, only to also disappear into bubbles of light.
Shit, the Brons are gone too!
The barrage of fireballs continued. Nearby Beast Ds threw themselves in front of Allen to shield him with their bodies, but the shockwaves from the explosions still managed to blow Allen off his feet.
Owww! Okay, yeah, I really do need to retreat. Before the situation gets any worse.
However, the moment Allen picked himself back up, bruised all over, a familiar voice spoke behind him.
“Hm, looks like you need a hand.”
“Huh?”
Allen whirled around and found Captain Zenof standing there, distinctive beard and all.
“A scout reported seeing fire going up, so I came to investigate. What’s going on here?”
The countless scars on the man’s arms and face seemed all the more eye-catching as he drew the sword on his waist and slowly walked past Allen.
It’s Zenof. I thought he’d come here tomorrow. Did he run over?
“I...thought I would try cleaning up an orc village.”
Allen chose to be honest. More than a hundred orc corpses lay on the ground, leaving little doubt as to what he was doing. He reverted all his Summons so the knight captain would not mistake them for monsters. For a split second, he considered leaving a Stone D just in case, but the sight of the man approaching the orcs as if he was on a stroll assured him that even such measures were now superfluous.
He totally got an eyeful of my Summons.
There was no doubt in Allen’s mind that the knight captain had gotten a clear look at his Summons fighting. He wondered if he was going to be interrogated about them later.
“Gumoh?” The orc king sized up its new opponent warily.
“I see, an orc king. I’ll take care of it. In the meantime, you take care of the chaff, Vice-Captain Leibrand.”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Huh?! Vice-Captain Leibrand is here too?!
Just as Zenof did, Leibrand also walked past Allen, weapon—in his case, a spear—in hand.
Seemingly infuriated by Zenof’s undaunted attitude, the orc king swung its halberd with all its strength, roaring, “GUMOOOOHHHHHH!”
This was a four-meter-tall monster brandishing a five-meter-long weapon in its rage. Even so, the knight captain managed to beat it back with his sword, even making it look easy. The impact from the blow was so great it blasted the giant monster off its feet for a brief moment. The orc king returned an attack so fierce Allen flinched instinctively, kicking off the start of a furious exchange between the knight captain and the monster.
At the same time, the vice-captain advanced on the normal orcs with his spear over his shoulder, not a hint of trepidation on his face. The magic-using orcs reacted first, shooting three fireballs into the air.
“I see, magic,” Leibrand murmured before his figure suddenly turned blurry and became enveloped in a shimmering haze. The next instant, he thrust his spear at the monsters faster than the eye could see. The shockwave generated from the point bored a huge hole in the abdomen of five or six orcs in a row. Blood exploded after a beat and the victims crumpled to the ground, dead. One of them was a magic-user. Apparently Leibrand was prioritizing them.
One of the fireballs lost momentum and dissipated, but the other two continued flying toward the vice-captain from different directions.
“Hmph!”
Leibrand sliced the two fireballs apart with a single swing, causing them to break apart and similarly dissolve harmlessly. During this whole exchange, he was still walking toward the orcs, his face as cool as a cucumber.
The orcs drew back in fear for a brief moment at the sight of the vice-captain dealing with the magic attacks so easily, but the next instant, they all surged forward. In response, the knight also picked up his pace, quickly shifting into a full-speed charge himself. When the two sides clashed, he sliced and diced the monsters every which way, making short work of them.
At the same time, the fight between the captain and orc king was also coming to an end. The former slashed down with his sword, bisecting both the halberd held up in defense and his opponent, armor and all. The orc king was clearly no match for the captain. After mere minutes, the two knights had finished off every last orc within the village walls.
They’re freaking strong! I guess that’s the “fiefdom’s most powerful man” for you. And turns out the vice-captain can really hold his own too.
Allen recalled hearing from Raven about how everyone familiar with the knight captain’s fighting style called him “War Demon Zenof.” Similarly, it was hard to imagine the vice-captain being the same man who had been thoroughly beaten up by Krena in her youth. Mihai had previously told Allen that Leibrand was strong, and now he saw the truth in that statement for himself.
The haze thing that Leibrand used, was it an Extra Skill? So other classes have Extra Skills too, not just Sword Lord. Speaking of which, Zenof didn’t use his at all.
As Allen started analyzing what he had seen, Zenof approached. “My men will arrive slightly after sunset today. Let’s finish taking care of all of this then.”
Surprisingly, he was not questioning why Allen was here. Zenof, Leibrand, and Allen worked together to gather all the orc corpses into the middle of the village. There was no need to purposely show off his Summons, so Allen pulled his weight using only his own strength. Just as he had done for the goblin villages, they were going to cremate the remains.
“Captain, I want half the magic stones,” Allen said.
“Hm? Well, that’s fair. Very well.”
Allen had already killed around half of the orcs by the time Zenof and Leibrand arrived, so he made sure to properly request what he deserved. The truth was that he wanted the Rank B magic stone too, but he let it go, as it was the captain who had killed it. The three quickly dug out the magic stones from the mountain of corpses. During the process, Allen caught Zenof looking over as if he wanted to ask about the Summons, but he never did.
According to Zenof, they would have to fully burn this place to the ground afterward to prevent other orcs from moving in and using it as a settlement again. The human remains were fine being gathered in one place; the chivalric order would bring them back in case any surviving kin wanted them.
While the three of them were in the middle of moving the human remains, the rest of the knights arrived on the scene. They had pushed their schedule forward in order to catch up with their captain.
It’s about time for me to head back, or I won’t make curfew.
Allen looked up to confirm the position of the sun. Considering the distance between this location and Granvelle City, he would not be able to arrive back at the mansion within the day if he did not head off soon. When he announced that he would be returning, however, Zenof said, “Camp out with us tonight. I’ll explain things to His Lordship afterward.” Naturally, Allen had no choice in the matter.
Because the orc village stank terribly, the knights moved off a certain distance away to make camp. From what Allen could see with a Bird E, there were about a hundred knights on this expedition. This was probably a reasonable number for taking on orc villages. Honestly speaking, he thought the knight captain could probably take on an entire village all by himself, but the others probably all had their own roles to play. There were some things that required numbers rather than individual strength.
With practiced movements, the knights soon had the camp all set up.
“Allen. Come eat over here.” Zenof called out to Allen, who had been watching from a corner so as to not get in anyone’s way.
“Yes, Sir,” Allen replied, obediently approaching the fire. He was handed the drumstick of a wild bird and urged to dig in.
*
“So, all the destroyed goblin villages that we found were your doing.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You understand my need for up-to-date intel as the knight captain, yes? So I have to ask: how many goblin villages are left up ahead?”
“None, I believe. I destroyed fifty-two of them in total.”
There may be ones that’ve just sprung up, but I can at least say for certain that there aren’t any left in the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains.
Allen had scoured the area meticulously for goblin villages using Bird E and thoroughly razed every last one to the ground.
Zenof’s brows drew together in a thoughtful frown. “You’re just as—no, beyond what I’d heard.”
“I’m sorry, Sir? What did you hear?”
The knight captain began recounting all of Allen’s feats to date, prompting the boy to set his drumstick down and listen closely. At six years of age, he had brought down his first albaheron, then went on to hunt more than fifty of them over the next two years; this matched perfectly with the years Krena Village had exported a large number of albaheron feathers to Granvelle City. Then, at age seven, he had started advising the village’s hunting party. As a result, the number of great boars they were able to take down per year doubled from ten to twenty.
How does he know all that? I mean, he probably asked around in Krena Village. But still, that’s a lot of detail.
As figurative question marks appeared over Allen’s head, Zenof continued.
Right after Allen started working at the Granvelle mansion, strange occurrences began cropping up in the area between Granvelle City and the White Dragon Mountains. Goblin corpses bearing slashes like claw marks turned up in large numbers, every last one with its magic stone carved out. The numbers kept climbing and climbing, with the final total, according to reports, exceeding even one thousand.
One year later, reports came in of the same thing happening, this time to orcs. Starting last year, armored ants were added to the list of monsters suffering the same fate. Crucially, the days such discoveries were reported overlapped perfectly with Allen’s days off and the days he went out as a huntsman. Most recently, almost every goblin village that the chivalric order had advanced on had already been wiped out and burned to the ground.
Damn, he’s basically got a perfect account of everything I’ve been up to. It makes sense when I think about it, though. I did leave all those monsters’ corpses just lying around after I took their magic stones. It’s not like I went to the trouble of burying them either. Of course Zenof would hear of this, being the knight captain and all.
In light of everything that he had learned, the knight captain had come to doubt the reading from Allen’s Appraisal Ceremony. There was no way he had low stats and no Talent. His three matches with Mihai—which Zenof had witnessed in person—had been more than enough to indicate that something was amiss.
So Zenof summoned the clergymen who had handled Allen’s Appraisal Ceremony to gain a more detailed account of what had happened at the time. All of them firmly insisted that Allen had no Talent. But this raised another question.
This group of clergymen traveled throughout the kingdom every year, starting from the royal capital and stopping at various fiefdoms and villages on a specific route. The number of children that they had Appraised throughout the years was beyond counting, and yet, they somehow still remembered this one boy from so many years ago.
When the knight captain had queried the clergymen, they thought it strange as well and started to reexamine their memories more thoroughly. This process ended up helping them recall the occasion in greater detail. The crystal used in the ceremony was supposed to glow in different ways depending on the child’s Talent, but it had glowed so brightly for Allen that everyone present had to shut their eyes. Add in Allen’s rare black hair and eyes, and little wonder the incident had remained vivid in their minds. The clergymen had nodded at each other’s contributions to the conversation as if comparing answers while reconstructing the situation piece by piece.
Thanks to this, the memory of the head clergyman who had headed the ceremony was jogged and he was able to recall the reading on the pitch-black metallic plate. He retracted what he had said earlier about Allen not having a Talent, explaining that there had indeed been characters on the display, but that they had been illegible. This, combined with the low stat values, was what had led him to conclude it must have been some sort of error and to declare the boy Talentless.
“And it is thanks to that Talent that you’ve been able to kill so many monsters, yes?”
“Uh...yes, Sir.”
“Mm.”
The knight captain was now sure that Allen knew that he had a Talent despite having been declared Talentless and had kept quiet about it all this time.
He’s caught on. Is he going to ask me about my class? Not that I intend on telling him anything.
Allen had every intention of glossing things over if pressed for details, but the knight captain never did ask him in the end. The two continued eating their meal while staring into the fire.
After a long silence, just as Allen looked up to peer at Zenof’s face, the man said abruptly, “His Lordship already knows everything.”
It was nearing the three-year mark of Allen’s time at the Granvelle mansion, but as it turned out, the baron had already known about him for quite a long time. In other words, he had allowed Allen free rein with full awareness of the boy’s doings. Making him a huntsman so soon after he entered service had, aside from the demands from other servants and whatnot, been a conscious decision to go along with what Allen wanted.
“Why...would he go so far for me?” Allen asked, taken aback.
“Well...I’m sure you’re curious, but it’s not my place to say. His Lordship might share his thoughts with you directly one day. Lend him an ear then.”
“Lend him an ear”? That’s a weird way of putting it. It almost sounds like he might ask me, a mere manservant, for something.
Zenof requested that Allen report to him on matters like his next targets and current progress whenever the captain visited the mansion in the future, then fell silent again. This, of course, made sense from his position. He and his men had gone to the trouble of making thorough preparations to fight a whole village of goblins only to arrive on-site and find it already razed to the ground and all the goblins dead. Understandably, finding all their effort wasted would negatively affect the troop’s morale, especially when it happened so many times. After having been allowed to do as he pleased for so long, there was no way for Allen to refuse this request. So he agreed, after which Zenof nodded and grew silent once more. In the very end, he never did ask for details about the Summons or the way Allen usually spent his days.
＊ ＊ ＊
After dinner was over, a knight came over to the fire where Zenof and Allen were warming themselves to report that preparations for the bath were complete. By bath, he was referring to a simple process of using a bucket of hot water for wiping off sweat and grime. The knight captain immediately stood up and took off his armor right there.
Remembering that he had yet to thank the man for saving his life, Allen offered to wipe his back. He gasped when he saw the fifty-some-year-old’s bare back—it was marred with countless scars, as befitted a veteran soldier of decades. Although the captain had plenty of scars on his arms and face, Allen had not imagined that it would be the same under his armor as well.
Allen then knelt down to wipe Zenof’s back, wondering just how many life-and-death battles he had lived through. But when he got close enough to take a better look, he gasped once more. Many of the scars had been wounds so deep that large swathes of skin had been removed, revealing the muscle below. From the looks of things, all of them had likely been near-fatal.
“Mm? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Sir. I will begin wiping now. Um, by the way...” These old wounds...are painful even to look at.
“Yes?”
“I have recovery items that can probably heal you. Would you like me to use them?”
“I’m good.”
“I have plenty of them, though.”
“No, there’s no need. Leave it.”
“Y-Yes, Sir.”
Allen had been thinking of using a Leaf of Life, but to his surprise, Zenof turned his offer down. The man apparently wanted to keep his scars. Allen fell silent and resumed wiping.
Still, today’s hunt was an utter failure. There’s not much I can do when the orcs group up like they did today. Slowly pushing in is just a war of attrition, the worst strategy possible. And me entering the gate was a huge mistake too.
While diligently wiping the back before his eyes, Allen reflected on how today went.
Suddenly, the knight captain asked, “Do you find hunting fun?” almost as if he had read Allen’s mind.
“Yes, Sir. It’s incredibly fun.”
“I see.”
Silence returned between the two. There was a hint of sadness in Zenof’s face, but Allen could not see it from his angle.
The next day, Allen finally returned to the mansion. After explaining what had happened to Sebas, he was let off without a reprimand. All Sebas said was, “I’m glad you’re back home safe.” This reaction was all that Allen needed to realize he really had been allowed to hunt as much as he wanted. The reason still remained a mystery, though.
＊ ＊ ＊
Two weeks passed, and it was now the end of May.
“GUUMOOOHHHHHHH!!!”
The orc king roared at the top of its lungs, then fell to the ground, bleeding profusely.
<You have defeated 1 orc king. You have earned 25,000 XP.>
Hmm, is this really the best way of doing this? I ended up using 120 Rank D magic stones. But before anything else, hooray for getting my first Rank B magic stone!
After much trial and error, Allen had finally succeeded in clearing an orc village all by himself.
The first attempt had taught him that slowly pushing in from the front gate was a bad idea, as it gave the orcs time to set up formations and drag things into a war of attrition, gradually wearing each side out. Based on this lesson, he had changed up his tactics.
First, he arranged forty Beast Ds into four groups of ten each and made them attack the orc village from all four directions at the same time. If each Beast D could kill two orcs using the element of surprise, that was eighty orcs down before they could even react. Suddenly lowering their numbers so drastically proved an effective way to prevent them from forming up.
Then he used Sharing to remotely control four Beast Ds to target the magic-using orcs. Just in case, he had also instructed the other Summons to prioritize killing the magic-users should the opportunity present itself.
The rest was simple, no matter how many Summons went down and no matter if an orc king came out or not. In short, he just continued calling out as many Summons as needed to overwhelm the enemy through sheer numbers. With Allen himself taking up position somewhere out of harm’s way, victory was simply a matter of time.
Just now, Allen had just proved the efficacy of this new strategy.
I did end up using quite a few magic stones, but now I know I do have the ability and resources to win. I may have failed in my blind playthrough, but now I got this.
In Allen’s previous life, playing a game without any prior knowledge was called “doing a blind playthrough.” Failure was a very common element in these playthroughs. What was most important as a gamer was the ability to learn from past mistakes to pull off a better run next time.
All right, now that I’m able to clear an orc village alone, it’s time to shift focus to improving efficiency.
Thus began Allen’s campaign to exterminate all the orc villages at the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains.
Chapter 10: Cecil Leaves Home
October rolled around, and Allen turned eleven. After his first success clearing an orc village at the end of May, he had gone on to wipe out twenty more since. There were still plenty left, but he planned on getting to every last one of them eventually. Naturally, he was starting in the north and making his way south in line with the baron’s desire to resume mithril mining operations.
Thanks to his work, preparations for opening the northernmost mine had sped up significantly—the process that had been expected to take three years at least had now been shortened to two. Hiring laborers for the mine and its associated facilities was also going so smoothly that preparations for the village where the laborers would be living could begin as soon as the snow melted away in the coming spring.
Everything’s going great. I’ll keep wiping out the orc villages at this pace, then hopefully clear out the armored ant nests too before becoming an adventurer next year.
Back when he was eight, Allen had made up his mind that he would resign from service to House Granvelle once he turned twelve. Three very eventful years had passed since then.
“Allen, I leave Cecil in your hands. Protect her.”
As the days counted down to the day of Allen’s resignation, Mihai’s words began surfacing more and more often in his mind. Just what on earth did Mihai want Allen to protect Cecil from? If the intention behind those words had been for Allen to continue serving Cecil for the rest of his life, then he would have to refuse. He had mulled over the line many times, trying to figure out what else it could mean. Sadly, no answer came to mind.
“So! Royal envoy today!” Rickel commented, sliding into the seat across from Allen’s as the boy was eating breakfast.
“That’s what they said,” Allen replied, thinking about how these breakfast chats had gone on for more than three years now.
Just as Rickel had mentioned, a royal envoy was scheduled to arrive that day. All the servants had been informed the day before that he was to be expected slightly after noon. All personal attendants had been ordered to gather in the dining room on the second floor at the time.
Is it going to be talk about raising the head tax again?
No one had heard what the purpose of the visit was. The large majority of royal envoys were quite haughty, so nobody really looked forward to their visits.
Noon arrived, bringing with it the royal envoy. Sebas guided him from the entrance hall to the second floor dining room. Allen stood at attention right behind Cecil, who sat at the lowest seat among the members of the baron’s immediate family. The other personal servants had also taken up positions right behind the respective family member they served. There were no arrangements for food to be served—this would not be a lunch.
Soon, three people walked into the dining hall. The one at the head was noticeably better dressed, making it clear he was the envoy and the other two his aides. He took the distinguished seat at the head of the table as his aides stood at his sides. One of them was holding something.
After Sebas walked over to stand behind his master’s seat directly across from the envoy, the baron said, “Thank you for coming all this way. May I ask what the nature of your visit is today?”
“Mm, House Granvelle has always served the royal family well. His Majesty has called Baron Granvelle’s dedication an exemplar for the other nobles.”
“I-It is an incredible honor to receive such praise. As the servant entrusted with the management of the realm of Granvelle, I express my heartfelt thanks to His Royal Majesty.”
As someone invested with the exclusive authority to speak on behalf of the king, the royal envoy’s status was above that of the baron’s. The baron was quite shaken, as this was the first time a royal envoy had ever started a visit with such praise.
The room then fell silent for a while as the baron waited patiently for the envoy to continue speaking. Thomas squinted at the man as if asking, “What’s with him?”
Eventually, the envoy said, “It truly pains me to deliver this, but...”
Those words seemed to be a signal, as the aide holding something made his way to the middle of the long table. Sebas walked forward to meet him and accepted the proffered envelope before turning back and reverently laying it in front of the baron.
“A letter?”
“Indeed. From your son.”
This exchange between the envoy and her father prompted Cecil to turn and stare at the letter on the table.
The baron’s eyes widened. “F-From Mihai?”
This time, no reply came.
Seeing that the envoy had no intention of saying anything further, Baron Granvelle opened the unsealed envelope and took out a single piece of parchment. When he did so, however, several strands of what looked like lavender-colored thread also fell out. The blood drained from the baron’s face at the sight.
He immediately began reading the letter, but soon blurted out in distress, “What?! But! How can...?!”
“F-Father, what did Mihai write?!”
Normally whenever a guest visited, only the baron was supposed to speak. The others could only reply when addressed directly by the guest. Cecil had been so unsettled that she forgot this rule and called out to her father, but the man did not respond, his attention focused solely on the letter in his hand, his shoulders quaking.
“Wh-When was this written?”
“They are asked to write these regularly and this is the most recent one, which means it’s from around three months ago.”
“What?! But that’s... This is different from what I was promised! H-How could this happen in only six months?!”
The envoy’s unconcerned attitude seemed to have rubbed the baron the wrong way as he railed at the man, his emotions on full display in sharp contrast from his usual self.
“Your son fulfilled his duty, that is all.”
The baron leaped to his feet, glaring daggers. “I-I bet you purposely stationed him in a dangerous place j-just because I’m a lower noble! Mihai had only just graduated from the Academy!”
“Am I to take those as words directed toward the royal family?”
“Wha—?!”
The royal envoy’s haughty attitude had remained the same ever since he walked into the dining hall. He used the same stiff and impassive tone as before to give a response that bordered on a warning. The baron started and swallowed his words back down.
“What is... Let me read it!”
Unable to sit still any longer, the baroness got up and snatched the letter from the baron’s hands. Halfway through scanning the page, she muttered, “This can’t be... M-Mihai...” and fainted from shock. Her personal attendant caught her in the nick of time and carried her off to her room.
“The gratuity payment will be delivered at a later date after your son’s register has been properly reviewed and recorded.”
The baron’s head had gone entirely blank. None of the envoy’s businesslike declarations were reaching his ears.
“Well then, the letter has been delivered, and so my business here is done. I have to head for the next fiefdom now, so I shall take my leave. Baron Granvelle?”
“Y-Yes, my lord?”
The envoy stood up and said, “Remember to continue fulfilling your duty to the royal family as baron of the realm of Granvelle.”
The three visitors exited the dining room, leaving the baron in a total daze. When Sebas made to follow along to escort them out, the envoy said curtly, “No need.”
Silence filled the dining hall until Cecil spoke up in a quivering voice, “Father, wh-what happened?”
Anyone could tell from the way the conversation went just now that Mihai had passed away, and Cecil was not stupid. What she was asking was why he had died and how things had ended up this way.
“That’s... Everyone, leave us. You too, Thomas.”
Apparently even Thomas, a member of the baron’s direct family, was not allowed to hear what he was going to say. Everyone obediently exited the dining hall, leaving only the baron, Sebas, and Cecil inside.
That afternoon, Allen was to clean the mansion together with the maidservants. While his hands moved, his mind mulled over Mihai’s parting words.
“Allen, I leave Cecil in your hands. Protect her.”
Just like the others, Allen had picked up on the fact that Mihai had passed away from the conversation between the baron and the envoy. That meant the letter was likely his last will. He had expected his own death.
Abruptly, a shrill scream filled with rage exploded from the second floor, filling the entire mansion. “THAT MEANS YOU LEFT HIM TO DIE! YOU SENT HIM OFF KNOWING HE WOULD DIE!”
“Wha—?! That’s not what I said! W-We nobles have a duty—”
“AND YOU’RE SAYING NOW I HAVE TO DIE FOR THIS STUPID DUTY TOO?! WAS I BORN JUST TO DIE AS WELL?!”
“No! That’s not— Cecil! Stop right there. Cecil!”
The dining hall door banged open so loudly that the sound reverberated throughout the mansion. Cecil had apparently rushed out in a rage. The nearby servants all exchanged looks, wondering what had happened.
That night, Cecil did not show up for dinner.
The next morning, Rickel once again slipped into the seat across from Allen’s during breakfast. “Hey, did you hear the shouting yesterday?”
“Well, it was pretty loud.” I think everyone in the mansion heard, to be honest.
“Looks like it’s true.”
“What is?”
Rickel leaned over, gesturing for Allen to bring his head near. Then, in a low tone, he said, “I heard a rumor long ago, back when I was still a houseboy, that the members of the Granvelle family all die early. Apparently it had happened to the baron’s parents and older brother.”
It was clear from Rickel’s attitude that this was not something meant to be spread around loudly. Allen continued chatting with him until it was time to head up and tend to Cecil. He joined up with a maidservant, and together they went up to the room of the young lady of the house, who had skipped dinner the night before.
As usual, the maidservant knocked on the door and entered first to help Cecil change. The moment she stepped in, however, her scream rang out, “LADY CECIIIIIL!”
Allen, who had been standing by right outside the door like normal, immediately rushed in. The first thing he saw was the maidservant, who had fallen on her behind and had both hands clapped over her mouth. The second thing he noticed was that Cecil was nowhere to be seen. The third thing...was that the window was open.
He rushed over to the window and peered outside. Did she escape from this window?! But this is the third floor! Shit, she’s nowhere in sight.
“What is all the commotion?!” Sebas roared, having rushed over in response to the maidservant’s scream.
