The Sapling of Rescue (2)
―I have good news.
It was the happy announcement that an inspector was being dispatched to the city.
"Yes!"
Thermia cheered.
"Evil always triumphs! Our victory!"
Then she froze and corrected herself.
"Good always triumphs! Our victory!"
She seemed to be enjoying herself in more ways than one, so I rejoiced with her.
Teacher, on the other hand, looked distinctly dismayed.
"A city inspector, you say?"
―Yes.
"If that's really the case, then now is not the time for celebration."
Teacher sprang to his feet. He went to a table set up in one corner of the parlor, took out paper and a quill, and hurriedly began drafting a letter.
Whoa? ―Is it actually bad news?
"Not at all. It is very good news indeed. The whole city will be clamped down on, illegal activity will be exposed, and the environment will become far more comfortable for elves to operate in."
Teacher's expression grew grave.
"But in the short term, it collides with the plan we built on the assumption that things would remain as they are."
―Specifically?
"The frightened officials may dump illegal elf slaves in fire sales before the inspector arrives. Then, just as some of the villagers feared, they will become extremely difficult to find."
Whoaaa? ―What?
"We must move the timetable up and begin the operation immediately."
The urgent dispatch to the village was written in a rush.
―Then I'll notify them right away.
"What? Oh!"
Teacher belatedly realized and let out a breath of relief.
"With the Tree present, the operation will never be delayed."
I shifted my view from my bow back to my main body.
Leaping across the distance, my consciousness arrived at the village. Looking around, I found the Water Drop Girl — riding the rabbit — running roughshod over the battle band that charged at her from Thermia's secret base.
The rabbit weaved between the weapon-wielding members of the battle band, leaving afterimages in its wake. Each time its sword hilt struck a fighter in the gut, an elf dropped like a stone.
Giggles of laughter rang out through the chaos.
The Younger Brother Thief, collapsed and clutching his stomach, cried out desperately.
"Chief! The gap in power is too severe — we can't train like this!"
"Facing an overwhelming superior is also valuable training. Steel your mind. Rise with all the strength of despair and fight back."
Village Chief Eldrin spoke firmly, then crossed his arms. His gaze turned to observe the Water Drop Girl and the rabbit.
"......What an absurd mismatch."
They really were frighteningly good.
―Still, they lack real combat experience, so go easy on them.
"You have arrived."
The village chief bowed his head respectfully toward the forest scene through which he could see me.
―Actually, there's a small wrinkle in the plan. An inspector is being sent to the city, so we have to launch the operation right away. How ready are you?
"The state of our training does not satisfy me, but it has been raised to the point where we can execute the operation smoothly."
―Then let's end the training and move to the city. We can revise the details of the plan along the way. Can you manage that?
"Yes."
Village Chief Eldrin turned his head and shouted.
"Training halted! The situation has changed — the Sacred Tree wishes the operation to proceed at once! All members, assemble!"
"Yes, sir!"
The battle band immediately began preparing to depart.
The Water Drop Girl would carry the Pebble Girl off along with her wooden bed, have the battle band's weapons and gear overhauled, and after a few hours of preparation they would rest briefly within my domain before moving out at once.
Now, is there anything left for me to do on this end?
I shifted my view to the Lord's Castle.
―I've delivered the news. The battle band will begin moving before sundown.
"Excellent."
Teacher finished scribbling the rest of his new letter.
It was passed along to Thermia, whose expression was tense.
"If any trouble arises with entering the city, show these people this letter and ask for their help. I've also written down how to handle the officials, so keep that in mind."
"Understood. I'll be going ahead, then."
Teacher looked at my bow.
"I will speak with the Steward and then head straight for the Count's castle."
―But you haven't received the Count's endorsement yet. Are you sure it's all right to proceed?
"The dispatch pigeon should have arrived at the Count's castle by now, so it will be fine. Besides, the Count is not a man who clings to minor formalities in urgent situations. And he and I are already acquainted."
What a relief.
―I'll leave it to you. Thermia, let's go.
"Yes."
Thermia walked toward the window.
She opened it and slipped out and down with practiced ease. She sprinted toward an ornamental tree, stepped onto a branch, and landed on the ground.
Whoa? I wanted to ask why the window of all things, but her expression was so serious that I didn't bother.
Stopping by the stable to take a horse, Thermia began her departure from the Lord's Castle.
―The inspector matter is extremely urgent, so they'll probably send dispatch pigeons, won't they? Let's wait and intercept them.
Carriages were slow, but simply taking out the pigeons cleanly would buy an enormous amount of time.
"You're absolutely right! Let's catch them!"
Once they had slipped a fair distance into the woods where no one could see them, they tethered the horse and climbed up a tall tree.
Before long, about a dozen dispatch pigeons came flying out from the Lord's Castle.
A dozen or so......?
