Missing Persons Search Operation (8)
"Run! If you don't want to die, charge forward! Cover your backs with your shields!"
Gert barked orders at the soldiers from the rear. Up ahead, Trisha and Angela began their advance, cleanly carving through the goblins that swarmed in from both flanks to block the path.
Kerrrk!
Seeing the encirclement broken, the black-masked goblin shaman raised its staff and gave chase, the wolf-mounted riders at its side falling in behind it.
The party ran without so much as a glance back at the overwhelming tide of goblins thundering after them.
At the head of the group, Trisha swatted aside an incoming arrow and spoke to Angela, who was keeping pace just behind her.
"At this rate, those guys are all going to die."
"Hah...! Hah...! So what of it?"
"You and I become the bait."
"Excuse me?"
"One shaman. Five riders. Kill those and we're done."
"Is there any guarantee they'll come after us?"
"Goblins only care about the females anyway."
The memory of what had happened earlier made Angela nod in understanding. She twisted around and shouted back.
"Lord Gert! Go on ahead! We'll serve as bait!"
"Understood! What the hell are you bastards doing?! Run faster!!!"
Angela and Trisha gradually eased their pace, letting Gert's squad pull ahead. Perhaps it was the sheer desperation of the sprint, but Belford—who had been jostling wildly on a soldier's back—finally stirred back to consciousness.
"Urgh... Where am I... My legs..."
"Huh? You're awake? Hang on tight so you don't fall off!"
"...The path... The path is that way..."
"What?! Got it! Don't you dare pass out again. Captain! Over here! Guide! This Belford-or-whatever guy's awake!"
"What?! Send him to the front! To the front!"
Belford pointed weakly with one hand, and the soldier bellowed the news to Gert. Watching them peel off in a different direction, Trisha picked up speed.
The goblin riders were already closing the gap hard.
"One."
Trisha's ears twitched. Without even looking, she flicked a throwing knife backward. With a sharp whiiish, the blade punched clean through the skull of a wolf mid-lunge, and its goblin rider tumbled from the saddle.
A spear-wielding rider charged Angela next.
Clang!
She knocked the thrusting spearhead aside with her claw, then seized the shaft and wrenched it free. The spear flowed into a reverse grip and drove straight into the wolf's flank.
Kerrrrrk!!!
Kyyaaang!!!
"That's two!"
"Good. We keep going like this."
The relentless sprint continued. They had pulled well clear of the main goblin horde, yet the black-masked shaman and its riders refused to break off the pursuit. When Trisha saw some of them already racing ahead to try and cut them off, she spoke.
"I take the front. You take the rear."
Without a word, Angela turned and set her back against Trisha's, steadying her breath. The matchup was ugly for her: one shaman and two riders. Two more riders faced Trisha.
The goblins circled them like sharks, measuring distance. This was a battle of time. They were waiting for reinforcements.
As if to prove it, the goblin shaman began waving its staff, starting a cast.
"No time. Kill them fast."
At Trisha's words, Angela exploded toward the shaman. A goblin rider immediately thrust and swept its spear at her stomach and chest.
"Hah!"
She leapt high to clear it—and unlike the sluggish casting inside the cave, the shaman finished its spell in a flash. Sparks leapt from the staff as a fireball roared forth.
Angela's face twisted in dismay. She curled in on herself, gauntlets raised like a boxer shielding her face. Behind the mask, the shaman's eyes narrowed in certain victory.
Whiiish!
BOOM!
Kerrrk?!
But the shaman's expectation shattered. A throwing knife from behind detonated the fireball mid-flight in a thunderous blast.
Through the flames, a claw blade gleaming with terrifying light tore the shaman's mask and lunged for its throat—
Thud.
"Kh...!"
A wolf carrying a goblin rider slammed into Angela's left side.
She staggered, nearly toppling, then used the momentum itself—pivoting on her opposite foot and spinning her whole body in a clean circle.
The claw on her thrusting right hand punched straight up through the goblin's jaw.
She yanked the gauntlet free, then stubbornly completed another half-turn, left hand already snaking toward the shaman's neck.
But there had been two riders. Only one was down.
The second goblin rider thrust its spear, aiming for Angela's stomach as she spun.
Seeing the angle slip through the gap between her leather armor and trousers, Angela immediately kicked her pivot foot upward and booted the spear tip skyward.
Clang!
Kerrrk!!!
The jolt tore the spear from the goblin's grip and sent it tumbling. The wolf lunged next—only for the raised leg to come crashing down.
Crack!
Keng!