After hearing her explanation, Sebas then promptly ordered all the staff to go and search for Cecil. Even the baron and baroness joined in, but no one found the slightest trace of her. Allen combed through every inch of the mansion, going even so far as the stables, but to no avail. He decided to return to her room to speak with Sebas, who was still at a complete loss.
“Sir, if milady is nowhere on the grounds, she just might have gone out into the city. May I have permission to go search outside?”
“Good idea. I’m counting on you!”
After having received his permission, Allen rushed out of the mansion.
Where is she?!
When Allen had looked out of the window earlier, he had already sent out eight Bird Es into the sky, making sure to do it in a surreptitious way, of course. Now, he was Sharing with all of them, Hawk Eye activated, and had them scouring the city.
Why does this city have to be so huge? Please don’t be inside a building.
Perhaps due to its previous status as a hub for mithril mining, Granvelle City was quite sizable. What’s more, since Hawk Eye could not see inside buildings, Allen could only hope that Cecil was somewhere outside where he could see her.
Found her!
There was a young girl with lavender-colored hair crouched on the ground, hugging her knees in an alleyway several turns off of the main avenue in the business district. One look and it was clear that this area did not have good public order. As Allen hurriedly made his way over to her, he realized that the vicinity appeared to be a slum area. The air was damp and foul.
When Allen approached, Cecil’s shoulders jolted. She slowly lifted her head. “Allen...?”
“Yes, milady.”
After excusing himself, Allen sat on the ground next to Cecil. The two of them sat in silence for a while.
“Didn’t you come to bring me back?”
“No, I did not.”
“What? Then why...?”
“I am your personal manservant, Lady Cecil. When you go on an outing, it is my duty to accompany you.”
Over the past few years, Allen had visited a lot of different places throughout Granvelle City in his capacity as Cecil’s personal manservant. That included shopping trips, events that Cecil had to attend as the daughter of the feudal lord, and at times, simple walks that had no particular purpose. According to Allen, this situation was no different from all the other times before.
The answer was so unexpected that Cecil found herself at a loss for words.
“Lady Cecil, I see you have a wound on your leg. I have some herbs with me. Please excuse me as I apply it.”
Allen reached over with a Leaf of Life to heal the gash that Cecil had likely gotten while escaping from the mansion.
“Huh?”
Cecil exclaimed softly in surprise at seeing her cut disappear in a matter of seconds. Then the two returned to sitting in silence. After a while, however, Cecil’s stomach growled. She pressed her hands over her stomach, blushing slightly in embarrassment. She had not had anything to eat since yesterday.
“I’m afraid this is all I have on me, but would you like some, milady?” Allen held out some molmo, dried jerky, and dried potatoes that he had retrieved from Storage.
“Where were you keeping those?” Cecil asked, giving him a weird look. However, her empty stomach won over her curiosity, so she did not press the matter.
While Cecil was engrossed with wolfing down the food, Allen continued keeping an eye on the vicinity, using Hawk Eye to ensure there were no hoodlums approaching their location.
Hmm, it’d be a problem if someone picks a fight with us her— Hm?
Allen’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Cecil’s sobs. Now that her stomach was filled, what happened in the dining hall yesterday had probably come back to mind. She repeatedly mumbled, “I don’t want to die” in a small voice.
I’ve never tried consoling an eleven-year-old girl before, but looks like I don’t have a choice.
“Lady Cecil.”
“What?”
“What do you think about not returning home and running away from this city with me? If memory serves me right, the magic ship should be arriving tomorrow, but if you prefer, we can travel by land too. There are many other fiefdoms in this country, right?”
“What?!” Cecil lifted her head to look at Allen’s face in surprise. Not only did he not try to talk her out of running away from home, he was even pushing the idea himself.
“You can forget your family. We can travel through so many different countries and visit so many different places. Imagine how fun it’d be!”
Though we’d be seeing a lot more monsters than we do cities. I just happen to need someone who can deal ranged damage.
The word “monster” usually carried the connotation of death, so Allen glossed over it with the word “places.” As it so happened, his Summons could only fight in close quarters, so it would expand the breadth of the strategies he could take if someone like Cecil was to fight together with him.
“That’s impossible!”
“It’s entirely possible. If it’s money you’re worried about, I have plenty of it.” Allen started producing gold coins one after the other.
“That’s... Huh?!”
“Another option is to return to the mansion first and wait it out for one more year. Next year, we’ll both turn twelve and can register as adventurers. We could wait until then.”
“B-But the Academy...”
All this time, Cecil had grown up being told she would be going to Academy City when she turned twelve.
“I mean, you don’t have to go, right?”
“I don’t?”
“Even if someone tells you to go, if you don’t want to go, then you don’t have to go. What do you want to do, Lady Cecil? It’s your life. It’s your choice.”
“What I want to do...”
All Allen wanted to do was help Cecil see that she had a lot more options than she thought. The young girl fell silent as she mulled over what this meant, and Allen waited patiently for her. Perhaps it was the first time she had truly thought about what it was she wanted to do.
About an hour later, a commotion started approaching along the main avenue. Apparently, the search for Cecil was kicking up a notch. The sound of voices calling her name reached all the way down the alleyway to where she and Allen were.
“Allen.”
“Yes, milady?”
“I’m returning to the mansion.”
“Understood.”
“Give me a piggyback ride.”
“Of course.”
Allen turned around and knelt down, and Cecil clambered on. He then started walking out to the avenue.
“Allen.”
“Yes, milady?”
“Thank you.”
“Anything for you, milady.”
Cecil bashfully buried her face in Allen’s shoulder.
*
As soon as Allen emerged into the main avenue, his eyes met with a knight’s. He informed the man that he had found Cecil, then turned to head straight back to the mansion. Word seemed to have gotten around, as when they were about halfway home, they stopped seeing knights running about.
It took quite a while to walk all the way back, but the mansion finally appeared up ahead. The baron and his entire family were waiting outside. Slightly before reaching them, Cecil asked Allen to let her down.
The baron rushed over and enveloped her in a hug. “Cecil!”
“I’m sorry for causing such a commotion, father.”
“It’s fine. It’s fine, really.”
“He’s right. Cecil, you don’t have to shoulder this by yourself,” the baroness added, tears of joy streaming down her face.
The baron grabbed both of Cecil’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “I almost have everything ready. I’m so close.”
“Huh?”
“The first mithril mine is going to be reopened very soon. I’m planning on offering a portion of the mining rights to the royal family in exchange for exempting you from your duty. I promise you I’ll successfully negotiate it. So you have nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.”
Perhaps this was what the baron had been trying to tell Cecil yesterday.
Ohhh, so that’s why he was really pushing so hard to get the mines up and running.
Ever since the day that news had come of the white dragon moving away, the baron had seemed somewhat desperate about resuming mining operations. As it turned out, he was clinging to it as his ticket for saving the life of his beloved daughter.
“There’s no need, father.”
“What?”
“I, Cecil Granvelle, shall carry out my duty as a daughter of House Granvelle, just as my brother, Mihai Granvelle, did. I will no longer run from it.”
In a quivering voice, the girl with crimson eyes clearly declared what it was that she wanted to do.
＊ ＊ ＊
Several days after the commotion raised by Cecil running away from home settled down, Allen once again visited Krena Village through a Shared Bird G. Ever since July the previous year, he had sent the parrot back home regularly to bring money to his parents. He had done it more than ten times by now.
Clink.
When the sound of the coin hitting the earthen floor rang out, Theresia turned around. “Oh, good morning, Pippi. You’ve brought us another one? And there’s the letter too.”
Its name is Chappy, mother.
“Pii!”
Right next to the gold coin at the bird’s feet was a sheet of parchment. It had held the gold coin in its beak and clasped the letter with its claws.
Theresia picked both up.
The third time Allen sent money back, he had sent Chappy all the way inside the house, so Theresia finally caught sight of the bird. Even since then, he had also included a letter with the coin.
The first letter had only said “Allen.” Although his parents were for the most part illiterate, they still knew how to read and write the names of their children. This was how they learned who the sender was.
“It’s Pippi!” Myulla, who was now four, rushed out to the earthen-floored room in an effort to catch Bird G. Even though Allen had set “Chappy” as its name, his family had taken to calling it “Pippi” instead.
Hah! There’s nothing you can do if you can’t catch it!
With more than 200 Agility, Bird G had no trouble zipping around the small room, elegantly evading Myulla’s lunges.
“Myulla, hon, settle down.”
“Okay, mommy.”
“Oh! Another letter! How’s my boy?” Rodin just happened to come home. He went straight over to the family water jug and took a long draft.
It was now time for lunch. Rodin, Theresia, Mash, and Myulla gathered around the dinner table. Despite having become commoners, they still lived in the same house and ate the same food.
“A letter came? Let me see!” Mash said, reaching out for the parchment that Pippi had brought.
Oh? Let’s see how much you’ve learned!
One reason Allen had started including a letter with the gold coin was to assuage his family’s suspicions about the money he was sending back. Another was because Mash had started learning how to read and write.
A tutor had arrived at the village last year to prepare Krena for the Academy’s entrance exam. She had two years to learn everything she needed to know. Thanks to the village chief’s arrangements, the tutor also agreed to teach a few more children at the same time, including Mash, Dogora, and Pelomas. Allen had not watched any of the lessons himself, but he had gleaned that the tutor was teaching reading, writing, and math. Every day, Mash came home with a parchment bearing words written by the tutor and read them out loud repeatedly, doing his best to commit them to memory.
Although he stumbled a few times, Mash managed to read the full letter out loud. “Father, mother, Mash, and Myulla, how are you doing? I am doing great. Father, don’t drink too much. Myulla, go to bed when mother tells you to. I will write another letter next time.”
Hey, he’s gotten pretty good at reading. Looks like his studies are going well. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that if father puts his mind to it, he’d be able to learn reading and writing pretty quickly too.
In this world, the Intelligence stat affected how well someone could remember things. Even if Rodin’s Intelligence was ranked at D or E, considering how many levels he had gained from all the boar hunting he did, he should still have a much better memory than the average person. By Allen’s estimate, he could probably learn how to read and write if he applied himself seriously for a year.
Mash turned to look at his sister. “Myulla, Allen told you to go to bed when mommy tells you to.”
“But I do!” Myulla retorted in between bites of her steamed potato.
Rodin sighed a little. “Is Allen really doing all right? He keeps sending us so much money.”
Even though Allen had said many times in his letters that he was making more than enough, his parents still worried about him. For both serfs and commoners, one gold was a lot of money. The truth, however, was that ever since he had started selling armored ant shells, Allen’s monthly income, combined with his salary, exceeded ten gold. Sending one gold home was not all that much of a burden on him—conversely, he was holding himself back and keeping it at one gold in order to avoid causing undue worry.
Although he had not been able to do anything for his family in the first year and a half after becoming a manservant, thanks to Sharing, he could now do so with ease. There was no such thing as insurance in this world. Allen was hoping that this money could help tide his family over in case—knock on wood—anything happened to them.
＊ ＊ ＊
While Allen was enjoying time with his family while Sharing with Bird G, Cecil called out to him. It was lunchtime here at the Granvelle mansion too, and Allen was on serving duty.
“Allen, come to my room afterward.”
“Understood, milady.”
Cecil seemed to have pulled herself together over the past few days. Although she had not completely gotten over what had happened, she no longer showed signs of being so unstable as to run out of the house again. And ever since that day, her treatment of Allen seemed to have gotten slightly kinder. The way she spoke remained the same, but the way she looked at him had grown a little softer.
After lunch, Allen knocked on the door of Cecil’s room. Upon hearing her “Come in!” from within, he pushed it open. Due to having just seen his family’s home, the sight before his eyes looked a bit grander than it usually did. Cecil was sitting at a round table that was just the right size for two people to have tea at.
“Allen, good job finding me the other day.”
“Thank you, milady.”
“Come over here.”
“Yes, milady.”
When Allen reached the table, Cecil told him to take the seat across from hers, so he obliged. The table was loaded with tea and snacks that looked much fancier than what Cecil usually enjoyed.
“Allen, you’ve been my manservant for three years now. You even helped me out the other day. This is your reward.”
Yay, snacks! Yay, reward! Funny, I didn’t get a celebration last year, but I got one this year.
After Allen’s first year as manservant, Cecil had offered him a reward. Thanks to her arrangements, he had gotten a lesson with her magic tutor. That was where he had learned how magic in this world worked and how it was related to the Intelligence stat.
Last year, Allen had planned on asking for the snacks he had forgone requesting for his first anniversary, but Cecil never brought the topic up. Allen thought she had forgotten about the anniversary or had gotten bored of giving out a reward after the first time, but here she was with a combined reward for his third anniversary and his service the other day.
“Go on, it’s all yours,” Cecil said, gesturing at the baked sweets.
“Thank you!” Allen, who had always had a sweet tooth, dug in with gusto, showing no sign of reserve despite being in front of Cecil. IT’S SO GOOOOOD!
During that time, Cecil explained that she had asked her father for an allowance and then paid the head chef that money to have him bake all this for Allen. In other words, these baked sweets were also partly a gesture of gratitude from the baron.
I never knew Mr. Dudley could bake something this delicious! As expected of a former royal court chef!
Upon learning that it was the head chef who had made the sweets he was now eating, Allen recalled how Rickel had told him previously that there were two people in this mansion who once used to serve in the royal court. One of them was Dudley, the head chef, who had worked there until he retired after turning fifty and came home to Granvelle. Allen remembered thinking, How did someone with such a coarse tongue make it in the royal palace? at the time.
The other person was Cecil’s magic tutor. This elderly man who had taught Allen so much about magic had also come to serve at the Granvelle mansion after retiring from the royal court. However, unlike the head chef, Granvelle was not his hometown. The reason he was here in Granvelle City was entirely because of Cecil.
It was customary for noble families to hire a tutor for their children when they were identified as having a Talent for magic through the Appraisal Ceremony. If the Talent in question was only a one-star Talent, such as Mage, then a fellow Mage would suffice. However, Cecil possessed Wizardess, a rare two-star Talent. Back when the baron was looking for a tutor, he happened to hear of someone with the same Talent who was nearing retirement age and so approached him with an offer. Now, the elderly man came around to the mansion once a week, spending the rest of the days in his house in the nobles quarter and enjoying his life after retirement.
“Allen, you don’t have to worry.”
“Hm?” What’s she talking about?
Apparently, there was something that Cecil still wanted to talk about. Allen stopped his hand, which had been reaching out for another piece of baked confection, to listen to her.
“You mentioned becoming an adventurer when you were talking about the future. But don’t worry.”
Oh, she’s talking about what I said to cheer her up back in the alleyway?
“You’re very good at your job. I know. So I’ve told father to make you a gentleman-in-waiting as soon as possible.”
You did what?!
The only thing Allen could say in response to Cecil’s bright, innocent smile was, “You honor me too much, milady.”
Chapter 11: Attacking an Armored Ant Nest
The year turned and March arrived. It had been half a year since Mihai’s passing, and a fair bit of cheer had returned to Cecil. However, that did not mean she had forgotten—what had happened now served as fuel that drove her to pour herself into her studies.
At the same time, she had also developed a desire to be strong. She once ordered him, “Allen, bring me along on your hunts.” Unfortunately, the baron did not give permission for this, so Allen had to turn her down.
Allen had already been serving at the mansion for three years and a half—six more months, and he would be turning twelve. Time had truly flown by. Even now, he did not know the details of the so-called “duty of House Granvelle” that had gotten Mihai killed. He had gone to double-check with Rickel, who had told him previously that the kingdom was not currently at war with any other countries, but Rickel confirmed that was still the case. While he was at it, Rickel also taught Allen a bit more about this world’s history. Namely, their kingdom had been at war with the empire to its north that was dozens of times larger several decades ago, but the two had eventually signed a peace accord.
In regard to the progress of Allen’s hunting, he had completely wiped out all orc villages at the end of February. It had taken longer to exterminate the orcs than the goblins, but in any case, the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains were now entirely free of both. There was a chance that the same monsters could wander in from outside of Granvelle territory to establish more villages again, but they could easily be exterminated as they cropped up.
Thanks to Allen and the chivalric order’s efforts, the first mithril mine was to open in April, with the necessary number of miners and laborers already secured. Due to all the goblins and orcs being wiped out, quite a few adventurers had actually changed occupations. A part of Allen did feel bad that he practically robbed them of their livelihoods, but the human corpses that he kept finding in the monster villages convinced him beyond a doubt that exterminating them was truly the right thing to do.
Come spring, the settlers would move into the village that housed the furnaces for smelting mithril ore into mithril ingots. Then the mining would begin in earnest after summer. The mines were expected to operate at a deficit for the first few years in light of the cost of initial investment, but what truly mattered was simply the fact they would be up and operating.
One possible source of concern was Viscount Carnel. It was now two years and counting since the white dragon moved into his fiefdom, but he had not made so much as a peep. It was difficult to imagine how he could keep his realm running without the income from his mithril mines, and yet it was equally impossible to imagine him coming crying to Baron Granvelle. This silence from him, therefore, seemed somewhat ominous. The baron was clearly aware of this, seeing how frequently he asked Sebas for reports on the situation in Carnel.
After erasing all the goblin and orc villages in the area, Allen still based his hunting activities in the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains. On the other side of the forest, above the treeline, was a desolate wasteland only sparsely dotted with greenery where the mountain range, which extended far into the distance and sprawled over an unbelievable expanse, loomed in all its majestic glory. Allen only had a limited view from his position at the top of a bare cliff, but what he saw with his own eyes felt much more awe-inspiring than the more comprehensive view that he got through Sharing with a Bird E.
So, that’s an armored ant nest.
A slight distance away from Allen’s current position lay a large bulge in the mountain slope that looked like an igloo. This was the entrance to an armored ant nest. Many armored ants, monsters that towered three meters in height, busily flowed through the entrance in an unending stream.
Hm, the entrance is pretty small. Oh, no, it’s the armored ants that are too big. I’m not sure there’s space for me to slip in with all these guys going in and out nonstop.
The width of the tunnel could only accommodate the passage of one armored ant. This was plenty of space for a human to go through, but even if he managed to infiltrate the place, the ants could easily seal his path with their bodies alone.
Of course, Allen had asked Raven to share everything he knew about killing armored ants. First, the adventurer had explained that most nests held roughly a thousand armored ants, give or take. Next, it was guaranteed that there would be a queen armored ant, a Rank B monster, within. This monster absolutely needed to be killed, or else it would continue to spawn more and more armored ants. Unfortunately, this was all the info that Raven had—Allen attempted to press him for more details, but Raven replied that his info was only secondhand this time, and he himself did not know much else.
So the tunnels inside are all one-way only? Isn’t it inconvenient having such tiny holes? Hmm, I should probably lure as many armored ants outside as I can to kill them out here. That’s the only way I’ll be able to go inside to get at the queen.
Allen called out four Beast Ds, one Insect D, and one Fish D, then Shared with all of them.
Well, let’s first give it a try and see how it goes.
This world had neither walkthrough sites nor online forums. Thus, Allen had to try attacking with his Summons to see for himself how well this group composition would fare against the armored ants. Of course, having learned his lesson from the orc village that he failed to take down, Allen now kept himself back a safe distance away.
The group of six Summons wove their way around the bare boulders, making their way toward the anthill entrance. The Beast Ds were soon spotted due to their huge size, but they continued on regardless.
Once they got close, one armored ant raised its large jaws up high and clacked them loudly in warning. Other nearby ants heard this and headed over, adding to the cacophony with their own furious clacking. This prompted several dozen more to appear from within the nest and take up defensive positions around the entrance.
Yes, keep coming out! I love where this is going. Please come out, every last one of you. All right, six Summons is clearly not enough to deal with these numbers. Let’s get more out there.
In response to the situation, Allen called out twenty more Beast Ds, all of them Strengthened ahead of time. He ordered them to charge toward the armored ant nest.
Soon, the area fell into a battlefield. As armored ants’ heads were slightly more breakable than their shells, all the Beast Ds knew to aim for their heads. This was what Allen had always told them to do during the previous hunts, so now he no longer needed to mention it—they just did it by default. And so the Beast Ds got to work cracking heads.
Hmm, their teamwork really leaves a lot to be desired.
The most important thing in hunting was the amount of time taken to kill each monster. The efficiency of battle was directly determined by the number of monsters taken down. Allen was currently watching the battle from over fifty meters away using a Bird E with Hawk Eye activated. The Beast Ds charged fiercely and were making good progress culling the ants, but there was a glaring problem that had come to light from their facing such a large number of enemies at once.
Beast Ds were incapable of crushing the heads of armored ants in one attack, even while using their Ability. This meant the most efficient way for them to fight was to coordinate with each other and focus on bringing down one enemy at a time. Unfortunately, this was not going so well.
Whenever Allen saw a Beast D attacking an armored ant, he ordered another one to also focus its attacks on that same monster. However, in large-scale protracted fights where he could not micromanage the movements of every Summon and had to rely on them to make their own decisions, holes appeared very quickly among the ranks, leading to unnecessarily wasted time. For example, say there was an armored ant that would die with just one more attack, but the closest Beast D turned to attack another one that was closer and ended up getting attacked by the first armored ant. Similar instances started cropping up more and more, much to Allen’s chagrin.
So basically, Summons with barely more than 100 Intelligence end up making quite a lot of bad calls and can’t effectively cooperate with each other.
The longer the fight dragged on, the more mistakes the Summons made. It grew so obvious that Allen would almost believe it if he were told the Summons had been designed to make a certain percentage of incorrect decisions. He first thought this was an issue that could be solved with thorough training, but soon arrived at the conclusion that it was the Intelligence stat that was to blame. It was when he saw Bird D and Fish D—both of which had over 400 Intelligence after being Strengthened—communicating flawlessly that the idea had occurred to him. Bird D only knew how to say “Hoo!” whereas Fish D could not speak at all. And yet, somehow, the two were capable of picking up each other’s intentions and acting in coordination.
I guess this is basically how it is? Though I don’t have a Summon with around 300 Intelligence, so I’ll just fill the line with whatever.
Results of Testing Summons with Varying Intelligence:
Less than 100 Intelligence: Only reacts to the order to use its Ability
Above 100 Intelligence: Can comprehend normal orders and the order to use its Ability, but makes bad decisions and cannot communicate with other Summons
Above 200 Intelligence: Fewer mistakes in judgment
Above 300 Intelligence: Cannot be tested due to absence of corresponding Summons
Above 400 Intelligence: Can communicate with other Summons and, when Shared, can pass along Allen’s orders
As a result of his experiments, Allen discovered that if he Shared with a Bird D with over 400 Intelligence, the Bird D could help pass instructions on to other Summons. In this way, he could remotely instruct Summons that he was not Shared with. However, this was effectively a game of telephone, relayed from Allen to Bird D to, say, Beast D. The instructions had to be extremely simple, otherwise they would get distorted in the process.
Allen occupied himself by considering the possibilities opened up by this discovery while watching the fight taking place at the entrance of the armored ant nest.
＊ ＊ ＊
Two months had passed since Allen first began assaulting the armored ant nest, but he had yet to take it down. He was currently in the village that had been set up in the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains for smelting mithril. It was still a rather barren place, as development had only begun in April.
A man who was carrying timber together with Allen called out to him, “Looks like you’re pretty strong, lad.”
“Thank you, mister.”
Naturally, Allen was not here to help build the village. No, he was here to continue his assault on the armored ant nest. He had killed more than two hundred armored ants each day twice a week over the past five weeks, which brought his kill count above two thousand. If the info from Raven about there being a thousand armored ants in a nest was true, he should have been done ages ago. So what was going on?
If it just so happened that the first nest he ever attacked was a large one, then fine—even if there were three thousand or five thousand armored ants, killing them all was simply a matter of time. However, there was one thing that was bothering Allen: every time he approached the nest again for another day of hunting, the two hundred corpses from the previous day would be completely gone. He suspected that the queen armored ant might be consuming the corpses as nutrition in order to continue spawning more.
One might think, “Easy! Just move the corpses away, then!” but that was much easier said than done. As the monsters rushed out of the nest in an unending stream, it was difficult even harvesting the corpses for magic stones, much less dragging them away somewhere. The efficiency for grinding XP here was absolutely unparalleled compared to any prior methods or targets, but the monetary reward was pretty much zero.
In light of all this, Allen had gone to Sebas in mid-April with a request. He was not sure if the butler would say yes, but he knew through his talk with Zenof that the man had already been making various concessions on his behalf.
