Hope Sprouting, Despair Swarming
The plain stretched out to the northeast of Tamer Territory.
There, a knight raced across the wind, her purple cloak snapping hard behind her. As though it were answering for her restless heart, her short reddish-brown hair whipped about without ever quite touching her cheeks.
The spirit of the wind sweeping across the grassland seemed eager to tell her that if she threw off that cloak, she would run just a little faster.
“I will not slow down!”
The knight was not ignorant of air resistance, but this cloak was a precious gift bestowed when her lord had appointed her a knight.
She would rather shave her head to take less wind than cast the cloak aside.
“Can you not keep up faster than that!”
That was Lilian.
“C-Commander. We’re fine, but the horses are exhausted. Could we rest for a moment? We’ve been running since dawn.”
“…One hour.”
“Thank you. Hah, hah.”
The Tamer Territory guards were blowing like exhausted horns into their waterskins, and the horses had collapsed where they stood. Lilian ordered all of them to eat mandragora horn-leaf cookies, then studied the dirt with a sharp eye.
“Where is he headed, anyway? That Uleakhim bastard.”
“Where else would he go but outside Kihara Barony?”
Soon she found the tracks of horse hooves. The shoe pattern was different from their own.
“Heading… east-northeast?”
Lilian turned toward the direction the hoofprints led.
Should I use the sighting tube? No, I should conserve it since there’s not much charge left.
She widened her eyes and focused aura into them.
Within the shimmering currents of energy, she made out one faint white dot and, beside it, a smaller one.
A white horse? We don’t have a single one in our company, but the dispatch guards had a few. So it really is him. He’s stopped... resting, maybe.
Before long, Lilian closed her eyes. Fatigue came crashing down on her eyelids like snow falling from a rooftop.
“Um, Commander. If you find Uleakhim, what do you plan to do with him?”
A senior soldier who had come up beside the woman stopped in place and asked hesitantly.
“I’ll drag him back. Any objection?”
“N-no, sir. I was only worried he might resist.”
“How can a corpse resist?”
“Pardon? Just now you said you would drag him back...”
“Dragging back a corpse would be easier. It doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, and doesn’t fall ill.”
Lilian stepped on a protruding stone and crushed it beneath her boot.
As dirt burst up around her, anger rose with it. But that anger was not directed at Uleakhim.
This was my mistake.
It was aimed at herself.
I was so focused on the dispatch commander that I lost sight of the men under him.
It had been a blunder not to watch the troop movements while keeping Shrakhim under such close surveillance.
It was enough to report him to Baron Kihara. There was no need for him to move in person.
The fuss he had made about not being able to handle chores was nothing but smoke. While her attention was fixed on him, he had used the opening to pull out his subordinate and younger brother Uleakhim, then flee.
I’m sorry, my lord. You trusted me and entrusted me with a heavy duty, but I made a mistake.
Lilian, in her panic, had taken action first and reported later.
I will use the deserter as an example and restore discipline to the ranks.
She had resolved to bring Uleakhim back, no matter what.
“Everyone, get up.”
“What? It’s not even been thirty minutes yet, sir. Look at the clock-”
The commander of the guards spun the soldier’s watch hands clean around.
“An hour has passed.”
“At your command!”
One of the guards who rose, swallowing back tears, pointed toward the northwest.
“C-Commander! Look over there.”
Dust was rising like a storm.
Lilian took the sighting tube from the saddle pouch.
“Long-Range Observation - Maximum Range.”
As she spoke the activation phrase, the mana stone inside the cylinder lost its sky-blue light and turned transparent.
Quadruped monsters.
It was monsters kicking up the dust. Their forms were still indistinct. Only the hooves made her think of cattle or horses.
Fast. But they’re moving in the opposite direction from our territory. Toward Kihara Barony, then. In that case...
Lilian also checked the east-northeast direction.
A stream. One horse tied to a tree. A fully armed soldier lying beside it. That settles it.
She could not make out his face, but the shape was unmistakable.