The iron-shod heel of her boot crushed the wolf's skull.
A flawless exchange in the span of a heartbeat.
Yet when Angela finally completed her turn and checked the shaman's head, what hung from her claw tip was not a severed neck—only a scrap of the torn mask.
Only then did she tear her gaze from the fleeing shaman and stomp the crawling goblin's head flat.
"Not bad... for a human."
In the meantime, Trisha had already reduced the remaining two goblin riders to [Gob/lin / Ri/der] ×2. She strolled over.
"Thank you."
"Shame. You're short on experience."
"...I'm a maid, after all."
Angela answered with a faintly embarrassed air. Trisha's head tilted.
"A maid? I'm talking about failing to finish the shaman. Without my help, you'd be dead."
"I was trusting in you, Lady Trisha."
"You can't just trust people that easily."
"Even someone whose back I've been entrusted with?"
"......"
At Angela's words, Trisha turned away. Her elven hearing picked up the distant sound of goblins still in pursuit.
"Follow me."
"Do you know the way?"
"This is Yagin Forest. What do you take an elf for?"
How long they ran after barely breaking free of the encirclement, neither could say. At last they returned safely to the narrow trail they had first seen, soaked in sweat and gasping for breath.
Up ahead, Gert's group sat resting. A soldier spotted them and waved. Gert rose, offered his thanks, then asked the question.
"What about the enemy? Any still tracking us?"
"None in sight for now. How is Belford?"
"...Passed out again on the way. There's an arrow stuck in his back, but he's still breathing."
"A small mercy, then. We mustn't pull the arrow yet. We return to the village as we are."
Angela checked Belford and let out a long breath. Trisha had already slipped back into her usual languid expression and muttered,
"Troublesome. We got nothing out of this."
"...I'd say this is more than enough. At least we know how many goblins there are, and where."
"I wonder. Aside from confirming a shaman and riders, we didn't really learn anything solid. A mere lesser goblin nest cooking up strategies this absurd, and a colony this size causing only minor damage until now? That doesn't add up. Want the honest truth? This is dangerous."
"...I agree on that point."
Angela nodded. There were far too many things that didn't sit right for an ordinary goblin pack.
But right now, the only thing that mattered was getting back alive.
The search party's return hit the villagers like a physical blow. Drenched head to toe in blood, they went straight to the village chief's house.
"What in the world happened?! You said you were going to rescue people!!! My son's legs are gone!!!"
"Chief. Be grateful he isn't dead."
The old village chief stared at the empty space where his son's legs should have been and let out a raw scream.
The uproar drew villagers in droves. The mood among them sank low; some squeezed their eyes shut and turned their faces away.
"Grateful he isn't dead?! A young man with his whole life ahead of him, and no legs?! You crippled my son and that's what you say to me!!!"
"Calm yourself and listen carefully. A few hours from the village sits a goblin den of over a hundred. That your precious son came back with his life is a miracle."
"Th-that's—!!!"
Squad leader Gert dropped his voice into a grave register. The chief clutched his chest and forced himself to breathe.
"...Then the subjugation! What about the goblin subjugation?! Did you wipe them out?!"
"There were simply too many. We retreated. But rest easy—His Lordship is taking this matter with the utmost seriousness and has already drawn up emergency measures."
"Measures? What measures?!"
"Hiring adventurers to—"
"Those useless adventurer bastards?! Do you know what happened to the village over the mountain ridge?! They scraped together every last coin to hire adventurers, and the adventurers vanished too!!! Now no one will take the job—they've even petitioned the capital!!! What in heaven's name is the Baron doing?!!!"
"......."
"Please dispatch the lord's troops at once. This old man begs you. I beg you. At least let me avenge my son."
Tears streaming, the chief wailed. Gert swallowed the words that rose to his tongue.
How could he say they simply didn't have the men to spare? The bulk of their forces had been sent north to the strategic highway linking Sachsen. His own group was here only on a reconnaissance footing.
Support from Sachsen had never arrived, leaving them stretched thin as it was. And even if they raised the goblin subjugation bounty in the Baron's name...
With the level of adventurers in our territory, wiping out a pack this size is... impossible. We need an army.
Only one solution floated up in Gert's mind.
Request reinforcements from the main force currently with Lady Yekaterina in the north.
But by the time help arrived, this village could already be a wasteland.
They had poked a quiet goblin den. There was no telling how the creatures would react. A colony of that size that had left the surrounding villages untouched until now had almost certainly been preparing a large-scale assault.