What Allen asked for was to make his huntsman days and days off consecutive, and to allow him to stay out during the night in between. Even he, with all his level-ups and buffs, found the distance between Granvelle City and the location of the armored ant nest quite far. The long commute was making it difficult for him to get in as much hunting as he wanted.
At first, Sebas frowned at the mention of staying out. Just as he was about to say no, however, Allen offered to help out at the mithril smelting village. So, he eventually ended up giving the green light. When Allen mentioned this to Rickel later, the head manservant looked quite surprised and asked how Allen managed to make it happen. Apparently, staying out was generally forbidden. It turned out that the butler had bent the rules for Allen’s sake once again.
Schedule Before the Change:
Service / Service / Huntsman / Service / Service / Day Off
Schedule After the Change:
Service / Service / Service / Service / Day Off / Huntsman
Being able to dedicate two consecutive days to hunting was such a step up that even if Allen dedicated several hours to helping out at the village, he still came out ahead. Thanks to cutting out one round of his commute, his daily kill count rose from two hundred to three.
Today, after putting in a few hours at the village, he was once again at the armored ant nest. And this time, the fight was finally going to proceed much differently. Namely, armored ants had stopped coming out of the nest.
I did it! My persistence finally won out! Take that, you stupid insects!
Keeping at this for two consecutive days ever since mid-April had finally paid off. The three-meter-wide entrance to the anthill gaped wide open as if inviting Allen in.
I’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot. I have torches and magic tools for illumination with me, but let’s send in a few Summons first.
Scouting the location out before heading in only made sense. What’s more, to avoid getting lost, Allen wanted to confirm where the queen armored ant was and to figure out the most direct way to reach her. Knowing and not knowing sometimes made all the difference.
Now, who should I send in? Chappy? No, it’ll probably be dark inside, so Horo’s the best bet. Poor Chappy, I still haven’t been able to use it for much.
Upon leveling up as a Summoner, Allen gained more and more useful skills, with Sharing being the latest one. He was continually considering ways to make the most out of each Summon’s Ability in light of what each new skill brought to the table. Bird G’s Ability, Voice Mimic, was one of the Abilities that suddenly got a lot more handy with the addition of Sharing.
Voice Mimic
Effect: Mimic someone’s voice
Conditions: Have heard the target’s voice and know the target’s name
Back when he did not yet have Sharing, Allen had to give detailed instructions for whose voice to mimic and what to say from within fifty meters. That was incredibly inconvenient, but the inconvenience was completely resolved thanks to Sharing, suddenly making the Ability much, much more useful. Now, Allen could give Chappy continuous instructions on who to sound like and what to say no matter how far away he was. The possibilities had expanded greatly, but unfortunately, he had yet to find any opportunities to actually make use of this Ability.
During the time Allen was deep in thought, Bird D had continued making its way deeper and deeper into the anthill.
Oh wow, it’s really big inside. One Horo alone won’t be enough.
As could be expected of a nest that had been home to over a thousand ants, the place turned out to be an expansive labyrinth. The passages branched out countless ways, with the tunnels stretching on endlessly. To make the process go faster so as to take advantage of this opportunity to get at the queen armored ant, Allen sent in three more Bird Ds. All the areas that the four Horos passed through were immediately mapped onto a page in Allen’s grimoire.
I see, there’s a small room h— Oof, one Horo got done in!
The anthill was not entirely empty, as could be expected. A Bird D had just entered a dead-end chamber when it was suddenly caught by large mandibles and crushed to death. In the split second before it died, Allen had caught sight of three armored ants. There were still quite a few armored ants lurking about inside the nest.
I ain’t giving up, though! Hmm...
Allen pondered how to conquer this ant colony. He was currently Shared with the three Bird Ds still inside, plus the one Bird D that he had just Summoned to replace the one that had died. Their number could be maintained by Creating more any time one got done in while they continued pushing farther down the gently sloping passages in their effort to completely map the place. Whenever that happened, Allen made a mark on the map and sent over the mixed force of three Beast Ds and one Bird D that he had roaming in the nest to wipe out the forces in the area. Naturally, he was Sharing with them too, for a total of eight Summons that he was concurrently Shared with. He slowly but steadily exterminated all the monsters remaining within this way. The small larvae that the Summons encountered every once in a while in the chambers were also mercilessly stomped out.
As there was no light at all inside the tunnels, the Beast Ds were moving in total darkness. The vision that Allen Shared with them was also entirely blacked out. He was relying on the Bird D that accompanied their group to observe their surroundings so that he knew what instructions to give the Beast Ds.
When Allen had first started in the morning, progress had been smooth. However, the armored ants hardly just sat around idly. In the afternoon, they started showing up in greater numbers.
Ugh, another Horo got hemmed in again.
The passages were only barely large enough for armored ants to pass through. As such, they would become practically blocked every time an ant showed up, making it impossible for Allen’s Summons to keep going. Every time a Bird D found its way blocked by an armored ant after turning back from a dead end, since there was no way it could kill the monster by itself, Allen had no choice but to revert it into card form. Summons that were returned to card form from afar—thanks to Sharing—automatically made their way back into the grimoire’s holders. Then he had to re-Summon and send them out once more.
As soon as the Beast Ds encountered an armored ant, no matter if it was in a passage or a chamber, they killed it. But that was the easy part. Because the corpse that remained was in the way, the Summons then had to use their jaws to hold it by its crushed head and push or pull it to somewhere they could discard it, such as at a dead end or a small room. Only after this could they continue exploring.
This almost feels like a puzzle game. Is this what clearing an armored ant nest is supposed to be like?
Back when Allen had been Kenichi, he had played games that had other simpler games within, called minigames. For example, even though the game itself was an adventure game, for some reason, it would feature, say, a quiz competition or dice board games. Clearing the armored ant nest was giving him the same feeling.
Just how long would he continue this puzzle minigame for? In any case, the sun was about to set when a Bird D finally emerged into the largest cavern in the anthill. Inside were ten armored ants all clumped up together around another ant that was clearly different from the rest. This special monster was roughly three times as long as a normal armored ant and had a caterpillar-like torso that protruded from underneath its shell, expanding and contracting rhythmically.
This must be the queen armored ant! There’s no doubt!
Apparently this cavern was the deepest part of this nest. After marking down the location on the map, Allen reverted all the deployed Summons to card form.
This should do for the composition of the strike force. If they end up struggling, I can increase my Intelligence to raise the number of Summons I’m able to Share with.
Vanguard Strike Force Against a Queen Armored Ant
Beast D x 6
Bird D x 1
Insect D x 1
A Fish D buffed all eight Summons, then Allen Shared with them and sent them into the nest. He also Summoned a few more Beast Ds and ordered them to follow along behind the previous group, but this did not work out, as they were unable to see in the dark. There was no choice but to attempt the fight only with the Summons that he was Sharing with.
The strike force followed the twists and turns of the nest, traveling down countless branches. They walked for more than five kilometers total before finally reaching their destination. The monsters within had remained in the same positions as before.
In boss fights, it’s common sense to go for the weaker mobs first. The same applies in this world.
Allen ordered the Beast Ds to first focus on taking down the normal armored ants. This cavern was naturally shrouded in complete darkness, but Allen—and his Summons, by extension—still had visual thanks to Bird D using Night Vision. Once three Beast Ds got done in, Allen Summoned replacements and sent them down. Just like fighting orc kings, he was relying on sheer numbers to overwhelm the enemy. And once again, the strategy paid off.
Okay, that’s all the small fry taken care of. It’s time for me to head down in person so I can get within fifty meters and Summon a whole bunch at once.
Even at the end of Allen’s campaign against the orc villages, he needed to send more than a hundred Beast Ds to kill one orc king. The Summons surrounded the monster to continuously attack it from all sides, with plenty of replacements ready to step up and take the places of those that got killed. Allen intended on using the same strategy this time, but because the battlefield was five kilometers underground, he had to go down himself.
To save time, Allen brought only a Bird D and two Beast Ds along as he charged into the nest. As he could not see a thing inside, he relied solely on the Night Vision sight that he was Sharing with the Bird D. It gave him a much clearer view than a torch or illumination magic tool would have.
I almost feel like I’m controlling my own body in over-the-shoulder mode.
Even while Allen himself was dashing through the passages, the remaining Beast Ds down below continued attacking the queen armored ant.
She isn’t all that fast, but it looks like aiming for her head is quite dangerous.
The monster’s head was covered with a tough exoskeleton and equipped with giant, vicious mandibles. There was no reason to insist on aiming for that part when the monster’s soft abdomen protruded from its shell. Consequently, the three remaining Beast Ds focused their attacks on the abdomen, using Crush repeatedly. In response, the queen shuddered violently, slamming one of the Beast Ds against the far wall and reducing it to bubbles of light with one powerful strike of her mandibles.
Oof, one down. But I think we’ve got this. It’s taking her way too long to kill a single Beast D.
The queen armored ant’s Agility was clearly far lower than that of an orc king, which could move incredibly fast and wield a halberd. Before long, Allen reached the large cavern where the battle was taking place.
The enemy is moving sluggishly! Teddys, CHAAAARGE!
“ROOOOAAAAARRRRRR!”
The twenty-plus Beast Ds that Allen Summoned all at once roared at the top of their lungs, shaking the cavern, before thundering forward as a single wave of muscles, fangs, and claws. The enemy was superior in rank and the Beast Ds could not see for themselves, but the target was huge, and after figuring out where it was, the Beast Ds began spamming their Ability. Every time the queen armored ant shuddered, one of the Summons got punted to the wall of the cavern. But their attacks still fell like relentless and inexorable rain.
Is this all a queen armored ant can do? This isn’t as challenging as I expected.
Soon, one of the Summons dealt the killing blow. The monster’s long torso tore open, spilling white liquid all over the ground.
“Clack clack clack!”
The queen armored ant raised her head high and screamed loudly, then fell over. Her body’s convulsions ended up causing more white liquid to gush out.
<You have defeated 1 queen armored ant. You have earned 45,000 XP.>
Ah, she died.
It was a bit anticlimactic how easily the boss monster itself died, but the clearing of the nest had taken a whole day. Even if Allen headed back to Granvelle City now, the gates would probably be closed by the time he arrived. In other words, he would have to stay at the village for another night.
Ugh, tonight’s gonna be an unexcused night out. I hope Mr. Sebas doesn’t get mad at me for it. Would apologizing the way Mr. Rickel does lessen my sentence?
Allen had feared that if he did not press the attack today and left halfway through, the armored ants might recover their numbers. To prevent that from happening, he had prioritized killing the queen armored ant, but an infraction was an infraction. He recalled how he had seen Rickel apologize before and imagined himself doing the same.
But for now, let’s strip away the queen armored ant’s shell. Then I’ll bring it back and apologize.
There was little point in overthinking things. Allen produced the illuminating magic tool from Storage and twisted the dial to turn it on. It was true that he could see through Bird D’s Night Vision, but it was hard to see what he was doing from over his shoulder. Harvesting was best done with his own eyes.
When Allen approached the monster to confirm its state, a powerful stench assaulted his nose.
Ugh, that stinks so bad!
The sour, acidic smell was coming from the fluids that had leaked from the queen armored ant. It was so intense that Allen thought he would be hit with a debuff from smelling it one too many times.
Still, it was pretty strange how sluggish the boss’s movements were. Was she under the weather today?
As the queen armored ant was classified as a Rank B monster, Allen had expected it to be as formidable as a murdergalsh. The actual fight, however, had ended in no time at all. He mulled over whether this specific monster just happened to be a weak one or if it was the species as a whole.
Oh! Is it because she was exhausted from laying too many eggs?
Over the past two months, Allen had killed more than five thousand armored ants. If what Raven had said about a nest being home to around a thousand was true, that meant this queen had birthed more than four thousand eggs in that short period of time. Perhaps exhaustion was the reason she had died so easily.
Hmm, so monsters need to eat and sleep, and can become weakened. The Bird Ds did find pupa and eggs throughout the nest too. Catching them when they’re not in perfect condition can make a big difference.
This was basically Allen’s takeaway for the day.
All right, let’s get the harvesting done and head back.
Not wanting to stay down there any longer than necessary, Allen got to work. Thanks to his beloved mithril sword, harvesting the queen armored ant went easily. It did not take long before he had secured both the magic stone and shell.
Oh right, mithril ore. That’s important. I should look around a bit.
It was said that there was a possibility there were exposed mithril ore veins in the tunnels inside an armored ant nest. For all he knew, there might be one in this very cavern.
Well, this should do.
He had never seen mithril before, so he grabbed ten lumps of rock that seemed reflective under the light of his magic tool and threw them into Storage to include in his report to Sebas afterward.
Okay, time to go.
Having finished doing everything he needed to do, Allen started making his way back upward, dragging the queen armored ant’s shell behind him. After staying at the smelting village for another night, he then returned to Granvelle City the next morning.
It was around noon when he finally reached the mansion. Right before turning the final corner, he took out the rocks that might or might not be mithril, put them into a jute bag, and slung the bag over his shoulder.
First things first: apologize to Mr. Sebas.
Allen had wanted to get a one-on-one with the butler first thing to apologize for staying out last night without permission. However, it turned out Sebas had already headed to the dining room on the second floor. So Allen left the queen armored ant’s shell in the garden and headed up.
“Please excuse me,” he said as he entered the dining room. Everyone within turned to look at him.
Cecil was the first to react. “Do you know how late you are, Allen?!”
“I’m truly sorry, milady. I am back now.”
It was the baron, not Sebas, who questioned Allen. “Allen, tell us why you could not make it back yesterday.”
“Yes, my lord. I have been attacking the same armored ant nest in the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains for the past two months. Yesterday, my efforts finally paid off, and I saw it as an opportunity to get at the queen armored ant. I was worried that if I did not press my attack, she would spawn more armored ants again. So I prioritized killing her and finished too late in the night to make it back in time. I am deeply sorry.”
After explaining his circumstances, Allen bowed with his waist at a ninety-degree angle. This was the Rickel-style apology that he had seen being used quite often.
“Hm? Did you say queen armored ant?”
“Yes, my lord. I brought her shell back. It’s in the garden right now.”
The baron looked at Sebas with a blank face. Sebas, in turn, returned the look with a blank expression of his own. The two of them continued looking at each other blankly for a few more moments before the baron turned back toward Allen.
“I’m sorry, Allen. I’m afraid I did not quite catch the meaning of what you just said. Could you repeat it to me one more time?”
I thought I was pretty clear in my explanation. Is he angry at me? I’m not sure I get it, but I guess I’ll do it again more thoroughly.
After Allen went through the account of what had happened once more, the baron, who still looked very confused, attempted to sum the entire story up in his own words.
“So, you’re saying that you defeated a queen armored ant and completely cleared out an armored ant nest?”
Yay, he finally got it! “Yes, my lord.”
The baron looked at Sebas again. “Summon Zenof for me. I know he just returned last night and is likely tired, but tell him that this is urgent and he is needed immediately.”
“Understood, Master!”
Hm? What for? I’ve already told Captain Zenof that I’ve been attacking that armored ant nest.
That one night Allen had spent camping out with the chivalric order after the whole orc village incident, Captain Zenof had asked him to share the details of his hunting activities whenever he visited the mansion. Ever since then, Allen had ensured that he kept the knight captain in the loop. Although the man was often away, Allen remembered clearly informing him two months ago that he had wiped out all the orc villages and was now moving on to attacking armored ant nests.
“And Allen, you mentioned bringing back a queen armored ant’s shell?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then let us take a look at this shell while waiting for Zenof to arrive.”
Oh? Am I already forgiven? The Rickel-style apology really worked!
Allen led everyone to the garden, secretly rejoicing at the fact that the baron never veered back to the topic of his staying out without permission. Just as he had said, there lay the gigantic pink-gold shell that he had harvested from the queen armored ant. The shell of normal armored ants was silver, so the difference was obvious at a glance.
The baron nodded repeatedly and went “Hmm” while touching the shell all over. Thomas followed suit, his curiosity piqued, when Sebas returned from calling for Zenof.
“Master, Captain Zenof said he would be here shortly.”
“Good. By the way, Sebas, Allen claims that this is the shell of a queen armored ant. Have you ever seen another before?”
“I-I’m sorry, Master. Unfortunately, I am not too familiar with monsters.”
Mm? Oh, queen armored ants are quite rare, I imagine, what with being Rank B, plus living so deep inside the nest. Are they summoning Captain Zenof because they have no way to verify my claim themselves?
After admitting that he had no idea whether this was truly the shell of a queen armored ant either, Sebas also reached out with curiosity to touch it all over. Before long, the knight captain rushed into the mansion.
“May I ask why I have been summoned with such urgency, Your Lordship?”
Both his clothes and his hair look really well-groomed for someone who had been suddenly called over at an hour when everyone’s normally lounging about after lunch.
“I apologize for interrupting your rest, Zenof. There is something I need you to confirm for me. Is this a shell from a queen armored ant?”
“A...queen armored ant, my lord?”
Zenof approached to take a look, but then shook his head. “I’m sorry, my lord. I have never seen a queen armored ant myself.”
“Allen tells us that this is the shell of a queen armored ant. My memory might be fuzzy, as I heard this quite far in the past, but aren’t armored ant nests supposedly unclearable?”
Huh? Unclearable? Not just difficult to clear, but outright impossible?
“Yes, my lord. It is impossible to clear an armored ant nest. Even if our entire order was to be dispatched, we would not be able to do it. I believe it is beyond Silver Fang of the Gale as well.”
Hearing how certain Zenof had sounded, Allen inadvertently blurted, “But armored ants are only Rank C, right?”
Silver Fang of the Gale was the name of a Rank A adventurer party. Allen had difficulty understanding how even a Rank A adventurer party would struggle against Rank C monsters. How could anything be impossible for Rank A adventurers and the knight captain?
“Well, that’s because...”
To sum up Zenof’s explanation, clearing an armored ant nest involved killing more than a thousand armored ants that would keep emerging in a seemingly endless flood.
I mean, yes, that’s how it was for me too. Though it was over five thousand in my case.
Zenof continued to explain that his chivalric order would suffer severe casualties if they really had to fight more than a thousand Rank C monsters without rest. What’s more, killing a queen armored ant meant going into a nest with all its countless branching passages and finding the cavern where she resided. The monsters still remaining within the nest would use their bodies to seal the passages, especially when the exploration party was turning back from a dead end. The party could kill the ant that was in the way, but its body would remain, leaving them still trapped. Then only death awaited, as it was nigh impossible for another group to find them within the labyrinth.
Ah, that’s true. My Summons did get trapped quite a few times. Every time it happened, Allen had simply recalled the trapped Summons by reverting them to card form and then sent them back out right away.
“For all these reasons, clearing an armored ant nest is, for all practical purposes, impossible. If someone really had to clear one, the question would be one of how many casualties the process would incur. However, this is entering the realm of academic deliberation. In any case, I have never heard of an armored ant nest ever being cleared before.”
No one, be they knight or adventurer, would willingly step into an armored ant nest. Over the past year or so, the chivalric order had been mobilized only to deal with goblin and orc villages. There had been no mention whatsoever of attacking ant nests.
Allen looked confused. “Huh? But I heard that some of the mithril mines that we currently have used to be armored ant nests.”
“The queens in those nests happened to die. Then the armored ants abandoned them of their own accord.”
After hearing this explanation, Allen finally understood the blank look that the baron and the butler had exchanged. If there was no one attempting to clear these nests, then obviously there were no accounts of anyone having succeeded. The two of them had been bewildered by the report of a feat that they had understood to be absolutely impossible.
“So that’s what happened. Oh, right. The shell isn’t the only thing I brought back. I also have these.”
Allen lowered the sack that he had forgotten about from his shoulder and took out one of the rocks inside.
“What is this?”
“I picked this up in the cavern where the queen armored ant was. I was wondering if it might be mithril ore.”
Everyone’s heads snapped around as they exclaimed, “WHAT?!”
Now, this they understood, much more than all the talk about the queen armored ant and nest clearing. The baron and knight captain both walked over briskly and peered closely at the rock.
“Allen, tell me the rest in the conference room,” the baron ordered, beckoning Allen to follow along as he, Sebas, and Zenof headed to the third floor together.
“So, can you empty the contents of your bag on the table for us?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Allen was a little hesitant to place the rocks that might possibly be dirtied with the queen armored ant’s bodily fluids on top of the stately, antique-looking table, but he had no choice but to follow a direct order.
The baron promptly stepped out of the room, quickly returning with a heavy-looking lump in his hands.
“This is mithril ore.”
Whoa! There’s the lord of a realm that used to thrive on mithril mining for you. I guess it only makes sense that he has a sample.
The mithril ore was placed right next to Allen’s rocks. They both gave off the same luster and had identical textures.
“They...look the same,” Allen commented.
“So they do,” the baron replied. “Sebas, bring me a map.”
The butler fetched a map of Granvelle from another room. This was not Allen’s first time seeing a map in this world, as Zenof had previously brought one out when the two discussed their relative progress in wiping out the orc villages. Upon being asked, Allen was able to point to the location of the armored ant nest that he had just cleared, indicating that it was somewhere between the two northernmost mines.
“I see. It’s quite close to the village we’re developing,” the baron murmured, stroking his beard.
Zenof agreed, then said, “I strongly believe that we should be dispatched with haste to secure it before other monsters move in.”
Despite having just returned to town, the knight captain was proposing that he and his men set off again immediately.
“Oh, right,” Allen interrupted, having remembered something else that he had yet to report. “If I may have a sheet of paper, I can draw a simplified illustration of the entire layout of this nest.”
It was simply a matter of copying over the finished map in his grimoire, so Allen did not think much of it. This was, after all, a labyrinth more than five kilometers long. Having a map, even a simple one, would make an enormous difference for those who would be managing the place.
“You mean it?! Bring him a large piece of parchment immediately!” the baron barked.
However, instead of immediately heading out, Sebas said, “Master, this would be a good time to give Allen an explanation about the mining rights.”
“Mm, I know. I’ll do it now,” the baron replied before turning to Allen. “Allen, you have done incredibly good work today. Naturally, you will not be penalized for the unauthorized night out.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“As for this mithril vein, the credit for its discovery goes to you.”
“Thank...you, my lord?”
“In this country, those who discover a source of a natural resource—not just limited to mithril—are granted thirty percent of the harvesting rights.”
“That much, my lord?”
“Indeed. As such, thirty percent of the harvesting rights for this mithril mine goes to you, Allen.”
Seriously?! Damn, I feel like I just figured out a way to get filthy rich in this world. I see, harvesting rights, huh?
According to the explanation that followed, the actual amount that would enter Allen’s pockets was a lot less than thirty percent of the full profits. First of all, the revenue from the mithril would be used to pay for all costs associated with the mining operation, including the maintenance of the mine, construction and maintenance of the furnaces needed to smelt the ore into ingots, and the personnel expenses for the knights, miners, laborers, and guards. Sixty percent of the remaining amount would then go to the royal treasury as tax. The amount actually left after all the abovementioned subtractions was what the term “harvesting rights” referred to. This was the sum that Allen would be receiving thirty percent of, with the other seventy going to the feudal lord.
In this way, Allen managed to gain thirty percent of the mining rights of a mithril mine at the young age of eleven years old.
Chapter 12: Assault
October arrived, and Allen finally turned twelve. This month marked his fourth anniversary here at the Granvelle mansion. During the past five months, the chivalric order had assumed supervision over the armored ant nest that he had cleared, and in September, the northernmost mithril mine finally began operations. Mine development for the vein Allen had discovered would begin next year. Specialist miners had taken a look at it and confirmed that this was indeed a brand new vein that no one else had happened upon before. It was expected to be a very rich vein, at that.
When the knight captain had saved him at the orc village, Allen had realized how much freedom he had been given to do what he wanted. The number of hours he spent hunting had shot up ever since he had obtained Sharing. And next year, the mining rights he held would enable him to live a comfortable life without even having to lift a finger.
Back when he lived in Krena Village, there was something that he had desperately lacked: status. In a desperate bid to raise his family’s social class, he had hunted albaherons en masse and spearheaded changes to the great boar hunting party. Despite being unable to leave the village as he pleased, it had still been a very fulfilling time.
Now, though, he felt like he was just hunting slimes around the starter castle. He had more than enough money to live off of, and the monsters he fought posed no threat to him; all he was doing was grinding to the level cap without any particular goal in mind.
My mining rights... Almost feels like excess flab.
