The Good Orc
The Good Orc
Whether it was because the whole affair had been pushed forward with everyone's necks about to get chopped off for treason charges, I didn't know, but Raviel's response was so immediate you could notice it just from standing guard in the village.
How did I know? Because overnight, like a lie, the wyvern movements crisscrossing the clear sky were so intense you could even see them from the village watchtower. I'd heard that when urgent messages needed to be sent they flew at normal altitudes, but to avoid friction with other wyverns they cruised higher than usual—yet during the two-odd years I'd lived in the capital, actually seeing it was a first.
"Hm, was that not it? Or maybe I've just spent my life not looking up much?"
Looking back, that seemed likely. In my past life, too, when I had no room to breathe I'd lived for months without ever raising my head above a second-floor building. The world was so wide open I hadn't consciously noticed, but since you couldn't completely rule out a sudden attack from the air, I figured I should make a point of looking at the sky now and then.
I was sitting leisurely in the watchtower, lost in that sort of reflection, when I heard Abnam calling up to me from below.
"Eldmia! The mercenary who went to Raviel is back!"
Since I'd called him "the one who got his arm cut off," he'd cautiously told me his name. It was hard to call him anything else before, but it looked like he'd sharpened up into a pretty perceptive guy.
"Alone?"
"No! He came with a knight! The administrator Siel said the representatives should gather at the pantheon for a meeting, so she asked you to come for a bit!"
The fact that someone had come along was extremely positive, but the specifics were surprising. There could only have been three knights stationed in the gate city, and they'd picked one to send out? They were coming on strong.
"The meeting aside—a knight? How old?"
"Uh... he looked young?"
What the hell, why did his voice go up at the end like a question?
An unexpected visitor followed by an unexpected reaction, so I looked at Abnam with suspicion, but he just hemmed and hawed, and once I was certain I wouldn't get a straight answer I climbed down from the watchtower.
"Take over for me on watch for a bit. I'll be back."
"Yes sir! Take your time!"
It felt like he was dumping his shift, which didn't sit right, but since I'd strong-armed my way into this representative spot for the adventurers, I couldn't exactly skip it. I resolved to grab a bottle of booze from the kitchen for him when I got back and headed toward the pantheon as he'd told me.
It was only natural that the orcs hadn't shown up in the middle of the night, but even so, a knight representing Raviel coming to visit this early in the morning after a late additional report was genuinely surprising. It made me think Raviel might really be that short on adventurer manpower right now, and I grew curious about what exactly had left them so short-handed.
Had that guild master been involved in more crooked dealings than I'd thought? If so, then gate-city adventurer guilds—Englem included—really were all missing a screw somewhere. I'd need to grab Bardena later when I had time and ask him what the situation was actually like.
"Ah, you've arrived! Everyone's waiting inside!"
Since the watchtower wasn't that far away, I got there in no time. I gave a light greeting to Ikop, who was standing guard as unfailingly as ever, and as soon as I stepped inside the eyes of everyone present naturally swung to me. My own gaze went straight to the knight in gleaming armor, and I felt like I understood why Abnam had given that wishy-washy answer about his age.
The mild-mannered blond young man, who looked perfectly put together on the outside, couldn't have been older than his early twenties no matter how generously you looked at it.
In other words, unless he was some kind of extraordinary genius, that meant he was a plain knight who'd just received his commission. The armor he was wearing, though, literally shone, and the sword at his hip wasn't cheap either; its modest ornamentation and gold leaf advertised that it cost a fair bit.
That was gear no plain knight starting without backing could ever dream of.
"Sir Bisquente, this is Eldmia Ega, a red-rank adventurer representing the adventurers' views. Eldmia? This is Sir Bisquente da Raviel, a knight dispatched from the gate city of Raviel."
Thankfully Siel stepped in first and saved me the effort I'd have had to expend figuring out who he was. And as for Raviel—I'd thought of it as a gate city that nothing but got pushed around, but it seemed that wasn't entirely the case. At that age he'd have to be the heir, and they'd shoved him into a place that might end up facing hundreds of orcs.
His response was far too composed for him to have been tossed in as a sacrificed pawn just to prove loyalty to the royal house. Either he was confident in his skills, or they intended to back him up with stable support by whatever means necessary and hand him an achievement.
"I'm Eldmia Ega, a red-rank adventurer. I'm also the witness who directly took part in the reconnaissance that confirmed the orc village."
I gave a brief, formal bow in greeting, and the corners of Sir Bisquente's mouth—which had looked like they'd never show a smile—naturally lifted.
"A witness serving as an administrator—convenient, since there'll be no need to work through tedious channels. Raviel did not take the report of an orc army lightly, and has begun mobilizing everything it can use. If your observations prove accurate, there will be substantial compensation afterward."
A clever guy who could maintain the posture of someone in power while using honorifics, neatly dress up the actions they'd taken, display trust, and threaten you all at the same time. He smelled like a decent talent, so I smiled politely back.
"If the village's safety is secured, it will be entirely thanks to Raviel's swift and wise response. Sir Bisquente's reputation, as the one leading this subjugation, will surely resound all the way to the capital."