And now that their den had been discovered, retaliation was a certainty. At that scale, the idea of them simply running away was almost laughable.
In short: this place was in danger.
But can I really tell these people to abandon everything and leave?
The poorest barony in the Empire. Tenant farmers with nowhere else to go.
No proper flatland to speak of, harvests barely worth the name, and the great forest nearby made it impossible even to clear land by fire.
Could he order citizens with nowhere to run to abandon their last remaining home...?
Gert's face darkened. The chief read the meaning in that silence. The old man clamped his wrinkled mouth shut, then slammed his fists against the earth and ground his teeth as he wept.
Angela walked over, took the old man's arm, and helped him to his feet.
"Please stand, sir."
"Kh-hh... Hhh..."
"We are a reconnaissance unit. The main force is currently in the north, conducting goblin subjugation and searching for the missing at the same time. Even if we request support, it will take several days."
"...So what are we supposed to do?"
"...You must abandon this place and leave. There is a high chance the goblins will attack in short order."
"...And where exactly are we supposed to go?"
"......"
The chief's tears fell freely.
As he stroked his son's missing legs and looked up, every word carried bone-deep agony.
Angela drew a sharp, empty breath.
People with nowhere to run. And not only them—every surrounding village would have to be warned as well.
Run. From mere goblins. Because House Esper of the barony no longer has the strength to protect you...
Run.
But I cannot say that.
If goblins overran the villages, the territory's economy would collapse and refugees would flood the roads. Adventurers and merchants would demand answers, and the Imperial Court would send investigators.
And that would be the end of everything.
.......And so Angela understood.
What these people needed.
The great House Esper had always been visited by trials, and through every one of them she had always had the wicked witch of a head maid, Chloe, and the steadfast seneschal, Heather, standing before her.
The skill of wringing blood from a stone to keep a territory alive.
The silver tongue that could stir a crowd and shape any outcome desired.
...And a will that never broke, no matter the circumstance.
What these people needed right now was will.
The will to stand and fight the goblins.
The will of the great House Esper.
"...There is no need to run."
Angela steeled herself and opened her mouth.
"Everyone, please listen!"
She raised her voice so the surrounding villagers could hear.
At her cry, a housewife who had been covering her children's eyes flinched and looked up. Men who had been clenching their fists in helpless rage, tears in their eyes, turned toward Angela.
"There is no paradise waiting wherever you flee!!! The great Baron Esper took you in—refugees cast out even by the Empire—and settled you on this land! Remember the hardships we all shared! We fought unfamiliar monsters in this harsh place! We tilled the soil and cleared the land! We planted crops and raised them to feed our children, our families!"
Every gaze locked onto the woman speaking with such fierce conviction.
Angela smiled inwardly.
So this is how the head maid always solved problems in situations this impossible.
She pointed at Belford. Unconscious, cradled in the chief's arms, his face was still twisted in pain.
"Look at this man! Look at Belford, the chief's son! When his fiancée was abducted, he burned with rage and volunteered for the front line of his own free will—and he fought more bravely than anyone! Even in the moment his legs were torn away, he never dropped his sword! He stood and fought to save the one he loved!!!"
"That coward Belford...?"
"I thought he just tagged along..."
"No way... Wasn't he the one who always stood around with his hands behind his back watching during planting season just because he was the chief's son?"
Whispers rippled through the crowd.
"And they are only goblins! No matter how many of them there are—they are still just goblins! I know more than a few of you here have driven off goblins yourselves! They always cause trouble every harvest season!"
Several of the men nodded.
"So let us join our strength and fight! We will subjugate them!"
Even Angela's bold speech could not stop the discontent from boiling over.
"So what the hell are we supposed to do?! You said it's not one or two goblins—over a hundred! This isn't some village street brawl! Fuck!!! We already work ourselves to the bone just to pay taxes and have nothing left—and now you want us to fight in your place?!"
"You think I'm just sitting here happy that both my kids got kidnapped?!!!"
"That's right! If we pay taxes, we ought to get something for it! If it's going to be like this, we might as well leave for Sachsen! The tax rate's higher there, but at least we'd be safe!"
The voices of discontent only grew louder. Angela fell silent in dismay. Behind her, Trisha—who had been watching the whole time—lifted her mask just enough to smile.
Not yet.
A human of the great House Esper couldn't possibly be only this much.
Show me more. It's entertaining.
And that strange sensation she felt from the woman called Angela...
Come on. Show me what kind of creature you really are.
For the first time since the war, a long-forgotten thrill stirred in Trisha's chest. She was excited.