The Porter's Orders

Most of them were only lesser breeds, yet Erinn's single slash swept them away without leaving a trace. Plenty of monsters still swarmed the granary lands, of course, but they were living creatures with feelings of their own.

Even after watching comrades who had stood beside them mere moments earlier vanish in one blow, they could not bring themselves to move at once. We had to seize that opening.

"Everyone, charge! Hero Orlando, you run too!!"

"……!"

If Orlando was not a complete fool, he could not ignore my words even now. A chance to cover a vast distance in a single push had just appeared.

And sure enough, Orlando wheeled his horse around and rejoined the formation with his party members.

"Wow~♡ You only show up after I've already wiped them all out~?"

Erinn openly needled Orlando for his independent stunt, but this time I felt no urge to rein her in.

Orlando apologized without hesitation.

"…I'm sorry. I judged this the correct call. When ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠higher breeds cluster with the lesser ones, they only grow more troublesome…."

"Didn't I say I was in command?"

I pressed him. I understood that a Porter inspired little trust, yet if he respected General Grinaldo's decision to place me in charge, he ought to have followed it.

Orlando seemed to grasp my meaning and fell silent. In the middle of that silence, Kael—whether he simply could not read the room or just wanted to pick a fight—spoke up.

"In the end we made the wrong call, but you should understand our side too. How are we supposed to trust and follow a Porter's words?"

"This really isn't the time for any of you to be saying things like that."

Letisia warned him with a faintly fierce edge, yet the bastard kept talking.

"Was I wrong? You can trust him because he's your party member, but of course we can't. How are we supposed to trust and follow orders from someone who isn't even a combatant? And sure, our judgment turned out wrong, but it's not like we were just goofing off…."

"So you let every last monster pour over onto us—the ones who actually have to assault the Canal? Well done."

"…What?"

"That's enough."

It was I, not anyone else, who cut them off. I spoke.

"Hero Orlando. If you cannot follow my words, then you need not follow them."

"……."

Orlando stared at me in silence, as if asking what nonsense I was spouting. But rather than stubbornly trying to drag along people who would not listen, it was far more efficient to issue orders to those who would.

"Do as you please, Hero!"

Do whatever you want.

I dismissed Orlando from my mind and turned to my own party. The horses were flying so fast I had to shout for the women to hear me clearly.

"Erinn opened a path for the moment, but we'll have to cut down the monsters that gather again soon! Letisia, can you handle it?"

"Is that even a question?"

Crack!

Even while riding, the precise snap of her whip against the ground made the trailing spirits' faces turn sour.

"I won't let a single one approach."

"And Aria!"

"Puhah, hmm?"

Ser-Aria, still guzzling liquor from horseback, looked my way.

"Stop drinking that booze for a second and do exactly as I say!"

"Oh! Finally my turn?"

"Yeah! See that big tree down at the foot of Les Blanc Mountain?"

"Puhaha, of course!"

"Twenty seconds before we reach it!"

I pointed toward the upper slopes of the mountain.

"Hit that spot with the strongest shot you've got!"

"…Huh? The mountain?"

"You can burn every drop of mana. I've got a ton of potions in the bag!"

"……Aha?"

Ser-Aria grinned as if she understood perfectly.

"Puhaha, great! This'll be fun!"

I had something for Freya as well. In truth, it might have been the single most critical role in the entire Canal interception.

"Freya, once we draw near the Canal, monsters that sling debuffs will definitely show up."

"Is that so?"

"And there will be a full hundred of them."

I asked,

"Can you handle every last one?"

It was an absurd demand for an ordinary priest. Asking one person to cleanse a hundred curses was little different from working a cleric to death.

But this Saintess was different. She was no ordinary priest; she was a member of the Hero's Party, and she had long since surpassed the limits of the priesthood.

Saintess was no mere title.

Freya Ernest's class was listed not as Priest but as Saintess, and among her traits sat Child of God. In short, Freya was a woman chosen by the divine—something no one could deny.

Aside from her stamina and intelligence, her other physical stats were nothing extraordinary, yet true to her station her Divinity soared past a thousand.

With that vast well of holy power….

"A hundred of them?"

Freya smiled softly.

"Of course I can."

"…Then that's settled. Break through at full speed! We don't need to wait for anyone else anymore!"

Our party alone would go. We would handle the Canal ourselves; as long as Orlando refused to listen, dragging his group along was pointless.

"Wait, Allen! You're going alone?"

"You stay with the main force and clean up the monsters. The paladins were under Hero Orlando's command to begin with, so take direct charge of them!"

I added,

"That should be more comfortable for you, shouldn't it!"

