Point of Contact
Point of Contact
And after a somewhat tedious wait, we hit the jackpot.
"Oh, that was today?"
"Hahaha. Enjoy your shift!"
A little past 11, the bastards who'd gotten cozy with the Demonfolk came pouring out of the dungeon in a big, laughing, shit-faced mob, giddy as hell. Anyone watching would've thought they were honest, hard-working adventurers living their best lives.
Then again, maybe that was deliberate too—a way of convincing themselves that what they were doing was righteous and noble.
"Night shift's gonna be a real bitch tonight."
"When is it not?"
"Shit. Just don't be late. Remember that time you were an hour late and they sent someone after you?"
"The mood's shitty enough as it is. I've got that much sense. We'll be back exactly at six, so don't worry."
"Yeah, sure you will."
There were seven of them. After casually greeting the guards, they gathered into a natural-looking group and headed into the forest. Since they'd obviously take the same route on the way back, I shifted into position and told Gaendal what I was doing.
"I'll tail them and confirm the route."
Leaving Gaendal, who answered with a light nod, behind me, I ducked low and moved. Keeping my distance wasn't hard, and concealing my presence from them wasn't hard either.
From how defenseless yet practiced they looked, I could tell just how long this routine had been repeating itself. Come to think of it, all I'd been told was that they were Demonfolk worshippers. I'd heard nothing about what they'd been doing holed up in that abandoned dungeon or how their tails got caught in the first place. They said this was a royal commission—maybe the royal family was keeping tabs on people who might turn out to be seeds of treason? If these bastards hadn't gotten linked to the Demonfolk, would they have been purged some other way eventually?
"I never knew getting to go out once every three weeks could make a guy this happy, I swear."
"I mean, not having to worry about money's why we can do this, but I gotta say, I'm really hoping that gate gets finished so we can get the hell out of here."
Whatever else might've happened, mouths that loose probably would've gotten them killed sooner or later.
A gate? These fuckers really were helping build a gate for the Demonfolk near the capital? I knew almost nothing about that field, so I couldn't tell whether gates normally took this long to build or whether the project was simply huge.
I kept up the pursuit, desperately hoping Rellie would know something, but even as they chattered away excitedly, the bastards didn't drop any more useful intel. The only extra thing I learned was the fact that their close-quarters confinement had forged some seriously tight-knit bonds of brotherhood among them.
They walked quickly, apparently eager to start their break as soon as possible, and it still took them about an hour to get all the way out of the forest. Coming back thoroughly drunk would've taken more than twice as long. No wonder the guards had scoffed at their promise to return exactly on time.
But even so, it probably also meant they wouldn't be more than an hour late.
I wrapped myself in Magic Power to hurry back a little faster.
◈
It took about 30 minutes to get back to Gaendal, and another ten-odd minutes to return to the campsite with him.
The moment we returned, warm stew greeted us. While I ate and once again reflected on the value of having reliable companions, Gaendal relayed everything we'd learned overnight. When I added what I'd overheard about the gate while tailing the group, Rellie's expression turned serious and she explained what she knew.
"It isn't my specialty, so I don't know the details, but as far as I know, creating a gate itself doesn't take this long. They're probably trying to expand it to the size they need."
"Expansion?"
"First you create the gate and lock the spatial coordinates in place. From there, you gradually widen and stabilize the passage until it's safe. Think of it as piercing a mountain with a hole the size of a needle, then using that hole as the starting point for digging a tunnel."
"That really hits home. One hell of a construction project."
Just as Gin said, it was a metaphor you grasped instantly, so those of us who weren't mages could understand the situation, nodding along.
"That doesn't mean the gate is unusable right now. A physical tunnel has to be dug from the entrance inward, but a gate is more like widening that needle hole little by little. I don't know how large they intend to make it, but judging from how long the work's been going on, it's probably already wide enough for one person to stand and pass through without difficulty."
"If it's open that wide, couldn't they just line up single file and come through?"
Yekaterina's question was a pretty comical image if you imagined it, but it was valid. Even if they just equipped themselves with whatever personal gear they could carry and came through, wouldn't that still make an army?
But even with the bottleneck of the dungeon entrance's limited size, there was clearly a reason they were so concerned with the gate's size.
"It's certainly possible, but if the Demonfolk aren't doing it, then they must have some other objective. We just can't know what that is yet."
"Whatever else you can say, one thing's for sure—that ulterior motive is definitely not gonna be good for us. At least from what Eldmia overheard, completion is still a long way off... you think that could end up being a variable?"