Whoaaa? How am I supposed to catch all of those?
I supposed the number was meant to guard against the mishap of a pigeon being picked off by a bird of prey and the message never arriving — but even so, that was far too many.
"The city has money to burn. Must be nice."
Thermia herself, for her part, calmly drew her bowstring.
Arrows flew in rapid succession. The leaves of my bow twisted its own body on its own, and the corrected aim carved out exquisitely precise trajectories.
The arrows split the sky.
Every last dispatch pigeon came fluttering down.
Whoaaa?
"Hee hee. By the grace of the Sacred Tree, who commanded the pigeons to fall, the birds of prey lost no time in striking them down."
Thermia hummed to herself.
Not a word of it was a lie, and yet somehow it made me blush.
They gathered up the pigeon carcasses and destroyed the evidence. As for the urgent messages, the notes were written in cipher, so their contents were hard to make out.
―Let's hold onto the notes and secretly pass them to the inspector when he arrives.
"Good idea!"
They rode toward the city.
The slave market.
A street cleaner than I'd expected spread out before us.
Slave-trader buildings lined it on both sides. Traders who had come out to tout for customers clung to passersby, and behind them human slaves — caged or bound — were put on display. Now and then the crack of a whip and a scream drifted in from somewhere.
Elves were premium goods, so they would be kept safely inside the buildings.
Thermia, looking down from a nearby rooftop, grew wistful.
"Until recently, I was certain there was no way I'd ever end up in a place like this."
―Really?
"While we were migrating to the village, I was so worried my mother might give up on me and sell me off that I slept with poison tucked away. Truly — only after we reached the village of nothing but elves did I finally stop worrying."
Thermia spoke in a lighter voice than I'd expected. Still, her throat must have been dry, because she opened the waterskin at her side.
A water spirit was pulled out of the waterskin.
Thermia squeezed the spirit in front of her mouth. The water spirit was crushed without mercy. A stream of water came pouring out and moistened her lips.
Once the girl had quenched her thirst, she put the spirit back into the waterskin. It was practically wrung of its very soul, all shriveled and crumpled up as it went in.
"It was terrifying back then, but it feels different now. In a way, I'm even looking forward to it. To how many people I might be able to kill, things like that. Not that I'm sorry to the ones being held captive for thinking it."
―Don't get too worked up. Let's carry out the operation calmly. The rescue comes above all else.
"Yes."
The battle band reached the buildings.
They held a brief pre-battle ceremony with a cup of liquor each, then plunged into the operation.
The knight Malacor was staying in the city, received with every honor.
He had been dispatched at the behest of the Viscount he served, with the intent of supporting bureaucrats of the same faction — but a knight had little actual work to do in running the city. His job, day in and day out, was to eat and make merry.
Today was no different.
He rose at dawn for sword training, ran laps around the parade ground to keep his body in trim, then ate and drank and laughed from morning onward.
"Wahaha! Bring more wine! Are we running short?!"
"Yes, sir!"
Malacor munched on fruit to cleanse his palate. Juice ran down and dampened his beard.
A most satisfying daily routine.
Stories are full of knights who find fulfillment in raising their renown and devoting their loyalty to their lord. No doubt some exist somewhere in reality, too.
But if renown need only be great enough to keep endlessly lavish wine and food flowing, and loyalty need only reach as far as holding the city on his lord's orders — then here, that kind of knight was the better part of the world.
Malacor was one of them.
He had become a knight precisely to live this kind of life.
The knight orders in the capital sneered at such conduct as vulgar — but what did their mockery matter against the pleasures of the flesh?
Today, however, that routine looked set to crack.
"Sir Malacor!"
A bureaucrat came running up in a panic. He wasn't one of the officials the Viscount had asked Malacor to assist, but he was certainly of the same faction.
"What is it?"
"Some unknown assailants have attacked the market!"
"Assailants? In the middle of the city?"
"It must be that Count sending men again! They're unbinding the slaves without a care and raising utter chaos! After last time, to do this again — I really don't understand what he's playing at!"
The nerve of the man.
Malacor had no particular grievance with the Count arguing for the abolition of slavery, quietly and without drawing attention, among the local lords here.
Given the mood of things, the two factions would sooner or later face each other in a territorial war, but it wasn't for a mere knight like him to second-guess the thoughts of his betters.
Still, it was true that the man was a thorn in the side.
If the Count's faction would simply fall in line, everyone could stand united against the capital — so what was the point of standing out alone and causing this much obstruction?
Slaves were slaves for a reason.
The Count ignoring that plain common sense, flouting the law, and wielding power however he pleased was a tremendous public nuisance.
Malacor took a pellet of gold tonic from his breast pocket and swallowed it. Refined mana stone powder mixed with various herbs blew the alcohol haze right out of his head.
