The Worst Boss
“Ooh, let no ordeal ever break my loyal heart; Grasis forevermore.”
The low, murmured refrain came to an end.
Hmph.
“This kind of marching song really doesn’t suit my voice.”
It was supposed to be a far more stirring piece, but when I sang it in my soft, delicate voice, it lost all its punch.
No matter how good a singer you were, there were always songs that simply didn’t fit your nature.
It felt exactly like that—the mood of the song and my voice were completely at odds.
I could have changed the arrangement to suit me, but I couldn’t arrange music, and even if I could, I didn’t want to.
“You would’ve liked it even sung like this. Right, Garid?”
This was Garid’s favorite song, after all.
Whenever he drank, he used to belt it out so loudly the whole house seemed to shake.
If I had to name the most patriotic person I’d ever met, I’d pick Garid without hesitation.
A man who sang marching songs even when he was thoroughly drunk. He was a fine model for any knight.
...Wait. Saying it like that makes him sound like a drunkard.
“Still, I think I’m better than I used to be, don’t you? I’ve kept practicing ever since Garid praised me.”
This time, instead of the march, I hummed a folk tune I’d heard often while walking the streets.
“I’ll gather a great bouquet of red flowers and offer them to you. If red flowers bloom before your house, you’ll think of me, won’t you? If red flowers bloom before my house—”
I’ll think of you too.
Still humming under my breath, I plucked the brilliantly blooming red flowers one by one.
“Sorry. I don’t think I can give you these.”
The red wouldn’t show, but they were already soaked with blood.
I’ll pick you other flowers, so don’t be too disappointed.
As if making excuses to myself, I muttered the words and let go of the armful of red blossoms without a shred of regret.
Carried by the wind, the flowers scattered in a flurry and drifted down the cliff.
Maybe by this time next year, the base of the cliff would be covered in red flowers.
“Did you know, Garid? Insects communicate with pheromones. Things like, ‘There’s food here,’ or ‘This place is dangerous.’”
I brushed pollen and leaves from my hands and kept talking.
“Humans have pheromones too, apparently, but the ability to sense them has degenerated, so they can’t use them to communicate like insects do.”
So maybe the ones who kept swarming in as if they’d smelled bait weren’t people at all, but insects?
If they were human, then that ability had long since atrophied, hadn’t it.
I’d thought they were thieves at first, then vermin, but maybe they really had been insects.
“Honestly, they’re something else.”
How many days had it been since I started greeting swarms of insects that showed up several times a day, as if someone had sprayed pheromones announcing there was food here?
It was definitely more than a week, though I couldn’t say how much more.
And the frequency kept increasing, too….
Thinning out flowers stained with blood was one thing, but if this went on, all the carefully tended flowerbeds would be gone.
“Move in groups of no more than eight. Anything more is cowardly!”
It was almost funny, the way they never exceeded eight people, as if they had some kind of code of conduct, but that didn’t make me any less annoyed.
I glanced miserably toward a corner of the empty flowerbed and trudged forward.
Then I drew the sword that had already proven its usefulness in dealing with thieves, pest control, and now, apparently, extermination.
Before each round of pest control, I’d also made it a routine to apologize inwardly to the blacksmith who had forged the blade.
“This time, let’s try to protect the healer as much as possible. The two tanks should each cover one healer, and the dealers need to stay close by too.”
“And the healers should prioritize putting shields on themselves before healing anyone else.”
“Okay. Let’s go!”
...What are they even saying?
If they were going to pick a fight out of nowhere, they could at least use words I understood, but I stared blankly at the group of eight as they muttered among themselves in a language only they seemed to share.
It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar language.
What they were speaking was Arkish, the imperial tongue created by the Ro Arca Empire.
It was called an imperial language, but because humans and even other races with their own native tongues learned it, it was practically the common language of the Ardina Continent.
The reason was obvious, of course: the Ro Arca Empire held hegemony over the Ardina Continent.
In that sense, it wasn’t all that strange or unfamiliar for those ruffians—no, that swarm of insects—to be speaking Arkish.
And so what?
That was no reason for me to go easy on them.
Nor was it a reason for me to bother learning Arkish in the first place.
Given the reach of the Ro Arca Empire, I wasn’t completely ignorant of it either.
I just couldn’t understand it properly; I knew the important words, that was all.
Die, bastard, help me, run away, mother, monster.
And so on.
That was practical, compressed Arkish.
Knowing that much was enough to get by.
Yeah, just like now.
Slash!