"Hard to say? For now, what I can confirm is that there's a mage on that side capable of constructing a gate. Whether that's a member of the Demonfolk or a human, I can't tell—both are possible, so it's a gray area."
A commission issued by the royal family. Maybe the real objective was the execution of a traitor capable of creating a gate.
The theory that they wanted someone that significant dead as just a simple Demonfolk worshipper, without any chance to learn why they'd turned against the kingdom, was plenty plausible. Coincidentally, we knew there was one mage involved too—a situation that left no choice but suspicion.
"The other important point is that a gate normally can't be used while it's being expanded. Strictly speaking it isn't impossible, but it's extremely dangerous. One mistake and you could vanish into another dimension, or emerge somewhere completely different from where you intended."
"Like the middle of the sky?"
"Any variable you can imagine applies. You could come out deep underwater, or halfway embedded in solid rock and die on the spot."
Hm. That was more than a little horrifying. The fact that she rattled off examples like that so readily meant they might've been real cases. While the rest of us shared in similar horror, Rellie finished her explanation.
"What we know for certain is that someone capable of creating a gate is inside the dungeon. And while they're expanding it, even if something goes wrong and they want to disconnect it, they can't do so immediately without destroying the gate outright. If they abandon the project and close it completely, that's different—but that wouldn't be a bad outcome for us."
Even if the gate remained intact, we needed to find a way to destroy it, not cross through it. If the other side panicked and smashed it for us, that'd be nothing but a favor.
Once the matter of the gate was sorted out, what we had to do became extremely simple.
"Eldmia, Yekaterina, and Gin—would the three of you handle the seven when they return?"
The plan was to kill the four guards, including the men changing shifts, and the seven returning drunk and careless. I naturally had to be part of the latter group because I knew the route, but I wondered whether we really needed two more people with me.
"Honestly, if they're drunk, I could handle it alone just fine. If you want things to go a little smoother... well, Yekaterina's war hammer could definitely create some chaos."
"Huh? Mine?"
"Yes. It's the kind of size that scares people just by being there."
If you were staggering home drunk and watched the person in front of you get crushed by that thing, you weren't going to keep your head. Unless someone had earned the title of Drunken Sword, an ordinary person couldn't do much besides panic and scatter.
"I see. Then Yekaterina, I'd like you to go with him just in case. It's not as though we can't prepare for contingencies, and there's no downside to doing so."
"Sound reasoning."
As long as we operated as a team, no matter how much I could do it alone, if a teammate wanted to eliminate a source of anxiety, I figured it was basic human decency to go along with it. I agreed without another word.
"Let's see. Even if they intend to arrive exactly at six, at a drunk man's pace... we still have about four hours to spare. Eldmia, where do you plan to spring the ambush?"
"I'm thinking of hitting them near the edge of the woods. No harm in striking early."
"Then we'll have to leave by about three at the latest. No reason to wear ourselves out on the way. Come to think of it, you returned awfully quickly earlier. Will Yekaterina have any trouble keeping up?"
"I was hurrying with aura, so if I did that again before a fight, I'd be pushing it a little. It'd be better to move quickly without going so hard that it affects the battle."
This was an Eldmia-style ambush where speed and precision were the motto. With Yekaterina's help, killing all seven drunkards wouldn't take even five minutes. The rest would be pure travel time.
Normally, I might've tried interrogating one, but after seeing the bond I'd glimpsed between them, I judged it would probably be a pointless waste of time and decided against it.
"If they're extremely diligent, then allowing for how much slower they'll walk drunk, they could leave around four. Otherwise they'll probably start out of the village at five, like usual. They aren't soldiers; being told to return by six doesn't mean they'll arrive exactly on the minute or rush themselves. They'll calculate from how long the trip out took. You can assume we'll be able to rejoin you within about an hour."
In short, we'd either rejoin them at five, or around six—one or the other. Gaendal nodded as if he understood and gave his answer.
"Hmm. Even if you two are late, as soon as the shift change starts at six, we'll immediately deal with the guards."
"Yes. If there's any hitch in the plan, I'll sprint back and inform you beforehand, so feel free to act boldly."
If I wrapped myself in Magic Power and sprinted flat out, I could cover the distance in a little over ten minutes anyway.
Back in my past life, the insane stunt of sprinting full-tilt through a forest would've been impossible, but now? It wasn't out of the question at all.