Tell Me (1)
Sometimes I find myself thinking like this.
If, after showing a lost tourist the way, I could simply trust that they would manage just fine—instead of fretting ten minutes later, an hour later, Did they make it okay? Should I have explained it more carefully?
If I could click my tongue at an elderly person fretting and stamping their feet because they didn’t know what online reservations were, and because even the train departing in five hours was sold out, and simply move on with a Too bad, nothing to be done.
If I could turn my back on a crying child, telling myself it had nothing to do with me and that getting involved would only be a headache.
Would my life have been a little easier?
Could I have lived better than I do now?
Could I have been just a little happier…?
“Strange…”
Emerald cut down a charging beast with Bernstein’s blade. Slash. A spray of blood fouled the packed road.
“Why does it keep feeling like it’s right nearby?”
“My lady?”
But her attention was nowhere near that blood. Behind the smile she wore like a mask, she pursued the lingering aftertaste of Demon Energy she had just sensed. This way. Her taut senses pointed her in a direction.
“Jardin.”
She called to the squire still calming the horses and gave her sword a single flick. The massive blade, heavy as its size suggested, spun once; every drop of blood clinging to the amber edge flew free.
“Yes?”
“Follow as you see fit.”
In the next instant her feet drove into the earth. Boom! A flicker of blue mana, barely visible, reinforced her legs and let her leap farther. Bang, bang, bang. With every stride her body shot several meters ahead.
“…?”
And at the end of that chase, the aftertaste of Demon Energy she had been hunting simply vanished. It drained away like a glass of water left on desert sand, gone so completely she could not even begin to search for it.
“…You again.”
“…Uh, the knight from before?”
Instead she found a man blinking green eyes at her. This was their third meeting.
“…You again.”
Had I been startled by the sudden approach, hastily triggered my Disguise Skill, and scrambled as far back as I could?
Before long someone reached me. By chance, a familiar face. I had never heard her name, so I didn’t know it, but still.
“Um, hello…?”
All the same, I owed her far too much to treat the coincidence as pure discomfort.
The first time we met, she had driven off the adventurers harassing me simply because they irritated her. The second time, when I was nearly spotted by a subjugation party in an alley on the way to Manahfelt, a single “We meet again?” had been enough to vouch for me.
Of course, the latter hadn’t been an outright defense; the people around us had just muttered, “Ah, someone the knight knows,” and let it slide…
“Seeing you again after last time.”
Either way, whether she meant to or not, she had helped me.
So I bowed my head with the same awkward, naive air as a youth thrown by coincidence, wearing a smile that was half genuine pleasure and half performance.
“Truly strange.”
Yet even after I greeted her that way, she showed almost no reaction. The way she simply stared at my face no matter what I did was starting to feel oppressive.
“…Is, is something wrong?”
Or had I been caught? Had she seen the entire moment the Disguise Skill cloaked my Demon Energy?
“…A face this pure couldn’t belong to a demon.”
Shit. I really almost got found out.
“I will ask.”
Cold sweat rolled down my back as I met her refined features. Looking away awkwardly would only make me look guiltier, so I held her gaze instead.
“Have you seen a demon in this area?”
Yet looking at that face—neat as if sculpted, yet with something doll-like and artificial about it—somehow filled me with dread.
And with a secret I was desperately hiding that might be exposed at any second, the fear only sharpened. Inside I trembled like a mouse before a cat.
“I, I’m sorry to give the same answer as last time, but… I haven’t particularly seen—”
“…Is that so?”
Wow. When I was still in character I only ever worried about the character’s temper, so I never realized it—but from a normal person’s point of view, the knights of this world are terrifying… Especially when you’ve got something to hide, they feel even more terrifying…
I was freshly reminded just how much weight a knight carried in ordinary eyes, and my fingers fidgeted. Even that I had to stop when her gaze dropped to my hands.
“…Very well. I will believe you.”
The one mercy was that she did not actually suspect me of being a demon. Human-shaped demons—not merely similar in form, but ones that truly looked human—were exceedingly rare, and only a Great Demon or higher could conceal Demon Energy, so that must have been why. Pure, pure luck…
“…….”
“…….”
That the knight showed no intention of leaving, however, was far less lucky.
“My laaady! Haa, hah.”
While the knight stood motionless and I could not move either, that awkward air stretched on.
I was rolling my eyes in helpless awkwardness when I saw someone in the distance running up, leading a horse. Another familiar face. Probably this knight’s squire? Page? Something like that.
“Why, huff, why did you come so far…?”
So that was why her companion hadn’t been in sight—she had simply abandoned him and sprinted off.
I looked with pity at the young man gasping for breath. It wasn’t a riding horse but a packhorse, already loaded with heavy cargo, so he hadn’t even been able to mount it. I just felt sorry for him.
“Um, some water, maybe…?”
“Th-thank you…!”
He surely had water of his own, but in that state even digging through his packs would have been an ordeal.
With that thought I rummaged in my own baggage and held out a waterskin. He looked at me as if I were an angel—while his hands were already taking the skin, popping the stopper free.
Gulp gulp, ahh. Water trickled steadily into his mouth.
“Haa, I’m alive.”
“Then we may depart now.”
“…….”
Still, he hadn’t drunk as much as I’d expected… Is she even human?
Watching the knight ruthlessly hurry him along while she herself had not so much as broken a sweat, my eyes gave an involuntary twitch. Is she really human?
“Y-yes, ma’am!”
Apparently this was not the first or second time she had behaved this way.
He hastily returned the capped waterskin, resettled his own small pack, and—true to a knight’s squire—had his breathing under control again in that brief interval.
“Let’s go.”
The one who had swept in like a storm left like a storm.
“…That really startled me.”