The distance to him is barely ten kilometers. If I use an acceleration scroll, I can catch him quickly. But those monsters might reach Kihara Barony before that. What should I do then? If the timing goes wrong, our path could cross with theirs.
∴ ∴∴ (Monster?)
↘
●Kihara Barony
↗
★(Uleakhim)
↗
♥(Lilian)
◆(Tamer Territory)
She was deep in thought when suddenly—
“W-what in the world is that?!”
A red flare flashed from the direction of Tamer Territory.
Lilian hurriedly peered into the sighting tube, but by then the mana stone had already lost its transparency.
“...That bastard Sicoop. I told him a hundred times to refill the mana on time.”
She vented her anger at the mage soldier, then focused aura back into her eyes.
Is that a signal to us?
In her bloodshot stare, something besides the blinking red orb came into view.
A flag, hanging high and fluttering without moving.
I don’t know the details, but something must have happened in the territory.
Lilian no longer needed to think. She dug into the saddle pouch and pulled out a single scroll.
“All units! Rally to me!”
Acceleration Scroll. In the game, it was an item that boosted a unit’s movement speed for a fixed amount of time.
“We return to the territory at once!”
She tore the scroll with the spear blade, and blue mana spilled out to envelop the horses and soldiers.
* * *
“...I’m sorry, my lord. Though the situation was urgent, I committed the offense of moving troops outside the territory without permission, and I also failed to capture the deserter Uleakhim.”
Lilian and the guards knelt before their lord.
“I will accept whatever punishment you deem fit. But... please take into account that the men who followed were only obeying my orders and are innocent.”
Ho-yeong looked down at Lilian silently, then tossed out a question.
“Did you eat?”
“...Pardon?”
“I’m asking if you ate. Not battle rations. A proper meal.”
The question caught Lilian off guard, but she answered honestly.
“No. Though we did have man... ”
“Not mandragora horn-leaf cookies either. That’s not a meal. That’s a snack.”
“...”
“You were focused on the chase and didn’t have time to cook, I’m sure. No, before that, you probably ran off with just your spear and didn’t even take food with you.”
I understand the situation well enough.
Having spent enough time with Lilian to understand her character, Ho-yeong continued.
“I order Guard Captain Lilian and the soldiers under her command to do two things. First, from now on, no matter how urgent the situation, you will pay attention to supplies.”
Instead of telling them they should have gotten permission even in an emergency, he gave a different order.
“Second. Go and eat right now.”
The pursuit team all exchanged looks.
“We misheard you?”
“I said go eat. The field kitchen’s over there, so hurry up. You heard about the crisis facing the territory, yes? Then there’s no time, so move!”
“How can we take our meals so casually at a time like this...”
“Hey, don’t you know labor runs on food? We’ve got a ton of digging to do right now. Look at you. You’ve been starving since dawn and wobbling around like that, and you expect to lift a shovel?”
The lord muttered in exasperation, then turned away.
“Eat slowly. If you get indigestion, that’s a loss in combat power.”
* * *
The clergy who served the angel Hariad wore gray robes. It was in keeping with the teachings left behind when the archangel departed the world.
Pure white can only be stained. Pure black cannot even be stained.
The interpretation differed slightly by sect, but the theological consensus was that one should neither pursue goodness blindly nor destroy evil fanatically; likewise, one should neither sever oneself from the world to do nothing but practice nor immerse oneself too deeply in worldly affairs.
“Tch. If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have done laundry yesterday.”
Rubia’s interpretation was somewhat different.
“Merciful archangel, thank you for making the clerical robe gray. If it were white like those uppity elf bastards who serve Saliad, I’d have spent my life doing laundry. And I sure as hell don’t want to wear black like the dwarf priests, where you can’t even tell when it was last washed.”
White clothing got dirty too quickly, and black clothing made it hard to see that it was dirty at all. In her view, gray was simply the easiest color to work in.
“I’m sorry, priest. I stained your clothes.”