What Allen sought was not a cushy life. He had come to this world in search of excitement, something that could clutch his attention and consume his every waking thought. What he now had was not what he wanted. Partly due to these thoughts, when he went on to clear two more armored ant nests and realized they were not mithril mines, he did not feel particularly disappointed.
When he arrived at the mansion at eight years old, he had planned on becoming an adventurer. Then Mihai had asked him to protect Cecil, and Allen had said, “Yes.” He still fully intended on keeping this promise, but now that he had turned twelve, he was also thinking it was about time for him to embark on the next phase of his life. This life of grinding “slimes” around the starter castle could not be the right answer for him.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Rickel asked.
Allen roused himself. “My apologies, sir.”
The two were currently sharing breakfast together, just as they had for the past four years. Next year, Rickel would be quitting as head manservant to become either a coachman or a cook. The position of head manservant was not one that could be held for several decades, and it was high time he passed it on to someone else.
He was currently musing with Allen about which would be the easier profession in his usual flippant tone. Allen thought this a very Rickel-like question to ask. When he looked at this superior of his, he wondered if maybe he was the one overthinking his life.
“I heard the royal envoy’s coming again,” Rickel said, changing the subject. “I’m starting to get tired of all this talk about mithril, honestly.”
“So I’ve been told,” Allen replied. “Even though he came just last month.”
Visits from a royal envoy were hardly unusual, but their frequency had jumped up significantly over the past year. Many of these had been to confirm the progress of preparations for the mithril mining operation, with there being a noticeably pressing tone in their questioning. Allen wondered if it was due to a shortage of mithril in the kingdom now that Carnel was no longer able to produce any.
The advance notice that came the other day included the date and time the envoy would be arriving, but not the nature of his business. Sebas had told Allen to stay in the dining hall after lunch, as part of the service staff that would be on hand during the audience.
The baron’s family had lunch, then two men arrived at the Granvelle mansion around 1 p.m. When Sebas escorted them into the dining hall, the baron gasped. Not because of the royal envoy; it was usually the same one who came every time, and even Allen had seen him multiple times by now. What caught the baron by surprise was the identity of the royal envoy’s companion. He knew this person, and he was much more than a mere passing acquaintance.
The royal envoy was visiting together with Viscount Carnel.
“Welcome,” the baron said, keeping a straight face. He had allowed his wife and children to sit in for today’s audience as he had expected it to be about the mithril mines again. If he had known the viscount was coming, he would have handled this visit on his own.
“I have heard that you apply yourself to your fiefdom’s development with such eagerness and vigor. You are a true model for the other nobles,” the envoy began, insolently leaning back into his seat and staring at the baron from across the table.
Ugh, this envoy’s as arrogant as always.
Instead of sitting, Viscount Carnel was standing behind the envoy, almost as if he were the man’s attendant. The positioning looked just like how Sebas stood behind the baron.
“May I ask what is the nature of your visit today, my lord?” the baron asked respectfully, a tinge of wariness in his tone.
The envoy grunted. After a pregnant pause, he answered, “I’ve come to bring you a proposal, Baron Granvelle.”
“A proposal, my lord?”
“That’s right. You are involved in a dispute that is well-known even among the nobles. So what I bring today is a proposal to resolve that dispute.”
“What dispute might that be, my lord?” The baron racked his brains, but nothing came to mind.
“The centuries-old dispute between House Granvelle and House Carnel. This is an issue that even the royal family cannot overlook. A reconciliation must be achieved.”
“That’s...”
When speaking of a dispute between these two families, only one thing came to mind: the mithril mines in the White Dragon Mountains. It was true that this was an issue that had hung like a shadow over both houses for generations. The two realms constantly cycled between prosperity and decline in turn, forever at the mercy of the white dragon.
“And so I’ve brought this today.”
The viscount walked forward with a rolled-up parchment in hand. Sebas met him in the middle and accepted it with both hands, then brought it back and placed it before the baron.
“Wh-What is this?”
“Read it.”
The baron undid the string and spread the scroll open. As his eyes flowed across the page, however, shock filled his face.
“This is simply...”
“Mm? Do you take issue with this solution that I have gone to the trouble of arranging?”
“But, my lord, shared management of the White Dragon Mountains is just...”
“Just what? The two realms being divided by the mountain range is the cause of their dispute. As such, both can share management over the whole mountain. Naturally, profits will also be split equally.”
“Shared management”? As in, both the baron and viscount will have equal claim to the entire mountain range? Damn. So that’s why the viscount’s smirking so much.
What the royal envoy had brought was a contract for House Granvelle and House Carnel to share ownership over the White Dragon Mountain Range. The man proceeded to describe how the two families would share both the burden of maintenance and the profits obtained. From his position behind the envoy, Viscount Carnel was clearly having trouble hiding the smile on his face. Even his shoulders were shaking, indicating just how badly he was holding in his laughter.
“However—”
“What displeases you about this? I even asked the judicial vice-minister himself to write up this contract for you.”
“But—”
“Enough. Viscount Carnel’s signature is already on the document.” The royal envoy stared down the very confused and flabbergasted baron, almost as if wordlessly ordering him to stop complaining and sign the blasted document already.
After a long, pained silence, the baron said, “I...am truly sorry. This is all very sudden. May I respond after having an audience with His Majesty?”
“What? You are refusing to sign the contract that I asked the judicial vice-minister to draft? So, you’re a big shot now, are you, baron?”
“O-Of course not, my lord. Just a brief audience would do. All I wish is for a quick confirmation with His Majesty in person.”
“So you doubt me! Being able to mine mithril has made you brazen and impudent. Enough!”
The envoy shot to his feet and headed for the door in a hurry. Seeing Viscount Carnel hurry after him as an attendant would, Sebas also rushed forward to escort them out, but the envoy shouted loudly, “No need!” and furiously slammed the door.
After the dramatic exit, Baron Granvelle cast the parchment onto the grand table. “I refuse to believe in the validity of such a ridiculous contract. Sebas, I must pay the royal palace a visit with haste. Zenof is returning two days from now, yes?”
“Yes, Master. He has gone out on an expedition to the White Dragon Mountains, so he should be returning to town in two days.”
It was as if the clock was now leaping forward after being frozen. The baron barked out questions, taking stock of the situation. As soon as the knight captain returned to Granvelle City, the baron would be taking him along when he headed to the royal capital via magic ship. With this, all the members of the baron’s family and servants were dismissed.
＊ ＊ ＊
Several hours later, Allen was busy polishing silverware. During this time in the day, he did not have any particular duties to fulfill, so he normally went around lending a hand to other servants who needed help. At times, he would help cook, tend the garden, do the laundry, and so on and so forth. He was, in short, a jack-of-all-trades. And today, he just happened to be taking a cloth to the silverware used by the baron’s immediate family.
But still, “shared management”? That’s a nice name to put on what’s definitely going to be trouble.
The contract from earlier was still on his mind. “Shared management.” “Peaceful resolution.” “Equal distribution.” With so many empty platitudes that sounded so morally upright, Allen worried how the baron would be able to turn down this “proposal.” If he did so, he could end up being accused of trying to monopolize the mithril market. Allen did not have the faintest idea what the baron could do even if he went to the capital.
Suddenly, a scream rang out from the floor above, jolting Allen from his thoughts.
CRAAAAASH!
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”
The sound of glass smashing was immediately followed by the sounds of struggle coming from the third floor. Allen hurriedly placed the silverware down and dashed up the stairs from the first floor. Everything was so sudden that he had no clue what was going on. It was not Cecil who had screamed, meaning it was likely one of the maidservants. Soon, Sebas and other servants came into view. Allen rushed past, taking care not to bump into anyone.
When he came out the other side of the crowd, the first thing that he saw was a quivering maidservant standing frozen in the hallway and a gentleman-in-waiting crumpled on the floor, the angle of his body indicating that he had been sent flying out of Cecil’s room. There was a crater in the wall where he had presumably crashed against it. He was on the verge of death, bleeding profusely from his stomach.
Seriously?! The assailants came in through the window!
Allen stepped past the frozen maidservant and rushed into Cecil’s room, finding her window gone along with a large portion of the wall. Clearly, the assailants had forcibly blasted their way in. There were three of them, all wearing leather armor for ease of movement. At first, Allen thought they were adventurers, but then gathered from their vibe that they were more likely hoodlums or robbers. Whatever they were, they sure weren’t knights.
One of the men was carrying Cecil tucked under his armpit. As soon as he saw this, Allen knew what he needed to do. He grabbed his mithril sword from Storage and rushed at the man. But one of the other intruders, this one big and muscular, blocked the thrust with his greatsword.
“What the hell’s with this damn brat?!”
Allen continued unleashing a barrage of attacks, but the man managed to parry them all, swearing at him the entire time.
Shit! What’s with this guy?! He’s really strong! I need to change out my cards! Oh, and...
After the first two clashes, Allen could already tell that his opponent was no pushover. He carefully observed the other two as well, worried that they were equally as skilled.
Currently, thirty of Allen’s fifty holders were occupied with Fish D cards. While continuing the sword fight, he fetched a Crop of Magic from Storage and used it to restore his MP, as he had converted everything he had into Skill XP earlier on. After this, he sent away his grimoire and briefly turned around to call it back out directly over the gentleman-in-waiting, page down. A Leaf of Life fell out, fluttering until it landed on the man’s body.
Once he had confirmed with his eyes that the servant was fully healed, Allen whirled around once more. This opponent was far too powerful for Allen to keep his back turned for too long. While he maintained his onslaught, the grimoire floating in midair flipped its pages furiously as cards were Deleted and Created at a blistering rate. Allen felt power welling up inside as his stats climbed higher and higher.
“Hurry up and kill the brat already, Helgei!”
“I know, I know. Die already!” The man apparently did not expect to struggle so much against a child who appeared to be about ten years old. He grew increasingly frustrated as time dragged on.
Upon understanding the situation, Sebas had started shouting down the hallway, “Intruders! Intruder alert! All gentlemen, take up weapons! Someone, call the knights!” At the same time, the baron was also barking out orders, and all the gentleman-in-waiting who had not already rushed for their weapons after the maidservant’s scream did so now. All of them pounded down the hallway, fast approaching Cecil’s room.
“There are knights gathering in the garden! Helgei, that’s enough. We got the target. Time to clear out.”
“You’re not getting away!”
The assailants seemed to have given up on defeating Allen, but Allen kept attacking in a furious bid to save Cecil from their clutches. That moment, however, the assailant armed with a short sword took something out from a pouch on his waist and threw it hard against the ground. Smoke exploded throughout the destroyed room.
Poison?!
Allen tried to hold his breath, but his reaction had been a beat too late, and he managed to get a small whiff. His consciousness faded to black, and he collapsed in place.
＊ ＊ ＊
Where...am I? I...fainted? How long was I out?
When Allen woke up, he first tried to remember what had happened.
Did the assailants kidnap me together with Cecil? Shit, that smoke probably paralyzed me or put me to sleep. I didn’t have any precautions in place against status debuffs. Hm? I’m tied up?
Upon regaining full control of his faculties, Allen gleaned that he had been abducted. Just in case his kidnappers were watching him, he kept his eyes closed and pretended that he was still unconscious as he checked his body. Thankfully, he had no injuries or broken bones, but he did realize he could not move his arms and legs. Ropes dug into his skin, and his mouth was biting down on a gag. He had been thoroughly trussed up, much like a caterpillar.
Is there anyone nearby?
Allen concentrated his senses and picked up on several presences. Perhaps the kidnappers were still close by.
I need to confirm Cecil’s condition. Let’s see what we can do.
It was still a mystery whether Cecil was unharmed or not. However, if these men had planned on killing her, then they would have done so back at the mansion. Allen himself being kidnapped meant chances were that she had been as well. Checking up on her took priority.
Robbers, you done fucked up. No, I should really call this a stroke of luck instead. I would’ve been powerless if they had blindfolded me too.
Although Allen could neither move his limbs nor speak, there was no pressure around his eyes, meaning that he could open his eyes to examine his surroundings.
Summoners had one huge weakness: their eyes. They had to visually specify the spawn location whenever calling out Summons. This was why it was impossible to Summon on the other side of obstacles. Naturally, it was also impossible to do so with their eyes closed. So Allen cracked his eyes just the slightest, barely enough that they still appeared closed.
What is this place? A storage room?
Several large wooden crates first came into sight. This appeared to be a rather sizable storeroom. Allen promptly Summoned out a Bird G on top of some boxes and Shared with it. The first order he gave the parrot was to not flap its wings.
So far so good. It might raise suspicions if I get too many out, so just one more for a second perspective.
The eyes of the two Bird Gs transmitted a group of men lounging around in seats. These were indeed the same three who had assaulted the mansion. Cecil quietly lay on the ground a slight distance behind Allen.
Found her. Looks like she’s okay.
Through Bird G, Allen confirmed that Cecil was also bound and gagged. Her restraints proved that she should still be alive.
“What the hell?!”
Shit, they spotted me!
The pit of Allen’s stomach plummeted as he thought the robbers had figured out he had regained consciousness and was surveilling them. Through Bird G, he watched as a fourth man whom he did not recognize walked in. He had not been with the group that attacked the mansion. Appearing to be slightly over forty, with gaunt cheeks and belligerent eyes, the newcomer wore a similar outfit to the others but was surrounded by a markedly different air. He seemed like someone deeply involved with the criminal underworld.
One of the men in chairs sat up and said, “Dagrah, sir!”
“The hell’s the meaning of this? We were supposed to nab one brat, so why’re there two? This one looks like a servant or something.”
Oh, they didn’t see my Summons.
“Y-Yessir. He seemed to be really good with the sword despite being a kid, so I thought we could sell him as a slave for some pocket ch—OOF!”
Before the man could finish speaking, the fourth man had driven a fist into his side. The speaker was wearing leather armor, but it did nothing to soften the force of the blow.
“Listen closely, you pieces of shit. Don’t do anything unnecessary. You heard it, right? I’m the leader for this mission, which means you do what I say. The next time you decide to get ‘creative,’ I will fucking end your pathetic lives. Capisce?!”
“Y-Yessir. Sorry, sir...” the man said through gritted teeth, clutching his side and propping himself up on the ground with both elbows.
After casting a glance over at the other two men who were acting as if nothing had happened, the gaunt man left the room. Apparently he had dropped by to confirm how the kidnapping had gone.
“You okay there, Marcus?”
Once Dagrah was gone, the two others approached the man who had gotten punched.
“Ugh, yeah, I’m fine. Why the boss hired a hit man like that is beyond me. He’s such a massive asshole,” Marcus spat angrily.
“I was told he’s insurance in case Zenof shows up.”
“You serious?”
Okay, I need to figure out where we are.
Allen attempted to glean what information he could from the kidnappers through his Shared Bird Gs. It seemed like this was a storeroom in town, but there was no way to see outside as there were no windows. Allen wanted to know where they were so he could figure out how he would escape with Cecil after getting away from their captors.
“You sure you okay, man?” Helgei asked. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I’m good,” Marcus replied, despite still holding his side and wincing. “Shit, that bastard seriously pisses me off. He didn’t break a rib, did he? Seriously, why the hell is he the leader?”
Allen continued eavesdropping on the men’s conversation while pretending he was still asleep.
“Not much we can do about it. Direct orders from the boss.”
“He’s all full of himself just cuz he survived a battlefield or two, Zenof countermeasure or not. Did you know? I heard he ran with his tail between his legs after just one year on the front lines. So why’s he strutting about like he owns the goddamn place?”
“D-Dude, leave it at that. Someone told me Umbra said that to his face and got his head chopped off right then and there.”
“For real?! No wonder I haven’t seen Umbra around lately.”
“Dead serious. Still, Zenof was supposed to have protected some fortress for a decade, right? Can Dagrah really beat him in a fight?”
“Probably? I mean, he may have protected the place for a decade, but did you hear what happened to it afterward?”
“Why do you know so much about that battle? All right, I’ll bite. What happened to it?”
“After ten years, the place got attacked and fell—” Helgei snapped his fingers, “—just like that. Everyone inside got massacred. Those bastards aren’t human. No idea how Zenof got away, but he sure is shameless being a high-and-mighty knight captain after all that.”
“Damn, man. Having a sword-using Talent is good and all, but it sure ain’t worth dying for.”
“That’s why a year, ten years, it makes no difference. Only idiots go to the battlefield.”
Battlefield? But Mr. Rickel was insistent the kingdom isn’t at war. So there really is a war going on.
The discrepancy between what Rickel had said and what these abductors were saying did pique Allen’s interest, but his highest priority at the moment was getting out of his current situation. He continued eavesdropping, hoping to gather more information.
An hour passed. Unfortunately, the men did not talk about anything particularly useful. Even now, they were having a blast discussing how they would use the money from selling Allen to go gambling.
Mm, doesn’t look like I’ll get much more info. I still have no idea where we are. Let’s move on to taking stock of what I’ve got at my disposal and figure out how to secure an escape route.
Allen’s mithril sword was probably still back in the mansion where he had dropped it when he lost consciousness in the middle of fighting the kidnappers. All he had with him currently was the short sword that Dogora had given him and the iron balls. Even if he were to start fighting, getting away with Cecil would still be top priority.
One of the men said he had business to take care of and stood up.
Oh? Is he leaving? Let’s go with him.
Under Allen’s instruction, one of the Bird Gs that had been hiding behind a wooden box flew out. The two men remaining in their seats immediately noticed the bird flapping its wings, but it ignored their stares and darted straight through the open door.
Did that seem suspicious? Oh well, doesn’t matter. It’s a fair price for figuring out where we are.
“Huh? What’s a bird doing in a place like this?”
“Some rich asshole probably brought their pet bird onboard or something. Must be nice to be them.”
“You mean, sucks to be them! Their damn bird just got away. Hah!”
Wait, “onboard”? We’re on a ship?
Allen kept an eye on the field of vision from the Bird G that flew out while continuing to eavesdrop on the kidnappers. He had thought this was a storeroom somewhere in town and had expected the door to lead outside. Instead, it turned out to be a long hallway with a ceiling about two meters high.
The bird shot past the occupied kidnapper and found a staircase at the end of the hallway. The Summon immediately flew up it.
Does this lead to a higher floor? The storeroom itself was rather spacious. If this really is a ship, it must be huge.
The staircase opened up to another long passageway. Bird G proceeded down its length and quickly found a door on its right. It had a round glass window that could be peered out of.
Oh? Does this door lead outside?
It was all dark on the other side of the window. Allen tried to look through it from various angles, but he still could not see anything.
Why’s it all black? Wait, those are stars...and that’s the night sky! Which means I am looking outside, it’s just nighttime now. But that’s strange: where’s the ocean?
When Allen squinted, he realized he was looking at a starry sky. The kidnappers had attacked before twilight, which meant several hours had passed by now. However, if this was a ship, then the light from the stars should be reflecting off the surface of the water they were sailing over. Yet, there were no such reflections.
What?! The room’s shaking!
As Allen was occupied with analyzing what he was seeing through Bird G’s eyes, the room he was in jerked violently all of a sudden.
“C’mon, least they can do is fly this piece of junk properly.”
“I second that. Screw this turbulence shit or whatever it’s called.”
Just as the men were complaining among themselves, an announcement similar to what Allen had heard in his previous life rang out.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the turbulence our magic ship, the Bahona, is currently experiencing. This won’t affect our steering ability, but be aware that the sudden jerking might cause you to lose your footing and fall over. We recommend that you remain seated.”
What?! So we’re on a magic ship right now?!
As it turned out, Allen and Cecil had already left Granvelle City and had been brought on board a magic ship that was currently making its way through the night sky.
What should I do? There’s no place to run if we’re up in the air on a magic ship. I guess I really do have to take out our captors. Actually, no, let’s look around the ship a bit more first. Intel first, then fight.
The Bird G turned away from the window to explore the interior of the ship. Allen realized that he and Cecil were located in the belly of the vessel where the passengers’ luggage was stored.
Interesting how they have a door for going outside that’s accessible even when the magic ship is flying. I mean, it is true that this thing is flying a lot slower than airplanes.
The fact that he could see the night sky through the door from earlier meant it led outside. Perhaps it was a maintenance door for checking on the outer wall of the vessel. Either way, unlike planes in his previous life, the door was operable even during flight. Opening it and jumping outside was still suicide, though.
At the other end of the corridor with the door was another flight of stairs that headed up. It led to a floor lined with doors at regular intervals in a design similar to a business hotel. As Bird G continued down the corridor, it picked up lively sounds up ahead. It eventually burst into what looked like an onboard restaurant.
Damn, there’re so many people! So food is served on magic ships. Pretty funny how this is how I get to experience my first time riding one.
Multiple passengers noticed the bird and pointed, but Allen ignored them and continued surveying the place. As Bird G continued deeper in, there was a marked shift in the clientele. Judging by the formal outfits of the passengers here, this was a separate area for the rich. Elegant noblewomen lounged on comfortable-looking sofas, chatting with each other over glasses of wine.
Just as Allen was about to conclude that there was no further information to glean, he spotted two men seated at the far end through Bird G’s eyes.
That’s Viscount Carnel and the royal envoy!
The two men were also lounging on comfortable sofas and enjoying an expensive vintage. They appeared to be tipsy, so Allen had Bird G surreptitiously approach and duck behind the shade of a nearby lamp to eavesdrop on their conversation. The viscount seemed to have caught sight of the parrot for a split second, making Allen’s heart skip a beat, but the man looked away almost immediately, apparently thinking nothing more of it. Thanks to this, Allen could now hear everything the two men were saying.
“Seriously, how can His Majesty support someone from the Academy Faction for judicial minister?” the royal envoy complained, clearly already quite drunk.
“It’s a travesty, that’s what it is,” Viscount Carnel agreed.
Huh? What’s the “Academy Faction”?
“That seat is supposed to be ours. We must help the vice-minister gain the position no matter what it takes.”
Because Allen had dropped in halfway through the conversation, he had no idea what the two men were talking about. According to what he gathered by listening carefully, the position of judicial minister in the government would become vacant this year. The next person who would fill the seat was a noble belonging to a party named the Academy Faction, but these two men wished to change that arrangement as a political maneuver.
The viscount took a swig of wine and sighed with satisfaction. “The look on Lord Granvelle’s face makes any wine taste better.”
“He was getting full of himself after his mines started back up, wasn’t he? Let’s just say that keeping the lesser nobles in line is also part of my duties as a royal envoy.”
“Thank you very much for pulling strings and getting the vice-minister to help with the contract.”
“Oh, don’t mention it. I only did what was natural, considering our relationship. But still, that white dragon couldn’t have picked a more inconvenient time to move. We’re already spending enough as is, trying to change the appointment for judicial minister.”
The viscount bowed obsequiously. “I’m truly sorry for burdening you with this matter at such a time.”
I see, so it was Viscount Carnel who had planned the whole scheme with the contract suggesting joint management over the White Dragon Mountains. And this is probably how his family’s been using their mithril money for the past hundred years or so—throwing it around “forging relationships” with other nobles and government officials to do whatever they please.
“You are sure that you have things under control, yes?” the envoy asked. “The palace is far from being entirely on our side. Without the contract, the baron is able to make as much of a fuss he wants and His Majesty would be unable to intervene. Things could get very messy. Make sure you get the baron to sign that contract, no matter what.”
“Of course, my lord. That’s why I kidnapped his precious daughter. Oh, how he dotes on her. So, I made sure to leave him a letter to ensure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
So this is why the envoy’s attitude suddenly turned sour when the baron said he would be visiting the palace.
“As long as you get him to sign, nothing else matters.”
“If he doesn’t, we can simply send him one of his daughter’s arms!”
“And when Zenof comes attacking, your hit man will kill him?”
“That is the plan, yes. Though I do hope Zenof doesn’t end up winning and going on a rampage in my realm.”
“You could spin that to your advantage too, couldn’t you? If a knight captain makes a scene in another realm, then his lord can be convicted and forced to take responsibility. After all, rioting is a serious crime. If Zenof does end up going off the handle, perhaps you should thank him instead!”
“Brilliant idea, my lord!”
“Of course, you know why I’ve gone to all this trouble for you, right?”
“Absolutely, my lord. As promised, a portion of the mining rights is yours.”
Hmm, so Viscount Carnel’s got the upper hand with his political influence, and the law’s on his side since there’s no way to prove he’s behind Cecil’s kidnapping. The baron’s hands are tied as long as she’s held hostage. And the reason for this attack and kidnapping is mithril mining rights. I guess that just goes to show how much money there is in mithril.
The conversation he had just overheard shed significant light on a lot of things. Allen was about to slowly consider what action to take next when his thoughts were interrupted.