"……."

Orlando made no reply. Whether he could not answer or simply chose not to, I did not know.

In the meantime my party members spurred their horses harder, racing ahead exactly as ordered. The monsters, recovering their wits, began to clog the corridor Erinn had carved, but Letisia would not allow it.

The wind spirit Sylph raised a tempest that hurled the monsters aside, then stilled the gale at the precise instant our horses reached the cleared ground. Letisia cracked her whip and issued the next command.

"Gnome, your turn. You know what happens if you're slow♥"

At Letisia's single word the terrified gnome unleashed its power. Earth surged upward under the spirit's command, and in an instant towering walls of soil rose on either side of the charging monsters.

Excellent judgment. Now we only needed to clear the creatures trapped inside the earthen corridor and the path would open clean again. I called to Erinn at once.

"Open it, Erinn!"

"I just burned all my mana~♡"

"Here—potion!!"

I flung a small flask of sky-blue liquid from my bag; Erinn casually stretched out a hand and caught it.

"Only one~?"

"I'll top you up with as many as you need once we arrive!"

"You said you had tons of potions, yet you're so stingy~♡"

They're still supplies, you brat—better to conserve them.

Erinn uncorked the flask and drank. The Holy Sword blazed with light once more.

The Holy Sword's radiance shifted, glowing with the quiet depth of a blue night sky. Erinn drove her heels into the stirrups, accelerated, and thrust the blade straight ahead.

KRAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Like a comet splitting the night, a torrent of deep-blue mana tore through the monsters. We raced after Erinn as though we were the comet's trailing tail.

How many hours had we already spent in the saddle?

"They're already swarming again. Pfft, like cockroaches~♡"

Erinn had kept the path open and we had covered a great deal of ground, yet Les Blanc Mountain still lay some distance ahead. The corridor her massive slash had carved was once more crawling with monsters.

Twenty thousand, they said—and it really was an absurd number.

Still, we had come far. Far faster than I had expected.

"Haa…."

I had thought riding would be easier than walking… yet hours on horseback were punishing in their own right. My thighs felt ready to split.

"Allen, if you're tired you can lean on me."

"……No."

"Hm? Why not?"

Lean on her while she was dressed like that? Was this exhibitionist actually sane? If I rested against her, my face would meet bare shoulder or bare back. She knew that and still offered.

"Honestly, so stubborn."

Freya said it lightly, then suddenly seized the arm I had wrapped around her waist. Before I could wonder what she intended, she pulled my arm forward.

"…!?!"

"There—more comfortable, right?"

"Hey, you…!"

My face naturally settled against her shoulder. And once I was hanging on her and leaning at the same time… my thighs really did feel far better. I had no good argument left.

"By the way, what do we do about that many of them?"

"What do you mean what—we keep punching through."

"Do I have to do it again~?"

"Besides you, the only one who can clear a wide area is Letisia."

But Letisia was already busy dealing with monsters ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠climbing the earthen walls on either side and dropping toward us. That left only Erinn.

"……Then I'll handle it this time."

"…Thief?"

She did possess multi-target skills such as Ten Thousand Blossoms, yet even those would struggle against numbers this vast. Without a true wide-area attack the effect would be limited.

I almost called it inefficient, then stopped.

No. There might be something I did not know. The slash Erinn had shown earlier had been a power I never expected either.

"All right, Thief. You do it."

"……Okay. Just wait a moment."

The Thief moved to the front. Then she suddenly dismounted, turned to Freya, and said,

"……Freya. Purification."

"…Ah. Understood, Thief."

Freya nodded as if she grasped the request at once.

Why does she need Purification?

Purification was one of Freya's traits—something that cleansed polluted ground or lifted curses. I could not immediately ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠see why it was necessary now… not until the Thief used her skill.

"I just go first, right?"

"……I'll catch up soon."

With that brief exchange the Thief slipped something sharp onto her fingers. The long golden claws looked like ordinary talons at a glance, yet they fitted only her index and middle fingers.

Monsters charged the dismounted Thief. She drove those fingers into the bare earth; a skill message flared and black smoke billowed from the ground.

"…Poison?"

The instant I read the word, the rising black smoke coalesced. It looked exactly like a colossal dragon opening its jaws wide.

SHAAAAAAAAAAAAA────!!!!

A dragon made of pure poison. It flew straight at the onrushing monsters, passed through them like smoke, and continued onward.

Then the astonishing part began. Every monster the Poison Dragon touched clutched its throat, gasped and choked, turned a deathly blue… and simply died.

…Insane.