Just in case, maybe I should keep the Disguise Skill up one more day…
I watched the knight, her squire, and their packhorse grow distant, then slowly started walking myself. I had no desire to travel beside them, so my pace was less than half of what it had been earlier.
Five weeks since leaving Manahfelt. Two weeks remained until Munmunt.
The border of the Quinrenhen and Derma regions, the Linefield Highlands.
And at the western tip of those highlands, the gatekeeper city of Dubanchih on the Kuibec Road—the road that let travelers slip out onto the northwestern plains instead of being blocked by the northern mountains.
There the Archmage pressed hard at his temples. The flood of information that had poured in the moment they arrived in the city was truly grave.
“It seems the incident in Bemyurhen served as a catalyst…”
Official dispatches had arrived from every city responsible for the eastern front.
Demons were gathering toward the front. No one could predict when combat would break out. Support would likely be needed.
The wording differed, yet the contents were so remarkably alike they felt as if they had been issued multiple times from a single place. It was almost a pity that was not the case.
“Well, it makes sense. Look at how many item orders Bemyurhen used to handle, and how many troops have already left the front under the name of ‘support forces.’ If I were a demon I’d strike right now too.”
What made things even more unfortunate was that they could not simply say “regrettable” and move past these identical reports.
“Uh, Meister, your choice of words leaves something to be desired…”
“Speaking prettily won’t improve the situation. Do we really need to fuss over every little thing like that, Inquisitor? No matter how I phrase it, the fact that the eastern front is about to go to shit doesn’t change.”
“That’s…”
“Wow… I grow more amazed by your personality by the day. How does a person end up like that?”
“What was that, you bastard?”
Just looking at the three men bickering was proof enough. The malice hidden behind those documents ran deep and thick. Handle it carelessly and only blood and death would return to their hands.
“Silence.”
“…….”
“…….”
But would refusing to handle it carelessly actually produce a good result? Could they find the answer that would overcome that malice?
…Could they?
“Archmage, do you have any sense of where the main thrust will fall?”
“…My apologies.”
The Hero, who had silenced everyone with a single word, asked quietly. There was, of course, nothing he could answer.
“You need not apologize to me. But if anything comes to mind, share even that much first. The same goes for all of you.”
Yet having no immediate answer did not mean they could simply give up early either.
Surrender could close off even paths that might still exist. Facing that dry voice, the Archmage closed his eyes and spoke the few thoughts that had surfaced. The others insisted with gestures that nothing occurred to them, so he alone spoke.
“The Goddess commanded us to go north.”
“You mean we should turn our backs on the front and head north.”
“The Goddess does not prophesy.”
Glimpsing the future is impossible. Therefore the oracle She delivered would not have taken this into account.
“She merely tells us the most correct choice at that moment.”
But… if She had given so clear a directive, something of equal weight must wait at the end of it, must it not?
“…You believe something will change if we go north.”
“Perhaps. Would it not?”
“If it does change, will that change hold greater value than abandoning this front?”
“…That I cannot say.”
In the midst of those conjectures the Inquisitor, expression unchanging, cast a stone. Comparisons of value, priorities, opportunity costs—things that always tested people.
The Archmage’s mouth closed, and the Inquisitor’s hard face tapped the table. Overlapping or not, every dispatch sprawled across the long table produced soft tap-tap sounds. Only those sounds filled the room.
“We will postpone going north. We head for the front.”
“…Understood.”
Fortunately—or with a strange feeling about attaching that word—the silence did not last long. The Inquisitor had reached a decision.
“Furthermore, our destinations will prioritize places support forces cannot easily reach.”
“Is that so…”
“Any objections?”
Yet even as the atmosphere grew strict and severe, the Inquisitor, as always, sought final opinions before confirmation. Green eyes wary of self-righteousness swept the room.
“I follow the Proxy’s judgment.”
Daniel stated his position first. A man originally accustomed to carrying out orders, and one who had already said he was not skilled in strategy and would step back in such matters, so the remark was nothing new.
“Same here, I guess…”
Deathbringer was similar. With nothing particular to object to, he shrugged and accepted the opinion.
“Whatever.”
Finally Meister also… seemed to agree more out of personal laziness than any judgment of right or wrong, but he complied all the same. The decision was made.
They would turn toward sectors where support forces could not arrive quickly.
“…In that case a city lying relatively farther north would be better.”
But would even a party like this truly be enough?
The Archmage once again turned over the sentence he had been pondering ever since leaving Bemyurhen. Even so, his tongue diligently fulfilled the role of advisor he had accepted.
“Do you have grounds?”
“The period when the eastern front began expressing pressure nearly coincides with the period when demon sightings on the southern front began to decrease. They likely redirected forces from the south to the east. Therefore… we should be able to pull southern manpower northward to the east.”
His hands moved the same way. The Archmage drew over several dispatches and reports that could serve as grounds for the hypothesis.
“However, it will still take time for support forces in the south to be deployed to the eastern front…”
“…So cities relatively farther south will receive support first.”
“Yes. That is why.”
“Will the northern front find it difficult to receive support?”
“…They will not send much. The north has always been a place of fierce fighting.”
If they clung to holding the north and the eastern front broke, only they would suffer, so they would send support. Yet given the northern front’s nature—with two Great Demons holding the line—the number of troops they could spare would not be that large.
Only Munmunt, the northernmost city of the Derma region, and Brisden immediately below it stood a high chance of receiving reinforcements.
The Archmage explained as much from his knowledge. The Inquisitor’s eyes looked dryly down at the map.
“I see.”
And at last her finger pressed one spot.
“Then we will go to Hirsenchih.”
“Understood.”
A city a little south of Brisden, Hirsenchih, was firmly marked by her index finger.