“Mmmph!”
Oh shit, Cecil’s come to.
“Did you just wake up? Shut it, girlie!”
“MMMMMPH!”
Upon realizing that she was tied up, Cecil protested furiously, her face colored with anger. However, she could not move nor speak due to being bound and gagged. She then noticed Allen close by.
“MMPH! MMNNGH!”
Cut it out! Stop kicking me! How’re you even doing that when you’re tied up?!
Cecil was clearly under the impression that Allen was still unconscious. She pulled her legs in and extended them sharply multiple times in an effort to wake him up. However, he was determined to show no reaction, as he was pretending to be asleep.
“Shut up already! Your attendant’s knocked out cuz we drugged ’im. We’ll be arriving in Carnel City soon, so be quiet.”
So this magic ship is heading for Carnel City. Makes sense, with Viscount Carnel being onboard. He’ll be able to do whatever he wants as soon as we land. I’ve really gotta do something. ...Okay, seriously, stop it! It hurts! Ow!
Naturally, Carnel City would be filled with Viscount Carnel’s men. Escape would be much more difficult once the ship arrived. While Allen was thinking furiously, Cecil continued kicking his rear by flexing like a shrimp.
Marcus grimaced. “Helgei, go shut her up.”
“Oh, all right. Hey, stupid brat! Shut the hell up if you don’t want me to knock the living daylights out of you!”
“MMMNNNGH!” Cecil continued kicking Allen in desperation. She probably thought he would be able to take care of the situation somehow as soon as he woke up.
Seriously, I need to do something. My card distribution is fine, so...let’s do this.
Just in case, Allen checked his Status one final time.
Name: Allen
Age: 12
Class: Summoner
Level: 41
HP: 1,040 + 240
MP: 1,620 + 20
Attack: 570 + 200
Endurance: 570 + 635
Agility: 1,065 + 679
Intelligence: 1,630 + 104
Luck: 1,065
Skills: Summoning {5}, Creation {5}, Synthesis {5}, Strengthening {5}, Expansion {4}, Storage, Sharing, Deletion, Sword Mastery {3}, Throwing {3}
XP: 37,839,560/50,000,000
Skill Levels
Summoning: 5
Creation: 5
Synthesis: 5
Strengthening: 5
Skill Experience
Creation: 12,482/10,000,000
Synthesis: 10,265/10,000,000
Strengthening: 8,269,330/10,000,000
Creatable Summons
Insect: D, E, F, G, H
Beast: D, E, F, G, H
Bird: D, E, F, G
Grass: D, E, F
Stone: D, E
Fish: D
Holder
Insect: F x 1, E x 1, D x 29
Beast: D x 10
Bird: G x 2, D x 4
Grass:
Stone: D x 2
Fish: D x 1
“Looks like you really need a beating.”
Despite her fear, Cecil gave Helgei a death glare as he approached. The man pulled his fist back.
Ugh, you guys are really forcing my hand here. Ageha, use Scale Powder!
“What?!” the kidnappers exclaimed in astonishment as a massive, meter-tall swallowtail butterfly appeared out of thin air. It flapped its wings furiously, filling the entire room with yellow powder.
Nice, one of them fell asleep.
The dagger-user collapsed like a toy that had its batteries taken out. Helgei quickly reduced the Summon to light bubbles with a swing of his weapon.
Snap! Snaaap!
In that time, Allen ripped apart his restraints with his brute strength. The ropes that he had been tied up with meant nothing to him given his current Attack stat. Helgei whirled around, his eyes wide with surprise. Before the man could gather himself, a giant bear appeared in front of him.
“Wh-What the fuck is going on?!”
“RROOAARRRR!”
Teddy charged forward and used Crush, but Helgei calmed down just in the nick of time and stepped aside, even slashing the beast as it pounded past. Although that was not enough to finish the bear off, Helgei had proved that he was much faster. None of Beast D’s following attacks landed either. Conversely, the bear disappeared into light bubbles after taking three slashes.
“Die, you monster!”
While everyone present was transfixed by the battle, Allen sneaked around to Marcus’s side. Beast D had been a diversion; this had been his true aim. He unleashed a blow with all the strength he could muster precisely where the man had just been wounded by Dagrah.
“Augh...you fucking...brat...” Marcus groaned before crashing to the floor headfirst, knocked unconscious by the pain. He lay twitching like a dead frog.
Taking out the weakened one first is just common sense. Now there’s only one left.
The sole remaining kidnapper, Helgei, calmly brought his sword up to a middle stance, asking loudly, “Marcus, you okay?”
While taking out his short sword from Dogora, Allen threw an iron ball at Helgei. However, because he had come from the front, the swordsman had no trouble knocking it down.
“You puny little shit!”
Hmm, this is my first time pointing a real sword at a human, but surprisingly, I don’t feel any hesitation at all. Oh wait, no, I’d done the same when these guys attacked the mansion. A bit late to be having such thoughts, I guess.
“Does this puny little shit scare you?” Allen asked, provoking the man.
“That’s it. You’re dead!” Helgei roared, unleashing a swing.
Brons, now! Hold him down!
Two Stone Ds materialized abruptly before and behind Helgei, sandwiching him before promptly activating Defend.
“What the hell is this?!”
So far, so good. He needed to attack Teddy three times to kill it, so this should be enough to make him skip a few turns, so to speak.
Even while finishing Marcus off, Allen had been monitoring the fight between Helgei and Beast D through the eyes of the Bird G that he was still Shared with. He determined that it would take Helgei a while to take care of Stone Ds with their Ability activated.
Now that he had some breathing room, Allen Summoned a Fish D and had it use Splash.
Next, Suckers, sap his strength! Spidey, use Spider Silk!
Two Insect Gs attached themselves to the trapped man as an Insect D started spewing him with sticky threads, further restraining his movements.
Nice, Insect G’s Ability is affecting him. So the debuffs from Insect Summons do affect humans too. And just now, Cecil didn’t glow when Fish D cast its buff. Is she not recognized as my ally because she’s not actually fighting?
Allen found a lot to analyze about his first-ever battle with a human enemy.
The hit man’s around too, so I should quickly finish this person off.
Neither Fish D’s buff nor Insect E’s debuff had affected Cecil. Further testing was needed to figure out the exact conditions for determining allies or enemies, but this was hardly the time for it. Including the currently absent Dagrah, there were a total of four people who meant Cecil and Allen harm. As such, finishing off the third enemy, Helgei, was of the utmost urgency.
Allen brought his sword down as hard as he could on the shoulder of the man pressed between the two Stone Ds.
“RAH! This goddamn brat!”
He’s so tough—or maybe I’m just too weak. And this sword isn’t good enough for fights of this level. Should I raise my Attack and try to push through? On second thought, it probably suits me better to use Agility to whittle him down with the number of attacks.
Helgei’s class was likely Swordsman or some other related variation. Due to this, his Endurance was so high that Allen could not deal any significant damage to him even with 750 Attack. Even if he managed to stab the man with his sword, it would not be lethal. In this world, a person’s physical parameters were quantified, so when someone with high Endurance was stabbed, a mysterious force prevented them from dying. It was Allen’s first time experiencing this strange phenomenon.
Even so, Allen was absolutely overwhelming Helgei. With his Agility-based build, he was raining attacks on the man who was not only held in place by the Stone Ds, but was also too tall to properly strike down where Allen was. Consequently, Allen was now basically hacking away at the man one-sidedly.
“Guh!”
As a finishing move, Allen kicked the man in the stomach, sending him slamming against the wall of the storeroom. Helgei’s head drooped as he finally lost consciousness. At that exact moment, an announcement came over the speakers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for riding with us. Our magic ship, the Bahona, will be arriving in Carnel City shortly. We have begun our descent, so kindly please remain in your seats.”
I finally managed to take him out, but I’m running out of time. Gotta free Cecil right now.
Allen could physically feel the magic ship’s descent as it shook even harder than before. Once it docked, the two children would have nowhere left to run. He hurried over to Cecil.
“Lady Cecil, I will untie you now.”
“Mmmh...” Cecil, who had seen the fight from start to finish, was in a stunned daze. Allen pretended not to notice as he proceeded to tear her bindings apart.
“Come on now, what the fuck happened here? How’d a single brat get the jump on all of them? These babysitters the client hired sure are weak!”
Suddenly, Dagrah, the hit man hired by Viscount Carnel, walked in. He was startled at the large beasts all around, then eyed them warily. Without missing a beat, Allen immediately let go of Cecil’s ropes and turned around while calling out a new Stone D.
“OOF!”
“MMMMPH!”
Before Allen had managed to do his Summoning, however, he already found himself slammed against the wall. He had been kicked in his side so hard that several of his ribs broke.
Shit! This guy’s so fast! Does he have a scouting build? It looked like he straight-up disappeared for a split second.
Thanks to the vision provided by the Bird G remaining in the storeroom, Allen had known exactly where Dagrah had been even while he was facing Cecil. However, he could not perform Summoning through the eyes of a Shared Summon, so he still needed to turn around to look in person. It turned out that tiny window of time was more than enough for the hit man to close the distance. Within that split second, Allen had been kicked against the wall so fast even he himself had disappeared from Bird G’s vision for a moment.
“What’s with that look? Never got hit with a skill before? Those guys were seriously trash, getting taken out by a brat like this.”
Continuing to maintain a wary distance from the Summons, Dagrah drew the rapier from his waist and slowly approached Allen.
So that was a skill just now? No, no, I don’t have time to analyze it right now. Fighting here is not an option. That leaves me only one choice.
Allen understood from that one blow that this opponent was far too strong for him to fight. He used a Leaf of Life to heal himself, then...
“Dagrah, what’s taking you so damn long?!”
“Wha—?! Your Lordship, why are you here?!”
Dagrah whirled toward the corner of the storeroom where Viscount Carnel’s voice had just sounded from. Of course, this was due to Bird G using its Ability, Voice Mimic, to speak using the viscount’s voice. The instant Dagrah was caught off guard, Insect D wrapped him up with Spider Silk. Allen threw his short sword into Storage, dashed over to grab Cecil, then darted past Dagrah and through the open door.
“ARGH!” the man groaned in annoyance. “What the fuck is this?!”
Looks like Spider Silk isn’t slowing him all that much. Brons, seal the passage behind us.
Allen dashed down the corridor outside, but it took almost no time for Dagrah to break through the silky threads and give chase. While running, Allen turned around for a split second to Summon two Stone Ds. As this corridor was only about two meters high and less than three meters across, the bronze statues made for very effective obstacles. From the other side, the Insect Gs and other Rank D Summons that had remained out all this time surged toward the man as one unit, doing their best to slow him down.
During that time, Allen tore up the stairs at his top speed.
One Bron just got done in. I’m running out of time. Should I make my way to where the other passengers are? No, we’d still get caught eventually. That leaves...
Currently, Allen and Cecil were in the passage with the door that led outside that Allen had found while scouting earlier. He could see the ground gradually drawing near through the glass window. Magic tools similar to searchlights illuminated the landing pad so that the vessel would not crash; this made it easy for Allen to accurately gauge exactly how high up they still were.
He gently set Cecil down, then wrestled the door open. A gale roared up, but he ignored it and stuck his head through the doorframe to look down—there were still more than a hundred meters to the ground.
“Lady Cecil, I’m sorry. We’ll be jumping down, but please don’t worry.”
“MMMGH?!”
Cecil seemed to be saying something, but it only came out as meaningless grunts.
Gotta change up my cards to raise my Endurance. Bron would be able to raise my HP too, but I don’t have enough time.
The Beast D cards in the card holders were quickly replaced with Insect Ds for their Endurance buff. Stone cards required multiple steps of Synthesizing, so Allen had to settle for Insect for now.
“It’s fine, milady. I should have enough Endurance. Stat points don’t lie!” Honestly, at this point, even Allen was not sure what he was saying.
“MMMMMMNNPH!”
Cecil used every single part of her body to express her resistance. However, even though she was moving even more violently than she had in the storeroom, Allen paid her no mind. He fetched his mantle from Storage and wrapped it around her just in case, then hugged her close so as to not drop her.
“So then, here goes! Allen, taking off!”
As Cecil desperately pleaded with him not to, tears spilling from her eyes, Allen stepped out from the magic ship into the beautiful starry night sky.
Chapter 13: Flight
Allen leaped out of the magic ship with Cecil in his arms. They were more than a hundred meters above ground, but he was almost certain that he would be fine with his current stats thanks to his level and card buffs.
Several seconds later, he slammed into the ground with tremendous force, feet first. The impact caused the beautifully laid stone pavement to shatter into a thousand pieces.
FUUUUCK, that hurt!
The bones in both of Allen’s legs snapped, unable to bear the shock of the landing. However, he immediately used a Leaf of Life to restore himself to full health the next instant.
He checked to see if Cecil had gotten hurt during the fall. To his relief, aside from a few stone fragments that had hit the mantle she was wrapped in, she was entirely fine.
All right. As expected, we managed to escape without Cecil getting hurt, although I did end up using a Leaf of Life. Honestly, the shock didn’t even travel up to my arms. That Endurance stat is really showing its worth here.
Allen’s understanding of Endurance as a stat was that it served as a shock absorber for all physical damage to his body. From what he observed in himself every day, having higher Endurance did not translate to having more muscles. Rather than his body getting bulky or his skin becoming as tough as metal, it was as if there was a protective membrane around him that helped alleviate incoming damage proportionate to the stat. This time, Allen had just fallen more than a hundred meters with his and Cecil’s weight combined. It was not surprising that he had taken damage—his legs did shatter—but thanks to the effect of the Endurance stat, the shock from the impact had been suppressed, leaving Cecil unaffected.
“Lady Cecil, I will free you from your restraints now.”
Just in case, Allen had used a Leaf of Life on Cecil as well right after the fall. Even so, he still carefully checked to make sure she was fine, then used his short sword to slice through all her ropes.
“Allen! How could you just—!”
The moment Cecil was freed, every inch of her body expressed her indignation toward Allen’s unbelievable actions. However, Allen had no time to hear her out. He wrapped his mantle around her shoulders once again.
“I’m truly sorry, milady. The magic ship will be landing soon.”
This should do. It’ll provide some protection just in case any pursuers shoot arrows at us.
“Allen, listen to me! Where’d you take this cape out from?! And what was that just n—”
“Lady Cecil!”
“Wh-What?”
“Our top priority at the moment is to take you somewhere safe. Therefore, we will leave this place immediately. Please climb onto my back so I can carry you.”
Allen’s tone was firm and brooked no protest. It would be hard to run with Cecil in a princess carry, so he was planning on giving her a piggyback ride instead. The magic ship seemed about to land at any moment. Despite being disgruntled with the current situation, Cecil still obediently did as Allen requested.
“Wha— You’re going too fast!” Cecil cried as Allen started sprinting faster than a horse.
“Please hang on tight! Take care not to bite your tongue!”
We’ve got no time left. Horos, guide us to where we need to go!
Four owls appeared in midair, then dispersed to provide Allen with a comprehensive view of how Carnel City was laid out. He quickly worked out the shortest route to a city gate, then headed in that direction as fast as he could.
Nice, Dagrah went to report what happened to the viscount. Yes, please give us more time to get a head start.
All this time, Allen had been using the Bird G left inside the magic ship to continue keeping an eye on the situation onboard. He watched as Dagrah went to find one of Viscount Carnel’s men and explained how Allen and Cecil had escaped through a lower maintenance door of the ship. The viscount asked in an agitated voice, “They’re alive, right?! Tell me they’re alive!” However, Dagrah could only shake his head and say that there was no way to confirm until they were back on ground. He was currently in the middle of explaining that, considering the altitude, there was definitely a chance that both children had died.
While on the fly, Allen quickly changed his card distribution.
Insect D: 44
Bird G: 2
Bird D: 4
The kidnappers seem really flustered. After all, this world has never even heard of a Tamer class before. My Summons were probably a huge shock.
In the games that Allen had played in his previous life, there had been a class that functioned similarly to Summoner: Tamer. The main difference between the two was what kind of creatures they each used to do their bidding, with Tamers using monsters they encountered and tamed and Summoners calling forth beings not normally found in the wild.
As he ran, Allen recalled when he had broached the topic with Raven. The adventurer had said emphatically, “There’s no way anyone can tame a monster!” Based on that, Allen had concluded that this world did not have Taming as a class—the idea had never even occurred to the inhabitants.
This explained why the kidnappers had been so bewildered upon seeing Allen’s Summons. If this had been a world where everyone understood the concept of Tamers, their reactions would have been very different.
The gates of Carnel City were still open. When Allen produced the crest of House Granvelle, the guards let them through without giving them trouble, being good enough at their job to recognize the crest from a neighboring realm. Allen was aware that, as a boy in a servant’s uniform carrying a girl on his back, he looked quite suspicious. However, it apparently was not enough of a reason for them to detain him.
All right, we’re out. The mountain range is that direction, right?
The stars shone brightly, illuminating Allen’s way as he took off at a run. The first order of business was to distance themselves from Carnel City. Once they got their bearings, then they would head back to Granvelle City.
It’s a relief we managed to get out of the city. Now we’ll have to find the White Dragon Mountains and take a detour around the north of the range. I wonder how many days it’s gonna take us...
After running for a while longer, Allen finally stopped to allow Cecil some rest. She stared as he openly took out an illumination magic tool, water, and foodstuffs from Storage.
A little time into their rest, however, the Bird D that Allen had instructed to remain on standby above the magic ship landing pad caught sight of a troubling development. A group of people had gathered around the conspicuous crater in the pavement where he and Cecil had landed earlier.
Looks like Viscount Carnel’s giving out instructions...and Dagrah’s there too. I guess without our bodies being there, it’s pretty obvious that we survived.
The viscount was gesticulating furiously at the men grouped around him. As Allen continued keeping an eye on the situation through Bird D so as to glean any information he could about any prospective pursuers, he noticed Dagrah cutting the viscount off and making some sort of argument. The Summon was too high in the sky to hear what was actually being said. However, just as Allen was focusing his attention on the Shared feed, Dagrah’s body blurred for a split second, followed by an aura bursting out from it. The next instant, he took off in a flash.
Damn, he’s fast! I knew it; he must have a class similar to a Scout. His Agility stat has to be at least Rank A, if not S.
As Allen continued watching, Dagrah made a beeline for the gate that Allen had left from.
Hm? He’s heading out of the city?
After passing through the gate, the hit man continued running.
Wait, don’t tell me he’s...?
Allen finally realized that Dagrah was running in a straight line right toward Cecil’s and his current location.
Shit! Oh, shit! How is he...? He’s gotta be using a skill.
Judging by how quickly Dagrah was closing the distance, it was clear that he could tell where Allen was, perhaps thanks to the help of a tracking ability tied to his class.
“Lady Cecil, I’m very sorry. There are already pursuers on our tail, so we must resume moving immediately.”
“Huh? O-Okay.”
Dagrah was fast, true, but after rearranging his cards just now, Allen now had more than 2,000 Agility. Despite being handicapped by shouldering Cecil, he should be able to stay ahead for quite a while longer. And so the game of tag began.
Sure enough, Allen stayed ahead, but he never managed to actually throw the man off his trail. He tried various tricks, such as veering in a completely different direction and purposely crossing a river without using the bridge, but nothing seemed to faze the hit man. Even though he was lagging behind quite significantly, Dagrah still managed to stick closely to Allen’s trail.
The Scout class sure is capa— Oh look, a town!
The Bird D that was scouting ahead had just spotted a sizable town. Its gates appeared to be closed, but Allen still veered toward it. Soon enough, they got close enough to where even Cecil noticed the watch fires that dotted the town wall, giving it away.
“Are we going into that town?”
“Yes, milady.”
“But the gate looks closed.”
“It does indeed. I’ll think of something, so please play along.”
Here goes my attempt to lose Dagrah using the town.
“You there! Stop!”
When Allen approached the gate, the guard on lookout barked at him. A boy in a servant’s uniform carrying a young girl on his back dashing toward the town at an incredible speed this late at night naturally cut a very suspicious figure. Not only did the guard look wary, he even brought his spear up.
However, Allen, who was making a show of panting heavily, purposely ignored the man to talk to Cecil in a reassuring tone. “Phew, what a relief. We’ve finally reached a town, milady. Please hold on just a little longer.”
“O-Okay...”
Only then did Allen turn back to the guard. “Mr. Guard, I’m really sorry, but can you let us into the town, please?”
“Y-You know I can’t. We closed this gate ages ago. There’s no way I can let you in. Besides, you seem awfully suspicious, arriving at this time of night.”
“But we aren’t suspicious at all, Mr. Guard.” Allen produced his crest.
“So you’re from House Granvelle...” The man faltered slightly. However, the fact still remained that someone from the family of the baron of the neighboring realm arriving this late at night made very little sense. “Wh-Why are you even out this late?”
“Unfortunately, our carriage broke down a distance away. It’s in such bad shape that it won’t be able to move anymore without attention. However, milady insisted that she could not bear to sleep outside.”
Allen lied as naturally as he breathed. He made a show to convey how troubled he felt dealing with a broken-down carriage and a demanding mistress. Cecil was dumbfounded at suddenly having all the fault shoved onto her, forgetting to back up Allen’s claim.
“So, that’s what happened?” The guard crossed his arms and groaned. “Even so...”
Oh? Looks like I only need one more push. Dagrah is almost upon us, so I can’t afford to spend any more time here.
“I’m aware that I’m asking for a lot, Mr. Guard. However, would this be enough to convince you to overlook this?”
Allen surreptitiously pressed something into the man’s hand. The guard started, then examined it closely; gold glinted in the light of the watch fires.
“W-Well, I can see that you’re clearly in need of a break. Just saying, though, the inns are all closed by now.”
“I’ll figure something out,” Allen replied, insinuating that he would use money to “convince” an innkeeper to let them stay. The guard shook his head wryly while opening the small door to the side of the gate.
After entering the town, however, Allen immediately turned off the main street, heading deeper and deeper down the alleyways in an irregular, zigzagging path.
“Aren’t we staying at an inn, Allen?”
“We are not, milady.”
There were multiple lodgings along the main street, but Allen had ignored them all. Just as Cecil asked him where they were going, the Bird D monitoring the town gate spotted Dagrah.
Ugh. Just as I’d feared, he does own some form of permit.
After showing the gate guard something, Dagrah also entered the town through the side door at the gate. Then the man took off again at a run.
All right, that confirms it: his skill enables him to follow my footsteps. What a relief that it’s not a mapping skill.
Allen had just finished analyzing Dagrah’s tracking skill based on everything he had noticed during the past few hours. Back when he was Kenichi, he had experienced playing a large variety of classes in his games. Most of the time, he chose classes that focused on dealing damage, such as warrior and mage. He was all about those big DPS numbers using powerful weapons or spells, respectively. In short, he was a bit of a meathead player. Consequently, he was not all that familiar with classes that relied on trickery, like Scout. That said, he knew quite a bit about them. And to his knowledge, there were two main kinds of tracking skills.
Enables the player to see visible tracks left on the ground by the target
Enables the player to see the target’s coordinates on the in-game map
Allen could now say with certainty that the skill Dagrah was using belonged to the first type. After all, he was precisely following all the detours that Allen had made, including crossing the river where Allen had instead of taking the bridge. Even now, the man was wasting his time weaving through the alleyways. If he had known Allen’s exact coordinates, he would not have gone to such trouble.
All right, time to try losing him.
“Milady, I’m going to be jumping. Please hold on tight.”
“Wha—?!”
With a powerful leap, Allen landed on the roof of the nearby building and took off again, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Due to constantly chasing Allen’s tracks, Dagrah had his head down most of the time while running. Allen took care not to draw attention to his position up on the rooftops as he drew farther and farther away.
Hell yeah! Finally lost him! My analysis was spot on. You need a hundred years’ more experience to come after me! Mua ha ha!
Through Bird D’s eyes, Allen watched Dagrah freaking out at seeing Allen’s tracks seemingly vanish into thin air. He turned back as if he thought he had made a wrong turn somewhere. It apparently never crossed his mind that Allen would be taking countermeasures against being tracked and therefore never thought to check the rooftops. At the moment, Allen was already standing on top of the town’s wall.
“Aren’t you going to fight him, Allen?” Cecil asked suddenly. “You’re really strong, though.”
“I’m afraid he’s a bad match for me. I don’t think I would be able to beat him.”