A simple skill, yet its lethality was monstrous. Most creatures, barring a few special breeds, needed to breathe to live. Judging by the state of those that died on contact, that vast mass of poison seemed to choke off respiration itself.

"……But then how do we get through?"

"Everyone stay behind me."

"Puhaha, every time I see it that thing is terrifying!"

Whatever she found funny, Ser-Aria laughed heartily and fell in behind Freya; the rest of the party did the same.

Now I understood why the Thief had asked Freya for Purification. She would kill the monsters with poison, then Freya would cleanse the lingering toxin from the opened path as we advanced.

Only Erinn did not move behind Freya.

"Erinn, what are you doing?"

"Hmm? I can just walk through~?"

"What?"

Was this some new form of suicide?

"Poison doesn't work on Erinn. Naturally it doesn't work on the Thief either."

"…Ah."

Come to think of it, both Erinn and the Thief possessed the trait Absolute Poison Immunity. What kind of humans were immune to poison?

Still, she ought to stay behind Freya. Erinn was not walking on her own two feet right now.

"…Even if you're fine, the horse isn't immune to poison."

"Ah, right~?"

…Are you an idiot?

Even she seemed to find it funny; Erinn laughed lightly and moved behind Freya.

"I got called out by a Heojeop~♡"

She said it as though she had suffered some unforgivable humiliation. Your Intelligence stat is barely higher than mine, you know.

"Then let's go."

Freya lightly shook the reins. Would a horse even try to enter a place saturated with poison? Animals often sensed danger better than people.

My worry proved baseless. The horse galloped forward exactly as Freya directed—straight into the poison-choked front, as if it trusted the rider it carried.

Answering that trust, Freya released a vast surge of holy power and activated the purification skill. I knew Sanctuary of Purification.

The highest-tier purification art a priest-class character can learn….

It turned the caster's immediate surroundings into a sacred domain that cleansed every impurity within. More importantly, the skill's range was fixed around the caster—so when the caster moved, the purified zone moved with her.

"…Huh."

The lethal toxins left behind after the monsters were annihilated vanished the instant they touched the sanctuary. Freya rode at an easy pace; the rest of the party followed safely in her wake.

Once she confirmed we were passing through unharmed, the Thief remounted and caught up. Thus we traveled the path her skill had scoured in complete comfort.

"Orlando! Those guys already look long gone!"

At Kael's shout Orlando checked the position of Erinn's party. The distance was too great for ordinary eyes, yet under the influence of the Holy Flag—which enhanced every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠physical faculty—he could roughly track them.

A journey he had expected to take a full day had been compressed into half a day; Erinn's party was already at the mountain's foot. They had used no cheap tricks.

They had simply leveraged their full strength and cut the operation's required time in half. Orlando acknowledged that Erinn and her companions were formidable, yet…

…It was he who used their power so precisely.

The moment Orlando had refused to trust Allen and acted on his own, the Porter had instantly changed plans and forced a breakthrough with Erinn's strength. It was flexible thinking hard to credit to a non-combatant Porter.

Flexible enough to make Orlando, who had refused to trust him, feel ashamed. The order that had freely told him to do as he pleased only deepened that shame.

"What now? We can probably stop holding them back…."

"…We rejoin the main force. As planned, we clear the divided monsters together with the main army."

At Erwin's question Orlando ordered the regroup and led the paladins and his party toward the main body. He exhaled a quiet sigh and muttered,

"…I still have a long way to go."

While Orlando reproached himself for his mistaken judgment, his party member Kael was thinking something entirely different.

"A mere Porter…."

He had met Allen for the first time today, yet already disliked him—from the very first glance. It was not simply because the man was a Porter.

How dare he covet what's mine?

From the moment they first met, Allen had been stuck to the Thief's side.

Kael had taken a liking to the Thief ever since their previous encounter.

Like him she was an orphan who had lived without a name, and they even shared similar professions—plenty of common ground. On top of that she was pretty, so he had found her thoroughly appealing.

Next time they met he had planned to give her a name the way his master had once named him, and grow closer that way.

Yet here was some man glued to her back, sharing a single horse. Kael had shot him pointed looks, but the bastard had ignored every single one of them outright.

A Porter who not only coveted what belonged to him but also ignored him—Kael's hostility only swelled further. And now that same Porter was trying to play a role beyond a mere baggage carrier; the hostility grew rather than shrank.

Honestly, if the man had not been a member of Erinn's party, Kael's hatred was already strong enough that he would have killed him and still had room to spare.

Kael ground his teeth as Allen's face rose in his mind and muttered,

"…Let's see just how well you can do following a Porter's orders, you bastard."