There was no need to commit his full strength to hunting down assailants without even a knight among them, so he quickly threw on lightweight armor and headed for the market.
The streets were filled with screams and confusion.
An arrow struck the back of a fleeing slave trader. Masked members of the battle band were freeing human slaves and throwing everything into disarray.
"Everyone, take up a weapon! We strike together once, then scatter and flee — that way the pursuit squads won't catch us easily!"
The hooded and masked figures, their identities hidden, were directing the armed human slaves in battle against the slave traders and the guard.
Slave revolts did happen from time to time.
The slave traders and the guard had a great deal of experience fighting mobs of slaves. Enough to overwhelm them even at smaller numbers.
But right now, with the very men giving commands being picked off by arrows one after another, they were being pushed back helplessly.
"That skill — are those pointy-ears?"
"It would seem so!"
It was obvious enough that Malacor couldn't fathom what the masks were supposed to hide.
Assailants who would never have received proper military training, and yet nearly all of them could use a bow — what else could that possibly describe but elves?
Thinking deficient, as befitted the pointy-ears born to slavery from the cradle.
"Sir Malacor, quickly, your aid!"
"Let me think a moment."
Malacor watched the battle and sank into thought.
So the Count had finally won over those sour-tempered pointy-ears. He'd heard that a band of pointy-eared vigilantes had sabotaged the plans — was that this?
If a pointy-ear village had been won over, then the battle before his eyes wasn't what mattered.
The human slaves fleeing now could simply be hunted down and killed as an example — that would be the end of it.
No — what mattered was denying the pointy-ears any sense of achievement. The expectations of this operation had to be wrecked, so that long-term cooperation with the Count would collapse entirely.
So what would the pointy-ears' goal be......?
"Where is the building where they keep the pointy-ears? Guide me there."
"What?"
Malacor left the battlefield and headed for the holding cells for high-value slaves.
Crushing a slave revolt was what mattered.
Only through thorough, certain retaliation — making revolt itself unthinkable — would future management become easy.
If he slaughtered all the pointy-ear slaves in advance — slaves that would surely be ransomed back anyway — and made an example of them, the cooperative relationship would be ruined beyond repair.
Better that than letting them die inside the pointy-ears' own village: merely the fear that if they resisted, no one would bother to rescue them, would already be a gain.
He slipped quietly into the prison as the guard reported everything in order.
Everything in order, is it......
The moment Malacor entered, he could taste fresh air that had no business in a dungeon. Had someone bored a hole in the wall?
Walking without a sound, he came upon open cell doors. Empty, with no slaves inside.
Deeper in, a faint voice reached his ears.
"Father — I'll have you out in a moment."
As he drew near, three pointy-ears picking at a cell lock whirled around in shock.
"Damn it! I'll hold him off — go on, pick it!"
"Brother?!"
One of the pointy-ears rushed at him with a sword.
Malacor lightly evaded the blow and drove a kick into the man's gut. The pointy-ear doubled over, vomiting blood. Malacor wrenched the sword away and drove it through his shoulder, and a scream tore out.
"Pay me no mind......!"
"Brother! I'll hold him — you hurry and get Father out!"
One who had already picked the lock hoisted the man onto his back and ran.
The remaining pointy-ear trembled as he leveled his sword.
"So it's you, father. How fitting that father and son should die in the same place."
Malacor scoffed.
"Then I'll execute the son before your eyes, and save the torture for the father."
That would have been the unchangeable outcome.
Even if a hole had been bored into the dungeon, it would only lead deeper into the city. Once troops were summoned to give chase, those exhausted, burdened slaves would have no choice but to be caught.
But then, all at once, a voice came from the empty air.
―Truly?
That single word struck him square in the soul, and Malacor went numb.
Divine will swept through the space.
In an instant, his vision — his every sense — transformed.
The prison vanished, and a verdant forest unfolded before him.
A colossal tree that held up the very sky filled his sight. He could hear the whisper of wind brushing the leaves, and the scent of the forest tickled his nose.
What — what in the world is this......
A cool voice descended from the heavens.
―Kneel, you who are wicked.
Divine will and mana pressed down upon his body.
Crushed under the weight, Malacor lost his balance. One knee slammed into the ground, and blood burst from his mouth.
The pressure kept bearing down on him.
"Who are you......?!"
The knight, screaming, hastily drove his sword into the ground to hold himself up.
The pressure crushed the world itself.
Cracks spidered across the blade.
The sword shattered, and his body fell to its knees.
―Let that wickedness be repaid in death.
Every shard of the broken sword floated upward.
They aligned themselves of their own accord, taking shape, forming once more the image of a complete sword.
The blade steeped in divine will shone with holy light.
The kneeling knight stared, dazed, at a miracle he could not comprehend.
The sword flew and pierced his heart.
Light exploded, flooding the prison white.