Even if I went all-out without considering the consequences, my chances of victory are probably still below ten percent. My Summons are slow on their feet, and if I tried to set a trap for him and lay in wait, he’d probably just evade it. And even if I managed to land a few blows on him, he probably has HP potions on him. That’s it, we’re leaving town. Bron, come out!
Allen Summoned a Stone D on the ground outside the wall with its shield held aloft horizontally. He then jumped down onto the flat surface, Summoned another one a slight distance away in the same pose, and leaped over. After this, he repeatedly called out Brons and reverted them to card form so he could travel across their shields à la stepping stones. He did this for several kilometers in an effort to travel without leaving any tracks.
I wonder if Dagrah can see the tracks of my Summons the same way he can see mine. No idea, but it does seem like a good idea to do this every once in a while to throw him off the track a little.
As this method proved time-consuming, Allen reverted to running on the ground in spurts, alternating between the two at irregular intervals. In this way, he continued heading toward the northern tip of the White Dragon Mountains, which he had already located with Bird D. Once they passed the border checkpoint, they would be back in Granvelle territory.
A while later, Allen stopped and got to work preparing a camp for Cecil and himself. Unfortunately, the distance to Granvelle City was much farther than he could travel in just a day or two. Multiple Brons materialized to stand in a protective circle around the two children while Allen took out blankets and other camping equipment that he kept in Storage.
“So you do have a Talent after all...” Cecil murmured.
“Yes, I do. It’s quite convenient too; I can do a lot of things with it.”
“Why did you keep quiet about it?”
“Little good comes from parading one’s Talent, right?”
“I... Yes, I suppose so...”
“We’ll continue running tomorrow. Please rest up for now.”
“Aren’t you going to sleep too, Allen?”
“I will. Good night, Lady Cecil.”
“G-Good night, Allen.”
Now then. I hope we can get back within three or four days. I’m not sure I can last any longer than that.
While staring at Cecil’s sleeping face, Allen checked in on Dagrah through his Summon. His sleep tonight would be brief and fitful as he continued monitoring the situation.
Several hours later, what he had feared came to pass.
Ugh, he’s found the tracks on the roof. He sure knows what he’s doing.
As soon as his trick was out of the bag, Allen packed everything away, shouldered the still-groggy Cecil, then took off again. On the other hand, Dagrah soon reached the town wall. He descended but, upon failing to see Allen’s tracks yet again, started busily looking around.
Heh heh heh, how’s that? No tracks! Wait, what?
Allen was keeping an eye on Dagrah’s movements even as he himself was running. However, as soon as he realized the tracks were gone, Dagrah took off in one direction. After running several kilometers, he began running at an angle, alternating between left and right in intervals of several kilometers.
What is he doin— Oh, shit.
By doing so, Dagrah would eventually stumble upon Allen’s tracks. And sure enough, he picked up the trail soon enough and resumed the pursuit.
This isn’t good. I need to increase the distance where I run without tracks.
Although traveling by Summons did prove effective, Dagrah never failed to eventually discover where Allen had started running normally again. In response, Allen decided to spend more time using his Summons in order to be more thorough with erasing his trail. With Dagrah repeatedly losing and rediscovering Allen’s trail, the distance between the two increased and decreased in a seemingly endless loop.
＊ ＊ ＊
On the morning of the second day, Allen successfully managed to reach the northernmost border checkpoint. He was finally back in Granvelle territory.
“What’s wrong, Allen? Did something happen?”
“I’m sorry?”
The way Allen had immediately taken off again in a hurry after passing through the checkpoint had aroused Cecil’s suspicions.
Ugh, she’s caught on. I guess being honest is the best play here.
“I just lost Dagrah.”
“What?”
All this time, Allen had been keeping a constant eye on Dagrah through a Summon that he was Sharing with. He explained to Cecil that Dagrah was following them—as well as who he was—and that he had a tracking ability. Of course, this required that he reveal he also had a means of tracking someone.
A while ago, Dagrah had suddenly taken off at an incredible speed and lost the Bird E that had been following him from behind. Now Allen had several Bird Es flying around trying to regain a visual on the man. However, because he was running faster than the birds could fly, it was proving very difficult pinning him down.
So he did have a skill that supercharges his speed after all. I knew it.
Allen recalled when Dagrah had kicked him in the storeroom. The man had been so fast that he seemed to have disappeared for a split second in Allen’s eyes. However, whereas Allen had only seen Dagrah use it for the short distance that was the length of the storeroom, the hit man now proved that he could indeed use it for a prolonged period of time to traverse an incredible distance. He had vanished from Bird E’s vision in no time at all.
From her position on Allen’s back, Cecil suddenly said, completely out of character, “If you leave me behind, you’ll be able to get away no problem, right?”
“What are you saying, milady? I would never leave you behind.”
“But at this rate...”
Oh right, Cecil is only still twelve years old. It’s only natural for her to feel fainthearted in a situation like this.
The back-to-back days of being on the run had apparently gotten to Cecil and left her feeling quite timid and out of her element.
“Don’t worry, milady. We will safely make it back to Granvelle, together. I’ve got everything under control. I did make a promise, after all.”
“What promise?”
“I promised Master Mihai that I would protect you. And I keep my promises.”
Surprise flitted across Cecil’s face. After a short pause, she mumbled, “Thank you...” and buried her face in Allen’s shoulder.
I said the cool lines and all, but I really oughta prepare some insurance. Now that we’ve crossed the border, it’s about time.
Allen sent several Summons flying off into the distance as “insurance” and continued scouting the area using Hawk Eye in order to get a bead on Dagrah as soon as possible.
＊ ＊ ＊
The third day out of Carnel City started once again with Allen shouldering Cecil and taking off at a run early in the morning. He was hurrying with the aim of reaching Granvelle City within the next day.
At this time, there was a monster eyeing one Bird E from a distance away. The monster had learned that this bird’s presence indicated that a certain playmate, whom it once had so much fun with, was close by. Its half-human, half-doglike face with one squashed eye twisted into a sneer of sheer ecstasy before it set off at a bound.
The Bird E, which Allen was naturally Sharing with, eventually noticed the approaching monster. It was a being that he was very familiar with.
Huh?! It’s the murdergalsh from before. It’s heading straight for me.
The monster had managed to close the distance quite significantly before Allen caught sight of it. It was only several kilometers away by this point.
What should I do? Can I outrun it? My Agility’s gone up a lot more since three years ago.
Allen racked his brains trying to work out what the best course of action would be. He had Cecil on his back and no idea where Dagrah would pop out from. If possible, he preferred to avoid getting into combat. However...
“What’s wrong?”
As it turned out, Allen was not very good at maintaining a poker face. Either that, or Cecil had an exceptionally sharp intuition. Either way, she picked up on the change in his demeanor almost immediately.
“Huh? Ah, well...we’re now being chased by a murdergalsh too.”
“What?!”
Allen candidly explained that the monster was several kilometers away and currently heading straight for their location.
“In this situation, being chased by two pursuers at the same time will make things very complicated, so I’m considering killing the murdergalsh first before going any farther.”
With my current abilities and stats, I should be able to kill the murdergalsh. The best way to handle this is to kill it first before continuing on.
“You...can beat a murdergalsh?”
“I think so. After all, it wouldn’t be my first time fighting it.” I fully analyzed what it’s capable of three years ago.
“All right.” Cecil believed in Allen’s strength, so much so that when he said he could win, she did not question it.
Several minutes later, the murdergalsh had caught up to them. Allen faced off against it, with Cecil already hidden safely a distance away.
Okay, now that Cecil is safe, it’s time to get rid of this pest.
“AAAAAUUUUHHH!”
With a human-dog face, a humanlike upper torso and arms, and a wolflike lower torso, this one-eyed murdergalsh was the very one that had chased Allen for three days straight all those years ago. The five-meter-tall monster was so excited about getting to fight him again that it was unable to wipe the smirk off its face.
“Look, mutt, I don’t have much time. Let’s get this done and over with.”
After declaring that he would instant K.O. the murdergalsh, Allen Summoned twenty Beast Ds around the monster and sent them all charging in at once. It was the same simple strategy that had worked on both orc kings and armored queen ants: whittle the enemy down with sheer numbers.
As expected, Spider Silk isn’t very effective. It’s not lowering the mudergalsh’s speed by any noticeable degree. There’s no point in using up card slots for them when I can have more Beast Ds instead. Ah, Brons, hold it down!
Based on his experience fighting against other Rank B monsters, Allen came up with the idea to use four Stone Ds to hold the murdergalsh down from all four sides. This made it much easier for the Beast Ds to land their attacks, which meant the battle could finish faster and with fewer Beast D casualties.
Even so, Beast Ds kept getting killed one after the other. At the same time, Allen’s grimoire flapped furiously overhead, Creating, Strengthening, and Summoning more as replacements. The Teddys continued spamming Crush, drawing blood from all over the murdergalsh’s body. As it writhed in pain, Allen kept throwing iron balls at its remaining left eye.
If possible, Allen wanted to completely rob the monster of its sight. Even if he himself got done in, there was a chance for Cecil to survive. However, Allen was having difficulty getting his throws to land, even with his stats being so much higher after all the level-ups and buffs from cards. Without the element of surprise on his side, the murdergalsh had no issue swatting all the iron balls down.
An orc king would have already died by now. I guess this is an upper Rank B for you. But still, I think we’re almost there.
About ten minutes in, the murdergalsh was bleeding from all over and seemed on the verge of collapsing. That very moment, however, it flexed its back legs and leaped with every ounce of strength it had remaining.
“AUUUUUUH!”
“Huh?!”
CRAAAAASH.
After running out of iron balls, Allen had retreated about twenty or so meters back to direct his Summons from a safe distance away. However, in the blink of an eye, the murdergalsh came crashing down at his location. In a panic, Allen willed all the Beast Ds to rush back to his side, but they were too far away. He had kept four Stone Ds at his side just now as a precaution, but the monster swept them all away with a single blow, desperate adrenaline coursing through its body. Then it grabbed Allen with both its hands and started squeezing him like an iron vise.
Uh-oh, am I in trouble now?
“A-ALLEEEEEN!” Cecil screamed from her position at the far back from which she had been observing the fight.
Allen shouted back, “I-I’m fine, milady!” but Cecil very much doubted it.
While he braced himself against the murdergalsh’s grip, his grimoire repeatedly Created and Synthesized cards in a frenzied fury. At the same time, he did his best to reassure Cecil and warn her not to approach.
Despite bleeding all over, the murdergalsh was back to smirking with its hair-raisingly disgusting grin. It stared closely at Allen as it gradually clenched harder and harder, fully intent on slowly torturing the boy instead of killing him off in one swift strike.
Allen was supposed to have died a while ago being crushed in this way. Sure enough, his bones shattered and he spat up blood, but he managed to hold on by using Leaves of Life liberally. Several minutes later, the murdergalsh suddenly loosened its grip, grabbed Allen by his head, then chomped on him with an affected air. Its fangs pierced his abdomen, sending blood exploding like a fountain. From her position in the distance, Cecil crumbled to her knees, mumbling Allen’s name in a small voice filled with despair.
Just as it seemed like everything was over...
“So, mutt. Turns out you’re the type who eats from the tail first instead of the head. I had you pegged wrong.”
With a single utterance referencing the two ways of eating fish-shaped taiyaki, Allen got out his short sword from Storage and held it firmly in his hand.
Since you ate me from the bottom first, I’ll attack you...here!
Allen used every last ounce of strength he could muster in his upper body and jabbed the short sword directly into the murdergalsh’s left eye.
“AAAAAUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH!”
The monster screamed in absolute agony and flailed around, scattering gelatinous vitreous humor everywhere.
Perfect. Now both its eyes are gone. To follow up...
Allen wiggled the short sword, pushing it deeper. Soon, his entire arm was buried within the gushing eyeball. Even so, he continued pushing with all his might.
“How’s that for size, eh, mutt? If you don’t bite down harder, I just might finish you off first!”
Despite the sword in its eye, the murdergalsh still refused to spit Allen back out. It tried biting harder to finish the boy off, but for some reason, its teeth could not clamp down any further.
“Tough, right? And I’m only going to get tougher. It’s your loss, and the reason is because you took your sweet time instead of killing me straight off.”
The instant he had gotten caught, Allen had started changing the cards in his holders to Stone D, which buffed his HP and Endurance by 20. As a result of him Creating forty-eight copies of it, his HP was closing in on 2,000 and his Endurance was almost 1,500.
When it figured out that it could not crush Allen with its teeth, the murdergalsh shifted to crushing him with its hands. Allen paid its efforts no mind, focusing solely on driving his sword in further.
“Listen up, you mutt. Stats never let you down.”
There was no way to determine the murdergalsh’s exact stats, but the fact that it could not kill Stone Ds with Defend activated meant that its Attack had to be under 2,000. Based on this fact, Allen figured that he was more than capable of finishing off this monster if he continued using Leaves of Life. During the brief naps he had caught during this journey, he had created hundreds of them just in case Dagrah really did catch up.
How long has it been since I felt such an adrenaline rush? This is what I’m talking about!
A similar situation had happened to Allen in his previous life. When he faced a boss that was capable of ending him in several hits, he had to keep a close eye on his HP and rely on spamming healing items while slowly whittling the monster’s HP down. He was doing the same thing here, constantly casting glances at his grimoire to see how much HP he had remaining and carefully timing the uses of Leaves of Life.
The sword had already reached the bone behind the eye and was still going deeper. Although the bone stopped the sword, Allen continued pushing until cracks began forming.
Before long...
“AAAAAAUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHH!!!”
The socket shattered and gave way for the sword to reach the monster’s brain. The murdergalsh screamed the loudest it ever had, then collapsed to the ground. It spat Allen out and convulsed violently, but eventually stopped moving altogether.
<You have defeated 1 murdergalsh. You have earned 82,000 XP.>
“Hmm, this is my complete and utter victory. Though the bottom half of my body is now all sticky and gross.”
“ALLEN!” Cecil rushed over. She looked at Allen from head to toe, checking for injuries.
“Now, what should we do?”
“What do you m— Oh no.”
The next instant after sighing with relief at seeing Allen alive and well, Cecil noticed the man who had just showed up. It was, of course, Dagrah.
“I finally caught up with you little shits!” Dagrah screeched. He was so furious that his voice broke.
Ah, he’s really pissed.
“You aren’t getting away anymore!”
So he’s finally caught us. Though I’d already realized he would when the murdergalsh bit me.
Not a single one of the Bird Es that had been scouting in the sky remained. The moment he had found Dagrah again, the need for scouting had disappeared. He had replaced the cards with more Stone Ds instead.
Dagrah approached, one step at a time. It was as if time had slowed down. He shot a glance at the dead murdergalsh by Allen’s side, but did not seem particularly interested. A mere murdergalsh was not worth his attention. When he directed his gaze back toward Allen, Allen returned the look and pushed Cecil behind himself protectively.
I have no more iron balls left, and my short sword is still inside the murdergalsh. My Summons are too slow to match Dagrah’s speed. But funnily enough, when I have so few options, it makes it easy to figure out what I have to do.
“Please stand back, Lady Cecil!” Allen shouted, spreading both hands as wide as he could. “I’ll hold him back!” Hopefully, he’ll focus his attention on me now.
“What’s this? The model servant, ain’tcha? You’re putting your own life on the line? That sorta shit really pisses me off!”
Dagrah used some special power to close in on Allen at high speed and kicked him far away.
“Oof!” Seriously? I was looking right at him and he still disappeared from view. My eyes can’t keep up at all.
“Allen!” Cecil screamed, rushing over. However, Dagrah sent her flying with a slap. She lost consciousness from that single blow.
“What’s the matter?” Dagrah asked mockingly. “You not gonna attack me? C’mon, bring out those monsters of yours again.” When Allen remained silent, he smirked. “I see. You used up all your MP fighting this monster?”
After shaking his head to regain his cool, Allen returned, “And haven’t you used up your MP chasing us too? How about saving some for your trip home?”
Dagrah scoffed. “I obviously have MP potions, duh. Don’t put me on the same level as you.”
Looks like we have a chatterbox here. Good, good. So, he does use MP for his skills. This confirms a hypothesis that I’d had all along.
“Brats like you need proper education.”
“What could someone who ran away from the battlefield after a year with his tail between his legs teach me?”
“Y-You fucking piece of shit!”
Allen once again lost sight of Dagrah and found himself blasted through the air. The man was so furious that he felt he had to give the boy a slow and thorough thrashing. As the blows fell like rain, Allen worked out a certain question in his mind. Specifically, what skills were. To his understanding, there were three types in this world.
First, the kind that Allen had received along with his grimoire when he turned one (e.g., Summoning, Creation)
Second, the kind that he gained by repeating the relevant action (e.g., Sword Mastery, Throwing)
Third, Extra Skills (which Allen did not possess)
The first difference between the first and second types that came to mind was whether they cost MP or not. Throwing did not cost MP, but Summoning did—at least, it did during the Creation stage. This led to the next question: how were skills displayed on the Status screens of everyone else in this world? What Dagrah just said had provided a hint to the answer. His indirect confirmation that he had to spend MP to use his skills meant his Status window most likely looked like the following.
Dagrah’s Status Window (According to Allen’s Prediction)
Skills: Scout {5}, Steal {5}, Swift Foot {4}, Sharp Hearing, Stealthy Steps, Presence Sensing, Sword Mastery {5}
Extra Skill: Tracking
Dagrah likely had a basic skill corresponding to his class—like how Allen had Summoning—as well as a few others that branched off of his capabilities as a Scout that became unlocked with each level-up of the basic skill.
The answer had been in front of my face at the very start. It was written right there in the explanation text for Hell Mode that I read before I came over to this world. The text implies that everyone with a class gets a skill tied to said class. Cecil’s Status window very likely has Magic {1} or something similar.
Hell Mode
The only skills you start out with are the ones tied to your class...
One way that those with a class were distinct from those without was how much their stats increased upon leveling up. However, this was something that could only be seen in their Status windows and generally could not be objectively determined or confirmed by anyone else, short of getting Appraised. Allen had come to the conclusion that there was one other, much easier method to determine whether someone had a class or not: whether they had a skill—or skills—that required MP to activate that could only be developed by repeatedly spending MP.
Dagrah is so strong because he has a class and he’s diligently raised both his level and his skill levels.
“What a creepy-ass little shit you are. The fuck you grinning about?”
“Guh!”
To think that someone with a mere one- or two-star class can get this strong! Just how powerful can I, with my eight-star class, get?
A broad grin covered Allen’s face from ear to ear even though he was being endlessly beaten with blows faster than he could follow.
An hour later, Allen laid on the ground looking like a ragged dishcloth, with Dagrah standing over him, breathing heavily.
“How the fuck are you so tough? You a Monk class? Is that monster over there related somehow?”
Even Dagrah did not start out with the intention of beating up Allen for a whole hour. He had shifted from torturing the boy to seriously trying to kill him quite a while ago, but due to the stat buffs from his cards raising his HP and Endurance to ridiculous numbers, combined with his spamming of Leaves of Life, Allen had managed to doggedly cling onto life this entire time.
“Are you done attacking me? Then you should turn back and return to Carnel City. Before you get killed.”
He even used his freaking mithril rapier on me! That actually hurt like crazy. Ugh, I’m almost out of Leaves of Life. Once you go down, I’m taking that rapier of yours.
“Hah! Who’s gonna kill me? You?”
“You still can’t tell? I see, so you don’t have area detection abilities, despite having a Scout-like class.” I’m really learning so much from this encounter.
“The fuck you talking about? Even if you stall for time, you’re still gonna die in the end.”
“It took you way too long...”
“What do you m—” Dagrah cut himself off as he suddenly noticed the dust cloud being thrown up by someone approaching at an incredible speed. As he stepped back from Allen and raised his guard, Captain Zenof suddenly appeared before his eyes.
“Hm, are you still alive?” the knight asked calmly.
“Honestly, I’m only hanging on by a thread. Couldn’t you have run faster please?” replied the parrot on the knight captain’s shoulder with Allen’s voice.
“Come now, you know I can’t run as fast as you. And here you are, still alive. I would say I made it in time.”
There was a Bird E circling in the sky above. When Allen passed through the border checkpoint, he had sent off a Bird E and a Bird G together, the former to find Zenof, the latter to explain the situation to him. Having already learned about Allen’s ability beforehand, the man believed the Summons immediately and promptly rushed over.
Heh heh. Go get ’em for me, please, Boss.
Allen was not picky with how his enemies went down. If the knight captain would do it for him, then he was more than happy to yield the challenge.
“Hmph, Zenof.”
“That’s my name.”
Oh? Dagrah knows Zenof? Is it because they were on the battlefield together?
“Look at this parasite leeching off of a noble, showing up like he’s hot stuff.”
Uh, you’re employed by a noble too, aren’t you?
“A ‘parasite leeching off of a noble’?”
“You heard me. I’m sure you know what I mean. You saw how nobles use commoners like they’re disposable pawns on the battlefield, didn’t you?”
“Well, can’t argue with that.”
“Right? And those who fight with their lives on the line for those shitty nobles are shit themselves. That includes you.”
“Is that so?”
“What did you get for protecting that stupid fortress for ten years? Now you’re only leading a ragtag bunch of sorry excuses for knights here in this godforsaken countryside. What a reward! Sounds like the biggest fucking joke ever.”
Right after speaking, Dagrah abruptly disappeared. The dirt and grass being kicked up into a cloud indicated that he had not fled but was still around, just moving too fast for Allen’s eyes to register.
“Allen, stand back,” Zenof said, his voice like naked steel. “You’ll get caught up otherwise.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The anger in Zenof’s voice was so palpable and terrifying that Allen was already backing up before he knew it. He unconsciously stumbled backward even more due to surprise as, in the next moment, an aura sprang up around the knight captain’s body like a heat haze as he slowly drew his sword.
I see, this visual effect must be the indicator of someone using their Extra Skill. Which reminds me, Captain Zenof never used it when he fought the orc king.
Even in a situation like this, Allen discovered a new fact.
“Where do you think yer lookin’ at?! Die, you insect!”
Dagrah abruptly reappeared and thrust his rapier straight at Zenof’s heart. However, the weapon stopped at the man’s chest, refusing to dig in any further.
*
“We fought for everyone’s sake,” Zenof growled. “Then all my brothers-in-arms died, every last one of them, leaving me the sole survivor.”
“Fuck! How fucking hard are you?”
Dagrah ignored what Zenof was saying and desperately focused on pushing his rapier forward. It penetrated the knight’s armor, but despite him using both hands, the tip of the weapon failed to draw even a single drop of blood.
Wow, his Endurance must be really high. So this is a Sword Master. I probably can’t even imagine just how much fighting he must have done on the battlefield.
Clearly, Dagrah’s Attack stat was nowhere near enough to hurt the knight captain with his rare two-star class, Sword Master.
“We all risked our lives and fought with every last drop of blood we had! No one—no one is allowed to deny what we did!”
Zenof raised his sword and brought it down, bisecting Dagrah’s body diagonally from the shoulder. The slash generated a shockwave that roared a hundred meters into the distance, tearing the ground apart and sending grass and dirt bursting into the air. Allen gasped at the raw power of the knight captain’s Extra Skill.
And this was how the three-day-long game of tag between Allen and Dagrah came to an end.
Chapter 14: Starting a New Quest
The day after Zenof killed Dagrah, Allen and Cecil finally made it back to Granvelle City. When Allen stopped before the front gate to look up at the mansion with Cecil on his back, the guard recognized them right away and rushed inside to inform the baron of their return. The sight of his flustered response convinced the pair that they had truly come home.
Phew, we’re finally back. Feels like it’s been ages since I last saw the mansion. So, my spoils from the past few days are the murdergalsh’s Rank B magic stone and Dagrah’s mithril rapier.
The magic stone was a given, since he was the one who had killed the monster, but Allen considered it a stroke of fortune gaining the rapier too. The knight captain had told him to take it. Apparently Allen was terrible at hiding his thoughts; his face made it clear as day just how much he had wanted the weapon.
“Lady Cecil, I’m setting you down now.”
“All right.”
The knight captain had accompanied the children for the remainder of their return journey. However, it was Allen, not Zenof, who had carried Cecil back on his back. He did not let her down right until before the door to the house. When they stepped inside, they found all the members of the baron’s family waiting in the entrance hall.
“Cecil...”
“Father, I am back.”
Even though this was supposed to be a touching reunion, everyone’s eyes were on Allen, not Cecil. When the baron noticed this and turned to look at him, the relief on his face immediately gave way to alarm.
He barked at Sebas, “Call a doctor right now!”
“Yes, Master!”