“Aaaagh!”
“That crazy bastard’s at it again!”
“Protect the healer, protect the healer!”
“How are we supposed to protect them when they get split in half with the shield too?!”
“Then use the party survival skill!”
“Does the party survival skill have no cooldown?!”
From the way they’d spread out in such an odd formation, it looked like they’d been whispering up a strategy a moment ago.
But a strategy only worked if the enemy was strong enough to matter.
Just like moths were helpless before a master mage’s hellfire, no matter how dazzling their movements looked.
And the strategy was wrong from the start.
If they wanted to protect the back line, then the front line should have come forward and met blades head-on.
Suppressing my opinion of them as fools, I lifted a foot and kicked the center of the nearest breastplate.
If they stayed that close together, of course it would end up like this.
“...Guh! Wh-what kind of strength is—!”
The armored swordsman skidded backward with the sound of air being forced from his lungs.
And behind him stood a mage holding a staff.
“Aaah! Hey, move! She’s coming!”
“You think I don’t want to move? I’m too heavy to get up!”
Beautiful.
The swordsman and the mage collapsed into a tangled heap together.
Seeing how tightly they’d been clinging to each other, they must have been quite the devoted pair, and I felt oddly satisfied at having brought their love to fruition.
Those occasional shrieks they let out were probably cries of joy, too.
I couldn’t understand Arkish enough to know for sure, but they definitely were.
There was nothing I could do for a couple who chose to flirt in the middle of a fight, but I could at least preside over the wedding.
Thud.
“...!”
“Kh, kahak!”
Apparently pleased with my ceremony, the couple left their praise behind and departed on their honeymoon.
They had fulfilled in one go what lovers usually promised—“Let’s stay together until we die,” and “We’ll still be together after death.” How romantic.
May their love last forever.
My next target was the crossbowman gaping stupidly with his mouth hanging open.
The instant the two of them vanished must have been so shocking that he couldn’t even think to pull the trigger; he’d gone into a meditative state for spiritual cultivation instead.
I charged forward and swung my sword, helping him continue his meditation.
First the priest I’d cut down at the start, then the couple who had gone on their honeymoon, and now the crossbowman who loved meditation.
With four of them gone in an instant, the morale of the remaining bugs visibly collapsed.
“Ha… this try’s a bust too.”
Even when they rushed me with gritted teeth, they hadn’t stood a chance. With half their numbers gone and their morale shattered, there was no way they could compete.
Garid, who valued courage above all else, would have been disappointed if he’d seen them.
I, however, didn’t care at all.
Still, if I were to say one thing, it was hard not to wonder why they had even come if this was all they were going to do.
They’d come prepared to die, and yet they weren’t throwing themselves at me like rabid dogs. But they didn’t look like they had any attachment to life, either.
What stood out was that even after their fighting spirit had broken, they still weren’t running away.
It felt like looking at something somewhere between a highly trained assassin and a beginner one.
Maybe they’d been threatened with, “If you come back alive, we’ll kill you.”
Still, the people of this world really did treat life too lightly. That was the problem.
Though, of course, I was one of them too.
“See? Even while thinking about other things, my body still moves naturally.”
I spoke while looking over the battlefield, now left with nothing but pools of blood.
The corpses had already dissolved into shafts of light and vanished long ago.
And my sword had survived again, neither broken nor shattered.
At this point, I was starting to get stubborn about it.
“At least the flowerbed didn’t get wrecked this time.”
Because the fight had taken place in the cleared patch left behind after thinning the flowers, I’d done a fine job preventing the bug swarm from chewing through them.
Still, I couldn’t just leave things like this….
If there was no damage at all, like in this battle, that would be one thing, but there was no guarantee of that happening every time.
I had to do something before the flowerbed turned into a bare plain.
For Garid.
“Hmm… looks like I’ll have to go down to the village again.”
Not long ago I’d gone to the village and bought enough supplies to think I wouldn’t need to go back for a while, and now here I was, preparing to descend again.
People really couldn’t predict anything.
I should buy new seeds, some more planting materials, gather information while I was there, and maybe pick up a decent sword while I was at it.
I couldn’t stay away too long since I had no idea when the bug swarm would show up again, but if I went quickly enough, it should be fine.
“Ah, I’ve got a good idea.”
If I exterminated the bugs every time I saw them on the way down, wouldn’t they stop coming for a while?
At the very least, it would buy me time to get to the village and back.
Even I had to admit it was a brilliant plan.
With a satisfied smile, I turned on my heel.