Now that you've seated yourself in command, the moment you fuck up the handling, you're as screwed as anyone—so conduct yourself well.
Sir Bisquente, who'd been giving off the scent of a sharp talent, immediately grasped my meaning, nodded, and smiled. He smiled?
"Indeed. They say rumors are usually not worth believing, but regarding Sir Ega, there's a certain credibility I can feel."
Well, my rumors had probably spread eagerly among the nobles even if I didn't know about the commoners, so it was no surprise he knew them, but normally if someone caught your drift they'd frown and call you insolent. The fact that his reaction looked genuinely pleased felt off.
If he's some deviant who gets off on being cursed at, then from my position as a natural-born foulmouth, I didn't want to go anywhere near him.
"I don't know what rumors you've heard, but I'm not in a position to be called 'Sir.'"
"Even if one declines power and station, one cannot hide one's great deeds and dignity. Moreover, having personally executed a traitor and righted the authority of the royal house and the law of the land, you are a model for all. I didn't expect to meet you in this form, but I'm honored to meet the Guillotine of Levien."
Oh, wow.
It wasn't just an unexpectedly respectful response—it was one of the few properly noble responses I could count on one hand.
Had the Lord of Raviel completely bombed his luck with his underlings but hit the lottery with his child? Sir Bisquente didn't even care about Siel's or Kal Guls's gazes; he stood up and offered me a handshake. It would have been rude not to take it, so I awkwardly extended my hand, and a perfectly respectful handshake followed with no strength-testing at all.
"Thanks to you, we were able to notice the seeds of treason that had hidden themselves within the city and to pluck them out, albeit belatedly. I'm grateful for that alone, and now that you've once again aided Raviel in this way, I will most certainly see that the favor is repaid."
I barely managed to suppress the feeling that my face was about to spasm from all that goodwill-soaked warmth, and forced a smile. Kal Guls and Siel, who'd started looking at us with deeply weird expressions, reacted as though they'd silently decided to just go with the flow and keep quiet for now.
Still maintaining that courteous demeanor, Sir Bisquente gestured for me to take a seat and continued speaking in an exceedingly dignified posture.
"Unfortunately, however, Raviel currently has no troops it can send outward. In order not to invite misunderstanding from the royal house, we rather hastily downsized our household's private soldiers, except for the city guard. Instead, we resolved to crack open the family treasury, but in this urgent situation there exists something called 'time' that cannot be bought with money, so it seems difficult for a truly satisfactory relief force to arrive immediately."
That much was perfectly understandable and within expectations, so I felt no particular reaction. What was more surprising was that a noble I was meeting for the first time was showing this much unblemished goodwill.
I hadn't taken a blade to the troops under his command, and we weren't old acquaintances—was he really this favorable? Could this actually be some high-level psychological warfare?
While the thousand and one Eldmias in my head began a heated debate over Sir Bisquente's intentions, Kal Guls naturally picked up the thread.
"Before you arrived, he'd hinted at hiring additional troops from our mercenary company too, but we don't have any men we can call up right now, either. I suspect the limit will be to seek support from adventurers remaining in the capital—which is the closest—and private soldiers from some favorably disposed nobles."
As for adventurers, if you threw money at them they'd obviously come running with glee, but noble private soldiers were a trickier matter. The truth was that those in the capital needed royal permission to move their private troops outside.
The problem was, while this incident was indeed an anomaly, it wasn't exactly a rare kind of anomaly. Unless a report had already reached them suspecting a gate, or the royal house had been considering that possibility from the start, the approval process alone would easily eat up an entire day.
And since no nobles would have their troops standing perpetually ready to march for a proposal whose approval was even uncertain, even after permission came through it would still take a day for them to get here.
That meant two days at minimum, and the orcs' own attack might come as soon as two days from now.
"How much leeway the royal house gives us will be key, but the orcs could attempt an attack as early as tomorrow. It's better to consider that the practical fighting strength will consist of adventurers of red rank or higher who remain in the capital. It'd be overwhelming if this were a war, but from the perspective of monster subjugation, I think it's manageable."
There was no need to lay out all those details in front of civilians and mercenaries, so I gave them an appropriately trimmed version. The two of them accepted it with an "Ah, that makes sense," and Sir Bisquente nodded in agreement as well.
"But... if even the adventurers don't arrive in time, won't it be dangerous?"
"As you say. However, you needn't worry about that."
At Siel's question, Sir Bisquente answered with a smile that was both polite and brimming with confidence. It was such a self-assured response that it nearly made you think he'd chartered carriages himself, and when we all showed our curiosity through our expressions alone, Sir Bisquente shrugged and answered.
"I did say we'd resolved to crack open the family treasury, didn't I? The adventurers will come by wyvern. We've already received royal permission to mobilize every wyvern handler in both Raviel and the capital."
And then, my internal assessment of Raviel's lord and Sir Bisquente began to skyrocket.
I wasn't sure about anything else, but it looked like they were determined to put on one hell of a performance in front of the royal house.