After nearly being eaten by the murdergalsh, then getting pummeled and slashed by Dagrah for over an hour, Allen’s current appearance was absolutely deplorable. His clothes were now mere rags wrapped around his body, their design barely held together by the last few threads. The ripped edges were plastered with the blood he had lost when he suffered each wound. Given how he looked, anyone would conclude that he was on the verge of death.
However, when he realized that everyone was worried for him, Allen swung his arms in an exaggerated manner. “No, no, I’m entirely fine! I’ve already used recovery potions on myself!”
Another lesson learned: I should keep several sets of my uniform inside Storage. That, and I need to take countermeasures against getting poisoned. Of course, that includes stocking up on antidotes, but...I wonder if there are items that help protect against the kind of instant-acting sleeping agent that got me this time?
Through this incident, Allen had learned a lot of information that he otherwise would not have cooped up in the White Dragon Mountains, hunting solo. He was aware that this had proven to be quite the educational experience indeed. Being able to test several of his hypotheses in his fight with Dagrah had been a boon. For example, no message had appeared in the grimoire when Dagrah died, meaning that killing humans did not yield any XP.
This incident gave me so much.
Allen was instructed to come to the dining hall to deliver his report after taking a bath. Everyone was then dismissed. Water was drawn up for him and he got to enjoy his first-ever bath at the mansion.
When he walked into the dining hall wearing brand-new clothes, he was urged to take the seat at the middle of the long dinner table. The baron usually sat at the end of the table, but today he had adopted the position directly across from Allen. Cecil soon arrived as well.
The baron started the conversation. “I’m sure you’re tired, having just gotten back, but we have to decide our next move. Explain in detail everything that happened.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Since everyone was present, Allen began his account. He told of being kidnapped and stowed aboard the magic ship, the conversation he overheard between Viscount Carnel and the royal envoy, jumping off the magic ship and running toward Granvelle City on foot, encountering and killing the murdergalsh along the way, being caught by Dagrah, and eventually being saved by the knight captain.
“I see. So there’s no doubt that Viscount Carnel is the mastermind.”
“Yes, my lord. He is working with the royal envoy who visited the other day. Their aim is the mining rights of all the mithril mines.”
Allen explained how the royal envoy needed money to prop up the judicial vice-minister, a man from his own faction, as the new judicial minister. The viscount, who had been relying on mithril money to throw his weight around all this time, was now in dire straits without that income. Thus the two plotted to seize half the mining rights from Granvelle. It would really throw a wrench in their plans if Baron Granvelle were to bring the matter directly to the royal family, who were not in on the con. This was why they had kidnapped Cecil, to keep the baron in check.
“So that’s what happened. Thank you for telling me, Allen. Sebas, we’re heading to the royal palace now!”
“Understood, Master.”
The baron had both fists clenched on top of the table—Allen had never seen him look this furious. The rage from having his daughter taken away from him fueled his burning desire to have the viscount and envoy charged and thrown behind bars as soon as possible.
He’s heading to the royal palace? Now? Just like that? Alarm bells went off in Allen’s head before he asked out loud, “My lord, may I ask what you will be doing at the palace?”
“Isn’t it obvious? To let His Majesty know of everything that Viscount Carnel did. I’m sure he would take action on a matter such as this.”
You being sure won’t be enough, though. That might be true if you were up against the viscount alone, but what do you plan on doing about the royal envoy? He’d likely just give some random excuse and cut the viscount off like a lizard’s tail. If all the blame falls on the viscount, the envoy gets off scot-free.
“I have a suggestion for how to resolve this incident. May I share it?”
Allen and the baron had been the only people talking all this time. The rest of the baron’s family was present, as was the knight captain, but understandably, everyone’s attention was focused on Allen, the person who had literally risked his life to save Cecil.
“Let’s hear it.”
“My lord, I want to give you all thirty percent of the mining rights I possess.” The entire dining hall gasped in shock, but Allen paid them no mind. “Please use that share of the rights to convince the royal family to thoroughly investigate what happened and to set up safeguards so that it doesn’t happen again.”
The baron’s face froze. “Y-You mean, b-bribe the royal family t-t-to take action on my behalf?” he stuttered, clearly shaken. “To do the very thing Viscount Carnel did?”
“That is correct, my lord.” I mean, you did try to do the same thing to get Cecil exempted from her duty, right? Though I guess that’s a bit different.
“B-But, that’s...”
“Knights fight in the manner befitting knights. However, my lord, you are a noble. The way I see it, nobles ought to fight in their own manner.”
“Fighting...in the manner befitting nobles?”
“Yes, my lord. Would you please look down at your hands on the table?”
“Hm? Why?”
Allen commanded the entire dining hall’s attention. The baron did as he was told, as if hypnotized. Everyone else also looked at his hands, curious where Allen was going with this.
“My lord, now is the time to dirty those hands. Please show us how you fight as a noble.”
Sebas blurted out, “Allen, watch what you say!” He could not help himself after seeing Allen so blatantly overstep his bounds as manservant.
“No, it’s fine, Sebas.”
“Master—” The butler cut himself off as he saw the tears streaming down his master’s face.
Staring at his own hands with a brooding look, the baron said, “You see, Allen...my father departed from this world when I was about your age. At the time, he told me, ‘Take good care of this realm. Protect it with your older brother.’”
“Yes, my lord.”
“My older brother was barely of age when he assumed the title of lord of Granvelle. I did my best to manage this land with him, but he joined our father right before turning twenty. This still holds true today, but I had to rely on Sebas so much back then. I thank you, Sebas.”
The age of adulthood is fifteen for nobles too, if I remember correctly.
The butler wordlessly lowered his head in response to the baron’s words of appreciation. Allen stayed silent, waiting for the baron to continue.
“Just as my father did, my older brother taught me to be an upright noble, and I’ve done everything in my power to live by those teachings so far. However, I must have misunderstood something somewhere... So, this is how nobles fight, huh? To think I’d be admonished by a child as young as I was back then...” The baron clenched both hands and stood up. “Very well, I will fight in the manner of nobles. Allen, I will be taking you up on your offer of your mining rights. Sebas, prepare for our departure.”
“Immediately, Master.”
Now we should be good. Everyone who participated when Carnel baited them with promises of mining rights shares will surely bite once the baron dangles those rights in front of their faces for real. Now, there’s only one more thing I want to ask him for before he heads to the capital.
Just as the baron was about to leave, Allen said, “Um, my lord, I don’t mean to ask for this in exchange for the mining rights, but... May I know what the duty of House Granvelle is?”
I’ve left it unexplained long enough, I think. It’s time to insist on this.
“Hm...” After a short pause, the baron answered, “Very well. I’ll arrange for a tutor to give you a lesson.”
Huh? He’s going that far to explain? Is it going to be like a lesson on royal service in general?
Without further ado, the baron left for the royal capital with the butler and, for protection’s sake, the vice-captain in tow.
＊ ＊ ＊
The storm that swept through the royal court at the end of that year would later come to be known as “the House Granvelle Affair.” As a result of everything that ensued, a group of nobles, Viscount Carnel included, were charged with corruption and forgery of official documents and brought to justice. The viscount insisted that Baron Granvelle was making everything up right to the very end, but when he refused to cooperate with the royal family’s investigative efforts, he was slapped with insurrection charges, and one thousand of the kingdom’s most powerful knights were dispatched to his fiefdom. The knights uncovered so much evidence that Viscount Carnel was divested of his title, and his realm was confiscated and incorporated into the lands under the royal family’s direct management.
Even a royal envoy and the judicial vice-minister, both highly eminent positions, had been implicated in the scandal, causing nobles to speculate in whispers what drove the royal family to go so far. Many were jailed, with noble houses going back generations erased entirely. The kingdom was wrapped up in a purge so intense, it matched, if not exceeded, the Talent fraud incident.
According to rumors, the root cause of the incident was Viscount Carnel kidnapping Baron Granvelle’s daughter over mithril mining rights, with the baron then raising hell in the royal capital in a mad rage. For the sake of getting revenge, he yielded full rights of his newly discovered mine to the royal family in order to have all the royal retainers and multiple political factions thoroughly investigated and, where necessary, punished.
Some wondered whether the baron had really done all this just to get revenge for a single daughter, but no one pushed him for the full truth. Now that the baron had the royal family and multiple political factions on his side, no noble dared even look at him wrong anymore.
＊ ＊ ＊
Several days had passed since the baron had set off for the royal capital. Allen was asked to stay with Cecil and protect her until the baron’s return—of course, he accepted. Consequently, he spent most of the entire day stuck in her room.
According to Zenof, Vice-Captain Leibrand would not be able to defeat someone of Dagrah’s level; this was why Zenof now protected the mansion together with several of his knights, leaving Leibrand to accompany the baron on his trip. Bird Es and Bird Ds constantly circled in the sky, Hawk Eye and Night Vision permanently activated. Honestly, all this security did not seem that necessary, as the chances of the viscount making a move were very low. With the baron using the mithril mining rights for negotiation, there were no more cards for the viscount to play.
Now that he was Cecil’s constant companion, Allen ended up sitting in on her lessons and receiving his own portions whenever she had tea or snacks. And ever since returning, her prickly attitude toward him had softened. It was making him miss her former self a little.
The two were currently in the conference room on the third floor. They had been led here by Captain Zenof, who had told them this would be where they would be conducting the day’s lesson.
“The conference room?” Allen murmured in slight bewilderment.
“That’s right,” Zenof replied. “This is because you asked to learn the details of House Granvelle’s duty.”
“What?”
“The tutor will arrive soon. I’m sure I don’t have to say this, but the details that you will learn today must remain secret.”
The captain left the room, but quickly returned with the magic tutor, holding the old man’s large bag for him.
Uh, the magic tutor?
Right after stepping in, the tutor turned to Zenof, “Everything, yes?”
Zenof nodded. “Tell him everything. My lord has given his express permission,” he replied in a surprisingly respectful tone before leaving the room once more.
“Goodness gracious...”
Did he come all this way just for my sake? Allen bowed deeply. “Thank you very much for today, sir.”
“Mm. The first thing to say is, everything I will now tell you is strictly confidential. It won’t be covered even in the Academy’s entrance exam.”
“Understood.”
“It is rumored about by those with looser lips, but if it gets out of hand, the royal family will take direct action. As such, I strongly recommend against sharing it for no reason.”
So this is something actively being hushed up?
“Now, what was it that you wanted to know that led you to this topic?”
Hey, he did this during my magic lesson too. I guess asking questions is his way of teaching.
“My question was what House Granvelle’s duty is.” Allen shared how he had heard from Rickel, the head manservant, that the kingdom was not at war but then also gleaned through the kidnappers’ conversation that there was indeed a battlefield somewhere.
“I see. I’ll start by confirming what that idler Rickel said; he’s not incorrect. However, what he had learned was kingdom history.”
Uh, did he just offhandedly dis Rickel? “Why is it ‘kingdom history’? Is it not just ‘history’?”
“In order to know the truth of this world, you need to learn Demon Lord history.” The wizened old man spread a large folded piece of parchment.
“Is this a world map?”
Despite only having ever seen a map of the realm of Granvelle, Allen somehow picked up on the fact that he was now looking at the entire world. It depicted several masses that were likely continents.
“Mm, it is indeed. You’re as sharp as ever, lad. The largest continent, this one in the middle, is where we are. This is the Central Continent.”
“Oh?!” Hey, we live on a pretty big continent. Rickel once told me that there’s an empire to the north that’s several times the size of our kingdom. That means this large region must be the empire, and this small country below it is us. So, we’re in the southern portion of the Central Continent.
“This is where we live: the Kingdom of Ratash. And north of us is the Empire of Giamut,” the tutor said, tapping the countries’ respective locations on the map.
I wonder how much of this Cecil already knows. The baron already told her most everything, right?
Cecil simply stared at the map in silence as the lesson continued with Allen and the tutor doing all the talking. Allen recalled how the baron had told her about House Granvelle’s duty on the day news of Mihai’s demise arrived, but he was not sure how detailed the baron’s explanation had been. Was the part of the map she was staring at related to the battlefield that had taken Mihai’s life?
“Judging by the name ‘Demon Lord history,’ a Demon Lord has appeared in this world?”
The tutor found himself struck speechless for a brief moment by how unfazed Allen seemed upon learning of the existence of the Demon Lord, but he then tapped a finger on the map. “Yes, the Demon Lord was born 112 years ago on the Forgotten Continent, the northernmost one.”
“How do you know that?”
“The Demon Lord said so himself.”
The one claiming to be the Demon Lord had sent a proclamation to all the world’s heads of state that read: “I am the Demon Lord of the End, the one who shall bring about the demise of this world. Submit to me.”
“What did the nations do?”
“They all ignored him. There was no reason for them to make a decision about it either way.”
The Demon Lord, for his part, did nothing afterward. Fifty years passed. With each transfer of power, the nations of the world began to forget his proclamation more and more. That was, until sixty-two years ago, when he once again urged the countries of the world to “submit to him.” This time, there was one more line: “There will be no more chances.”
“And everyone ignored it again?”
“That’s right. Then, the Great Calamity occurred that year.”
“What happened?”
“The Demon Lord strengthened all monsters throughout the world by one rank.”
There was no way to know for sure that it was his doing, as he did not claim responsibility afterward. Even so, the large majority of people attributed the disaster to him.
In any case, this marked the dawn of an age of terror. All the monsters in the world had ranked up: Rank E monsters had become as strong as Rank D; in the same way, D had become C, C had become B, B had become A, and A had turned into the as yet unheard-of S. It was said that Rank S monsters had power rivaling that of Minor Deities.
The powered-up monsters, drunk on their newfound strength, went on a rampage, massacring people who had been living in peace all this time. During that year alone, millions had lost their lives.
Hold on, isn’t this the answer to what I’ve been asking all this time?
Ever since he took down his first albaheron, Allen had nursed the feeling that monsters in this world seemed stronger than their rank indicated. This sense of discrepancy, this intuition that something was off, had nagged him the entire time.
“What happened to the actual ranks of the monsters, then? If the Demon Lord made them all one rank stronger, does it mean the ranks assigned to them also went up by one?”
“Good question, but no, the ranks were left as is. It is the Adventurer’s Guild that assigns ranks to monsters, and they decided to leave all the rankings the same.”
I see, so there is an actual reason goblins all look so muscular, and why neither the knights nor adventurers could do a thing against the murdergalsh.
Due to the Great Calamity, the Rank B murdergalsh now had the strength of a Rank A monster. In the same way, the Rank A white dragon possessed fighting strength on par with Rank S, making it a truly unassailable being.
The tutor continued his lecture. As it turned out, the Great Calamity was but the overture. That same year, an army of several million under the Demon Lord’s command crossed the seas to attack the Central Continent. The Kingdom of Cortes, the Kingdom of Gamelo, and the Principality of Bashli were all wiped out in that year.
“Three whole countries disappeared in a single year?”
“Mm, that is so. Even after that, what we today call the Demon Lord Army continued pressing its attack.”
Three years later, the Demon Lord Army also annihilated the Kingdom of Rastuli. This rocked the entire world.
“Why was it that big of a deal?”
“You see, Rastuli was a midsize country multiple times the size of our own Ratash. And yet, it only took the Demon Lord Army three years to obliterate it. This was an incredible shock.”
The first three that had fallen were tiny nations on the northernmost edge of the continent. Unlike them, however, Rastuli shared a border with Giamut and had enough power to deal with the empire on equal footing. This meant it was by no means a pushover.
The story of the nation’s last moments became public, and the world was shaken once again. Supposedly, when the Demon Lord Army had surrounded the capital, the king had begged for his people to be spared in exchange for his own life, but the demons had rebuffed him, saying, “We already gave two opportunities to surrender. You are the ones who refused us. Now, grab your weapons and fight to your last breaths.”
The Demon Lord Army had forced a country that had already surrendered to continue fighting. After this exchange with the king, the fight naturally turned single-sided. According to the refugees who managed to escape to Giamut through secret passages, it was a massacre beyond description. The enemy forces advanced relentlessly until not a single human life remained within what used to be Rastuli. Less than half of its population managed to escape to Giamut.
“In other words, the Demon Lord has no interest in ruling over humans.”
“Correct. His title implied that he, too, was some kind of ruler. As such, the world expected him to reign over the lands and peoples he conquered, albeit in some twisted demonic way. However, that was not so.”
Everyone had assumed that the newest Demon Lord was a king hell-bent on subjugating and commanding the entire world. However, nothing could have been further from the truth. No, this Demon Lord intended to wipe out all life in this world.
Allen had only asked about the duty of House Granvelle. Before giving him the answer, the magic tutor had dived into a history lesson on a scale that entirely exceeded his expectations. And there was still more.
“Two years after destroying Rastuli—that is, fifty-seven years ago—the Demon Lord Army launched their assault on the Giamutan Empire.”
This marked the start of a war between the superpower that controlled two-thirds of the Central Continent and the demons. Having seen what became of Rastuli, Giamut did not hesitate to bring all its forces to bear on the front.
The current world map showed the Demon Lord Army located at the northern borders of Giamut. That implied that the empire was successfully keeping it at bay. And thanks to that, Ratash, the kingdom where Allen lived, remained safe.
“So the empire managed to beat the demons back.”
“That is not so. Giamut’s forces kept losing battle after battle. Though they were not as overwhelmed as the four countries that had already fallen had been, the empire continued losing to the point where the large majority of their border fortresses had fallen. The best it could do was slow the advance of the demons. So Giamut formed the Five Continent Alliance.”
“The five continents teamed up?”
As soon as he determined that the Demon Lord Army was far too powerful for his country to handle alone, the emperor of Giamut immediately approached the heads of state in the four other continents—excluding the Forgotten Continent where the Demon Lord lived—with talks of an alliance. This was what led to the formation of the Five Continent Alliance that was still active to this day.
“You see, the Demon Lord had made a grave mistake. Instead of focusing his attacks on the Central Continent, he also attacked the Empire of Baukis and Rozenheim, the major powers on two other continents, at the same time.”
The magic tutor pointed to a landmass northwest of the Central Continent half its size and to another in the northeast a third of its size, introducing them in turn.
The great power on the northwestern continent was the Empire of Baukis, a country ruled by dwarves. They possessed prodigious technological prowess and were the source of all the magic ships in use worldwide. Sixty percent of the magic tools in Ratash came from Baukis. The country commanded military might surpassing that of Giamut in the form of tens of thousands of golem troops that exceeded even the magic ships in size.
On the northeastern continent was Rozenheim, the country ruled by elves. Both the continent and country were named after Rozen, a spirit who had surpassed the power of a common spirit to reach the realm of a Minor Deity, gaining command over all spirits in existence. Through his contract with the queen of Rozenheim, this Sovereign of Spirits lent his power to the entire elven race, enabling them to repel the demonic invasion using powerful Spirit Magic.
Due to the Demon Lord attacking three continents simultaneously, the leading powers in all three became equally aware of the threat the Demon Lord Army posed, and in no time at all, they pushed through the formation of the Alliance. This led to the establishment of a system for countries not on the front line to supply troops and supplies to those that were.
“This improved the situation somewhat, but the Alliance’s forces still continued losing their battles.”
An allied force was formed and deployed, greatly bolstering the military might of Giamut. Even so, this proved insufficient to halt the demons’ advance. The Demon Lord Army was not composed of mindless mobs exclusively; it had intelligent commanders who knew to strike where cooperation between the united forces was weakest, as well as the fortresses manned by foreign forces that would flee in fear at the first sign of battle. It took almost no time at all after the formation of the Five Continent Alliance for the Demon Lord Army to see through all of the cooperative effort’s flaws.
“Then a truly deplorable strategy was adopted.”
Unable to bear the mounting losses, Gamut demanded troops from Ratash. Being located on the Central Continent and thus a signatory of the Five Continent Alliance led by Giamut, the kingdom had no choice but to comply. So it dispatched its knights to join the war effort.
However, the demands from Giamut soon escalated. Waving the stipulations of the Alliance in Ratash’s face, it pressed the kingdom to send its royals and nobles to the front lines too, even those without Talents. Now, it was common sense to conscript only those with Talents, but at the time, the Alliance attempted to resist the Demon Lord Army by simply matching number for number.
“The Demon Lord Army is composed of monsters, all Rank B or higher. Many of noble and royal birth died fruitlessly as a result of the Empire’s ill-advised strategy.”
We’re basically talking hundreds, thousands of murdergalshes, right? No matter how many Talentless people you send, they still can’t kill a murdergalsh.
The bulk of the Demon Lord Army was Rank B monsters, with a generous distribution of Rank As and several rumored Rank S monsters mixed in. The Talentless troops were almost entirely wiped out, regardless of social class.
This was about the time the baron’s father died, I think?
The baron had said that his father had died when he was around Allen’s current age. That meant he had likely been sent to the front lines as a part of Ratash’s response to Giamut’s demands and lost his life on the battlefield.
“This was when the Alliance introduced a system of Academies, at least one per country.”
In this world with levels, individuals could develop to become several, even dozens of times more powerful than they had been. As such, it was only natural to arrive at the idea of cultivating children with Talents to reach their maximum potential before sending them to the battlefield. Consequently, all the countries within the Alliance were ordered to set up at least one Academy City within their borders. The Academy’s location chosen by the Kingdom of Ratash had plenty of dungeons, making it ideal for training the students.
Stipulations of the Alliance stripped authority over the Academy Cities away from the countries they were located in. After all, countries would naturally be tempted to run their Academy Cities in a way that benefited themselves instead of the allied effort. The Alliance maintained direct control over all the Academy Cities it established.
The current headmaster of the Ratashian Academy City was a high elf, a blood relative of the queen of Rozenheim who had lived for over a thousand years. He basically had free rein to run the Academy however he wanted.
“What happened then?” Though judging by how the story’s going, this probably still wasn’t the turning point the Alliance wanted.
The magic tutor nodded in response to the look on Allen’s face. “Even with the Academy system, this proved insufficient to push back the Demon Lord’s forces.”
Wave after wave of millions of monsters continued to barrage Giamut’s fortresses and other crucial locations, overrunning them one by one. Eventually, a fourth of the empire had fallen to the demons, and it was losing more and more habitable space. A few decades after the launch of the Demon Lord’s offensive, hope had disappeared from the world and all peoples had resigned themselves to their eventual annihilation.
“However, Lord Elmea, the God of Creation, had not abandoned us. He granted Giamut a Hero.”
After dwarves and elves, now we have a Hero too?
Twenty-two years ago, a commoner child with the Talent of Hero was born in the Giamutan Empire. His name was Helmios.
“It was a miracle. Helmios personified invincibility and indomitableness.”
Having grown up with the hopes of the world riding on his shoulders, Helmios received the very best education possible at the Giamutan Academy City at twelve years old. He was then dispatched to the front lines at fifteen; there, he managed feats that greatly exceeded what anyone had imagined. Rumors that verged on legend abounded, with the most commonly repeated one being “wherever the Hero goes, the land becomes stained with monster blood as far as the eye can see.” Helmios pushed the Demon Lord’s army back with the momentum of a thunderclap, restoring the original borders of Giamut in only five years. He was still fighting on the front lines at that very moment, currently striving to recover the land of lost Rastuli.
“You have heard of our kingdom’s Land Reclamation Decree, yes? His Majesty established this policy as an effort to send more supplies to the war effort.”
As a signatory to the Five Continent Alliance, Ratash was currently focusing all its energies toward increasing the volume of the support it sent to the front lines. Raising the amount of food produced locally was a large part of that drive.
So that’s the reason behind the founding of the village I was born in. And... Ah! That’s the reason there was so much pressure to hunt more great boars!
For the first time ever, Allen realized how intricately history was woven into the story of his own life. Krena Village came into being because of the Land Reclamation Decree; the Decree was issued because of a war; and there was a war because the Demon Lord was attacking all of the civilized world.
Why was the baron so bent on meeting the great boar quota that he made the trip to Krena Village in person? Why could the great boar meat produced by the village not be found in Granville City, not even on the baron’s own dinner table? These questions that had plagued Allen’s mind all these years finally had their answers. The meat was sent along, not simply to the Ratashian royal capital, but beyond, all the way to the front lines north of the Empire of Giamut. Processed meat could be kept for a long time; the beasts taken down by Allen’s father and fellow villagers were filling many soldiers’ bellies even now.
“Finally, we come to House Granvelle’s duty. As you might have guessed from everything I’ve covered so far, this is not something that only House Granvelle is charged with. Naturally, even the royal family is subject to the same obligation.”