The warrior lying pale and exhausted on the ground spoke weakly.
“Hm? No, I’m not talking to you. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I’ve treated the leg injury roughly, so let’s take a look at your upper body.”
Rubia carefully lifted the warrior’s shirt.
“Ooh. Nice abs. Good, very solid.”
“...Priest?”
“Ah, I mean it’s lucky the wound was shallow thanks to those strong abs. Yes, that’s all.”
As she said, the injury across the abs was nothing much, but blood was pouring freely from the holes in his side.
“Bear with it for a moment.”
“W-what is that?”
The warrior jumped in shock. The priest was smearing some kind of lump of mud all over the wound.
“Uh... eh?!”
The wound knit itself shut in an instant.
“Healing salve. Don’t eat it. Put it on your skin instead. Our lord invented it.”
It was made by mixing adsorption soil with sap from the Dodum Tree, whose high volatility normally made it difficult to use.
“Get some rest and plenty of food, and you’ll recover soon enough. All right, next patient. Oh? Let me see your back.”
A male mage lay face down. His robe had been torn to rags, as though ripped apart by the claws of a Horgriphon. The skin beneath was the same.
“Why in the world don’t mages wear armor? Is there some curse that says you can’t cast mana if you’re not wearing a robe?”
“It’s too heavy and itchy...”
“No one’s telling you to wear full plate. A leather cuirass would’ve done the trick. Then even if your back got clawed up, you’d be fine. You wear nothing but a scrap of a robe, and look where that got you.”
“...Ghh.”
Rubia applied the salve to him as well.
“At least your bones aren’t damaged, so that’s something. Now for the last patient.”
A young woman lay unconscious on the ground. She wore the same clerical robe as Rubia.
“This is why a party needs at least two priests.”
Looking down at the female cleric, Rubia clicked her tongue.
“When someone else gets hurt, the priest heals them. But when the priest gets hurt, who’s supposed to heal the priest?”
“...I have no excuse. If I hadn’t lost my healing potion while retreating in a hurry...”
The mage’s voice trailed off in remorse.
“You said she passed out from the shock of falling off her horse? Then this won’t be fixed with salve. As annoying as it is, I’ll have to pray.”
She laid a hand on the woman’s head and prayed, and soon enough the female cleric woke up.
“Are you awake, sister?”
“Ah. W-where am I?”
The party members explained things to the cleric, who was breathing hard.
“Thank the archangel! You lowered a single feather to those of us who fell.”
“No, I’m the one who healed you, so why are you thanking Hariad? From your robe, you’re a lower-ranking priest, but what rank are you, sister? I’m rank four. Rank seven? That’s rough. Which temple are you with?”
While the military chaplain was busy restoring discipline, Ho-yeong walked in.
“Ah, Count of the Border Region.”
The warrior and mage tried to get up when they spotted Ho-yeong.
“Right. If you’re going to thank anyone, thank the lord. He’s the one who saved you.”
“Ah, no need. Please stay where you are.”
Ho-yeong waved them down.
“What can I say to thank you...? If not for Count of the Border Region, the lot of us would’ve ended up as Horgriphon food.”
“No need for thanks. In this barren western plain, helping one another is simply the proper thing to do.”
An adventuring party that had been chased by a Horgriphon.
“When our horses were exhausted and one of my companions had collapsed, and we were barely carrying her while a sandstorm came up... I’d almost given up hope. If we hadn’t followed that red light, we would’ve lost our direction and our way completely.”
Ho-yeong had rescued the group after they ran toward the mana lamp he had raised in Tamer Territory.
“I swear on my sword, I’ll repay this debt no matter what.”
“I’d like to help in whatever small way I can with my own mana, so please ask anything of me.”
“Thank you. May the blessing of the archangel who watches over even the lowest places rest on this territory forever.”
The adventuring party feels deep gratitude toward the Guardian. While staying in Tamer Territory, they will gladly lend a hand and serve as a link to other adventurers.