All nobles and royals born with Talents in Ratash were conscripted for three years of compulsory service under the stipulations of the Five Continent Alliance. Even members of the royal family had no right to refuse. Everyone had to be posted at a fortress on the front lines to fight against the Demon Lord’s army for three years. Those who attempted to get out of this duty, as well as those who failed to graduate from the Academy, were severely punished, with some even having their families stripped of their nobility. If a royal member did so, not only would the country lose influence within the Alliance, it would also lose trust from other countries on the world stage, incurring unmeasurable diplomatic and economic losses.
Naturally, positive reinforcement had also been woven into this system. First, a reduction in taxes was promised for the realms of any nobles who succeeded in completing his or her three years of service; furthermore, this achievement made it much easier to enter a position within the royal court. All members of the Academy Faction, which held overwhelming sway over the royal court at the moment, were nobles who had returned from military service. Additional years were required for those wishing to apply for certain higher positions; vice-captains of chivalric orders needed to have served for more than three years, whereas knight captains and members of the imperial guards—the most powerful chivalric order in the kingdom—required more than five.
The magic tutor, being a Wizard, had served his three years. After returning to Ratash, he had assumed a position at the royal court that allowed him to perform magical research, and now he had the freedom to spend his postretirement life however he wanted.
However, even after taking all the promised rewards into account, there was no denying the harshness of the compulsory service. Back when the magic tutor did his service, seventy percent of Talented youngsters lost their lives. The situation was better now, thanks to the efforts of the Hero, but even so, fifty percent never made it back home.
Allen shot Cecil a look. She had remained quiet this whole time, her crimson eyes seemingly burning a hole into Giamut’s northern border on the map. In all likelihood, she was thinking of Mihai, the brother whom she had lost to this conflict against the Demon Lord.
So this is why it had to be Hell Mode, Allen thought in retrospection. This is why I had to be reincarnated. Now everything makes sense.
＊ ＊ ＊
November arrived and, after a month’s absence, the baron finally returned to Granvelle City. Although he looked thoroughly exhausted at dinner, he declared that the matter of the viscount had been wrapped up loud enough for Allen, who was on serving duty, to hear, then ordered him to come to the conference room the next day.
When Allen obediently went to the third floor the following day, he found the baron and butler together waiting for him. The table in front of the baron was loaded with three bags in a row.
The baron gestured at the seat across from his own, so Allen obliged. The boy looked up and found a conflicted look on his employer’s face.
What’s the matter? He looks...hesitant about something.
Eventually, the baron broke the silence. “Allen, you’ve already had the lesson with the magic tutor, yes?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Allen was now in full knowledge of Demon Lord history. He had learned the choices the nations had made in response to the actions of the Demon Lord and fully understood the situation of the world as well as the burden on House Granvelle’s shoulders. Once she turned fifteen, Cecil would have to enter military service with a fifty-fifty chance of survival, the very same service that had already claimed Mihai’s life.
In a dejected voice, the baron said, “I tried asking His Majesty if it were possible to exempt Cecil from her duty, but he said that she had to go, case closed.”
After all, after being properly nurtured, her rare two-star Talent could provide fighting strength that the front lines so desperately needed. Holding her back was not up for consideration, no matter what. The king gave his condolences, saying that it was out of his hands. That meant the baron truly had no other way out.
A well-trained mage can take out a lot more enemies than a well-trained swordsman, after all. This is all the more so for her, being not a mere one-star Mage, but a two-star Wizardess.
“So that leaves me with one request for you, Allen.”
“Yes, my lord.” This is what Zenof was referring to when he told me to lend the baron an ear that night we camped out, right? Now that I have the full picture, it’s easy to see where the baron’s going with this.
“Please attend the Academy with Cecil and protect her on the battlefield.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“I am aware how unreasonable my request is. Before you here are the reward for killing the murdergalsh, the reward for saving Cecil, and your wages for being Cecil’s bodyguard for three years.”
Each bag on the table held two hundred gold, making it six hundred in total.
The baron cast a worried look at Allen’s face. He was well aware that this boy was not particularly attached to money—he had given up his mithril rights without a second thought when he thought it necessary. In the first place, he already possessed over five hundred gold from selling the materials he had gathered from armored ants. He had no great need for money.
Hm, I’ve already answered in the affirmative twice, but he still doesn’t look convinced. I should probably say it one more time and make it clear. Talk about déjà vu—how many times have I experienced something like this before?
Back when Allen was Kenichi, he had found himself in a similar situation many times in the games he played. His first experience was a king asking him to save a princess kidnapped by a dragon. In another game, someone begged him to save a shrine maiden who had been sent as a sacrifice to appease the master of a lake. Countless village heads, town mayors, feudal lords, and kings had approached Allen with their requests. And he had accepted and granted them all.
After all, if he didn’t, the story wouldn’t progress.
He even recalled a few times when he had found the request too unreasonable and chose “No,” only to find the conversation stuck in an endless loop. Right now, before his eyes, was a feudal lord in the throes of despair after having his father, brother, and recently, even his son killed by the army led by a Demon Lord. And his request was to protect his one and only daughter, preventing her from meeting the same fate.
There’s no doubt; this is a quest. You can also say that the plot is finally moving. I see; in this world, it takes four years to trigger the kind of quest that you’d normally get the second day after arriving in town.
“My lord, I, Allen, shall protect Lady Cecil with my very life,” Allen declared, taking care to enunciate each syllable.
“You accept?!” The baron leaped to his feet with emotion. “You really do?!”
The boy reached out to take only one of the three bags resting on the table. “Furthermore, I’ll accept one of these bags, but may I ask for something else in exchange for the other two?”
“You wish to...exchange them? For what?”
Hah, what a noob quest-giver. It’s common sense that the completion reward is given after the quest is over. And how’d this hopelessly poor family gather six hundred gold anyway? Don’t tell me he put the mansion up as collateral?
The baron’s family was poor because he was shouldering a portion of the taxes his citizens were supposed to pay so as to lighten their burden. It would take a few more years before the mithril mining operation turned a profit. In short, Allen suspected that the baron had gone to rather absurd lengths to procure the money sitting on the table. Moreover, now that he had learned Demon Lord history, Allen knew that the other nobles—and even the royal family—of this country were destitute. No one had the leeway for extravagance, drained as they were by decades of fighting against the Demon Lord. There was no way the baron had six hundred gold sitting around in his ledgers.
“I don’t need this four hundred gold. In exchange, please exempt my family from having to pay head tax.”
“That’s all you want?”
“Um, if possible, then please exempt Krena’s family too. That’s all I want in exchange for this four hundred gold.”
“Very well. Your family’s and Krena’s families are exempt from their head tax as of now.”
Perfect, since I probably won’t be able to send money home for a while in the near future. Now that they don’t have to pay taxes, life should be much easier for both of our families. I hope Mash and Myulla will grow up healthy and happy.
“Lastly, my lord, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me the opportunity to serve you, and for raising me as a member of your family throughout the past four years.” Allen dug out the Granvelle crest in his pocket and laid it on the table. After figuring out what the baron’s request would be, he had made up his mind what he had to do. As the baron waited quietly for him to finish, Allen declared, “I, Allen, will return to being a commoner. Then, as a commoner, I will protect Lady Cecil and fight the Demon Lord Army by her side.”
“I see. As I’d thought.”
Oh? He saw this coming?
Sebas, who had been standing behind the baron, stepped forward as if prompted. After picking up the crest Allen had left on the table, he set something else down in its place.
Allen examined the beautifully ornamented silver dagger in confusion. “What is this, my lord?”
“This,” the baron replied, “is the proof of being a guest of Viscount Granvelle’s household. It was forged under the royal family’s auspices.”
“Uh...viscount? Guest?”
“Thanks to you, Allen, House Granvelle will be a viscountship as of next year.”
The baron went on to explain that he had yet to tell anyone else; he planned on announcing it over dinner that night, but wanted to let Allen to be the first to know as an expression of his gratitude for all of the boy’s contributions so far. The king had been incredibly delighted by the baron splitting the proceeds from an entire mithril mine among the royal family and other noble families, touting him as a role model for striving to enrich the entire country as a whole instead of hogging all the profits to himself. As a reward for the baron’s endowment and for righting wrongs, the king would be bestowing him the peerage of viscount next year.
The baron ended with a dry laugh. “To tell it like it is, I basically bought the viscountship with money.”
“So you have been promoted! Please allow me to express my heartfelt congratulations.” Allen bowed his head. When he looked back up, however, the look of confusion from before was back. “However, what does it mean to be a guest?”
“It means you have been accepted as a part of House Granvelle. If another noble causes you trouble, we will take your side as if you were a part of our own household. Conversely, if you cause any trouble, we promise to take responsibility and handle it for you.”
In other words, House Granvelle now shared collective responsibility with Allen and would back him up with all it had. That was the contract implied by this crested ornamental dagger.
Allen had yet to know this, but the baron had somewhat overdone things at the royal palace, spurred as he was by Allen’s words. When word of him being willing to share mithril mining rights went around, the general poverty of the nobility prompted many to leap at the opportunity and express their willingness to cooperate with the baron’s investigative efforts. This was how he had managed to wrap up the affair so quickly.
A dagger as a reward... I see, so this current quest is complete. Allen thought back over the past four years as he stared at the blade. At the same time, he realized why he was here. All this time, I’d asked the question of why I had been reincarnated and forced to start this life as a newborn instead of being transmigrated. Turns out it made all the difference.
If Allen had been simply brought over, the whole chain of events that led to his current situation would not have happened. No hunting great boars with the villagers of Krena Village meant no serving House Granvelle as a manservant. No service with House Granvelle meant no attending Academy City with Cecil. Furthermore, in this world where information about the Demon Lord was so strictly controlled, he might have bumped into the Demon Lord Army and died without being any the wiser.
And there’s meaning in Hell Mode too. It had to be Hell Mode. Ah, I see. So this is the answer to how I came to this world.
When he learned the truth of the world, Allen finally understood the importance of Hell Mode. Back when he was Kenichi, he had found the website that led to this world after typing “game hell mode challenging” into a search engine. In all likelihood, if he had typed “casual game,” the link would not have shown up. The God of Creation had been looking for someone who was up for the challenge of the ultimate Hell Mode: being reincarnated into this world.
So, you want me, the person who selected Hell Mode, to save this world where the balancing has all gone to shit?
Those in Normal Mode—no matter how many they numbered—were powerless against the Demon Lord’s army. This was a world heading for destruction due to the game balance getting completely ruined—so to say, the balancing was now complete garbage. There was no telling whether the current Hero even possessed the ability to kill the Demon Lord. This was the backdrop against which, ten years after the Hero’s birth, the person that Elmea had been looking for, someone who chose Hell Mode, was brought over.
Allen strongly felt how much this world wanted—no, needed him.
“I accept this quest.” Allen stood up and clutched the silver dagger tightly to his chest. “Please place your trust in us. I swear that Lady Cecil and I will destroy the Demon Lord together.”
*
The first thing to do when trying to kill a Demon Lord is to look for party members. I’m getting so hyped!
The baron wanted to reply with, “Uh, I didn’t ask you to go that far,” but he was so overwhelmed by Allen’s confidence that he swallowed his words.
Thus, Allen retired from his position as manservant of House Granvelle and became a guest of the household instead. It was time to shift the stage of the story to the Ratashian Academy City.
Side Story: The Boy Who Wished to Be a Champion
One autumn day two years after Allen had left Krena Village, the villagers were about to head out for a day of great boar hunting once again.
“I want to just use the same spear as everyone,” Dogora grumbled.
“Don’t mind that,” his father insisted almost scoldingly while pushing a long spear at his son. “Just take this one!”
“Fine! Okay.”
Standing to the side, Dogora’s mother looked on at the exchange between her husband and son, worry creasing her face.
Today was the first day that Dogora, who had turned ten years old, was participating in a great boar hunt. The boy now begrudgingly looked down at the special four-meter spear that his father had painstakingly forged for this day’s sake.
The idea to let new hunters gain levels by attacking with long spears from a safe distance that Allen had come up with two years ago was still in practice. As today was Dogora’s first hunt, he could not join the front line group that used two-meter spears.
The boy studied the spear made of steel from head to shaft, with a grip specifically adjusted to the size of his hands. The source of his discontent was not the fact that he had to attack from the back. No, what he did not like was having a weapon clearly different from what everyone else was using—the spears used by both serfs and commoners were basically wooden shafts with small metal spearheads. However, his father practically shoved his handiwork into his son’s hands.
“Stay safe, okay?” Dogora’s mom asked worriedly.
Somewhat taken by surprise at how much his parents were fussing over him, Dogora replied stutteringly, “I-I know, mom. Don’t worry about me.” He then set off as if to throw off their voices, heading for the village gate.
When Dogora drew close, a pink-haired girl brimming with energy despite the early hour noticed him and rushed over. “You’re late, Dogora!”
“You’re early, Krena,” Dogora sighed. “You got here before me, huh?”
“Yep!”
A quick pan of the area revealed around fifty other villagers who had gathered for the day’s hunt. Previously, this hunting party was almost entirely composed of serfs, with there only being the occasional commoner addition. However, many of those same hunters had been made commoner two years ago. Consequently, almost all the current participants were commoners with the exception of a few serfs aiming to climb up the social ladder. At least, this was what Allen’s father, Rodin, had told Dogora previously.
“Looks like we’re the only children.”
“Hm? Did you say something, Dogora?”
“Nah.”
There were plenty of children of Dogora’s age in Krena Village. However, it was not like all of them would be immediately cleared to join the hunting party after reaching ten years old. It was only thanks to the girl holding a four-meter spear before him that Dogora himself could be here today.
Originally, it was Krena who had convinced her father, Gerda—who happened to be one of the leaders of the hunting party—to let her participate starting this year. Then Dogora had gone to Gerda and basically said, “If she’s going, then I want to go too.” Rodin, the other leader, had given his permission too, in light of the fact that Dogora also had a battle-related Talent. Bada bing, bada boom.
Before long, Rodin shouted, “All right, we’re off!” prompting an enthusiastic roar from the rest of the party in response. Rodin and Gerda headed the procession as Dogora and Krena followed close behind.
Despite having been born a commoner, this was Dogora’s first time stepping foot outside Krena Village. He was not legally compelled to stay within the walls of his village as serfs were, but the fact that his parents managed the village’s smithy-cum-weapons shop meant there was little reason for him to leave. He took in the sights as a slight sense of anxiety mixed with exhilaration filled his chest.
“Allen’s passed this road many times before, right?!” Krena asked excitedly.
“Presumably,” Dogora replied. Although he sounded brusque, he could not deny that it felt odd thinking of how he was now tracing the same path Allen had trodden all those years ago similarly heading out to hunt great boars.
“C’mon, Krena, you promised me that you’d be good and follow along properly,” Gerda chided when he saw his daughter looking around busily, starting and stopping at times.
As always, she replied with an energetic “Yep!” and a bright smile that gave no clue as to whether she was really listening or not.
Gerda threw up his hands and turned to Rodin. “By the way, you think there’ll be a lot again this year?”
The other man nodded. “Chances are high.”
“A lot?!” Krena perked up, her eyes sparkling. “Of boars?!”
Rodin sighed. “That’s right. And that’s why we have to stay careful.”
The group continued making their way to the hunting ground within the nearby forest, chatting the whole time. When they arrived, Pekej, the leader of the group in charge of drawing monsters over, said he would scout out the situation and quickly disappeared into the trees.
He returned less than half an hour later.
“How was it?” Rodin asked. “A lot again, just like last year?”
Pekej nodded. “Yeah, the whole place is chock-full with them. If we mess this up, someone could get hurt.”
“That said, thanks to His Lordship, we’re all equipped with all this nice armor,” Gerda cut in, waving a hand dismissively. “With the numbers we’ve got, I doubt any of us’d get seriously hurt.”
By “thanks to His Lordship,” Gerda had been referring to the leatherworker that Lord Granvelle had arranged to set up shop in Krena Village. This leatherworker was the person who was equipping the hunting party members with better and better armor.
Everyone present today, aside from Krena and Dogora, were veterans who had surpassed multiple Trials of the Gods before. There were more than enough of them to handle the situation even if a great boar rampaged a little.
“That may be so, but we’ll still do our best to lure the smaller groups over,” Pekej said before heading off once more, accompanied this time by his teammates.
While waiting, Gerda suddenly asked, “Why do you think there are suddenly so many great boars?” Although having so much game was a good thing, he couldn’t help feeling uneasy not knowing the reason.
“I heard that it’s because the goblins that used to eat them are all gone,” Rodin replied in a low voice.
“Huh?! What does that mean?!”
“Shh! Keep it down. Some adventurers that visited the village said that the number of goblins in the area suddenly plummeted.”
“You serious? Bad enough that it’s affecting the boar population? What the hell could be doing it?”
“It’s only a rumor, but I’ve also heard that it might be a new type of monster that entered the area and is wiping out the goblins. Don’t tell anyone else, though, all right? We don’t want to be getting people all riled up over unconfirmed rumors.”
It was true, however, that great boar was very plentiful this year. They would probably meet the quota of twenty set by the feudal lord in no time at all. That said, there was too little information to speculate any further, so the two men switched gears back to focusing on the hunt.
Slightly less than an hour later, Pekej’s shout rang out. “Sorry, I’ve got three on me!” He then immediately burst into the clearing, three great boars charging at top speed right at his heels.
Gerda barked a laugh. “What was that about doing your best to lure smaller groups over?” He turned to the rest of the hunting party, who were already in position. “You lot, get ready! They’re coming!”
“YES, SIR!” the villagers shouted, gripping their spears and bracing themselves.
The ground shuddered under the approach of the three giant beasts, but the front wall led by Gerda managed to absorb their momentum and stop their charges. The three shields in use bent sharply under the boars’ horns, fangs, and tusks but otherwise held fast.
The strain of holding three great boars back at the same time prompted Gerda to shout, “Rodin, hurry!”
“I know!” Rodin replied before addressing his team. “You lot, focus on taking down one boar at a time!”
“YES, SIR!” they roared back, surging forward.
To Gerda’s consternation, he heard Krena’s high-pitched, childish “YAAAAAHH!” cutting through the other voices. It was then that he realized he had not previously gone over what number counted as too many enemies and became too dangerous for her to join in.
He shouted, “Wait, Krena!” but was too late. Before he could stop her, Krena had already jabbed her long spear into the forehead of one of the great boars. Right next to her was Dogora, who had done the same.
“It’s so tooooough!” Krena exclaimed at the same time Dogora grunted, “Ugh, we’re not getting through.”
The two spears that had landed on the monster’s forehead refused to go any further. The hide in this area was extremely thick and sturdy. This was why the hunters normally avoided the head and aimed for the neck.
Before long, the finishing team led by Rodin brought down one of the other great boars.
“Huh? I suddenly...feel so much stronger!”
“Th-This is...”
Krena and Dogora, who had been trying to push their spears in deeper with all their might this whole time, suddenly felt a lot stronger. They had earned XP as well when Rodin and his team killed the first beast.
Crack.
“Aw, my spear snapped.”
The wooden haft of Krena’s spear had given out, crushed as it was between her newfound strength and the monster’s tough hide. Krena hurriedly grabbed onto Dogora’s spear.
“Huh?! What are y— Okay, let’s defeat it together!”
“Yep!”
The two children gripped the spear tightly and stabbed at the great boar with all their might. Soon, Rodin’s team killed their second boar, causing Dogora’s and Krena’s levels to go up once again.
“Hnngghhh!”
“Wait, y—”
The incredible strength coming from Krena that Dogora felt through the spear prompted him to cry out. Before he could form a coherent sentence, however, Krena’s feet dug into the ground so hard that the earth was turned over. Refusing to fall behind, Dogora did the same. Their combined efforts drove the spear deeper, deeper, ever deeper.
“GUMOOOOOOHHHH!”
Finally, Dogora and Krena’s spear penetrated the great boar’s forehead and buried itself deep inside its skull. Blood sprayed everyone as the massive beast fell over with a resounding crash.
“Yay! We did it!” Krena threw up both hands in celebration as the jaws of the rest of the hunting party dropped in astonishment.
No one had managed to kill a great boar by piercing its forehead before. Everyone’s general understanding was that going for the neck was the best they could do. The adults stared at the ten-year-olds, marveling at the potential of those with Talents.
However, the adults were not the only ones staring at Krena; Dogora was as well. Because he had been gripping the same spear, he could tell how much stronger she was than him. It felt like she had suddenly gone somewhere really far away.
“I will become a champion,” Dogora said out loud. “I swear I will.”
It was after Dogora met Allen and Krena—the boy with strange abilities who saved the village, and the girl born with the Talent of Sword Lord—that this wish had budded within him. When he was younger, he dreamed of becoming a knight. When he got to know Allen and Krena, however, his dream had changed to wanting to become a champion of the people. Unwittingly, his dream was growing bigger and bigger.
Dogora clenched a fist as his eyes blazed with spirit.
Afterword
Thank you so much for purchasing this book. This is the afterword. Thanks to all of you, here we are with volume 2 of Hell Mode. I really cannot thank you enough for all the support you’ve shown. Thank you.
What’s more, here you are reading this afterword despite this book being so much thicker and longer than normal light novel volumes. There are truly no words to describe the gratitude I feel.
Now, since this is an afterword, I’ll be writing about what I think about Hell Mode as its author.
To be honest, I feel like it’s only after you finish reading volume 2 that you get a general feel for the world within Hell Mode. It’s been a bit of a long prologue so far, but this is basically the story of a boy being reincarnated as a serf in a tiny village setting off to learn more about the world, all while finding his own purpose and making friends along the way. There was so much world-building to introduce, including the protagonist’s background and the overall problem threatening this world, that this word count simply could not be lowered any further.
Now that the series is being officially published, I do want to write more content that I haven’t been able to get to before. The web novel version of this work is extremely focused on the protagonist, Allen. There are very few cutaways to other characters’ points of view, and as of the more than three hundred chapters that had been uploaded so far, not once have I written a side story.
The razor focus does make the telling of the story go faster, but it’s also true that progressing the story simply based on Allen’s perspective does leave something to be desired. This is why I plan on writing more side and bonus stories spotlighting other characters. I hope this would shed some light on what some of Allen’s friends—such as Krena, Dogora, and Cecil—and their families are thinking and how they are experiencing everything that’s going on.
Considering how high my word count is for the afterword, I want to talk a bit about my experiences with gaming as well. As you can tell from the fact that I’m writing about a reincarnated gamer, I absolutely love gaming. The first game I picked up was the second iteration of a certain nationally popular role-playing game on the Famicom. It seemed to just show up in my house one day, machine and all, though my memory is somewhat fuzzy after so long. One of my family members must have bought it for me. Ever since then, the idea that “video game equals role-playing game” had become deeply impressed upon my young self.
At the time—and I think I was in my second year in elementary school?—I was fighting slimes around the starting castle but had failed to figure out that you had to actually put equipment on for it to take effect. This is why my very first memory was thinking, “Oh no, slimes are so strong. I’ll seriously die if I bump into a few of them at once!”
My second memory was “I wrote down the revival chant properly but it seems wrong.” I clearly remember having done so even more painstakingly than I took notes in class. Many games back then would probably be considered too difficult nowadays. There were far too few hints for how to progress, and I remember dropping several due to getting hopelessly stuck mid-game.
Due to the powerful influence from back then, I now tend to take a very analytical approach whenever I come across something I don’t know. If I don’t have the answer, then I would try every single possibility. That, or maybe I had been born with this from the start.
Despite my love for games, however, I unfortunately haven’t touched them for years now, ever since I first started reading novels on Shosetsuka ni Naro. To be more exact, it’s been around three years and counting. Part of it is because I really don’t have the time anymore juggling a full-time corporate job and writing on the side, but it’s also because I know my life would just fall apart if I pick up a game again. I can bet that I’d just completely dedicate myself to playing it, putting in the minimum amount of effort needed to coast along at work and abandoning all my other duties.
On a different note, this series got a manga adaptation! I had never even imagined that my work would get adapted so soon after I started writing. Tetta Enji-sensei is doing a wonderful job drawing it in the style of shonen manga magazines. There are so many amazing depictions of Allen, his friends, his Summons, the fights with monsters, and so much else. It’s being published by Comic Earth Star, so please go check it out! I’m really looking forward to the day I get to see volume 1 lined up on the shelves in bookstores.
I’d love to see you again for volume 3 of Hell Mode. I do hope to continue writing more stories in the future, so please continue supporting me! So long!
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